A woman slim, tall, blond, elegant and pretty walks to the deli counter of Cherry Hill Gourmet Market. She’s wearing black high heel boots, a leather black miniskirt and a white and beige long fur coat. At Cherry Hill Gourmet Market, the most crowded area is the takeout gourmet food counter that is close to the kitchen –a kitchen that once used to cook lobsters, clams and oysters for thousands of diners when this market was a restaurant.

The woman orders, in Russian, some food to take out a few pounds of cooked duck with fruits and some kebabs with fresh tomato sauce. The lady at the counter answers, also in Russian.

After two decades of many attempts to revive the legendary restaurant called Lundy’s –most of these ending in failures- David Isaev opened Cherry Hill Gourmet Market in May and the old Lundy’s closed its doors for good.

Customers at Cherry Hill Gourmet Market. Photo from Sheepshead Bites.

The legendary Lundy’s was at this corner, Emmons Avenue and Ocean Avenue, for almost five decades. After the Lundy family sold it, Lundy’s was never quite the same. The original restaurant closed its doors for the first time in the late seventies. A decade later, three different managements tried to revamp. But the place got smaller, the food got more expensive and regular customers no longer came.

Since the Lundy’s era, Sheepshead Bay has turned into an enclave of Russian immigrants first followed by other nationalities –Turkish, Asian, Pakistani, Greek- who have found a home in this bay. You see them shopping at Cherry Hill Gourmet Market.

“That is the direction the neighborhood is going. This part of Brooklyn is no longer the blue-collar Catholic middle class person living here,” says Ned Berkes, editor of Sheepshead Bites, a local news blog. “If you see the Lundy’s Mall you’ll see there is a Japanese restaurant, a Turkish café and now Cherry Hill Gourmet Market.”

David Isaev, Cherry Hill’s owner, is from Azerbaijan. He walks around his store talking to customers, talking to his employees, switching from Russian to Hebrew to English to Spanish within a blink of an eye. A Hispanic man comes to him carrying a box of green grapes. Isaev picks them up, looks at him and quickly decides. He doesn’t want them. “No las quiero, no tienes nada mejor?” said Isaev.

Historic Lundy´s Restaurant closes its doors to become Cherry Hill Gourmet Market. Photo from Gothamist.com

Irving Lundy started his restaurant in 1926. The first Lundy’s was across the street from what is now the Lundy’s building, on the pier where the family fish store used to be. Later, in 1934, Irving Lundy moved the restaurant to the corner of Emmons Avenue and Ocean Avenue –right across the street from the pier – and it was a block-long restaurant. Its fame did not stop growing and it was once billed as America’s largest restaurant, seating up to 2,400, according an article in The New York Times. By the early fifties it was well known all around the country.  Edna Mugno, 84, lives in Sheepshead Bay. Mugno, who was born and raised in this bay, remembers Lundy’s well enough. She says celebrating holidays were like nothing she has seen anywhere else. “Thanksgiving was out of this world at Lundy’s,” she said. “The racket, the voices, the noise and the festive ambience were incredible.” Mugno remembers that the floors were of marble, “so if you dropped a fork or a knife, yahoo! It would echo in the whole restaurant.”

Lundy’s used to cater to another kind of Brooklyn: Immigrants from Italy and Ireland or Jews well established in South Brooklyn. It was a family restaurant. The place was big enough to fit large groups and the prices were very affordable.  Mugno says that when she was a teenager, every Friday, her mother sent her to Lundy’s clam bar. “I would get a quart of clam chowder for a dollar!” Mugno says, “Can you imagine? A quart for three people for a dollar?”

People in Brooklyn celebrated birthdays, engagement parties, bar mitzvah and even weddings at Lundy’s. Helen Evans, who still lives in Sheepshead Bay, was born before World War I. About five decades ago, Evans decided one morning to go to court with her husband to be and get married. Right after the newly wed couple headed to Lundy’s to celebrate with friends and family.

Outside Cherry Hill Gourmet Market, the façade of the old landmark building remains the same but once you open its doors, Cherry Hill resembles all the changes Sheepshead Bay has gone through since Lundy’s Restaurant’s golden era.

