My friend Shawn Dulaney is one of many DUMBO artists whose studio will be open to visitors this weekend during the DUMBO: Art Under the Bridge Festival
Go here for more information and map
Next weekend, it’s the Gowanus Artists Studio Tour. More on that next week.
Painting by Shawn Dulaney
This is the DOT press release:
The New York City Department of Transportation (DOT) announced that beginning Sunday, October 15, the lower roadway of the Manhattan Bridge will be closed for the next year. During these twelve months all three lanes of the lower roadway will undergo a complete rehabilitation.
While the upper level of the Manhattan Bridge will remain open, DOT recommends that motorists use an alternate route to cross the East River during this closure. During the rehabilitation there will be no access to the lower roadway from either end of the bridge. All traffic will be directed to the upper roadways where two lanes will be maintained in both directions at all times. Pedestrians and bicyclists will share access along the Manhattan Bridge’s South walkway since the North bikeway will be closed. New York City Transit service on the bridge will not be affected. To help distribute traffic amongst the other East River crossings, the North Outer Roadway on the Williamsburg Bridge will be open to truck traffic.
What a brouhaha. Brooklyn Papers put that rather lewd pix of Maggie G. from the film "Secretary" on the cover of last week’s paper and boy did they take the heat for it.
People around here went CRAZY. And the Papers got a whole bunch of letters from angry readers, who said that the BP went too far. They even heard from a former editor of the paper who said she’d never do something like that on her watch.
All week I heard from people who were P.O.ed about it. Most said they thought it was downright unneighborly, unfriendly and a cheap shot. A man, a parent at PS 321, said to me today: "Do you write for that paper that put that cheap shot of Maggie Gyllenhaal on the cover. I couldn’t believe it. Not very neighborly I’d say."
For all the people who were flabbergasted, there were probably some who enjoyed the picture. I found it interesting myself because I’ve never seen the movie.
It’s based on a brilliant short story by one of my favorite writers, Mary Gaitskill, about a secretary and her boss, a demanding lawyer, and the sexual, sadomasochistic relationship that ensues. It’s from a short story collection called "Bad Behavior," works of short fiction that are as bold and provoking as that picture of Maggie.
On Monday October 16th I have tickets to see Mary Gaitskill at the 92nd Street Y, where she’ll be reading and discussing her acclaimed new novel, Veronica. Maybe I should bring a copy of the Brooklyn Papers.
Anyway, I’ve wanted to see the movie and when I saw the picture instead of going bonkers I said to myself, "Oh that must be a still from that movie she made called "Secretary."
I also noticed that by Tuesday morning there were NO copies left at Key Food. Now Key Food receives something like 3000 papers every Friday. So I thought that either that was one popular issue of the Brooklyn Papers or someone decided to get rid of them.
I think the latter may be the case.
Well, Brooklyn Papers published a very nice apology today and the whole thing should just evaporate. Be gone. Shoo. Shoo. Bye Bye Brouhaha.
Somehow I doubt that.
Today is the official release date of the 13th and last book of the Lemony Snicket book, THE END. Here’s an excerpt from the back cover of the new book.
Our friends, Red Eft and Dadu, are having a party on Sunday. Red Eft’s brother, a supernumerary at the Metropolitan Opera, was going to come in make up and costume as Count Olaf but he had to decline. We’re hoping someone else will dress up as the Count.
Dear Reader,
You are presumably looking at the back of this book, or the end of the
end. The end of the end is the best place to begin the end, because if
you read the end from the beginning of the beginning of the end to the
end of the end of the end, you will arrive at the end of the end of
your rope.
This book is the last in A Series of Unfortunate Events, and even if
you braved the previous twelve volumes, you probably can’t stand such
unpleasantries as a fearsome storm, a suspicious beverage, a herd of
wild sheep, an enormous bird cage, and a truly haunting secret about
the Baudelaire parents.
It has been my solemn occupation to complete the history of the
Baudelaire orphans, and at last I am finished. You likely have some
other occupation, so if I were you I would drop this book at once, so
the end does not finish you.
With all due respect,
This may be a rumor but let me the first to rumor it: Peek-a-Boo Kids on Seventh Avenue, the nice children’s shop with the fantabulous selection of high-end European shoes and Stride Rites, may be vacating their shop on Seventh Avenue between Union and Berkeley Place. And here’s the really juicy, "there goes the neighborhood" part:
Dunkin Donuts (and maybe Baskin Robins because they seem to be joined at the hip these days) is coming in.
