So I finally got over to Fourth Street yesterday to check out the Soprano situation. The show was shooting all day in Inaka Sushi on Seventh Avenue between 4th and 5th Streets. The actors and crew may have been in the sushi place, but all the equipment trucks, actor’s trailers, and Teamsters were lining Seventh Avenue; what a scene.

At approximately 8 p.m., a small group of local fans gathered in the Street at 4th and Seventh Avenue and waited for the wrap. A crew member came out of the sushi place saying "Cut" and it was determined that the shoot was over.

Fairly soon after, a very friendly Tony Soprano came out on the Avenue and graciously posed for pictures and signed autographs. The guys from the barber shop on Seventh Avenue near 4th Street brought a carousel horse out onto the street and asked Tony to pose in front of it. "Hey Tony, pose in front of the horse," one of the guys said. "I’m posing next to a horse’s ass?" he said.

Tony, who is much taller than I expected, was in a good mood and seemed happy to pose for cell phone cameras. A festive atmosphere prevailed in the minutes after the wrap.  I had somewhere to be so I grabbed a few cell phone shots and was on my way.

Last year we stayed in New York for Christmas for a change. And this year we’re doing that again. Here’s what I wrote last year. It still feels new and exciting to be here at Christmas.

We’ve decided to stay in Brooklyn for the holidays. Well, it was my
idea. I told Hepcat I needed  to be here instead of on the farm, the
walnut farm, in Northern California.

It took days to get up the nerve. I knew Hepcat wouldn’t take it
well. He looks forward to our visits to the family farm he grew up on. Our twice-yearly trips make him feel grounded; they connect him to his
past. They’re also a much-needed chance to spend time with his mother,
his siblings, their children, and other members of his family.

For as long as we’ve been together, we’ve spent the holidays out
there. That’s a lot of years and a lot of Chirstmases with my husband’s
family. I don’t even know what the holidays are like in New York with
my family anymore.

I must say, Christmas in California is pretty special: a real
goyisha treat for a Jewish girl from the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
There’s a tall Christmas tree festooned with family heirloom ornaments.
The house, fragrant with mulled cider and eucaplytus branches, is
decorated with colorful Mexican folkart Mexican nativity creches. There
are hot cinnamon buns on Christmas morning.

Best of all, my kids get to spend days on the farm with their
cousins in a
kind of free-form indoor/outdoor existence that’s so unlike life in
Park Slope. Climbing a fig tree, taking walks in a walnut orchard,
lighting sparklers in the backyard, it’s all part of the Christmas they
know.

So I finally blurted it out one night before dinner in the kitchen.  "I don’t think I can go to California this Christmas."

There was a stunned silence.

I offered up my reasons like non-sequiters: My work. Teen Spirit’s New
year’s Eve gig at the Liberty Heights Tap Room. Our new niece, Ducky.

Hepcat  immediately looked disappointed but he seemed to understand.
"Well, I guess that means I’ll be going to California with Teen Spirit and OSFO,"  he said.

Teen Spirit, who was standing by the sink, cleared his throat, "Um, Dad, if
you don’t mind I think I want to stay in New York with mom," To which Hepcat replied,

"Well, I guess it’ll just be me and OSFO."

"I’M NOT GOING WITHOUT MOM," she shouted from the dining room where she was working on her homework.

"Well, I guess I’m going alone," Husband said sadly. "I’m sorry, Dad," Teen Spirit aid, giving his dad a big hug.

By morning Hepcat had decided that he was going to spend Christmas in Brooklyn with us.

"I don’t want to go without my family."

So it was decided that we will spend the holidays in Brooklyn.
Together.  We’ll have to figure out what to do here: reinvent our
holiday ritual as we rediscover New York at Christmastime.

Ice skating in Prospect Park, Christmas decorations in Dyker
Heights, fireworks on New Years Eve at Grand Army Plaza, after the show
at the Liberty Heights Tap Room…

It just might be fun to do something a little different.