“Things have changed,” says Isaev, “Nobody here in this neighborhood wants another restaurant for 2,000 people. The people that live here now are not the same that lived when Lundy’s was around.”

Inside Cherry Hill store, to the left, bouquets and multicolor arrangements of imported flowers for special occasions welcome shoppers. They are placed by the window that faces Manhattan Beach, where a long row of the most demanded Lundy’s tables used to be. To the right, towards the wall, beautiful jars of syrups from Georgia, marmalades from Macedonia, German coffee, Russian candy and goods from all parts of the world adorned the shelves waiting to be bought by Sheepshead Bay residents. The long row of tables with pristine white clothes that was in the halls 40 years ago has been replaced by colorful stands of jars of all sizes and warm colors: Jars of pickled mushrooms from Serbia, pickled peppers from Italy and more than 20 types of olive oils from Greece, Spain, Italy and Israel. Some walls are covered by olive green marble. Left from old Lundy’s is the stairway with its original terrazzo marble steps and the wrought-iron railings in the foreground. They take you up to the mezzanine level, where is now Cherry Hill’s Café, the gathering place for men and women that live or work around Emmons Ave.

Lundy’s Restaurant lives in the memories of Brooklynites of the fifties. Those who come to Cherry Hill, missed out on Lundy’s prosperous days, but they don’t need it. All they need to stay in touch with their motherland and their own nostalgia is found here in the shelves of Cherry Hill.

This is the second of our five-part “What’s for Dinner?” feature series about Brooklyn meals.

by Alessia Pirolo and Katerina Valdivieso

The heart of Bushwick beats between Dekalb Avenue, Myrtle Avenue, and Knickerbocker Avenue. This is the geographical and commercial center of a neighborhood that, for a while, was considered the potential new hot spot in Brooklyn. After a long decline that started in the sixties, hipsters and developers began moving in over the last five years, bringing hope of economic revival to follow. It was a neighborhood with high potential, at the border of Williamsburg and connected to Manhattan by the L-train. But the recession put a stop to all that, reminding everyone that this remains an area in which poverty rate has not dropped under 32 percent. Historical stores that cater to long time residents, as well as newcomer, are struggling. Bushwick has its hopes but at the moment they are tentative at best. The Brooklyn Ink walked the triangle formed by the three Bushwick central streets to take the economic pulse.

Albert Palma, Owner of Turrbo Fashion Innovators. Photo/ Brooklyn Ink

Turrbo Fashion Innovators, 369 Knickerbocker Ave., sells trendy men clothes. But this year many of its leather jackets and embroidered shirts have remained unsold. The owner, Albert Palma, said that in 2009 sales have dropped more than 40 percent compared to the previous year. It is the worst crisis in the 25 years life of the shop, he says. Cuban-born, Palma moved to the United States when he was 7 years old. Before getting into retailing he was an auto mechanic. When his father retired they opened the shop and since then the business has expanded to a second store. But there are no further expansions planned for the coming year, said Palma. “I didn’t even take vacations,” he said. “I was supposed to go to Europe, than Dominican Republic, but I had to cancel. It has been a very bad year in sales.”  For the first time, he had to take money out of his savings to pay for merchandise he bought on a 30-day credit line.

The story gets even gloomier if one walks a block down on Knickerbocker Avenue towards Myrtle Avenue. Here the landscape changes. Rincon Musical is a music store that has been carrying CDs, movies and music instruments since 1997. “It is the only store where you can find music instruments around the area,” said Luis Estevez, the manager, “the next store is in Queens and you have to take like three trains to get there.” But soon, Bushwick musicians will have to travel to another borough to get a replacement for a broken guitar string. Rincon Musical is closing its doors for good in January.

Estevez has been working there for the past 9 years. He has seen a constant decrease in sales, in part, due to the creation of portable music devices and more people buying online. However, this year has also been the worst for Rincon Musical, said Estevez. “Sales dropped more than 60 percent for us this year alone.” The store has for rent sign outside. Estevez said that they barely make enough in sales to pay a monthly rent that amounts to $14,000 including taxes. “And the landlord wants to raise the rent for next year. We can’t afford it anymore,” said Estevez. The store is currently looking for another location but Estevez assured us that it will not be in Bushwick.

