NO WORDS_DAILY PIX BY HUGH CRAWFORD

TEMPO PRESTO ON SEVENTH AVENUE IS CLOSING

I saw a For Lease sign on the window but I guess I wanted to pretend that I didn’t see it. But it’s true, the Tempo Presto on Seventh Avenue is closing.

I for one LOVE the place so I called the restaurant right away to see what’s going on.

"Our winter over there was too slow. The rent is too high," Jose Diaz, one of the managers of the Fifth Avenue Tempo Presto, told me. "It’s due to the rent because it is just too, too high. Our other location on Fifth Avenue will stay open."

Diaz suggested that I call one of the owners, Michael Elliott, to get more information. Elliott was more than willing to share with me his disappointment about this turn of events. "Tempo Presto just wasn’t doing the volume on Seventh Avenue we needed to pay the rent," he told me.

"The volume isn’t there. It’s a Manhattan-size rent in Park Slope. Very expensive. And this is still just a neighborhood. As you know the commercial rents have gone through the roof," Elliott told me. "Pretty soon it will just be big retailers that can afford the spot over here."

Elliott isn’t exactly sure when Tempo Presto will close. It depends on when they find another business to take over the lease. Fortunately, the Fifth Avenue Tempo Presto and Tempo, the restaurant, are staying open. "The Seventh Avenue exposure definitely built exposure for the Tempo Presto concept. The neighborhood loves us."

And what is the Tempo Presto concept exactly? In my mind it’s delicious and fast breakfast, lunch, gelato, and take-out in a cool and colorful modern interior. "It’s a franchise concept. A good concept. But you have to get into the right market if you’re going to pay this kind of rent. If the rent was a third  what it is it would work. You can’t work it for this price point. We took a real hit." Elliott told me.

What about Fifth Avenue, I asked Elliott. Are the rents really cheaper over there?  "Fifth Avenue is just as expensive. But Fifth has a more vibrant scene. After dark, Seventh Avenue dries up," Elliott told me. "On Fifth you get a lot of younger people coming out in the evening."

On Seventh, lunch and after-school were profitable.  "But there are too many points of
the day when there is nobody in the place or just one or two people. You can have that if
you’re a Starbucks. But not for a company like this."  Elliott said. 

Elliot and his two partners hold the lease to the space on Seventh Avenue and they’re looking for the right tenant. He tells me that they have had interest from at least two national retailers. No decision has been made as yet. Says Elliott: "There needs to be a fit for the landlord, as well as us.

Opening the Seventh Avenue Tempo Presto was clearly a labor love for Elliott. "It is disappointing when you try to grow a concept. It is what it is. A learning experience. The idea didn’t fit this particular space." 

Elliott says that Park Slope is unlike any other neighborhood he’s worked in. "It’s not only seasonally sensitive but it’s also very weather sensitive. When it’s too cold, too rainy, too hot nobody goes out. This goes for the restaurants on Fifth. We all feel it when the weather is affected it puts a strain on the business.

Elliott admits that he like many retailers in Park Slope would like to see more support from the neighborhood. He hopes the local Buy in Brooklyn initiative proves to be a success.

SNOWFLAKE CELEBRATION: BUY IN BKLYN ON DECEMBER 13TH

Here’s the poster for this December 13th event sponsored by BUY IN BROOKLYN, the Buy Local initiative of the Park Slope Civic Council.

More than 100 local stores will be open until 10 p.m. with special discounts, promotions, activities and sometimes booze and refreshments. A full list will  be forthcoming.

SNOWFLAKES ARE BLOSSOMING (to mix metaphors)!

WINTERFUL CRAFT FAIR AND CLAIREWARE HOLIDAY CRAFT SHOW

BROOKLYN PAPER: PARK SLOPE HOMELESS COALITION

As reported in OTBKB, a group calling itself the Park Slope Homeless Coalition met a few weeks ago with the Department of Homeless Services. Today there’s a piece about them in the Brooklyn Paper.

The three homeless men who sparked a flurry of soul searching in Park Slope — and the ire of a local pastor — after refusing to moderate their drinking and noise-making have abandoned their long-time hangout on the steps of the Old First Reformed Church, but they have left a legacy behind.

