For at least a few years, this was a window display at The Strong Place Baptist Church on Court Street. Although I’ve walked past it hundreds if not thousands of time, I know only that its congregation appears to practice in Spanish and that it seems connected to an era when the neighborhoods in this part of Brooklyn[footnote]Known as “South Brooklyn,” Even though most of Brooklyn is south of here. You can learn more about this nomenclature here.[/footnote] were perhaps less delineated by wealth. That is, until the last 10–15 years or so, there was less distinction between the working class Latino population living mostly east of Smith Street and the working class Italian population living mostly west of Smith Street. Vestiges of this earlier overlapping period include this church, the only remaining Latino presence on the border of Carroll Gardens and Cobble Hill as far as I can tell; and Paisano’s butcher shop on Smith Street, an Italian outlier in an otherwise Latino, or more recently, gentrified area.

🎵 Listening to Melodic Art-Tet