Window Watching in the Slope, Curiosities Abound

One of the great pleasures of life in Park Slope is simply walking around this beautifully scaled neighborhood of historic brownstones, red brick buildings and sycamore trees. We all have our preferences when walking to and from the subway or doing errands on Seventh, Fifth, Flatbush or Atlantic avenues.

Unconsciously or not, I have my reasons for choosing one street over another. Often it has to do with my desire to see a particular window or house, a place that arouses my curiosity or brings a visual perk to a routine walk. It could be a certain lamp or curtain, a stone planter on a stoop or a familiar bit of graffiti that defines the direction I choose.

For years I savored the site of a life-sized plaster bust of Elvis Presley in a window on Third Street between Sixth and Seventh avenues. This was Elvis circa 1955 in a light blue suit, his hair a swerve of perfectly sculpted plaster. For more than 15 years, Elvis had iconic status on Third Street.

One neighbor revealed to me that she felt in some way defined by it: “When people visit I tell them we’re in the building next door to Elvis.”

One day in 2009 Elvis disappeared from the window and it caused quite a stir. It turned out that Loretta, who owned Elvis and the apartment where he resided, was moving and while packing up, she put Elvis on her back deck. Sadly, exposure to the elements caused much of his paint to fall off.

A few days later, I saw Loretta's Elvis sitting on the curb. Loretta was, of course, planning to take Elvis to her new home. But without paint, she didn't want him anymore. With mostly white plaster and peeling paint, Elvis had an almost Grecian sculptural purity. There was just the hint of his blue suit.

Much urban legend surrounds a on Prospect Park West that at one time was owned by actors Jennifer Connelly and Paul Bettany and their children. When they moved here in 2005, the neighborhood was star struck. I, for one, couldn’t walk by their house without wondering what it would be like to live in such historic splendor. I will admit that I was desperate to get a glimpse of something — anything — inside. I longed for a slice of celebrity life, a dinner party, a photo shoot, Connelly standing alone drinking a glass of wine.

But I never saw anything. From the street I could see that they didn’t have much in the way of furniture in the large rooms except for an ornate chandelier, and an Alexander Calder mobile on the second floor.

In 2008, Connelly and Bettany sold that house for $8.45 million to a Google engineer and his wife. For a year, the house was shrouded in construction scaffolding but now it’s back to its limestone glory, a highlight of any walk down Prospect West.

Sometimes it’s architectural details that delight. A house on First Street has a large stained glass peacock in the window; a house on Garfield Place has gargoyles that are actually modeled on members of the family who live there; and in a garden on Third Street there’s a stone cherub that I enjoy.

I wondered if others in Park Slope have a favorite window or architectural detail. Perhaps it’s one that inspires a little fiction, a little history, envy, or just good old voyeurism.

Not surprisingly, I wasn’t the only one with a store of these little “Peeping Tom” moments.

 “For a long time, there was that brownstone window on Garfield close to Prospect Park West where they had kinky Barbies in various, and ever changing, poses. But they stopped, I think. Maybe you can get them to do a reenactment,” Effed in Park Slope’s Alison Pennell wrote to me.

My husband, photographer Hugh Crawford, told me that he appreciates the fake Van Gogh self-portrait in the window of the supermarket on Berkeley Place just east of Seventh Avenue. Playwright Michael Winks described a tiny house on Carroll Street between Fourth and Fifth avenues.

"There is a grand piano in the window. I wonder how big the cottage actually is and how the whole family fits in there. With a dog and I believe, a cat."

Walking home from the Union Street R train station, architect Gilly Youner enjoys the ever changing and mysterious window displays in a first floor window on Union just above Fourth Avenue.

“The posters are printed with truisms, odd statements, funny thoughts,” she said.

Modern dancer Emily Wassyng is fascinated by the windows of a  barber shop on Seventh Avenue near Fourth Street with its whimsical holiday scenes.

“The real, not fake-retro old man barber shop always has odd window displays, that have nothing to do with barber shops,” she said.

Nancy McDermott, a journalist, who blogs for Park Slope Parents, wrote me about a big head in the window of a brownstone on Seventh Street.

“It's a seriously big head that stares out the window.”

It just happens that I know that window well because my son used to attend a pre-school on that block. Back then I learned that it was a paper-mache mask from Coney Island.

Indeed, it’s a sight to behold: a dreamy 1930’s girl staring out the window at passersby.