Rev. Daniel Meeter, Rabbi Andy Bachman of Congregation Beth Elohim, and the Park Slope Civic Council have formed the “Park Slope Coalition for the Homeless,” which will be devoted to improving the well-being of the dozens of homeless who flock to the Slope for its wealth of, well, wealth.

The incipient group was borne from a Nov. 20 meeting with the city’s Department of Homeless Services.

The next day, Bachman posted the Coalition’s four basic principles on his blog, www.andybachman.com: “Acknowledge with dignity those who are homeless. … Work for their dignity and safety. Connect them to the variety of homeless services in the city. Support the provision of services to these people.”

BLOOMBERG AND OBAMA HAVE BREAKFAST: GREAT PIX

I love this AP pix by Diane Bondareff, that is on The City Room today. Read more at The Caucus.

AU CONTRAIRE: THE OCCASIONAL NOTE FROM PETER LOFFREDO

Here’s an urgent message from our Pal Pete from Full Permission Living.

URGENT! Check out today’s "Domestic Dusturbances" column by Judith Warner, called: "Helicopter Parenting Turns Deadly" (http://warner.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/29/helicopter-parenting-turns-deadly/).

Here’s a quote from this very tough article: “People now feel like having a good relationship with your child means you’re involved in every aspect of your child’s life,” says Rosalind Wiseman, author of “Queen Bees & Wannabes” and “Queen Bee Moms & Kingpin Dads,” who travels the country speaking with and counseling parents, teachers and teens.

“Nothing is off-limits” now between parents and their kids, she says. “There’s no privacy and there’s no critical thinking," she writes.

This is very painful reading, and yes, these are extreme cases of the harmful effects of parental over-involvement, but please don’t excuse yourself, good parents, from using these cases to examine where on the continuum of this kind of vicarious dysfunction you fall. These over-the-top examples are only the most grotesque manifestations of a wide-spread parenting pandemic.

A whole generation of children are suffering because of it, and the worst is yet to come when these kids grow up and try to have real adult relationships in the coming decades. While there’s still time, I urge you to do the work necessary to get your own lives and let your kids grow up.

COUNCIL OF BKLYN NABES ASK: WHAT MAKES BROOKLYN DIFFERENT FROM NEWARK?

The Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods, a coalition of community groups, along with several local pols renewed their demands for an independent security study of the Brooklyn Atlantic Yards project yesterday because it was revealed recently the basketball arena would be situated only 20 feet from both Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues.

This fact, which was revealed in a New York Times interview with a Forest City Ratner official last week, is a bit concern to local groups.

So what does Newark have to do with this?

Apparently, police in Newark recently closed two streets adjacent to the Prudential Center arena during events out of concern that a vehicular terrorist bomb could inflict significant damage upon the arena and its occupants. The streets ordered closed in Newark lie more than 20 feet from the arena’s walls.
This is from the CBN press release:

The Newark police department’s decision to close streets after the Prudential Center was approved and built, along with the NYPD-mandated redesign of already-approved plans for the World Trade Center ’s Freedom Tower , which increased building setbacks from 25 feet to 90 feet, are clear evidence that design and security are closely interconnected. The Prudential Center illustrates how security problems can radically alter the surrounding environment, while the Freedom Tower presents an example of significant changes to building design. Both scenarios appear possible in Brooklyn .

“The public must have the benefit of an independent and transparent inquiry into the design of the Atlantic Yards project and its arena, and the management techniques that will be put in place to ensure security at the site,” said Therese Urban, co-Chair of CBN. “Street closures would wreak havoc, and turning the arena into a bunker as a security ‘compromise’ would cheat Brooklynites of the ‘world-class’ design we’ve been promised.”

A SHIP’S HORN IN THE NIGHT

It’s on Gowanus Lounge today, who saw it on Clinton Hill Blog: A CHB reader asked: “Do you hear a noise like a fog horn or a ship’s horn on occasion? Is this noise from the Navy Yard, or from cruise ships coming and going from Red Hook, or from ordinary East River ship traffic?

My daughter asked the same thing last night. Here’s a transcript of that conversation to the best of my memory. We were walking down Third Street with friends.