Rising rents are a serious problem in Bushwick. People out of work, or facing financial struggles, cannot afford them. That leads to foreclosures for the owners and landlords. In 2007 Bushwick already had the third highest rate of housing foreclosures in New York City, 57.8 per 1,000 of one to four family housing units. Today, just in the central triangle of Bushwick, 582 and 1369 Dekalb Ave. have been recently foreclosed. In the same street, at number 1209, there is a stalled building. The works stopped before it was finished.

Between 2005 and 2007 the area’s unemployed civilian labour force was 9.8 percent, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Last October, the average Brooklyn unemployment rate rose to a 16-year-high of 11.1 percent, the New York City labor department reported.

Mercedes Ramos does not need to read the statistics to know these things. She has been living within the perimeter of this commercial triangle for 30 years. Her son and her son-in-law both lost their jobs in 2009. “My son-in-law was working for DHL for 20 years and my son was working for the same company- for 15 years, and they both got laid-off at the same time,” she said. Neither of them has found a steady job. Ramos’s son is freelancing in several gigs and her son-in-law is collecting unemployment. Without a sure income the family has to sacrifice. They can no longer afford to pay for their younger daughter the Catholic school attended by her two elder siblings. “My youngest grandchildren has to go to public school,” Ramos said. “But that’s not what my daughter wanted, she wanted a good education for her three kids.” Ramos said that her daughter has made strict cuts in the family budget, such as paid extracurricular classes, been replaced by free classes. “My 12-year-old grandchild was going to ballet but it was too expensive so now she is going to free basketball classes,” said Ramos.

Some families cut their budget, others move away. This is one of the main reasons for the imminent downsizing of another historical store in the area. About 30 feet north of Rincon Musical, in the corner of Knickerbocker Avenue and Stanhope Street, Ira Levy has owned a party supplies store called Party Fair for the past 22 years. For several generations, Bushwick children bought their Halloween costumes, toys, and birthday decorations in his 7,500 square feet. At the end of November, the shelves were filled with Christmas lights, and Santa Claus, Virgin Mary and Jesus costumes. But after the holiday, two thirds of the space will turn into a bank.

Levy, as well as Palma and Estevez, has not seen any signs of recovery since this economic recession started. “It’s been hitting us for more than a year. I say it’s been hard for the past three years,” said Levy. Each year, Levy has seen his sales dropped 18 to 20 percent without any improvement.

The changes of the neighborhood have contributed to a decrease in sales, Levy said, “A new kind of people have been moving here, younger people who have recently graduated from college or are still studying.” Party Fair’s main customers are families with kids. But many are moving away. “Young guys don’t have money to spend, they are just starting their lives,” said Levy.

Despite of the financial hardship, business owners and neighbors in Bushwick have not lost their hope. Levy will reduce his store, but he won’t leave the neighborhood. Instead he will keep his smaller store and see how it goes next year. Palma, from Turrbo Fashion Innovators, foresees a better future a year from now. Bushwick’s recession, he says, “can’t last much longer.”

437 Waverly was been auctioned in Brooklyn’s Supreme Court. Photo: Valdivieso/BrooklynInk

“Then, we’ll open at $415,000. Any one gives anything else?” said Judge Betsy Barros to nearly 40 bidders. The house on 437 Waverly was been auctioned in the judge’s chambers, in Brooklyn’s Supreme Court.

For a decade the house had been vacant. Had it had eyes, it would have been passively watching itself aging, lonely and forgotten. The roof has deteriorated and the back wall needs repair. It is investors who had eyes, however, and beyond the shabby parts they saw a tremendous real estate opportunity: a three-story house with a solid infrastructure in an upcoming neighborhood, Clinton Hill.

