The Birth of Camp
Camp
179 Smith St. (betw. Warren & Wyckoff Sts.)
718-852-8086
Last fall, Brooklyn's Smith Street welcomed a Latin saloon called Ambar. With a layered-bark ceiling and wooden walls, it was a tree orgy powered by tropical drinks. In a year, the concept flopped like a dying sturgeon.
When the owners of down-the-block bar Apartment 138 assumed ownership last month, they rejiggered the theme. Bye-bye, Latin flavor; hello, Poconos summer camp. The wood stayed, joined by a deer head, cast-iron-pot sinks, a kayak and black-and-white pics of Yosemite and Lake Tahoe waterfalls. What to christen a camplike bar? Creativity be damned, the watering hole was called Camp, announced in a woodcut sign overhanging the street.
My knee-jerk response was rolling my eyes like a 13-year-old girl. It's like, so, like, obvious. Yet I grasp the need for thematic differentiation. This town contains 10,000 drinkeries. Simply providing a stool and lukewarm Budweiser is a recipe for Chapter 11. Bars need lures, be it tiki (East Village's Waikiki Wally's), free pizza (Williamsburg's Capone's) or cowgirls (Chelsea's Red Rocks West).
A fingernail-thin line, however, separates subtlety from over-the-top. Two weeks ago, Times critic Frank Bruni disemboweled Tribeca's Ninja, a martial arts?styled eatery he called "a Disney ride-Space Mountain under a hailstorm of run-of-the-mill or unappealing sushi." Ninja was built to attract easily wowed tourists by the bushel. Sadly, the fatal flaw: food and service were as attractive as Joyce Wildenstein.
Such thoughts marathon through my mind as I visit Camp. When I roll in, the room feels warm and welcoming, like a Colorado snowboarding lodge. Befitting that, Camp contains a functional, albeit malfunctioning fireplace. Several fires revealed a clogged chimney; smoke poured into upstairs tenants' apartments. Until a chimney sweep arrives (and customers can roast S'mores), warmth comes from Camp's ample booze.
A buy-one, get-one-free happy hour (until 8 p.m. on weeknights) blunts $5 per pint for blah beers like Stella, Guinness, Newcastle and the reprehensibly fruity Magic Hat No. 9, suds best used for pig slop. I order a Guinness, foregoing the specialty drinks (around $9) begging for a Girl Scouts of America lawsuit.
Thin Mint, so called after the crisp cookie, contains hot cocoa and crème de menthe, while the Dirty Girl Scout (a porn title-in-the-waiting) is a mudslide with white crème de menthe, a concoction that caused my friend Susan to perform a table dance. Other inhibition-loosening cocktails include the bellini-ish Treasure Trail (pear nectar, sparkling wine and a sunken cherry) and Space Camp-a pyromaniac's delight. Orange vodka and triple sec mingle in a Tang-rimmed glass, while a skewered-marshmallow toothpick is set aflame and charred black, serving as martini-olive sustenance. "I never thought my bartending duties would include burning marshmallows," bartender Bil Slavin says, blowing out a sugary flame.
The blaze I love, as well as the smoking patio lit by lanterns; the forest wallpaper covering the wall beside a DJ booth frightens me. My first Astoria apartment was wallpapered in identical fall foliage. It was so 1970s tacky that my roommate and I covered the trees with squares of vivid, Chinatown-bought orange paper. The wall looked stunning until, one day, a friend revealed our ignorance: "Oh, my god; that's Chinese death paper," she said. Our forest set a record for re-growth.
As far as real qualms with Camp, I harbor several. The jukebox deficit puts the musical onus on bartenders' iPods, and no bar games (plus a healthy buy-back policy) equals nonstop sousing. This is a glaring oversight. Why place a bull's-eye beneath the DJ booth, but no dartboard? Camp, I recall, was as much about providing parents quiet time as engaging kids in athletics and arts. There's no space for indoor dodgeball (Camp can maybe cram in 60 or 70 people), but may I suggest a macaroni-necklace workshop? Embrace the theme, baby.
Perhaps macaroni is pushing it. After all, cut Camp like an apple and you'll reveal a quirky neighborhood local, par for a Smith Street featuring Brooklyn Social, Gowanus Yacht Club and Zombie Hut. The block, to mangle Lawrence Ferlinghetti, is a Coney Island of kitschy consumption. This is a statement, not an indictment. In this age of astronomic rent, beer-and-shot joints are dying dinosaurs, high overhead their killer comet. Alcohol itself is no longer the sole selling point. This city's drinkers crave a unique narcotic outpost, which is where we find Camp, its merit badge-not too shiny-worn with pride.