“Is there some water nearby?” my daughter asked.

“No, the newstand is closed,” I said thinking she wanted some drinking water.

“No, I mean lots of water,” she said.

“Yeah, there’s a lake in the park and a big river not too far,” I said.

“Big enough for there to be big boats that make loud sounds?”

“Yeah,” I said.

Luckily my friend Ed was standing nearby. He grew up in Boerum Hil.

“It’s from the Gowanus. The boats on the Gowanus. When I was growing up I used to hear the boats on the Gowanus.”

Suddenly I got this very romantic picture of a boy growing up on Dean Street (back when Dean Street was Dean Street) listening to the far off boats on the Gowanus.

“Well, I’ve been hearing this low sounds at night. These horns or something. They sound like this…” she said making a low fog horn like sound.

SANTA CLAUS AT LEFFERTS ON SATURDAY

On the Park Slope Parents list-serve,  people have been asking where to find Santa Claus. Turns out he will be making an appearance on Saturday December 1 at the  Lefferts Historic House near the Prospect Park Zoo and the Merry Go Round. 

Get the jump on Santa Claus when the Wyckoff Farmhouse Museum celebrates St. Nicholas Day, the traditional Dutch holiday. The jolly man himself will arrive on horseback, and for more rustic charm, visitors can take a candlelight holiday tour to see how Brooklyn celebrated before electricity.
Noon-4 pm at the Wyckoff Farmhouse Museum (5816 Clarendon Rd. at 58th Street in Ditmas Park). $3. For information, call (718) 629-5400

Lefferts Historic House is located at the Children’s Corner,
      inside the Park’s Willink Entrance, at the intersection of Flatbush and
      Ocean Avenues and Empire Boulevard. Lefferts is also on the Blue
      Trail.

SELF-ABSORBED BOOMER WELCOMES 10,000th VISTIOR

I’m surprised he didn’t have a marching band or something.

Ever hospitable, Self-Absorbed Boomer, has been waiting patiently for his 10,000th visitor. Well, the day has arrived and SAB wants to reward this good person with something very special.

SAB is run by the multi-faceted Claude Scales. The sub-head of his blog reads: Take back this pudding. It has no theme." (Attributed to Winston Churchill). "[A] delightfully named blog" (Sewell Chan, New York Times). Taxing your attention span for over two years.

From what I can discern, SAB blogger, Claude Scales, is a lit professor lawyer with a passion for sports cars, great music, baseball, college football, literature, ships, the sea, trains, astronomy, paleontology and Brooklyn. He also writes for the Brooklyn Heights Blog. All around, he’s a delightful blogger. 

Visitor number 10,000 is from Bexley, Kent, England.
You visited my blog at about 9:30 p.m. your time on 26 November. Your ISP is NTL Internet, your OS is Windows XP, and you browse with Internet Explorer 7.0. To claim your prize (a CD of vintage American R&B), please send me your snail-mail address either by comment to this post, or by e-mail (use the link on my blog profile). Congratulations!

NO WORDS_DAILY PIX BY HUGH CRAWFORD

THAT’S ONE OF THE GIRLS FROM CARE BEARS ON FIRE IN THE CONVERSE AD

Have you seen the ad? It’s a very low tech shot of a 12-year-old girl playing the guitar and singing. There’s a blue background and the girl has brown hair. A title comes up that says: Learn Three Chords. You’ll Know 1,000 Songs.

At the end of the ad, the Converse logo fades up.

She’s one of the girls from Park Slope’s own, Care Bears on Fire.

THE INDIE AND SMALL PRESS BOOK FAIR: THIS WEEKEND IN MANHATTAN

Just got this shout out in my email:

The 20th Annual Independent and Small Press Book Fair takes place Saturday, December 1 and Sunday, December 2, at the New York Center for Independent Publishing, 20 West 44th Street in New York City.

With more than 100 cutting-edge presses from the US and abroad exhibiting some of the most innovative books in contemporary literature, the Book Fair is one of the most notable independent publishing events of the year. Admission to the Fair is free and open to the public, although a suggested donation of $1 is encouraged.

