I only picked this block to explore the City Reliquary, which, as you’ll see, is an amazing repository of civic ephemera operating out of a storefront.

But as it turns out this little stretch of Metropolitan Avenue is a great cross-section of old and new Brooklyn: vintage urban artifacts and ephemera colliding with curated nightlife, new apartments, and refurbished icons. (I’m not going to mention the g-word, but know that it goes hand-in-hand with everything on this street.)

If you’re Manhattan-centric, this is the final portion of Metropolitan Ave. before it goes under the BQE and begins its reaches to the further sections of Eastern Williamsburg, East Williamsburg and ultimately, Far East Williamsburg (otherwise known as Jamaica, Queens).

These photos were taken in May. And here’s the ol’ street view.

In 1999, the owners of a soon-to-open bar called Black Betty told the Village Voice that they’d saved up enough money to get the place going. The previous tenant was a “Dominican beer joint” called the Don Diego Restaurant, which had apparently left so abruptly that the owners left food and glassware on the table.

But overhead wasn’t yet one of those problems: “Our rent is $2,000 for 2,000 square feet,” they said. “Our landlord is paying for our water. That can get to be really expensive.”

The bar, which became known for its Brazilian disco nights, Rev. Vince Anderson’s Love Choir performances, and dance nights, became part of the early wave of 2000s cool that washed through Williamsburg. But ten years later, the rent was too damn high. According to the Brooklyn Paper, the landlord apparently found another tenant willing to pay more than the agreed-upon $5,000 per month.

What replaced it was The Commodore, a popular nautical-themed bar that became known for its wood paneling, piña coladas, and its “hot and juicy fried chicken that comes with a craggy crust that crackles like a good croissant when you bite into it.”

Thrillist coined this as a “post-dive bar,” which outfits a new establishment with retro-looking menus and signage, throwback drinks, and a certain amount of tasteful and curated decay. In other words, it’s less than 20 years old, but feels decades older.

“When you think about the dive bar, you think about the old guy, who’s a dinosaur. The reason he’s there is because he sort of beat the odds,” the bar’s designer told Thrillist. “They didn’t condo him out. He didn’t die of alcoholism. For me, the dive bar, the element is history. As long as it has that, it's a dive bar.”

Or as J Lee wrote in Interview Magazine: “It’s shitty in the most perfect way. But the thing is, it’s been the exact same level of shitty since the day it opened.”

Either way, it’s far better than 90 percent of what passes for watering holes. (The t-shirts are very cool and there’s a cigarette machine with a diorama of the bar inside, but I didn’t get a good shot.)

To be fair, there is some real history here: In the 1970s, this was the Hi-Way Lounge, which was a hangout for the mob.

The authorities had been investigating them for several years when at night on April 12, 1973, the FBI installed listening devices in the bar and the backroom, helping to reveal what court filings later described as a “massive numbers game.”

Mob boss James V. Napoli was arrested in 1975 and eventually sentenced to five years for running a one of the country’s largest gambling operation, which earned millions, and extended across the New York area.

And now: a murder mystery.

One October in 1917, Detective William P. McDonald and Patrolman George Belssel² spent the day together, according to a newspaper account. One of them had called out sick and the pair apparently passed the day together drinking, going to Coney Island and out to Queens, and eventually making their way to Williamsburg.

Just before midnight, witnesses saw the two men shooting from the sidewalk into the hallway at 394 Metropolitan Ave. Inside, John Rubino, a horse dealer who lived there with his wife and nine (!) children, was shot dead.

After speaking with witnesses who ID’d the rogue cops, police began looking for the two officers and found them in Belssel’s apartment, according to another account from the time. They grew more suspicious after discovering a gun that had recently been fired. When they asked Belssel where his service revolver was, he lied, claiming that it was at the stationhouse.

During questioning, one of the suspects said he didn’t remember much of the evening with all of the heavy drinking, and police ultimately arrested the pair on homicide charges.

So why’d they do it? What happened? I don’t really know. I’m curious too, but there’s no more historical record I can find.

Today, this vintage row is populated by a takeout Chinese spot, a coffee counter, and an event space. The hip jewelry brand Catbird, which has since gone global, opened its first location here in 2004. And the earlier iteration of the convenience store here was padlocked by the Sheriff’s Office two years ago for selling unlicensed weed, according to Greenpointers.

Anyway, the City Reliquary is why we’re here.

Through the vintage bodega sign is a dimly lit shrine to the obscure artifacts and ephemera of the five boroughs, where old seltzer bottles, subway tokens, and geological samples all huddle together.¹

What’s part civic repository, part junk drawer began as a window display created by founder Dave Herman a few blocks away and moved here in 2006.

It has a particular emphasis on World’s Fair souvenirs (‘39 and ‘64) and a massive collection of Statue of Liberty figurines and tributes. They’ve had exhibitions about trash, tattoos of the Statue of Liberty, and photos of the city’s lampposts.

