If you walk down Lafayette Avenue between Grand and Classon in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, you might catch a glimpse of a blonde woman popping her head out of a second-floor window as she lowers a pulley basket containing a paper-wrapped parcel down to a neighbor. Her name is Carla Finley, and the package is a sourdough boule (or a sheet of grape-and-za’atar focaccia, or maybe three toasted pecan cinnamon rolls). Look closer, and you’ll see a rack stacked with warm bread in the window. Shout hello and Finley’ll drop you a card for Apt. 2 Bread, the bakery she runs out of her apartment.
Finely launched Apt. 2 Bread in March 2020, an anxious month for us all. She had been furloughed from her baking job at the Italian-Mediterranean restaurant Il Buco, which she had recently started after a year spent working at the Brooklyn sourdough mecca She Wolf. Apt. 2 Bread was a way for her to stay sane by continuing to use her hands, while also feeding those locked down in her neighborhood, the best way she knew how—with freshly baked bread.