HIGHLIGHTS:

Over 100 acclaimed Indie Presses

Q&A with Fugazi founder Ian MacKaye

Panel Discussions and Readings Featuring: Amiri Baraka, Hattie Gossett, Rachel Kramer Bussel, Katha Pollitt, Katharine Sands, Tama Janowitz, Amy Scholder, Sinan Antoon, Arthur Nersesian, Aaron Petrovich, Slava Mogutin, and Glen E. Friedman.

WHERE:
The New York Center for Independent Publishing
The Landmark General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen Building
20 West 44th Street, New York City

WHEN:
Saturday, December 1, 10:00AM – 6:00PM
Sunday, December 2, 11:00AM – 5:00PM

CONTACT:
Christopher de la Torre, Assistant Director
212-764-7021, christopher@nycip.org

BROOKLYN READING WORKS: JAZZ WRITING, WRITING JAZZ

Brooklyn Reading Works presents author Jason Weiss and jazz/spoken word artist, Roy Nathanson on November 13th at 8 p.m. This should be quite a show. Hope to see you there.

The Old Stone House is located in JJ Byrne Park on Fifth Avenue and Third Street.

JASON WEISS will read from a new novel, Faces By the Wayside. He is the author of Conversations with Steve Lacy and Writing At Risk: Interviews in Paris with Uncommon Writers (University of Iowa Press, 1991).

ROY NATHANSON has a varied career as a saxophonist, composer, band-leader, actor and teacher. He is leader and principal composer of the Jazz Passengers, a six piece group that he founded with Curtis Fowlkes in 1987. They have toured Europe many times and played at major festivals in Finland, Germany, Italy, France and Switzerland—as wll as the J.V.C. Festival in New York, the De Maurier Festival In Canada and in clubs and concerts throughout the U.S. and Canada. The band has also recorded eight albums.

.

OTBKB’S HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE

I am still working on it but there still a lot on there. Have a look:

WELCOME TO OTBKB’S 2007 HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE. Created by Louise Crawford of Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn, a Park Slope blog, the guide is a great tip sheet for gifts on Park Slope’s Seventh and Fifth Avenues.

OTBKB stops in at just about every store on those Avenues and selects at least one UNIQUE and fabulous gift. Sometimes I find more. Much more. For location and more information about the store click on the store name and you will be transported to the shop’s website (if they have one). Any questions, comments, or additions, email louise_crawford(at)yahoo(dot)com. During the holiday season, it is a pleasure to shop locally and support local artisans and entrepreneurs.

Check back often, I will be updating throughout the gift buying season.

MAN GONE DOWN: ONE OF NY TIMES TOP TEN BOOKS OF 2007

Brooklyn author Michael Thomas’ book Man Gone Down was selected as one of the ten best books of 2007 by the New York Times Book Review. Thomas’ book is about a young black father of three in a biracial marriage on the eve of his thirty-fifth birthday looking for a job and a way to support the upscale lifestyle of his family. He finds himself broke, estranged from his family, and living in the Brooklyn bedroom of a friend’s six-year-old son.

Thomas is also one of the 2007 Park Slope 100 (which will be released on December 6th). Here’s my blurb:

Michael Thomas because your book Man Gone Done is written in a masterful first-person voice that is intense, poetic, angry, vulnerable, real, and full of thoughtful rage about race and class, marriage and love in New York City.

AILANTHUS VS. THE GINKO

Pastor Meeter prefers the Ginko. I think the golden leaves are beautiful. But have issues with the Ginko because of the way the berries smell. I call them stinkleberries and there are loads of them on the stoop at the Montauk Club from a Ginko tree. The Japanese make a soup out of Ginko berries. They boil them endlessly I would guess. I think they have spiritual/holistic/health properties. Here’s an excerpt from the Old First Blog.

Outside my window, across the street, next to the fence of Prospect Park, is a ginko tree. It shades the bench where Melody and I sometimes sit.

Last Wednesday, it still had all its leaves, though most of them had turned. We went to Connecticut for Thanksgiving. When we got back on Friday all its leaves were down. Suddenly, like that.

And there was a beautiful carpet of yellow gold, with touches of green, around our bench. The sidewalk was covered, and the carpet was clean and fresh. In a day or two its lustre would be gone.

