Ditmas Park: International Superstar

Well, neighbors, it looks like we have made it to the international stage!

While my German skills are on par with, say, the way our former mayor navigated Spanish, I managed, with the help of some German-speaking friends and the often iffy interpretations from Google translate, to at least understand that the Berlin-based newspaper, Die Welt, loves Ditmas Park.

In an article printed on February 14, Die Welt, a major daily newspaper with a circulation of a little more than 200,000, quickly pans other of our borough’s neighborhoods (Williamsburg? Park Slope? Yeah, no thanks, the newspaper says) and moves on to what they label as Brooklyn’s secret paradise: Ditmas Park.

Of course, we know our neighborhood is no secret (even the often Brooklyn-allergic New York Times found its way out here recently), but it’s fun to see our neighborhood in a foreign paper – and they seemed to love many of the places we do, making their way from Church Avenue’s Lark Café (where neighbor Paul Thorburn told them he “could not imagine a better place to live in New York”) and Nine Chains to Cortelyou Road’s Lea, The Castello Plan, and Mimi’s Hummus – which seemed like Die Welt’s favorite, with the newspaper saying “nothing comes close” to our Middle Eastern eatery.

The paper also gives a quick rundown of our history, making note of Flatbush’s agricultural past, the emergence of our Victorian homes, and the changing demographics throughout the years – and we were excited to see they also made note of the recent debut of the stunningly renovated Kings Theatre.

We were grateful that neighbor Matthew posted this photo of Die Welt’s spread, and we’re looking forward to hopefully being able to see the full layout once it’s archived online here.

And if any of you speak German, let me know what I missed!