First I’d like to thank my friend who is really OTBKB’s unpaid, all-about-the-Slope reporter. She’s constantly tipping OTBKB off to great stuff. Thanks, Friend (you know who you are and I don’t want to reveal your identity so that people will continue to tip you off).
I told Daniel Meeter, Pastor of Old First Church, a reader of OTBKB, and, like me, a person who actually likes Dunkin Donuts coffee ("I don’t drink Starbucks," he said) He thinks we should meet with them and suggest that they give the place a slightly slopey feel. Maybe they’d like our opinion as to how to fit into the neighborhood.
It worked with Commerce Bank to an extent. Praise the lord and Aaron Naparstak that there’s no drive thru bank there.
But all of this is putting the cart before the horse. Here’s the rumor: Peek-a-Boo is out. Dunkin Donuts is coming in (on the same block as a Bank of America, no less).
The rent must be going sky high.
The neighborhoods is going to the donuts.
Yesterday, Bush dismissed the findings of researchers from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and the Al
Mustansiriya University in Baghdad derived from a
door-to-door survey, conducted by doctors, of 1,849 households in Iraq.
In a speech a few months ago, Bush said he thought the Iraqi death toll was 30,000.
Johns Hopkins and Al Mustansiriya researchers took the number of deaths reported by household residents, they
extrapolated to a nationwide figure saying that the war has resulted in the deaths of nearly 655,000 Iraqis as of July.
The researchers, reflecting the inherent uncertainties in such
extrapolations, said they were 95 percent certain that the real number
lay somewhere between 392,979 and 942,636 deaths.
Footprints: Portraits of a Brooklyn Neighborhood. Artists respond to the Atlantic Yards controversy. The show opens today at Grand Space in Prospect Heights. 778 Bergen St. (top buzzer), between Washington Ave. and Grand Ave. (on the corner of Grand). The building is a 3-story warehouse, painted yellow on the front, with fun drawings of flowers, birds, and fishes at street level.
In the midst of the stormy debate over the "Atlantic Yards" and Brooklyn’s future, the Footprints group, a group of local artists, has joined together to move beyond the sound bites and take a closer look at the neighborhood in question, its community, and issues surrounding redevelopment. Their work will be exhibited at Grand Space from October 7 thru November 3, W-F 5-8 pm, S-S 11am – 4pm, with an opening reception on Thursday, October 12, from 6 to 9pm.
Literature from the "Axis of Evil", gathers short stories and poems
from three countries that once received that label from President Bush
— Iraq, North Korea and Iran. Additional material in the collection
comes from Syria, Cuba, Sudan and Libya.
On Thursday’s Morning Edition on NPR, Steve Inskeep spoke with Azar Nafisi, an Iranian-born writer and author of Reading Lolita in Tehran. She says that writing can offer insights into a country that aren’t part of the official government line.
"The
governments might be considered quote unquote the enemy, but definitely
not the people," Nafisi says. "These stories and poems offer an
alternate view, which is very different from the politicized and
polarized view of these nations."
She says that Iranian writers, for example, use a subtle approach to criticize their own government.
"Because
subtlety is in fact a way of resistance — the brutal obviousness of an
authoritarian state. [Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] is very
obvious… but these writers are subtle because they are trying to also
shape the mind of the readers" with nuance and playfulness.
There’s also a CD of lullabies from the AOE. Producer Erik Hilstadt recorded lullabies sung by women from countries deemed
U.S. enemies. "Lullabies lead us to the deepest and most fundamental
way of communication between human beings," he says in the CD’s liner
notes.
Police arrest one man in connection with the disgusting bias crime attack in Brooklyn. Here’s the story from New York 1.
Three more people are being questioned and one person is under
arrest in connection with an attack in Brooklyn Sunday night that ended
with the victim hospitalized in critical condition after he was beaten
then hit by a car on the Belt Parkway.Police said 19-year-old John Fox of Brooklyn has been charged with
one count of assault and two counts of robbery as a hate crime in
direct connection to the Sunday night attack.Sources say that Fox, a sophomore at SUNY Maritime, met 28-year-old
Michael Sandy online and led him into the trap that left the Long
Island man brain dead in Brookdale Hospital.Fox’s father said his son never did anything like this before.
"He has a black roomate," said Fox. "They are friends. Ugh, he’s not a racist. He’s a good kid."
Investigators say the victim went to Plum Beach Sunday night and
was beaten by as many as four white men. Sandy met Fox and drove to a
parking lot where the other men were waiting. As the victim broke free
of his attackers, he was hit by a car on the Belt Parkway, suffering
serious injuries to his body and to his head.
The northern end of the airspace over the East River where Cory Lidel and his flight instructor were flying on Wednesday is said to be a fearsome, narrow corridor. This from the NY Times.