The ailanthus is on our side of the street, right against our building. It seems to have dropped its leaves just as suddenly. But they were scattered, and on the street. And it dropped its stems as well, the long leaf stems on which its leaflets grow, and they now litter the corner like straw.

I do not love thee, ailanthus, as I love the ginko. You have come here from China too, but you are lower class, and you have no lovely bark, and your branches break, and people call you messy.

SLOPE SPORTS SPONSORS A SATURDAY MORNING GROUP RUN

I love the people over at Slope Sports and am always happy to know what they’re doing.

We run every Saturday morning at 8:00am – rain, snow or shine – all year round. Meet at the Grand Army Plaza entrance of the Park. We meet up & determine distances and routes there. All distances & paces welcome. It’s free and fun and a great way to meet people!

CALL FOR INDEPENDENT SECURITY STUDY OF ATLANTIC YARDS

This from Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn:

12:00 Noon
BROOKLYN, ATLANTIC YARDS LAND GRAB
PRESS CONFERENCE CITY HALL STEPS

Elected Officials and the Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods Renew Call for Independent Security Study of Atlantic Yards

State Senator Velmanette Montgomery, State Assembly Member Joan Millman, a representative of State Assembly Member Jim Brennan, City Council Members Letitia James, David Yassky and Bill de Blasio, and representatives of the Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods (CBN) will hold a press conference on the steps of City Hall to renew a call for an independent security study of the planned Brooklyn Atlantic Yards project, and especially its basketball arena, in light of this week’s revelation that portions of the glass-walled arena and other adjacent glass-walled buildings would lie a mere 20 feet from heavily trafficked Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues. Newark police officials recently mandated the closing of streets adjacent to that city’s new Prudential Center during arena events; those streets are approximately 25 feet from that arena’s walls.

NEW SIGN AT OLD FIRST: CALL 311 FOR THE HOMELESS

There’s a new sign at Old First from the Park Slope Coalition for the Homeless. It’s about calling 311 when you need to get help for a homeless person. The sign is obviously an outgrowth of the meeting of the Department of Homeless Services and the newly established Park Slope Homeless Coalition, which is made up of representatives from the community, Beth Elohim and Old First Church that was held more than a week ago at Beth Elohim. Here’s some background on why the sign is there from Andy Bachman’s blog:

And finally, we learned that the fastest way to immediate help is by dialing 311.

Sounds too good to be true, right?

Well last night, while walking home, I encountered what one would call a chronically homeless man. He was in his 30s; seemed mentally disturbed; and was silent, sitting atop a park bench near my apartment. I approached him and said hello. He looked back and said nothing.

So I walked some distance and called 311. It was 11 pm. The phone picked up and I got a very friendly city employee. She immediately connected me to DHS. I stayed on the phone for five minutes, giving a profile of the man along with my name and number. And within the hour, a team was dispatched. I was told I’d get a call today to follow up and let me know how it went.

I was impressed enough by the response. If I get the call today, I’ll be blown away.

To know, at this level, that human dignity is at the core of this city agency’s mission and that it squares with the mission of the synagogue and the church is a good sign–a siman tov–for the ecumenical and human ability to solve problems, increase ethics, and, for those so-inclined, do God’s work in the world.

As the meeting ended, I thought and said aloud, “We should overturn Term Limits in the city. Why not let the city elect the Mayor for as many terms as it takes to build this kind of culture of problem solving.”

BROOKLYN BASED: BRINGING YOU THE BEST OF BROOKLYN

Brooklyn Based tipped us off about The Brooklyn Sampler, a beautiful package of items made or designed here in Brooklyn, by artists, designers and crafters who hail from Bed-Stuy, Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, Ditmas Park, East New York, Fort Greene, Greenpoint, Kensington, Park Slope, Prospect Heights, Sunset Park, Williamsburg, and Windsor Terrace, and whose work is available at fabulous boutiques like Spring in Dumbo, Rare Device in Park Slope, the Brooklyn Indie Market, or online at that one-stop-shop for handmade goods, Etsy.

