Red, White and Blue Under the BQE

Is Frankel's, a Brooklyn hawker of work clothes and work shoes, "An American Treasure," as their storefront boasts? I don't know. But they've sure got a lot of guts to have survived 117 years on a mean, desolate stretch of Third Avenue in Sunset Park, first under the El and then under the BQE. It was founded by Adolph Frankel—who originally sold clothes and toiletries to longshoremen—and, a few generations later, remains in the family. The colorful storefront certainly adds a dash of life to the nasty avenue.