The northern end of the airspace over the East River is a
treacherous, narrow corridor often filled with helicopters ferrying
tourists, business people and traffic reporters along the edge of
Manhattan. Small planes like Mr. Lidle’s are allowed to fly through the
area at low altitude, but several pilots said they did not dare because
it could be crowded.The spot where Mr. Lidle’s plane, a
single-engine Cirrus SR20, struck the apartment building on the Upper
East Side is near the end of the “uncontrolled” corridor at the edge of
the airspace governed by La Guardia Airport. Inside that corridor,
small planes and helicopters can fly below 1,100 feet without getting
clearance from air-traffic controllers. Using what are known as visual
flight rules, or V.F.R., they assume responsibility for watching out
for other aircraft and structures and avoiding them.Mr. Lidle’s plane was traveling north before it crashed into the
north side of the building. Officials said they did not know if the
plane had been turning around when it crashed.
To continue
north beyond Roosevelt Island around 86th Street, pilots must radio the
La Guardia control tower and seek permission. Controllers usually allow
pilots to do so, and the Cirrus would probably have received such
permission, said William S. McLoughlin, head of the La Guardia tower
chapter of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association.But
many pilots choose to make a U-turn instead, several pilots said
yesterday. Still, they said, reversing direction there , which normally
involves a turn to the left, can be challenging. Yesterday afternoon,
according to the National Weather Service, the wind was blowing from the east at 14 miles per hour, conditions that would have made the turn wider.
The Old Stone House presents "TEENS FOR THE PHILLIPINES," a benefit for homeless street children in Manila.
Here’s the blurb from Cool and Unusual Punishment’s My Space page:
This
is a benefit for Phillipine teenagers who have no money for food (OR
GUITARS!) they have to do horrible things such as prostitution and drug
dealing just to make a living! This show will be just as awesome as the last OLD STONE HOUSE show,If you don’t remember how cool it was, you
probably weren’t there. Come hear: Zack Fine and Aman on sitar and tabla, RAPR, Somewhere There’s a Fix, Tetsuwan Fireball, and Cool and Unusual Punishment. So come.
SEE YOU THERE: October, 14, 2006 at the Old Stone House
Fifth Ave. Between 3rd and 4th Street in JJ Byrne Park at the Old Stone House
Cost: $5.00 for kids $10.00 for adults
OTBKB got a lot of great comments on her post about the Lubavitch guys on Seventh Avenue, who ask: "Are you Jewish?"
Back in the early ’70s, the Lubavitchers would have their
mitzvahmobile outside Hillel Gate at Brooklyn College every afternoon.
Those of us walking on or off campus used to try to come up with more
creative ways to deny our religious heritage when asked the "Are
you…" question than just doing the thing Nancy Reagan would later
advise.Some of the responses I remember best:
"Certainly not!"
"Are you making fun of my looks?"
"G-d forbid."
–posted by Richard
My friend (who shall remain unnamed,) who is Jewish and has no love
for the Lubavitchers, responds to the question "Are you Jewish?" with
"Yes, I am, but you’re not!"Posted by: chandru
Now Rabbi Bachman, the new rabbi at Congregation Beth Elohim, weighs in on the debate on his own blog at Brooklyn Jews.
It’s
not every day you get to talk theology with your kids, but the usual
Festival nuisance of having Chabad missionize outside your home
provides just the right framework to talk about who is God and who
isn’t.Flatbush Avenue is enough of a cacaphony without
phoney Jewish music and the quick, alienating, shame-inducing question
“Excuse me, are you Jewish?” being added to the din of Central Brooklyn
aural ecology.“Yes, and no thanks,” is what my kids decided to
say when encountered by the Happy Warriors for the Resurrection of
Their Bearded Idol. A very polite response, and one to be proud of. I
on the other hand, stew at their presence. The whole premise makes me
nuts.There’s the theological affront: you shake lulav (if
you’re Jewish) you bring Messiah (who converts the rest of the world.)
It’s every bit as disdainful and reactionary as the Rightest of the
Christian Right, yet somehow, dressed as Tevye (which is an insult to
Sholem Aleichem) our hearts sing like a violin at the encounter. “How
nice that they’re getting Jews to perform mitzvot,” we blather on.