This box is so Brooklyn, it’s even wrapped in Brooklyn maps and lined with The Brooklyn Paper (there’s also a map of the future Brooklyn Greenway and a Zagat’s guide to BK restos inside).

Here’s the other kicker: It’s $20 (plus shipping), an incredible value for one-of-a-kind work made by your gifted neighbors, curated by Brooklyn Based, and sold by The Sampler, a San Francisco company whose founder Marie Kare came up with this brilliant idea of mailing boxes filled with the wares of indie businesses to spread the word about their work. This month they began a series of Samplers called City Samplers, packed with goods native to one place. It launched with their hometown, and Brooklyn Based happened to call at the right moment and propose a box filled with goodies made by Brooklynites.

Brooklyn Based is a tri-weekly email that will tell you about what’s going on in Brooklyn. Sort of a Daily Candy for Brooklyn I think. Founder/Editor Nicole Davis is also the arts editor of three community papers in Manhattan, and writes for a number of publications. She moved to Brooklyn in 1997, and lives in Clinton Hill with her husband. Turns out that the Brooklyn Sampler is a collaboration between Brooklyn Based and The Sampler, a company in San Francisco. Davis wrote me in an email: “I called them and said, “Wouldn’t it be great if I put together a sampler of just Brooklyn goods and they said, “How did you know we had just begun doing City Samplers (which focus on one place)?”

So it was serendipity. They agreed to let me curate it, and I rounded everyone up and got the stuff to them, and am trying to promote it as best I can. The Sampler folks do a lot of promoting, too and decoupage the boxes, so they should look great,

Davis describes Brooklyn Based, as a much more in-depth version of Manhattan Users Guide for Brooklyn– a lifestyle newsletter (art, events, food, etc) with a little focus on shopping. Here’s the blurb from the Brooklyn Based website.

Like all good things, we come in threes — three emails a week that will help you get the most out of the County of Kings.

We won’t cram your inbox with a laundry list of things to do, or convince you to buy things you don’t need, or tell you the same exact thing you already learned from your favorite blog, mag or paper. (And we certainly won’t spam you.)

Think of us as an essential supplement to the best food, art, services, shops and people the borough has to offer: Brooklyn distilled.

Sound good? Then sign up for Brooklyn Based, delivered Tuesday through Thursday.

IT’S OFFICIAL: DAVID YASSKY IS RUNNING FOR COMPTROLLER

City Councilmember David Yassky has decided to run for Comproller in 2009. Here’s an excerpt from his e-newsletter:

As New York City’s Comptroller, I will be a citywide leader with a strong platform for progressive and effective City government. I will be an aggressive fiscal watchdog, working to make sure we get every penny’s worth of value from our City agencies. I will push to attract more investment to New York, to reduce the City’s massive debt burden, and to confront long-term environmental challenges. And I will measure my success – just as I have done in the Council – not by headlines or votes, but by concrete results

.

NO WORDS_DAILY PIX BY HUGH CRAWFORD

KICKING OFF THE HOLIDAY WITH A GROWER CHAMPAGNE TASTING

Join Green Grape in Brooklyn this Thursday,
November 29, from 6:00pm to 8:00pm for a rare opportunity to taste four
different grower champagnes back to back!

The bubblies are all from Terry
Thiese, the primary importer of grower champagne, and a member of his team will
be on hand to answer questions about what Terry calls “farmer-fizz."

Grower champagnes are made by small producers who have the advantage of growing
their own grapes and fashioning their own style.  The event is FREE and no
reservations are required. 

The Greene Grape is located at 765 Fulton
between South Oxford and South
  Portland (718) 797-9463.

Photo by Craig Lee for the SF Chronicle.

AU CONTRAIRE: THE OCCASIONAL NOTE FROM PETER LOFFREDO

Here’s something new from our pal Pete of Full Permission Living.

There’s
a nice piece on the benfits of napping and giving oneself as a parent
time for rest and recovery from the tasks of the daily job on Heather
Cabot’s website: http://www.thewellmom.com.

