Some other things I always wanted to write about : St. Vincent 's Home for Boys , that enigmatic downtown Brooklyn landmark -LRB- Jonathan Lethem beat me to that one in '' Motherless Brooklyn '' -RRB- , the wonderful old Abraham & Straus on Fulton Street , where I went shopping for my new school clothes as a girl -LRB- Lethem in the '' Disappointment Artist '' -RRB- , or the strange experience of living in pre-gentrification brownstone Brooklyn in the 70 's -LRB- Lethem in '' Fortress of Solitude '' -RRB- .