Welcome to the 'Hood, Trader Joe..

Yes, it's true that I was not commissioned to photograph the opening ceremony of 'Trader Joe's - Downtown Brooklyn' at 9am this morning. Yes, I trudged through the rain down Court Street, camera in hand, to capture what many have anticipated to be an epic day in Cobble Hill history. Yes, I did actually go to a supermarket without any intentions whatsoever of buying groceries. And yes, it was worth it.

With a line full of mothers, freelancers, old-timers, and familiar neighborhood faces that stretched down the block, Friday, 9/26/08 marked the beginning of a solid future for what was once the Independence Savings Bank - a place that as a child, I would quiver with fear and anxiety when being dragged there by my mother, who made me stand in line and watch as she did her bi-weekly banking (which seems like hours when you're a kid). The celebration was all it was hyped up to be, with a full calypso band, free food tastings, and staff members dancing in the aisles, donning Hawaiian shirts.

It feels good to know that a commercial retail business worth acknowledging has finally opened up in this neighborhood. Hopefully it doesn't knock out local business such as Sahadi's (which I don't think it will, since they import, manufacture, and distribute their products all over the world). I'm also proud to say that any time my mother wants to take me to the ol' Independence Savings Bank on the corner of Court and Atlantic, I'm game.



Press wait outside the doors of Trader Joe's at
8:55am, before the opening


Manager, Two Trees Representative,
Marty Markowitz & Joan Millman make the cut


A calypso band plays "Guantanamera" to ring in the festivities


An old photo of the bank's interior, facing the main
Court Street entrance..(image courtesy of Flickr)


And the same view, today.