I have incorporated napping into my daily routine since the late 1980′s
- 20 to 40 minutes usually does it – and I have found that it can be a
great help in re-energizing the body and clearing the mind, important
to me, not only as a parent, but in my work as a therapist and writer.
Solving an intractable mental problem, like writer’s block, for
example, can frequently give way if you "sleep on it." Another good
alternative to refresh the body and mind is a walk – preferably in
nature (Prospect Park
is still pristine enough and quite suitable). Getting out of the house
and moving one’s body is also a great reliever of stress, anxiety and
depression in the short run. So, folks, have your R & R every day,
along with your apple, and keep the doldrums away.

Peter Loffredo (http://fullpermissionliving.blogspot.com/)

MANY MORE BLACK AND HISPANIC FIREFIGHTER APPLICANTS

The New York Times reports that the FDNY pool of black and Hispanic job applicants has more than doubled since 2002.

This comes two months after the Justice Department sued the city charging that the firefighter written entrance exam
screened out a large number of blacks and Hispanics.

Now, 30 percent of the 4,000 applicants scoring highest
on this year’s exam were black or Hispanic, compared with just under 14
percent in 2002.

There were also
three times as many women in this year’s top 4,000.

PS I LOVE YOU ON KARMA TUBE

PS I LOVE YOU in the Brooklyn Paper is written by OTBKB friend and fave, Wendy Ponte. Here’s her column  about  KarmaTube, the YouTube of spirituality videos. According to their website: "It’s a collection of short, "do something" videos coupled with
simple actions that every viewer can take. Our mission is to spread the
good. Thank you for your partnership in service." 

What goes around, comes around — or so they say. Or, as my friend Jenny
Douglas, a Park Sloper and one of the creators and coordinators of
KarmaTube.org, says, “Light begets light.”

KarmaTube
is the latest user-generated content Web site, like YouTube, where
viewers provide the videos. But that’s where the resemblance ends.
KarmaTube’s videos are meant to inspire change and spread some good
around. Apparently it’s really caught on — launched last January,
KarmaTube already has more than 10,000 subscribers.

KarmaTube is
run on a completely volunteer basis and operates with zero budget.
This, Douglas tells me, is part of the beauty of the organization. It
is all about service and creating good karma…

READ THE REST HERE.

SHARE YOUR FAVE HOLIDAY COOKIE RECIPE WITH LENNY LOPATE

With holiday baking season in full swing, I thought
"Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn" readers might be
interested in a recipe swap run by WNYC, New York
public radio.

"The Leonard Lopate Show" is asking visitors to share
their favorite holiday cookie recipe, along with the
reason why the recipe is special:

<http://www.wnyc.org/shows/lopate/episodes/2007/12/11/segments/89398>

Special guest Ruth Reichl, Gourmet magazine editor in
chief, will pick her favorites and talk about them
on-air.

The deadline to post a recipe is Thursday, Dec. 6, at
noon.

Thanks for your consideration. If you have any
questions, please let me know.

Best regards,
  Chrys Wu
  Editorial Curator
  for WNYC.org
  <http://www(dot)wnyc(dot)org>

A COFFEE SHOP ON FOURTH AVE: BLOGGERS DISCUSS

Gowanus Lounge has this to say:

Yesterday, we posted about the new Brooklyn Bean that is opening at Fourth Avenue and Carroll Street. Brownstoner posted about it too, noting that it is an offshoot of Cuppa Cuppa in the East Village and has nothing to do with Brookyn Bean & Tea Company
on Atlantic Avenue. Of course, we had assumed that the new Brooklyn
Bean was an offshoot of the Atlantic Avenue Brooklyn Bean. Wrong. We
got an email yesterday afternoon from the owner of (the Atlantic
Avenue) Brooklyn Bean & Tea Company pointing out that the two
Brooklyn Beans have nothing to do with each other. The email from Jeremy Lugo simply said:

Velvet Sea had this to say about the new coffee place. VS even has pictures, including the one above.

Brooklyn Bean replaces Family Car Service- relocated to the rear of the
building. They will have some coffee competition, as there is El Cafetin
in the Lyceum and McDonald’s with it’s "69 cents any coffee any size"
diagonally across the street in either direction as well as Ozzie’s and
Trois Pommesth Ave, which serves Gorilla Coffee just up the block on Fifth Avenue.

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