Hiroko Masuike for The New York Times
O'Connor's, a bar on Fifth Avenue in Brooklyn, is about a block from Barclays Center, the Nets' new home. More Photos »
This is not microwave cooking. These things take time.
You don't just: 1) draw a line around a succulent 22-acre parcel of real estate in the heart of Brooklyn; 2) throw out all the people and knock down all the buildings; 3) shoehorn in an arena that, according to the readers of this newspaper, looks like a rusty turtle or a parking garage, a spaceship, a dragon, a bed pan, a comb-over, rat scat or possibly a "Transformers" robot with only his head sticking out of the ground and a long tongue snaking out in front of it; 4) and then import a gloriously inept basketball team from the petrochemical badlands of New Jersey, toss up a ball and expect fans to stampede the place.
Or perhaps more important, expect fans to figure out which bar in the shadows of the great rusty turtle will come to serve as the signature watering hole for Nets game nights.
No, this business of building a fan base, and identifying the neighborhood's go-to saloon, takes time. So on consecutive game nights recently, as rush-hour horns brayed on Flatbush Avenue and the Nets warmed up in their futuristic new home, people within shouting distance of Barclays Center were exploring their drinking options.
Scott McClain, a native of San Juan Capistrano, Calif., was tucking into a platter of oysters and a Brooklyn Lager at Woodland on Flatbush Avenue on a recent Tuesday night, an hour before tip-off. McClain, who now works as the personal assistant to Josh Childress, a reserve forward for the Nets, was headed to his second game at Barclays Center. But he still couldn't get his first visit out of his head.
"I took a car service in from Weehawken, where I live now, and my driver pulled up and said, 'That's the arena,' " McClain recalled. "I was shocked. It's extreme, a little out there. It didn't look like it fits the neighborhood, that scrap iron. Where I come from, that kind of metal is used in prisons."
While McClain found the arena "very dark" inside, what with all the black paint, he thought the fans' energy was high. That will come as welcome news to Mikhail D. Prokhorov, the Russian billionaire who owns the Nets and surely worries about winning the hearts of fans when he isn't worrying about how to win Vladimir Putin's job. Another thing McClain liked about the arena was the presence of Brooklyn mom-and-pops in the concession stands.
"I've seen probably 80 percent of the N.B.A. arenas," he said, "and the concessions are usually controlled by outside people. What they're doing here is a great idea. The lines were so long you couldn't get a piece of Junior's cheesecake at halftime."
Thirsty, we went to a bar on Fifth Avenue called Cyprus Avenue. There, Melita James was sitting alone at a table taking advantage of a Brooklyn happy-hour perk — a shot of Jameson whiskey and a can of Bud Light for just $6. We liked the sound of that.
"I'm not a sports fan, and I haven't been to Barclays Center yet," said James, a bridge inspector with the Transportation Department who grew up in Brooklyn public housing and bought a brownstone nearby in 1990. So her presence was not connected to the Nets game. She had, she said, even passed on seeing Jay-Z during his run of concerts in September and October.
Still, she had a point of view and some bottom-line wisdom.
"I didn't want to pay to see Jay-Z because I can hear his songs on the radio every day," she said. "But there were people who came in here for the concert, and since drinks are so reasonable compared to Manhattan, they didn't even make it to the concert."
But don't get the idea that things come cheap in the environs of the House That Ratner Built.
"I have a friend who owns a barbershop on Flatbush, and he said on the news his rent was $10,000 a month," James said. "You can't make it cutting hair here. People who come to Nets games aren't lining up for a haircut. They're going to eat and drink."
Or maybe buying shoes. "Right around the corner they're selling boots for $900 and sneakers for $350 minimum," James said, her eyes widening. "Nicki Minaj and Keyshia Cole shop there. Thom McAn and Buster Brown aren't going to make it in this neighborhood."
Jiton Greene, proprietor of Je T'Aime, a shoe store, confirmed that Minaj was a customer. "But everything's not expensive; it just looks expensive," Greene said, pointing out a pair of $100 pumps. She's on Flatbush Avenue, she said, because the rent still beats Manhattan's.
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