Before it was empty, a family lived in the house for 80 years. Until the day of the auction, the house belonged to one heiress, Ms. Evelyn Grace Ferry, and she was ready to pass on the house to a new owner. Ms. Evelyn G. Ferry’s family never recorded the title deed, according to Brownstoner.com, so the house was unable to be sold for a decade.

“Let me just explain to you the practice of this. The proceedings,” said the judge. “The owner is not here. And she is what we call an incapacitated person, so we are doing this for her.” The judge didn’t give details of why the elderly heiress was incapacitated. What the judge did say to those in attendance was that whatever sum was obtained from the auction would go to Ms. Ferry’s personal care.

The courtroom was full. Most of those in attendance were men, with a few couples, all in their late 30s or 40s.

“It was a pleasure showing it,” said Susan Durango when she was called to testify on stage, before the auction began. Durango is the broker who showed the house when it was on the market. She said that it had been appraised at $450,000. “It’s a very competitive price. I did five showings a day,” said Durango referring to the four-week period she had the house on the market. “We usually don’t have this tremendous response.”

And so the auction began.

After Durango’s testimony, Judge Barros read little pieces of papers she had in her hands. Each one of the attendees had written their opening bid in these scratch papers the judge was reading.

“I’m going to start with the two highest bids I have here. Mr. David Heck. And a couple, Mr. David Bradley and Jessica Lynn.”

“Mr. Heck. Mr. Bradley and Mrs. Lynn.” The judge looked around her courtroom to identify them. All three raised their hands.

“Then we’ll open at $415,000. Any one gives anything else?”

And so the battle began.

Mr. Bradley raised $5,000.

“Cash,” he said. The courtroom was silent for a few moments.

“Mr. Heck?” said Barros.

A couple of seconds later, Heck said 440.

Bradley and Lynn murmured in each other’s ears.

“$441. Cash.”

This time everyone in the room broke into laughter that soon turned into moderate giggles.

“Please!” said Barros, “we need to raise it more than a thousand per bid.”

Then Heck raised it to $446,000.

But fifteen minutes in, a third player joined the group, and the auction started to get interesting. Pat Wetsell raised his hand and said: “$450. Pre-approved and can close within 14 days.”

Heck wasn’t expecting this contender. Bradley and Lynn didn’t raise their hands again. They were clearly out.

It was only Heck and Wetsell.

Wetsell raised by $ 5,000. And then Heck. Then Wetsell, again. Five thousand each time they raised their hands.

It went on for 10 minutes. Raising hands for 10 minutes seemed like a long time. Meanwhile, more money was thrown into the bid.

“Heck, 480.”

“Wetsell, 485.”

“Heck, 490.”

“Wetsell, 495.”

Long pauses of silence appeared between bids. Longer pauses each time. The room was filled with tension. Only two bidders, but the whole room was growing anxious.

It had to end. And finally, it did. “Going once… Twice…” and the judge hit her gavel. “It’s sold to Mr. Heck for $540,000.”

Silence was interrupted by loud sighs. Bradley and Lynn and Wetsell went to congratulate Heck. They chatted and exchanged ideas about the house for a few minutes. Then Heck said: “Excuse me, I have to call my wife.”

Heck, still in the courtroom, walked a few steps away from the crowd. “Love, it’s ours,” he said.

Photo by Katerina Valdivieso/Brooklyn Ink

By Katerina Valdivieso

“That’s the one! That’s the portrait! Let me see?” Victor Coker was stunned when he saw the picture of his missing portrait in a page of the book I had brought to show him: Lundy’s: Reminiscences and Recipes from Brooklyn’s Legendary Restaurant. I had opened it to a random page and, ironically, it opened at the page of the portrait of Mr. Irving Lundy, Coker’s missing portrait.

I was interviewing Coker, 51, for an article about Cherry Hill Gourmet Market, a new store in the building that once housed Brooklyn’s legendary seafood restaurant of the 50s, Lundy’s, when he realized his portrait was lost. Coker has been taking care of the building for the past 16 years. He is the superintendent of entire building, including adjacent stores and Irving Lundy’s old house. Lundy’s Landing occupies the whole block on the corner of Emmons Ave. and Ocean Ave. in Sheepshead Bay.