–written in 2005

HOT NEWS FLASH, 6 p.m., Tuesday: Rosemary writes—30 Rock is shooting today at the Grand Prospect Hall between 5th and 6th aves.  I saw Alec Baldwin in a tux at 8 a.m.

NEWS FLASH, 11:25 a.m., Tuesday: The Sopranos are filming in Inaka Sushi, according to Hepcat who just walked by. And he says 30 Rock won’t be on PPW until Thursday.

Old Story:

A neighbor told me last night that The Sopranos are shooting on Fourth Street today. He saw a sign. I already knew but I acted surprised. It’s boring always being the one who knows what’s going on.

When Hepcat came home he said that 30 Rock, the new comedy show with Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin about a Saturday Night Live type of show, is shooting on Prospect Park West today  on THURSDAY. He said he saw signs. That was news to me. I was surprised and I didn’t know.

Funny coincidence. 30 Rock vs. The Sopranos. Shooting on the same day in the Slope.

Turns out F.A.O. Schwarz (1836-1911), the toy store founder, is from Brooklyn. Maybe that’s why the company that bears his names wants to open a store in Park Slope. Or maybe it’s all the kid$, kid$, kid$.  The New York Times ran this in the City Section on Sunday.

People in the neighborhood
have been buzzing about F. A. O. Schwarz since its chief executive, Ed
Schmults, was quoted this month in Crain’s New York Business about the
company’s expansion plans in the city. According to Mr. Schmults, F. A.
O. Schwarz is considering opening two smaller stores in New York, and
the publication named Park Slope, along with Union Square, as a
possible location.

Mr. Schmults declined to answer questions
about the matter last week, but according to a statement issued by the
store’s public relations office, the company hopes to open one of the
new stores next summer and the other in 2008.

In Park Slope,
where strollers rule the sidewalks, and nannies and young mothers rule
the coffee shops, some parents greeted the idea coldly.

“I’ve
never been an F. A. O. Schwarz fan, so I would say, ‘Don’t bother
coming here,’ ” said Lauren Gropp Lowry, mother of Lila, 11 months, as
she sipped coffee outside the Connecticut Muffin on Seventh Avenue at
First Street.

Ms. Gropp Lowry, who grew up in the neighborhood
and recently moved back from Manhattan, said that in her opinion, Park
Slope was all about smaller stores and personal service. “It’s not a
Park Slope place,” she said of F. A. O. Schwarz, before dashing off to
a mother-and-daughter music class. “The fact that we have a Barnes
& Noble now is a big deal.”

F. A. O. Schwarz, which once
operated 14 stores nationwide, now has just two locations, in New York
and Las Vegas, after a bout with bankruptcy that temporarily closed the
flagship store on Fifth Avenue and 59th Street in Manhattan. Mr.
Schmults, who took over as chief executive last year, told Crain’s that
he hoped to streamline the business, making it less a toy-themed
amusement shop and more a profitable enterprise.

At Lolli, a
children’s clothing store in Park Slope on Seventh Avenue, a co-owner,
Meghan Andrade, predicted that an F. A. O. Schwarz store would cut into
her business. “I feel like sometimes when I hear things like that, that
Park Slope is going to lose the charm that it currently has,” she said.
“There’s a loyalty amongst our customer base, so we would maintain some
of that, but people will always explore their options.”

I learned this from this week’s Green News of the Week on Seeing Green. Speaking of LEDs…

Green Eyes Glowing Softly in the Night. Look around your
house at night and what do you see? Many, many  LEDs glowing balefully
at you, each of them indicating a small but growing use of energy

Shut Windows to save power, urges industry:
Computer energy bills could be slashed by up to 40 per cent if Windows
had its power management settings turned on by default, according to a
leading environmentalist.

"PCs
consume 96% of their power in on-idle mode," said Catriona McAlister,
senior consultant for AEA Energy & Environment, speaking at an
Intel discussion on energy efficient computing. "You could save 40% of
annual energy consumption just by turning on power management on PCs
and monitors."

