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EVERYBODY%u2019S SISTER: Greenwood Cemetery is one of those landmarks youalways mean to go to; everybody and his sister is buried there, and it's allit%u2019s cut up to be.BY L.J. DAVISThe trouble with compiling a Brooklyn Baedeker for a Brooklyn publication is that Brooklyn people are a borough-proud bunch of architecture freaks who have already been almost everyplace worth seeing, and Joey Gallo%u2019s house has been torn down. There is, therefore, remarkably little point in recommending the Heights to the Slopies or the Slope to the Heightsies or Atlantic Avenue to anybody, and Iremain adamant in my refusal to discuss the world%u2019s greatest neighborhood, Carroll Gardens, because I want it to remain just the way it is. And I could discuss the world%u2019s greatest restaurant, Gage & Tollner, until 1 am blue in the face and it still wouldn%u2019t make any difference; everybody knows about Gage%u2019s.Still, there are a few sights around that are both relatively undiscovered and worth the journey, and since we%u2019re on the subjectB r o w s i n g B r o o k l y nW i t h o u t aof eats. Bay Ridge happens to be one of them. The architecture isn%u2019t much%u2014it runs from the banal to the wierd, mostly%u2014but a place that boasts a bakery like Lund%u2019s (8122 Fifth Ave.) is definitely a pretty swell place. One bite of the coffee cake and you will wonder what strange madness ever prompted you to feast on the wares of Sarah Lee. Naturally, while you%u2019re in the neighborhood, you%u2019ll also want to head north to 78th and Fifth and try the French bakery. I promise you, you%u2019ll be glad you did, and you%u2019ll probably want to supply yourself with some of their onion soup as well. You%u2019ll probably be feeling a little logy right around then, but I%u2019ve always found that 1 can shave a pound or two off my wallet by strolling to Rosen's toy store (8508 Fifth Ave.) and picking up a couple of sensational bargains, like a $375 brownstone doll house. Rosen%u2019s enjoys an especially soft place in my heart, by the way, because my adopted daughter is black, and Rosen%u2019s turns out to be one of the very few' places in the city where you can buy a black doll that doesn%u2019t require batteries, doesn%u2019t writhe around on the floor in an epileptic fit, and doesn%u2019t fall apart before the Christmas goose is carved. The black doll 1 bought at Rosen%u2019s is the most beautiful doll I%u2019ve ever seen in my life. Thanks guys.I%u2019ll be getting to architectural wonders in a moment, but let me remind you that you can%u2019t eat architecture and you can%u2019t wear it and (as the pod benches in the remodeled Bowling Green subway station abundantly demonstrate) you can seldom sit on it. A city is lived at eye level, in its streets, a thing most guidebooks tend to forget, and Brooklyn is neither Pompeii nor Salt Lake City. Before we leave Bay Ridge, then, let me also recommend the boysenberry sundaes in the soda fountain on the same block as Rosen%u2019s and the seafood saladB a e d e k e r(and just about everything else, especially the mussels) at Cono the Fisherman a few doors down. And that%u2019s just one block, mind you, in a not-so-well-known part of the city. Two quarters take you there, and two quarters bring you back. Eat your heart out, Helene Hanff.Individual landmarks are funny things; almost everybody knows about them, and almost everybody plans to go there next week. Let me assure you, then, from personal experience, that Greenewood Cemetary is everything it%u2019s cracked up to be, and everybody and his brother (and Lola Montez) really is buried there and the monuments and the hills are just like it says in all the books. This goes double for the Louis Comfort Tiffany windows (including the last one he ever made) in the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church, sacred to the memory of Maryanne Moore, where a rail split by Lincoln (probably) can also be viewed. The bell at Flatbush Dutch Reformed has rung for the death of every American president since Washington, and the old Strong Place Baptist Church in Cobble Hill was the particular darling of its architect, Minard LaFever. On the corner of Pacific Street and Third Avenue stands Bethlehem Lutheran, the Cathedral of the Immigrant Swedes with its nautical pulpit (enscribed with Sprech de wort!) and a giant Hook & Hastings organ on which some of the most splendid ecclesiastical music in the city is played every Sunday.Then, of course, there%u2019s the Skinner House and Millionaire%u2019s Row (including the Pratt mansions) up on Clinton Hill, but people happen to live in them and I include them only in the interest of balancing the spiritual with the secular. Really, to do the job properly 1 would need a book. At the moment, however, I%u2019d much rather go down to Lund%u2019s.%u201cAnother recent cop book begins with the words, %u2018He jumped into a cab and drove north on Fifth...