Yeah, yeah.Somehow it escapes us that they are allied with the
most intransigent settler forces in contemporary Israel; that
politically in the States they advocate not a broad Jewish communal
agenda but strictly their own; and in our own neighborhood, don’t play
ball with the whole team but field their own brand–even fighting among
themselves (right now, it’s the Prospect Heights Chabad v. the Park
Slope Chabad–more Jewish infighting, boys, well done! I guess Moshiach
isn’t here yet). So what’s a mensch to do: Chase down every last
unaffiliated Jew in order to bring a False Messiah. It is NOT to get
Jews to do more Mitzvot. It’s to bring their dead rabbi back to life
because he’s God. The greatest heresy there is.It would be
easy to ignore if, like Jehovah’s Witnesses, they quietly went about
their business. But they don’t. And it points to a great achilles heel
of the Jewish condition: we’re so alienated from Torah on our own terms
that we accept such agents on our behalf, even if there is at the very
core a heresy so great that none other than Moses’ burial place is not
known to this day.At a grave in Queens, the hopefuls daven
away for his return while the world burns. And the sentimental sounds
of a clarinet blare in my ear on my street corner, or maybe we’ll say
someone plays the fiddle while not just Rome but the whole world is in
flames.As Sukkot draws to a close, let me offer a prayer for a
Sane Judaism; for a Responsible Judaism; for a Humble Judaism; for a
Judaism concerned with humanity’s well-being; for a Judaism that
doesn’t ask, “Excuse me, are you Jewish?” but asks, “How can we work
together to bring peace to the world–you believing your God, me
believing my God–with both of us admitting that ultimately there is One
God–and he is not rising from a grave in Queens.
Stone Park Cafe (stoneparkcafe.com) has a web site and it even has a quote from OTBKB on their restaurant review page.
Remember last year when I had a restaurant reviewer named Paul Leschen. He was such smart foodie and a great writer. I loved his stuff. Especially his survey of burgers on Fifth Avenue. Stone Park was his big FAVE.
Stone Park, the new darling of the neighborhood serves a mean-ass burger. Whew."
-Paul Leschen on Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn
I’m sorry that Paul Leschen doesn’t write for OTBKB anymore (and he’s welcome to come back anytime) but soon there will be a new Wednesday Foodie feature on OTBKB.
And it’s gonna be way cool.
Jacob, a seven year old I know, is unusually sophisticated about food and restaurants and he wants to write about them. So coming at you next Wednesday: THE UNDERAGED GOURMET
THE UNDERAGED GOURMET will give you a child eye’s view of the Brooklyn restaurant scene. Find out what restaurants kids REALLY like and why.
A small plane crashed into an Upper East Side apartment building at 2:45 this afternoon.
Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle was on
board the small aircraft that crashed into a residential building at
524 E. 72nd Street.
FAA records
show the plane was registered to Cory Lidle and he was scheduled to return
home today. He was on the plane with his flight instructor. His passport was found on the sidewalk.
Lidle, 34, was recently acquired by New York from the Philadelphia
Phillies with Bobby Abreu at the trade deadline. He pitched in Game 4
against Detroit on Saturday. He leaves behind a wife and
a six-year-old son.
The Belaire Building between York Avenue and the
FDR was struck by the plane shortly before 3 p.m. Eyewitnesses describe
“huge pieces” of debris raining down on the street below as several
apartments were engulfed in flames.
The Fire
Department had the flames extinguished in about 80 minutes.
Residents of the condo and the building next door were evacuated as
thick black smoke wafted above the city skyline, and flames shot from
the apartments where the plane crashed.
As of 5:45 residents of the apartment building were being allowed back in.
A report by the National Fair Housing Alliance, a consortium, which is working against housing discrimination, said yesterday that the Corcoran Group in Brooklyn Heghts had engaged in
discriminatory sales practices, including racial steering and
withholding information from African-American clients. This from the New York Times.
“During
our 16 years of existence, the National Fair Housing Alliance has never
seen such a literal and blatant example of sales steering,” the group
wrote in a report detailing its allegations. In that particular
instance, the report said, an agent “produced a map of Brooklyn and
drew a red outline of the areas in which the white home seeker should
consider living.” The agent used arrows to indicate neighborhoods that
were “changing.”“This racial steering tactic is reminiscent of
discriminatory conduct from the 1970’s, when real estate agents would
go into white neighborhoods with the specific intention of triggering
white flight by showing on a map where an African-American family had
bought a house,” the alliance wrote. “This Corcoran Group agent applied
a new trick — he used a map to tell whites instead where they should
‘flee to.’ ”Pamela Liebman, president and chief executive
officer of Corcoran, said in an interview yesterday that her firm “has
always been devoted to fair housing” and recently required all of its
agents to undergo four hours of training in fair housing law and
practices.She said, “I have never been given the specific
charges as they relate to the Corcoran Group and I anxiously await them
as we intend to defend ourselves vigorously.”She said she could not comment further on the allegations because she had not seen them
Look at this cool design for the New York Aquarium renovation/reinvention from WRT and Cloud9. I like it.