This from New York 1:

Beginning today, New York Water Taxi is expanding its service to
include more of Brooklyn, adding service to and from the Fulton Ferry
Landing in DUMBO.

A special fare is also in place for rides between the new stop and Pier 11 near Wall Street.

Riders will pay just two dollars each way until March 31st. For
this week only, the Water Taxi is offering two free one-way tickets to
a stop anywhere along the East River.

For more information, visit www.nywatertaxi.com.

Quite the hoopla inside Prospect Park at Grand Army Plaza. Klieg lights, a marching band, Chirstmas choirs, and a duo of Brooklyn Philarmonic trumpeters playing a festive fanfare.

What for?

It was a a big celebration for the lighting of the lights. Paid for by
Mort Zuckerman of the New York Daily News, there are light installations at all the entrances to Prospect Park.

Mayor Mike Bloomberg
introduced a host of city officials, commissioners. Notable in his absence was Marty Markowitz.

The Mayor led a countdown and then Abigail, the daughter of Mort Zukerman, got to turn on the lights with him. Maybe they wouldn’t let Marty do it and he didn’t want to come.

Maybe there was too much political star power. Maybe he has issues with Mort Zuckerman? Whatever. The lights are lovely. There’s a Christmas tree made of lights underneath the Grand Army arch. The lights change color and it’s very pretty. There are other lights decorating the top of the arch. Brooklyn Record had this to say about the lights:

"These aren’t just normal Christmas lights either, but fancy LED ones
that change color and do other cool things, designed by renowned
lighting designer Jim Conti (who actually teaches Lighting at
Parson’s). The project is sponsored by New York’s favorite paper
(maybe), The Daily News, and also includes free trolley
service on weekends around the park to see all the lights. They’ll be
up till January 7th, so if you aren’t festive yet, you’ve got time
(though, seriously, what’s your problem?)"

It’ll look great when that big Lubavitch menorah shows up for Hanukah. Lots of lights for everybody.

What fun to be in the Park in the evening. Bloomberg thanked God for the moon and Zuckerman and others for the lighting.  A lovely ceremony and I’m sorry I didn’t know about it to blog about it so more people woulda known about it.

photo by www.flickr.com/photos/suzun

Local Park Slope artisan, Susan Steinbrock, creates beautiful scarves and bedding. Her trademark silk hand painted scarves have been featured at the East Village Eileen Fisher for years.

Her debut collection of bedding was featured in Cottage Living Magazine. Go to her website for more information.

She will be selling her wares at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Amsterdam Avenue and 111th Street. Dec. 1-3.

In Park Slope on December 9: She will be at the PS 321 Holiday Craft Sale. Seventh Avenue and 1st Street. 11 a.m. until 4 p.m.

An email from a friend and neighbor on Fourth Street between 6th and 7th Avenues.

In case you missed the tangy fluorescent lime green posters, the Sopranos will be shooting on our street up the block on Tuesday afternoon…easy fodder for the "not on my block", anti film squads, but fun for the actor spotters among us…

My cousin, who runs the Petra Foundation, which honors unsung
individuals making distinctive contributions to the rights, autonomy
and dignity of others, read this W.S. Merwin poem at Thanksgiving.  I liked it a lot.

Listen

with the night falling we are saying thank you

we are stopping on the bridge to bow from the railings

we are running out of the glass rooms

with our mouths full of food to look at the sky

and say thank you

we are standing by the water looking out

in different directions

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging

after funerals we are saying thank you

after the news of the dead

whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you

in a culture up to its chin in shame

living in the stench it has chosen we are saying thank you

over telephones we are saying thank you

in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators

remembering wars and the police at the back door

and the beatings on the stairs we are saying thank you

in the banks that use us we are saying thank you

with the crooks in office with the rich and fashionable

unchanged we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us

our lost feelings we are saying thank you

with the forests falling faster than the minutes

of our lives we are saying thank you

with the words going out like cells of a brain

with the cities growing over us like earth

we are saying thank you faster and faster

with nobody listening we are saying thank you

we are saying thank you and waving

dark though it is.

W.S. Merwin