The Red Hook Fairway opened as scheduled this morning and the breathless comments and rush of photos on flickr, like the ones to the right and below from a huge set posted by David Prince reminded Gowanus Lounge of how upscale food retailing deprived many in Brooklyn have been. (Actually, the response reminded GL of walking on the streets of West Berlin the day the Berlin Wall fell and seeing East Berliners break into tears at the site of supermarkets and, specifically, oranges.)

GL, is already planning the first shopping trip, maybe multi-tasking it with a visit to the BWAC show.

There are also excellent early flickr photo sets from callalillie (who notes the opening “almost brought tears to my eyes”) and scaredy_kat.

(Note to Whole Foods: Can you overcome the Gowanus toxic obstacles and get a move on? It will be great to cry over produce closer to home.)