A final selection
is expected before the end of fall.
· From 3 Finalists in Aquarium’s Redesign, Swoops, Swirls and Great Water Views [NYT]
I didn’t know about the new Aviator Sports and Recreation Center at Floyd Bennett Field. Now I do thanks to the Daily News.
As winter approaches, so do sports involving plenty of ice.
And devotees can find it at Floyd Bennett Field, of all places.
At the brand new Aviator Sports and Recreation Center there – which
will eventually be open nearly ’round the clock – visitors can skate on
one of two NHL regulation-sized rinks, rock climb on a 35-foot wall,
work out in a gymnastics and dance training center, make purchases at a
pro shop and enjoy food court snacks.Even Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-Brooklyn) took a spin on the ice,
surrounded by "future [hockey] stars" to celebrate the opening of the
facility last week.The new rink scored a perfect 10 with just about everybody braving the ice the other day.
Elena Pipko of Manhattan said she liked the rink so much, she plans
regular commutes. Her daughter Elizabeth, 11, is a competitive figure
skater. "It’s a long drive," Pipko said, "but worth it. They offer ice
skating and training, and we’re going to come here every week."Hunter Marciano, an 11-year-old hockey player from Sheepshead Bay, said he wants to come to the rink all the time.
His mother, Karen Marciano, added, "I’ve been waiting 25 years for
something like this. It’s great. I’m taking skating lessons with my
kids."Annmarie Cariello of Bergen Beach said she used to take her two daughters to Prospect Park for lessons.
"It’s about time there was something on this end of Brooklyn," Cariello said.
After watching his 3-year-old daughter Hagan try the ice, John Carlin,
40, of Rockaway Beach, Queens, said, "The staff is more than
hospitable. They calmed my daughter, who was a nervous wreck on the
ice."The rink charges adults $8 to skate for 2-1/2 hours. Kids 12 and under
pay $6. Skate rentals are $4 and family plans are available.When the facility is totally completed in mid-November, hours will be 5
a.m. to 1 a.m. Presently, hours are 6 a.m. to 12:30 a.m. Call (718)
758-9800 for more information.Here are some other places in Brooklyn where you can ice skate:
Abe Stark Skating Rink, W. 19th St. between Surf Ave. and the Boardwalk, Coney Island: Includes group instruction for ice hockey or figure skating. Now open
on Saturday and Sunday from 1:30-4 p.m. and during the week on school
holidays. Admission is $8 for everyone and skate rentals are $4. For
more information, call (718) 946-6536.
Prospect Park’s Kate Wollman Rink, Parkside Ave. and Ocean Ave. entrance: Opening in late November, this rink has a snack bar, a skate shop and
free lockers. Lessons and classes are available. Admission is $5 for
adults, $3 for seniors and children under the age of 14. For hours,
call (718) 282-1226 or visit www.prospectpark.org for more information.
More on the alleged racial profiling by a New York Police Department Captain from New York 1:
Officers from Transit Bureau 30 in Brooklyn said that during roll
call last week, Captain Michael Vanchieri instructed them to stop and
frisk all black males in certain stops along the F-line in the Park
Slope area.Members of the organization 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care
and the National Latino Officers Association say they are outraged and
they are calling for Vanchieri to resign.They also want a federal probe into the matter as well as a full investigation by the NYPD.
"It should be obvious to all those who respect the Constitution,
who respect the laws and regulations, that there are some serious
violations that occurred as a result of that direction," said Marq
Claxton of 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement."It can’t be done,” added Anthony Miranda, of the National Latino
Officers Association. “It’s a violation of people’s civil rights. It’s
something that as a community the people are already outraged. And what
they’re doing is putting police officers in a position of
endangerment."Police Commissioner Ray Kelly maintains Captain Vanchieri was misunderstood.
"He gave a description of those individuals and asked if anybody
sees them, if anyone matched that description, to stop and speak to
them,” said Kelly in a statement. “All indications are that there was
some sort of misunderstanding as to what his directions were."
The new rabbi at Beth Elohim, the reform synagogue on Garfield place, is a thoughtful guy AND he’s blogger. How cool is that? This is from his blog at brooklynjews.com
In Brooklyn, there are a variety of overlapping constituencies who are “seeking” some affiliation and they haven’t fully been able to articulate what it is. On one level, they know what they want: a meaningful prayer experience on their own terms. And right now, they are “taking responsibility for it” by organizing the prayer experiences. But none, as yet, have fully expressed a desire to pay for it. But that’s increasingly become my message to them. Join. Pay. Very uncool–or is it?