%u2019(Continued from Page 11) enough. It is perfectly true that the city is home to literate folk who can tell the difference between Houston Street and Gun Hill Road, but a recent sampling of New York books indicates that such people are few and far betw een. Louis Auchincloss knows where New York is, but %u201c The Country Cousin%u201d happens to be lpcated in 1936 and doesn%u2019t count. It is also 1936 in August Heckscher%u2019s %u201c When LaGuardia Was Mayor,%u201d but that%u2019s about all it is; in a virtuoso demonstration of turning gold into lead, Heckscher imparts the sort of dullness that gave ditchwater a bad name to the administration of the city%u2019s most colorful politician. And while William Manchester%u2019s %u201c American Caesar%u201d isn%u2019t specifically about New York, he nevertheless solemnly informs us that Gen. MacArthur retired to the Waldorf because it was in easy walking distance of both the Broadway theaters and Third Army Headquarters on Whitehall Street. The general was a spry old cuss, but he was also 71 years old, and even in his prime I doubt if he would have confused a six-mile hike with a stroll around the corner. MacArthur made his share of mistakes, but unlike William Manchester, he could at least read a map.I try to be tolerant about these things%u2014after all, I once wrote a novel that had Prospect Park West running both ways%u2014but they seem to be getting out of hand. A recent mystery novel shortened the distance between the George Washington Bridge and Times Square to a five-minute hop%u2014something that makes me suspect that the author and William N/t %u2019nh-bit thw NCW Yd*k ofMarvel Comics%u2019 counterearth, where the largest structure in town is the TWA Building%u2014and in Whitley Strieber%u2019s %u201c The Wolfen,%u201d the cops, who originate in Brooklyn North, take the Belt Parkway to get to Fountain Avenue. Another recentcop book begins with the words, %u201c He jumped in a cab and drove north on Fifth.%u201d I%u2019m not saying both these things aren%u2019t possible, but I think we%u2019d better have another look at that civil service exam.NOBODY EVER TOLD ME...Dipping into John Halpern%u2019s %u201c New York, New York: an architectural portfolio,\%u201c possibly the oldest building in New York.%u201d Possibly, but not probably. The oldest building in New York, and perhaps the oldest frame structure in the country, is the Wyckoff House out in Flatlands, a fact that a simple telephone call could have verified. He also appears to believe that the terra-cotta planter at the corner of Pierrepont and Henry Streets in Brooklyn Heights is actually located at 120 Waverly PI. in Greenwich Village, although he includes the photograph under a Heights heading. That%u2019s okay, though; it%u2019s only Brooklyn, and as everybody knows, you don%u2019t have to pay any attention to it. Or, for that matter, to Queens, Staten Island, and the Bronx. So what if 6.5 million people live there and Brooklyn is singlehandedly saving the city? Screw %u2019em.Indeed, this is precisely what Helene Hanff proceeds to do in %u201c Apple of My Eye,%u201d a perplexing little volume that consists of a series of essays describing how Helene Hanff doesn%u2019t know a thing about her subject%u2014and says so, repeatedly. Wall Street and the World Trade Center seem to draw her, though; she goes there over and over again, sees much the same thing each time, and tells us all about it. Even in those areas where she professes a measure of expertise, she has: the elevator in the Statue of Liberty going lip tO th e face (it StOpS Si m e lte iy , L,aai Side and West Side neighborhoods properly located by the rising and the setting sun but otherwise all mixed up; Bernstein%u2019s kosher Chinese restaurant located on Allen Street (which will no doubt come as sensational news to Mr. Bernstein, whohas been paying taxes on a property on Essex Street for decades); and Gus Pickle Products and their competitors on Rivington instead of Hester. 1 submit that these are not small mistakes, and there is remarkably little excuse for them although a prefrontal lobotomy might qualify. No wonder the city has such a bum rep in the rest of the country. As my brother, the autoclave king of the Pacific Northwest, said on his first visit last month, %u201c My God, nobody ever told me it looked like this.%u201d They sure didn%u2019t, bro. They sure didn%u2019t. The Country Cousin. Louis Auchincloss. Houghton Mifflin. 239 pp. $8.95 When LaGuardia Was Mayor: New York%u2019sLegendary Years. August Heckscher. Norton. Bibliography. Notes. Index. 448 pp. $15.00The Wolfen. Whitley Strieber. Morrow. 252 pp. $8.95New York/New York: an architectural portfolio. John Haipern. Dutton. 133 pp. $8.95 [paper).Apple of My Eye: a personal tour of New York. Helene Hanff. Doubleday. 201 pp. 8.95American Caesar: Douglas M acArthur 1880-1964. William Manchester. Little, Brown. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Chronology. Pictures and maps. 793 pp. $15.00WINDQWS0IL: The scenic terra-cotta planter which is on the corner ofPierrepont and Henry Streets, not, as has been noted, in GreenwichVillage. (Photo from %u201c New York, New York: an architectural portfolio,%u201d byJohn Haipern.)December 7,1978, THE PHOENIX, Page 13