Thirty-sixth Avenue has always been the red-headed stepchild of Astoria. Actually, the only people who ever say it’s Astoria are the realtors trying to sell property here. Then those same realtors turn up their noses when they’re trying to sell you property up at Ditmars, which is “so much nicer” (read: hardly any brown people). Most folks say it’s really just Long Island City. The BID banners, the ugliest ones I’ve ever seen, call it Dutch Kills, which I’ve never heard anyone say out loud. But there are Greeks down here, and cute little brick houses, so that makes it Astoria, dammit. Even if the kafeneio is now a Dunkin’ Donuts.

I lived at 36th Ave in 1998, when I first moved to New York. It did seem a little bleak, and the trash situation was pretty nasty by about February. I then moved up in the world, to Ditmars, for a long stretch, and just relocated back down here when I moved in with Peter. Our landlord is Greek, for the record. His name is Hercules.

Anyway, in the intervening years, 36th Ave got a little bit nicer. There’s some woman who obsessively sweeps the sidewalk. Mexicans own some of the delis and make yummy tacos. The depressing bar got annexed by the grocery store, which improved substantially. The liquor store occasionally carries something drinkable.

But yesterday I discovered something that now might put 36th Avenue ahead of Broadway and 30th Ave: bread.

On 36th Ave between 31st and 30th, where there had once been a ho-hum Korean produce place, then nothing for a long while, there is now a new produce place called The Prickly Pear. I threw a cruise yesterday and discovered:

FIVE kinds of eggplants (regular, Sicilian, white, long-and-skinny, and little round ones)
SCADS of fresh herbs
A BIG STACK of baby papayas — genius, because I can never eat a whole one

and

BREAD. Crusty bread. “Artisanal” bread. The kind of bread yuppies like, and that you can never get in Astoria. Big round loaves. Long baguettes. The closest thing I’ve ever been able to get — until now — was those little 3/$1.29 portuguese sour loaves at Trade Scare.

The bread at Prickly Pear is just sitting there under the cash register, with no attention being paid. In fact, I bought my three Ataulfo mangoes for $2 and was about to walk out, when some poppy-seed ring-thingy caught my eye, and then I saw all those crusty loaves.

I asked for the biggest one, which was a mere $2.99, and the woman pulled it out and said, “I’m just telling you, it’s supposed to be crunchy.” I guess there had been some cranky old Italian ladies complaining that the bread actually had a crust on it.

I hope those ladies don’t complain to the authorities. Because then Astoria norms might have to be enforced, as Peter imagines: the Parisi Bros would crash into the Prickly Pear at closing time and say to the owner: “Ma-why you no carry our bread? Don’t you know how things work in Astoria?” And then to work with the baseball bats. And then with the disappearance of the good bread. And it wouldn’t matter at all that 36th Avenue is technically not really part of Astoria.

Maybe now that we’ve got the bread we should formally secede?

Viva Dutch Kills!