Man, we got so worked up yesterday about Vogue’s patronizing praise of Brooklyn dining that we forgot to mention one of the things that irked us the most: Jeffrey Steingarten’s complaint about the “subway ride that often dumped us eight dark and unfamiliar blocks from supper” at Roberta’s.
Eight blocks? Dude, the closest subway entrance is exactly one and a half blocks from Roberta’s. If you were eight blocks away from the place, it’s because you were getting off at the wrong stop. And if that happened often, we can only quote yourself back to you: “Maps can be so educational!” Even subway maps.
(Photo: Lauren Carol Smith)
As for the characterization of those blocks as “dark and unfamiliar,” well, we don’t doubt they were unfamiliar: Steingarten is the same guy who, in a piece about Acme Smoked Fish in Greenpoint, wrote, “My assistant, who lives in Greenpoint, tells me Greenpoint is in Brooklyn.” (This is presumably the same assistant who touched off his opining about the “dangers of Brooklyn boosterism.”)
Then again if the entrance of Roberta’s (above) reminded him of Hiroshima, who knows what he would’ve said about the entrance to the Morgan station:
(Photo: Lauren Carol Smith)
Oh c’mon. I have no dog in this fight, but there’s almost no way to interpret what Steingarten writes to mean 8 blocks from Roberta’s. Where he uses “8 blocks,” it’s nonspecific, and the first (and only) Roberta’s reference is in a block much much later — like a dozen grafs — which comes like mid-list!