Morning Calls

“Morning,” someone calls as I pass La Española Meat Market, its windows plastered with ads for roast chicken and Goya beans. Then a nod, a wave, a “buenos días” from the men on their stoops, watching the block wake up. That’s not supposed to happen in New York, where people move fast and look straight through you. But it happens here, on my stretch of South Williamsburg. My neighborhood sits between the cafés to the north and the Hasidic blocks to the south. Here, Puerto Rican and Dominican families who've lived in the area for generations still hold their ground in the shadow of the Williamsburg Bridge.

People who don’t live here picture rooftop bars, oat milk lattes, and the old Domino Sugar Refinery, now a glassy waterfront development. But outside my bodega, old men sit on folding chairs slapping down dominoes while bachata spills from someone’s speaker. It took me a while to place why it felt so familiar. Growing up in Hong Kong, I heard the same click-clack from elderly women gathered over mahjong, the game almost an excuse for the conversation around it.

Around the corner, a man sits alone, always sanding, painting, or carving something. When I stop to watch, he holds up his latest piece. I give him a thumbs up, he gives me one back, and I keep walking.

The smell of chorizo and roasted potatoes hits me outside Ceremonia Bakeshop, a Dominican-Vietnamese bakery. I’m vegetarian, so the famous breakfast burritos are off the table, but I stop in anyway for a coconut mochi muffin.

In summer, the block moves outside. Someone cracks open a fire hydrant, and kids slip and splash in the spray like ducklings, laughing, shirts stuck to their backs. Their parents trade chisme (gossip) over cold drinks beaded with condensation. Music plays. Someone is always grilling. This is Los Sures, as longtime residents still call this part of South Williamsburg, even as much of its past has been paved over.

Over time, the morning greetings turned into something more. When I was in so much pain I could barely stand, a neighbor drove me to the ER, twice, and sat with me for hours. I’ve walked dogs when someone got stuck at work. We pass kitchen supplies back and forth, trade job leads, and complain about our landlords.

I know I’m part of how this neighborhood is changing. I buy Advil at the Puerto Rican-run pharmacy and paper towels at the dollar store, but I also shop at Trader Joe’s and grab grain bowls from sweetgreen. Every year another old storefront goes dark and reopens as something shinier and more expensive.

You won’t find Los Sures on a map, but you can still feel it on certain corners, where music pours from open windows and neighbors drag out folding chairs to sit and talk. One place that has held on is the Caribbean Social Club on Grand Street, better known as Toñita’s, one of the last Latinx social clubs in Brooklyn. For more than 50 years, Maria Antonia Cay has kept it going, hosting dinners, dances, and domino games while the neighborhood changes around her. Asked whether she’ll ever sell, she shrugs: “As long as I’m alive, we will continue to be open.”