The impression of the Inside the Boxers is usually two-fold: these young kids have entitlement and they need to grow up and join; or, we need to open our institutions to them and welcome them in, then they’ll join. The impression of the Outside the Boxers is also usually two-fold: let us in and don’t make us pay; or, let us in please and we’ll give what we can.
What I’m experiencing right now is an organic melding of the two and there is no road map for this but the instincts of the human heart. Stay open and welcoming; know when to push for responsibility.
And we’re beginning to see that as the world continues to spiral into an increasingly uncertain and dangerous place, responsibility is a fairly attractive ethical response.
Put another way, there’s no more “Either-Or” in this initiative of creating new modes in New Jewish Culture.
Today, I left a bar mitzvah and stood on the sidewalk as the kids climbed into a Stretch Hummer to take them to the party, rendering a potentially meaningful understanding of Sukkot’s message about the fragility of our Earthly existence practically meaningless. One struggles to explain, while Inside the Box, the basic principles of Jewish life, hoping to have an impact, only to be sucked into fog of the exhaust pipe of a gas guzzling Hummer, hovering haze-like Outside the Box.
Later in the day, walking up Flatbush Avenue, I looked into the window of American Apparel, which always seems empty–maybe as empty as its sex starved owner, who lures fame seeking women and men into his own mini-porn ads while wrapping himself in the Outside the Box value of “No Sweat Clothing.” God willing five years after the New Jew movement got itself all in a lather about how cool American Apparel is, maybe it’s emptiness in trendy Brooklyn is a sign that we’ve figured out the value is fair labor, not rebranding.
Ah, I’m just as guilty as any of these jokers trying all sorts of cool ways to attract young Jews.
One time, I was at an exclusive gathering in some western mountains, feeding Jewish content to some young hip media types and I had one beer too many, which in the mountains, you never want to do. The only thing that made me feel better, as you might guess, was moving things from inside to outside the box.
I was ashamed; but found comfort in Isaiah’s famous prophecy, read each year eerily close to New Year’s Eve on Parshat Shmot: “But these too are reeling with wine and dazed by liquor: priest and prophet reel with liquor, are besotted with wine and totter in judgement. Yes, every table is covered with vomit and filth, not a place is left clean…Therefore teach them one command and then another, one line and then another, a little here, a little there.”
Torah, Avodah, Gemilut Hasadim.
Learning, Spirituality, Community.
Inside and Outside.
There is no box.
Just one command and another.
One line and then another.
I don’t usually do this sort of thing. But this email arrived in my inbox this morning and these parents could use our help.
Dear Friends,
We have very troubling news in our synagogue community today. Zachary Manning, 15, is missing.
His parents, Lawrence and Phyllis and his sister Kelsey are desperate to find him. They want him home. They want him to know that they love him and they want him to call.
NYPD Det. Angel Martinez at 845-820-8435 is on the case (number 4089). You can also call the private detective Gil Alba is also working on the case, and can be reached at 914.646.1302. The NY Post blotter has already picked his story up. http://www.nypost.com/news/nypdblotter/nypdblotter.htm. Those of you with media connections — please think about putting this story out.
The family is asking help from AC members in one practical and one spiritual way:
1. We have several hundred missing persons flyers with Zachary’s picture. Please come to Ansche Chesed, take a handful and paper them everywhere you can. In particular: if a few people have a little time to volunteer, the Mannings need people to paper the subways. Can you ride the 2/3 train line into Brooklyn or the 1 train line up and down, or go into Grand Central and Penn stations to paper the areas there? Millions of people will see these flyers and may see Zachary. This is of the utmost importance.
2. Larry and Phyllis ask for your hearts in prayer for their family and for Zachary, whose Hebrew name is Reuven ben Pesyel. You might say Psalm 63 on his behalf, said by King David while lost in the desert, about having faith in returning home, or Psalm 84, about the strength needed to walk through the valley of tears. Or say this verse, from the end of Lamentations: Hashivenu Adonay eylekha ve’nashuva. Hadesh yameinu kekedem. Return us toward you God, and we will return home. Renew our days, as before.
