"When winter came, the candy stores and cafeterias replaced parks as forums to debate politics and art. People gathered at candy stores "to discuss politics and unionism." Local kids "made pocket change by hanging out at Leboff's candy store [one of five on Charlotte street], and calling people to the phone." Hoffman's Cafeterias on Pitkin, Flatbush, and Brighton Beach Avenues also entered the radical element. (Irving) Howe recalled that "in the winter, when the Bronx is gray and icy, there were cafeterias in which the older comrades, those who had jobs or were on WPA, bought coffee while the rest of us filled the chairs." Other cafeterias, like Dubrow's or Garfield's in Brooklyn, aspired to opulent elegance. Garfield's dubbed itself "a cafeteria of refinement." Located on the corner of Church and Flatbush Avenues, diagonally across from the Reformed Dutch Protestant Church, Garfield's boasted an interior decorated with mosaics done in Art Moderne style. Dubrow's, a dairy cafeteria, also served as a neighborhood meeting spot with its attractive location by the elevated station, on a shopping street like King's Highway."
(At Home In America: Second Generation New York Jews, by Deborah Dash Moore, 1981)
Now, a few questions about this. First, could Garfield's and Dubrow's had the same tagline to describe themselves? Because this post indicates that Dubrow's advertised itself as being "a cafeteria of refinement" - yet here it says Garfield's used that line.
Furthermore, this post indicates that the Dubrow's on King's Highway had a very modern decor, using mosaic. This is how the author (who cites a number of different sources for this particular passage, including the reputable Irving Howe) describes Garfield's. Could Garfield's and Dubrow's BOTH have had mosaic in their decor? Or is she mixing up Garfield's with Dubrow's?
5 comments:
I have only a vague memory of Garfield Cafeteria on Flatbush Avenue. When I was about 5 years old my parents bought me a huge balloon at Prospect Park and after we went to lunch at nearby Garfield's. I let go of the balloon and I remember it lifting up toward a ceiling that seemed 3 stories high. Miraculously my mother claims my father went to the cafeteria the next day and someone had retrieved the balloon from the ceiling and he brought it home to me.
My impression of Garfield's interior was of a huge plain space with probably a mural.
I do have the photos to prove that Dubrows had mosaics on the exterior and against the rear wall fountain. Also, when doing research on Kings Highway at the Brooklyn archives of the Brooklyn Public Library I found an ad for Dubrow's saying "a cafeteria of refinement". I suspect the author has reversed some things in their memory.
More importantly - the Kings Hwy Dubrow's wasn't dairy only - my mother always spoke of having steamship beef there. Was Garfield Cafeteria a dairy only place?
Marcia
I wondered about that too - I also read that and thought that seemed strange because I didn't recall Dubrow's being Kosher dairy. I'm not sure whether it was Kosher at all.
It sounds like the author mixed up Dubrow's and Garfield's. Thank you for chiming in to confirm this for me.
Somehow when it's a book I am more likely to want to believe it must be true.
I remember visiting my grandma in Garfield's many times. The noise was deafening because of the metal, pottery, and very high mosaic. The mosaic was, I think, at least partially illustrating giant waves of different blues (dark blue and turquois). My family now jokes that back then there was Garfields instead of old age homes. We could always spot my Grandma Sadie around a table among a sea of grey heads laughing.
Joyce (B.) (T.) Smith
Ah, Garfield, whose name suddenly popped into my brain after not being there since c. 1958 (now 2021). A few Erasmus Hall buddies & I occasionally cut class, or just went during lunch or after school, to hang out there and shmooze. I usually had hot chocolate & a Drake's marble cake. Still in touch with one of those friends, 60+ years on. Alas, one (or more?) is (are) gone.
Love the descriptions of the physical space, which vaguely ring a bell.
Dubrow's on Kings Highway was a later-life (1970s & '80s) sanctuary for another friend, one from my Brooklyn College art classes (prematurely gray!). She loved reading her Sunday NY Times over interminable coffee, and sketching (as I picture it). We both lived (she still does; I'm in Tucson) on Ave N; we'd occasionally go there for lunch or dinner, though our Sunday brunch fave haunt was the late, lamented Caraville on Ave M. Then, her extreme chronic fatigue pretty much precluded her enjoying the places, before they closed, most unfortunately.
I guess some of my Jr High 210 buddies & I may have gone to the Eastern Parkway & Utica Ave. Dubrow's.
Note, via Wikipedia:
The Manhattan Dubrow's was the site of the American Playhouse production "The Cafeteria", based on the short story (today online here) by Isaac Bashevis Singer, which was featured on PBS.
The last Dubrow's, located in the Garment District in Manhattan, closed in 1985.[5]
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