We’re not done! They’ve preserved Petrella's Point, a newsstand that stood at Canal Street and the Bowery for decades. And they’ve reinaugurated the “Miss Subways” competition, which ran from 1941 to 1976, in a more inclusive form. I’d also recommend this podcast series they ran in 2023, which provided a great narrative about some of their exhibits.

The collection mixes outsider art, city-issued items, and promotional souvenirs, but the whole place feels like a celebration of the personal, handmade, colorful rough edges that are usually ground down by progress. 10/10

I guess the takeaway is that the commonplace stuff we barely notice today will eventually become appreciated by weirdos like us. So clear the deck for the Daddy’s Little Meatball t-shirts, combustible e-bike batteries, and knockoff Knicks championship shirts that bleed out in the first wash!

This is a lil triangle with a bench and some fake flowers. It’s nice.

It’s the best place to appreciate the collection of church buildings: the school, which was converted to apartments five years ago; the parish house; and the brilliantly accented church, which dates from 1889.

If you’re a fan of poofy-dress-wearing popstars you’ll recognize this church from her 2023 music video for Sabrina Carpenter’s “Feather,” a song about moving past a toxic relationship, which was filmed in the neighborhood and inside the church.

Not sure if it was the murders, the pink hearse, or the pastel coffins bearing the phrase “R.I.P. Bitch,” but the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn wasn’t amused. It investigated Monsignor Jamie Gigantiello, ultimately relieving him of his pastoral oversight and governance role.

It didn’t help when they uncovered undisclosed loans of about $1.9 million to bank accounts and companies connected with a former chief of staff to then-Mayor Eric Adams, according to the Associated Press. (At least one of the loans was paid back with 9% interest, a diocese spokesperson told The City Reporter.)

But Gigantiello, a prolific fundraiser who also recently authored a cookbook, has his defenders, noting that he’d previously approved filming requests for “Blue Bloods” and Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman,” according to the New York Times. And labeling his discipline similar to a “crucifixion,” his defenders say the filming helped to recoup some of the $2.5 million in recent renovation costs, they argued.

You gotta love the kicker from the Times:

“Whatever happens next, he has left his stamp on the parish. On a wall in a rec room at Our Lady of Mount Carmel is a mural he commissioned. It shows Monsignor Gigantiello standing above a group of parishioners, reaching up toward the heavens.”

Another relic: This little old house stands out because it seems to be about 25 years behind the course of the neighborhood’s reinvention.

Aside from the eerie Eye of Ra peeping out, it looks to be a normal renovated apartment with a neat rooftop. Years ago, it was home to a design firm called Dark Igloo, but it seems to have left in 2020.

And now we’re wiping the slate fully clean with this excellent new apartment building with white and native copper mica.

The architects—who’ve built some of the city’s glassy, metal-accented, and wide-eyed developments in recent years—say the rounded front and the curved glass are “reminiscent of 19th century Parisian apartment buildings” and hey, why not. It replaced a drive through, it’s got affordable units, and it looks pretty. What more do you people want these days?

Nevertheless, the Google Reviews are pretty middling, with some claiming the rents keep increasing, the packages get stolen, plus one person said that some people throw Chipotle at people from the roof.

No one wants to be beaned by a burrito bowl.

This was a venue that closed in 2022 because of—what else? I’ll let you guess.

First, this was a location of Luna Lounge, the storied Lower East Side venue, which renovated a former parking garage here in 2007, for what New York Magazine described as “lower rents and chiller community board.” It closed shortly afterward.

As the Knitting Factory, it was part of a burgeoning Brooklyn comedy and rock scene. Along with countless rock shows, it hosted events like Brooklyn Rock Lottery, where 25 musicians were broken into impromptu bands and given 12 hours to come up with a name and a handful of songs. (Many years ago, I spent an afternoon here chatting with some of the best skee-ball players in the country. It was a delight.)

Comedian Hannibal Buress performed one of the early shows here, had a regular gig, and held the last show here. He tried to revive the event space recently as Isola, but it didn’t last very long either.

Next in line is an as-yet unnamed venue run by Agency Sixty Five, Inc. which will feature “soft indie” music, according to a recent community board alcohol license application.

What’s Good: For all the shorthand that Williamsburg signifies, there’s a reason why people like it here. It’s nice, the urban fabric is exceptional, the City Reliquary is one of my favorites. They didn’t condo it out, but it’s not quite a dinosaur.

What’s Not: The traffic here is gross.

Block Rating: 8/10

I’d like to start including maps here, but I haven’t figured a way to make it look nice. Thoughts? Hit my cellie at [email protected]. I won’t slam the door, hit ignore, or get you blocked as an afterthought, like the dude in that Sabrina Carpenter song.