A team of American and Iraqi public health researchers has estimated that 600,000 civilians have died in violence across Iraq since the 2003 American invasion, the highest estimate ever for the toll of the war. This from the New York Times:
This is the second study by researchers from the Johns Hopkins
Bloomberg School of Public Health. It uses samples of casualties from
Iraqi households to extrapolate an overall figure of 601,027 Iraqis
dead from violence between March 2003 and July 2006.The
findings of the previous study, published in The Lancet, a British
medical journal, in 2004, had been criticized as high, in part because
of its relatively narrow sampling of about 1,000 families, and because
it carried a large margin of error.The new study is more
representative, its researchers said, and the sampling is broader: it
surveyed 1,849 Iraqi families in 47 different neighborhoods across
Iraq. The selection of geographical areas in 18 regions across Iraq was
based on population size, not on the level of violence, they said.
They Might Be Giants will grace the stage of Southpaw. All ages are invited to join in the fun. December 19th at 4:30 and 9 p.m.
Tickets at Ticket Web or Southpaw.
Postings by Dope on the Slope have been spotty of late.
The rumors of my demise were greatly exaggerated. I may have gone a little nuts, but I have not been consumed by rodents. However, I have
been consumed by business travel and work…
Dope did, however, take the time to take his own Croissant Test at Colson’s Patisserie and Sweet Melissa’s, two new, hihg quality pastry shops in the slopeshere.
So I decided to
give both establishments the croissant test. In my opinion, the standard by
which one should judge any patisserie is the quality of their croissant. I
admit that this standard is flawed given that what constitutes the
"perfect" croissant is ultimately a matter of taste, but the
variables that matter for me are: flakiness, butteriness, and
"weight." A doughy, leaden croissant with not a hint of butter flavor
is a zero, while a light, ultra-flaky butter bomb is Nirvana. By this measure,
Colson is the clear winner. The Sweet Melissa croissant is decent (3 out of 5), but it can’t
compete with Colson’s (4.5 out of 5). The
difference is service was evident on my subsequent visit as well. The counter
at Sweet Melissa was in complete disarray, while the service at Colson was
delayed but adequate. For more go to Dope on the Slope.
BROOKLYN INDIE MARKET POP UP EVENT: SATURDAY, OCTOBER 21. 10-5 p.m.
(rain date Oct. 28th) in the Cobble Hill Park (Congress and
Clinton Streets).
The outdoor, one day only market offers the public
chic selections from the next crop of on the rise designers in apparel,
handbags, jewelry, children’s apparel, menswear, home goods and more.
The brainchild of Kathy Malone (pictured left), the Brooklyn Indie Market is a collective of fashion and product designers created to provide a connection between emerging designers and consumers.
Johanna Resnikoff of Daisyhead says, “The Brooklyn Indie Market is
the perfect showcase to highlight the diverse talents of upcoming
designers and I am thrilled to be a part of it.”
The designer line up includes:
Brooklyn Indie Market will be hosting many such “pop up
events” throughout the year in surprising locations. For additional
information on Brooklyn Indie Market events or on indie designers
contact Kathy Malone 347-407-1187 or check out www.brooklynindiemarket.com.
Calendar Editor: Oct. 21st/raindate Oct. 28th Entry
Brooklyn Indie Market Pop Up Event
Subway F/G to Bergen St. and 2,3,4,5 to Borough Hall. Free.
Everybody’s talking about Paul Goldberger’s piece in the New Yorker about Frank Gehry. According to Goldberger:
GOOD GEHRY: Barry Diller’s InterActiveCorp bldg in Chelsea
BAD GEHRY: Atlantic Yards Proposed Design
ON DILLER’S PLACE: Frank Gehry may be the most famous architect at work today, but, like
so many of his peers, he has found it nearly impossible to build in New
York. Twenty years ago, he designed a tower for the site of Madison
Square Garden which never got built, and in recent years a number of
projects—a redesign of One Times Square, a downtown branch of the
Guggenheim, a hotel for Ian Schrager—have all foundered. Now, at the
age of seventy-seven, Gehry has completed his first freestanding New
York building, a headquarters for Barry Diller’s InterActiveCorp, in
Chelsea. It is only ten stories tall, but you can’t drive down the West
Side Highway without seeing it—a white glass palazzo that looks less
like a building than like a computer-generated image of one. On a
cloudy day, it appears to fade into the mist. Gehry has likened the
billowing forms of the façade to sails, and from a distance it seems to
be made of some kind of plastic or fibreglass. All-glass buildings
often feel stiff, but in Gehry’s hands even glass is relaxed.ON ATLANTIC YARDS: It’s a shame that this quality hasn’t been more in
evidence in Gehry’s other New York venture, the Atlantic Yards
development, in Brooklyn. This cluster of skyscrapers extending
twenty-two acres around a new basketball arena for the Nets is the
biggest project he has ever undertaken, and it has been the subject of
bitter controversy for months. (Last month, following recommendations
from the City Planning Commission, the plans were scaled back by eight
per cent, but the project remains enormous.) Opponents complain that
the sixteen residential towers will create a wall between the
neighborhoods of Fort Greene and Prospect Heights. So far, they have
cast the developer, Bruce Ratner, as the villain, suggesting that he is
cynically using Gehry’s name to add prestige to an ill-conceived
scheme. In an open letter to Gehry published in Slate,
the novelist Jonathan Lethem wrote, “I’ve been struggling to understand
how someone of your sensibilities can have drifted into such an
unfortunate alliance, with such potentially disastrous results.”Yet
Gehry’s design is a large part of the problem. He told me that he
accepted the job in part because he has never taken on this kind of
urban challenge, but his talents hardly seem suited to it. Gehry’s
great success has come from architectural jewels that sparkle against
the background of the rest of a city—the Bilbao Guggenheim; the Walt
Disney Concert Hall, in Los Angeles. In Brooklyn, the task is to create
a coherent cityscape that relates comfortably to its surroundings.
