Bad Business in Brooklyn: 86th Street's Rotting Fruit Store
 A column, illustrations, and
poems by Ryn Gargulinski
Ryn's Archives: Summer
Time in Brooklyn, Graduating from Brooklyn College,
Biking in Brooklyn, Nature Calls, Brooklyn Answers, Why I live in Bensonhurst, Bill Bradley in Sunset Park, New Cat, Brunch with
Mom
 The damn thing stinks. It reeks.
It makes walking down 86th Street in the heart of Bensonhurst's 99-cent and fruit
store heaven a living hell. It's this shanty shack on the corner called the Food
Mart. Although residents would deem it otherwise. It's a fruit salad
nightmare.
The wares out front appear rancid, not to be confused with the garbage out front which
reaches so high it scrapes the girders on the overhead B train. Boxes are piled upon
crates upon bundles with gush resembling pus pushing through. The corner
overflows. Rambling semis deliver live fish, still flopping, straight off the truck
from cloudy dark bins. A make-shift structure was built around the side, hiding
"unknown things" according to the petition -- signed by 67 residents -- bashing
this store.
I am definitely not alone in my loathing for this corner mart. I work for an office
in the area which happens to collect complaints. We have had people come in -- with
photos -- lamenting "the horror." The saddest testimony came from a
no-nonsense Italian woman who has been living across the street from that corner for
years. She watched it develop from a pristine flower shop to an empty storefront to
eventually this smelly wart of a store festering at the end of her block (after 20-plus
years, I think she's allowed to call it her block). But that's not the reason I am
writing about it. I am writing about it because I slipped on a rind of some kind out
in front and I nearly broke my neck. NOW I am pissed.
Walking by the place in itself is a hazard. If you can picture the Staten Island
landfill vomiting after a heavy rain, you pretty much got the picture. On my trek to
the gym at 7 a.m., I have to cross the street -- yes, ladies and gentlemen, just as if it
were a cemetery and I am even more superstitious than I am -- I have to CROSS the street
to walk on the other side, thus avoiding the corner altogether. It's like when you
see someone coming who you cannot even ask "how are you" without getting a
20-minute response regarding toe bunions.
 The rotting fruit mart got me thinking
about any other horrible stores I used to live near here in Brooklyn. The pizzeria
on Avenue P instantly came to mind. My boyfriend and I resided directly above a this
lovely restaurant in the worst apartment we ever rented. Please note: roaches live
in flour. Needless to say, our hovel was infested, reeking of garlic (along with the
neighbor's fish fries) and LOUD. It was across the street from a gas station
where a guy pumping gas once looked up and saw me inadvertently naked (we know this since
his girlfriend caught him staring and slapped him). We had little privacy.
Trucks would ramble by at odd hours. The pizzeria fan would blast on at roughly 6
a.m. with a mighty
BLAAAZZZZOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMM. No matter how prepared you are to expect such a racket
every day, it terrifies you each time. When my parents stayed the night in that
apartment, my mother awoke with a near heart attack.Our answer to that? Move (we
made sure my parents left first). Our answer to the rotting fish mart? Write
more letters, get more city agencies on their ass, cross the street in the interim. It's
not a pretty sight. It's dangerous. But I must confess, I didn't nearly slip
to my death on that rotten fruit rind. But I nearly twisted my ankle. And I
don't need to start tracking debris into our carpet up here on the third floor...it
wouldn't go with our new couch.
Read Ryn's poems on the subject: Why Dad Hates Blueberries ...
Insects Live In ...
In-Disposable Tin ...
A Walk Home Thursday Evening
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