Coker, a resident of Canarsie, has taken it upon himself to take special care of this historical landmark and all the things that belong to it. For more than a decade he has kept the old pictures of the Bay and other artifacts that used to adorn the old restaurant. Among those artifacts was Irving Lundy’s portrait.  Coker said that the last time Lundy’s restaurant closed-it has had four incarnations since the original-someone trashed this painting. Coker rescued Mr. Lundy’s portrait from the garbage and took it to Lundy’s old house, which is in the middle of Lundy’s Landing. “I placed the portrait in his house where he belonged, and I looked at Mr. Lundy and told him ‘It’s all good. You are back home now,” said Coker.

When Coker was a child, he used to come to Lundy’s to eat delicious lobsters and oysters, but the biscuits are what he remembers the most. Someone from Kentucky called Coker not too long ago asking for Lundy’s and they both had a conversation about the biscuits. “There are no biscuits like the used to make them at Lundy’s,” said Coker.

It is not unusual for Coker to get phone calls from people asking for Lundy’s restaurant. He has kept the same landline and phone number and he likes it like that. “I get phone calls from all over; from people from Florida, from California, even from other countries. And they ask me if they can get a reservation.”

Coker now works for David Isaev, the owner of Cherry Hill Gourmet Market. But over the past two decades he has seen at least four different managers coming and going of this building. In 1995, Lundy’s Restaurant re-opened with Frank and Jeanne Cretella as new owners. Coker was there. He said it was the closest it ever got to the original Lundy’s restaurant. The service and the food was much like the original, he said, except the place was less than half as big. The original Lundy’s accommodated more than 1,600 chairs, one of the biggest restaurants in America in the 19th century. The Cretella’s thought, said Coker, that it was important to keep memories alive in their new restaurant so they hung old pictures of the Bay inlcuding the portrait of Irving Lundy, the original owner and founder of the restaurant. Coker also thinks like the Cretellas. He said it was wrong to trash the portrait, he said, it was disrespectful.

The old Lundy’s house and his portrait intrigued me so I asked Coker if he could show me the painting. He agreed but after talking a phone call, he came back to Cherry Hill Gourmet Market some 30 minutes after talking on the phone. Coker looked pale and disturbed. “My portrait is gone. Someone took it,” he told me. During those 30 minutes he had gone to the old house and found out the Lundy’s portrait was no longer where he left it.

Coker remembered that some contractors had come to the building not too long ago to do some work so he made several phone calls, including one to the landlord of Lundy’s Landing, Steve Pappas. Someone told him over the phone that probably the contractors moved the painting so it didn’t get damaged and forgot to put it back where it was. But Coker could not find his portrait, and he was upset.

Isaev, who is most of the time walking around his gourmet store, stopped his work and asked Coker what was wrong. Then Moisha, Cherry Hill’s manager, also stopped his work and joined Isaev and Coker. Isaev tried to ease Coker by telling him that the portrait was probably misplaced, not lost or stolen, as did Moisha. For more than 20 minutes they speculated about the destination of the absent painting.

Every night, Coker turns off all the lights of Lundy’s Landing -the whole block. “This is when you hear things at night,” said Coker. Mr. Lundy he speculated that is probably checking out his property. Now that the portrait is gone, Coker said he will keep caring for his beloved building but he is concerned that Irving Lundy’s is not around. “Mr. Lundy should be in his home, where he belongs. I worry about the building now.”

Photo from the Russian American Jewish Experience Program

The sons and daughters of Russian Jewish immigrants converse over frothy beers at the Jewish Center in Brighton Beach. They are here, ostensibly, to study the books of Jewish law, something their parents could not do when they lived in the Soviet Union. The children of these immigrants, now mostly in their 20’s, are also here for something more: they are here to find themselves.

Biana Lupa, 25, came from Ukraine when she was three years old. She comes to this Brighton Beach synagogue’s program to learn Judaism. She says her parents were forced to live secular lives under the Soviet regime. Now, she wants to reclaim her Jewish tradition.

