Freddy’s, The Prodigal Bar
Nothing could embody what Brooklyn stood to lose to the Atlantic Yards development quite like Freddy’s, the beloved Prospect Heights dive in Bruce Ratner’s footprint that shuttered last spring. As one fan said online about the closing, “Where am I going to be drinking on Christmas night?” But in February, a few of the old managers and bartenders opened a new Freddy’s, about a mile away in South Slope. For continuity’s sake, they brought the old mahogany bar, the booths and the tables—even the “chains of justice,” which had been wrapped around the bar in protest of eminent domain. Many of the old barflies followed, too.