Gehry tried to do this by grouping some understated towers around a few
very elaborate ones. (The six-hundred-and-twenty-foot-high main tower,
foolishly named Miss Brooklyn, is full of self-conscious Gehryisms.)
Rather than giving a sense of foreground and background, the
juxtaposition of plain and fancy just looks like a few Gehrys bought
for full price next to several bought at discount.
Seems that there’s been racial profiling by the police a the Seventh Avenue F-train station on Ninth Street and Seventh Avenue. Here’s the story from the Daily News.
Five cops who heard an NYPD captain give a controversial order told the Daily News yesterday the message was crystal clear: Stop and frisk every black man at a robbery-plagued Brooklyn subway station.
"The captain said the descriptions of the [suspects] vary a lot, so we were to stop all black males at the station, stop and frisk them because ‘they have no reason being there,’" said one white officer who was outraged by the command.
Capt. Michael Vanchieri, commander of Brooklyn Transit District 30, gave the orders at Thursday’s 7 a.m. roll call, the cops said.
A sergeant and a lieutenant opened the meeting, then turned the meeting over to Vanchieri, who described a series of robberies on the F line in Brooklyn, concentrated near the Seventh Ave.-Park Slope station.
"All black men were to be stopped – no description other than that," the white officer said. "So some 30- to 40-year-old man who had every right to be at the station – he’d get frisked too."
The Daily News interviewed five of the 12 to 15 officers at the 7 a.m. briefing. All five – a mix of black and white, male and female cops, who spoke on condition of anonymity – gave consistent accounts.
"Everybody was totally shocked," said a black officer who was present. "It was very clear. Stop and question and frisk. But no description of who we were looking for – just male blacks," he said.
Vanchieri could not be reached.
But Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Vanchieri has denied making any inappropriate comments, claiming any discussion of race was part of a broader description of the suspects.
"He gave a description of those individuals and asked if anybody sees them, if anyone matched that description, to stop and speak to them," Kelly said.
Kelly noted that the NYPD is the only major police department in the country to ban profiling.
"All indications are that there was some sort of misunderstanding as to what his directions were," Kelly added.
Victor Swinton, president of the Guardians Association, an association of black NYPD officers, said Vanchieri has offered to meet with him about the roll call order
So OSFO and I concluded our stint as weekend cat sitters. And for our final appearance, both cats, Jethro and Phoebe, made themselves visible.
Phoebe sat in the master bedroom bed as regal as ever. Bathed in the late afternoon sun, she exuded a golden glow. And Jethro, the skittish one, stayed under the bed. He does have a strange meow though we didn’t think it sounded like he was saying "batman" or "mommy."
Once downstairs again, we heard a ringing — it sounded like the phone but it only rang once. Then it rang again a half minute later. OSFO ran to the window and said there’s someone there. " We’re not expecting anyone, let’s ignore it," I said. "Are you scared," she asked. "No, I just don’t want to answer it," I said.
We stayed in the kitchen until the ringing stopped. Then OSFO went to the front door. "It was a delivery, mom," she said. "There’s one of those stickers on the door."
We opened the door and signaled the UPS man. "We didn’t hear the doorbell ring," I said sheepishly. "I can sign for the package."
We went upstairs one last time and checked on the cats. More importantly we checked on the gate to make sure it was secure (Don’t let the cats downstairs, they’ll wreak havoc," the cat owner said).
It was hard to imagine Phoebe, that elegant cat languorously splayed out on the master bedroom bed, wreaking havoc. It was hard to imagine her breaking a sweat.
Now Jethro, the feral one, he’s the one to watch.