“I grew up in the States,” says Lupa, “I’m not Russian, but I don’t feel only American. Plus, I’m Jewish and my parents don’t observe Jewish traditions. I wanted to know who I was and I wanted to find a community of people like me to share with them my struggles.”

Lupa’s struggles come at a particularly emotional time. Although, Lupa questions her faith and her relationship with God at times, she finds comfort in a program in her synagogue called Russian American Jewish Experience or RAJE. It is a program that promotes Jewish values and traditions among young Russian Americans in the south of Brooklyn.

Rabbi Dovid Goldshteyn, one of the teachers of the Talmud in this synagogue, explains that, back in the Soviet Union, it was very hard to for Russian Jews to profess their faith in a secular society because the regime prohibited them from doing so. Hence, most of these immigrants had lost their religious tradition long before coming to America. “A hundred years ago all of our ancestors were Jewish Orthodox, living in terrible poverty conditions,” says Goldshteyn, adding that Judaism “was stolen from us by the soviet regime.”

RAJE is not the only organized group with the goal of connecting children of Jewish immigrants with their roots. The worldwide organization Ezra USA also has a center in Brighton Beach. But RAJE targets young adults and their outreach programs get very creative.

Every Tuesday evening, students congregate at this Jewish center to attend Rabbi Goldshteyn’s lectures about the Talmud and to drink beer. Rabbis and students sometimes cook a potlock. At other times, they order kosher food, but there are always kegs of beer around. Tuesday are known as Happy Tuesday.

Alexander Schiller, 23, comes to Happy Tuesday religiously. He says that drinking alcohol is part of being Russian and part of being Jewish. “Our parents made vodka in their bath tub,” says Schiller.

His view is echoed by another Russian American, Igor Komissarenko, who said that to him a big part of being Jewish means enjoying yourself. However, for Komissarenko, the search for a Jewish identity was unsuccessful. “I was curious for a while,” he says, “and then I lost interest.”

Komissarenko does not go to Happy Tuesdays, nor does he observe Jewish traditions. He was born in Ukraine and moved to America with his family when he was 8 years old. Today, he is 24 and he remains secular, like his parents.

When Komissarenko was 18 years old, he says, he worked at a kosher bakery in Avenue U. Rabbis constantly invited him for dinner or to observe Jewish holidays. But it did not take long before he realized the religious path was not for him. He said that after attending synagogue a few times he felt a bit of pressure by his peers to become observant.

“I wanted to be free, to be the way I want to be,” says Komissarenko.

For Erika Michelle Koltun, a life-death experience put an end to her quest of searching for an identity. Koltun’s best friend died in a car accident three years ago, exactly three weeks after she first started attending this Russian American Jewish Experience program. It was her best friend’s birthday and Koltun was invited to go out with her and some friends to celebrate on a Friday night. She debated between going to her party of observing the Sabbath.

“I decided to go to Sabbath instead,” says Koltun. “It was crazy! I was supposed to be with her. I was supposed to be in that car,” Koltun says.

When she looks back to the accident, however, Koltun admits that she had been “hanging out with the wrong people” at that time. She says she knows now for sure she was in the wrong path. Koltun wishes her friend was alive and what happened to her still hurts.

At the time of the accident the rabbis of her synagogue were teaching her that “if you keep Sabbath, Sabbath will keep you,” Koltun says. “When I was at the hospital I was so sad and angry I wanted to rip my star off my neck and my mother stopped me,” she said. “God protected me, my mom told me. God saved me from being dead.”

Koltun is now studying at the Yeshiva University, in Manhattan, and she is Orthodox. She said she still has a long way to go in her knowledge and her faith.

While Koltun has embraced her faith, not all Russian Americans do so. Many who come to this synagogue’s program are merely seeking to make sense of who they are. They search for answers in Judaism despite of what their parents think of this search.

Because they are secular, the parents of these young people are not always at ease with the possibility that their kids end up being Orthodox. Koltun’s parents are more supportive. “My mother started lighting candles on Friday night,” Koltun says, “Actually, it was my father who pushed to light the candles.”

Koltun hopes her parents follow her steps one day. But the small signs that they are showing lately are enough to make her happy.”

“Sometimes they go to a kosher restaurant and they would call me saying ‘Hey, we’re eating kosher.’ It’s really cute. Maybe one day,” says Koltun.

Alexander Schiller is dedicated to his Talmud studies, though his parents are not as thrilled as Koltun’s. Schiller’s mother was a teacher in Ukraine. His mother told him she was denied a job promotion back in Ukraine for being Jewish. Schiller says his parent’s faith has brought to them nothing but trouble. He says that here in the States his mother tells him sometimes to take his yarmulke off his head to show respect for others because they live in a Catholic neighborhood.

His father is still suspicious of his devoted attendance to synagogue. His father, he says, would tell him: “What do you do there, what do you do? Do you drink alcohol? Do you drink with the rabbi? You do marihuana? Why are you so happy?”

Schiller replies to his father that he is searching for what the Soviets took away form him.

Photo: Valdivieso/Brooklyn Ink

Katerina Valdivieso

“Hey Keith, did you save the pocketbook also?” A man walking down Sheepshead Bay’s Pier 5 asks Keith Gorman, the fisherman who on Saturday rescued a woman and her two daughters.

It’s around noon and Gorman is getting ready for his 1 o’clock trip to go fishing with Captain Steve Ventura’s crew, the owner of Sea Queen VII. A few men — all residents of Sheepshead Bay– usually gather around the Sea Queen before its departure. They sit on the benches by the piers to chat and watch the people passing by. Today, Gorman is the focus of conversation as they talk about the car that sunk and the people he rescued.

Gorman has been working at Sea Queen VII, a recreational fishing boat, for about five years. “This is the second time I jumped in the water for someone,” he says unassumingly.

On Saturday evening, the woman, Alla Yelizarov, 43, who drove the car into the water, was coming from Staten Island to attend a party in one the restaurants on the bay. Gorman says that the woman was trying to park in the middle of Emmons Avenue, a highly trafficked road, especially on Saturday night when diners are looking for places to park. Gorman says he thinks the woman got nervous because other drivers were honking at her. She stepped on the accelerator instead of the brakes and lost control of the car. The car broke the metal fence and went straight into the water. The skid marks are still visible in the sidewalk close to the fence.

“The woman didn’t want to come out, she was afraid of the water,” remembers Gorman. “The girls were on top of the roof when I jumped in the water but I had to get the woman ‘cuz she didn’t want to get out of the car. She was very scared.”

Gorman didn’t think twice about jumping off the pier. “We were all working at Sea Queen when we heard all the mess,” he says. “I got closer to see what was happening and when I saw nobody was jumping in the water I took my rubber boots off and jumped in. I think everything happened in less than five minutes.”

Eddie Colon, another fisherman of Sea Queen VII, witnessed the accident. “Everyone was screaming, everyone was saying ‘Get out of the car,’” he says. “But the only one who jumped in was Keith.”

Now, a couple walking by pauses to inspect the iron fence that is now covered with tape and a temporary yellow wooden fence. They ask Gorman if he knows what happened there.

“You didn’t see the news?” he replies.

“No., We don’t read the newspapers anymore” says the woman. He has been the subject of many local interviews and was on Good Morning America on Monday. (He has also received a bottled of Hennessy and a box of Italian chocolates.) Gorman gives them a quick and terse version of the story.

“I got the woman out of the car,” he says.

The man shakes Gorman’s hand.

“There was another guy that helped,” he tells them. But he wishes to remain anonymous. Also New York Congressman Anthony Weiner has called Gorman to congratulate him and this weekend he will come down to Pier 7, where the accident happened, to award him publicly.

Gorman is 42 years old, about 6’2” tall and powerfully built. He tells the story of the rescue as if he had done this a million of times before. In fact, he says, Captain Ventura trains them for such emergencies. “In the summer is different, though, the water is much higher,” Gorman says. “See the water now? It’s low, it’s just about 10 feet deep.”

Produced by Katerina Valdivieso & K. S. Nikhil Kumar.