Monthly Archives: December 2006
FIREWORKS TONIGHT
Tonight. At Grand Army Plaza. Midnight. Fireworks. Pass it on.
SPRING AWAKENING: GO NOW
Last night, Hepcat and I went to see Spring Awakening, a rock musical about 19th century German school boys and girls that will make you rethink rock musicals forever.
The play, written in the 19th century by Frank Widenkend, was considered scandalous in its day.
This adaptation, with book and music by Steven Sater and Duncan Sheik, directed by Michael Mayer and choregraphed by Bill T. Jones, is exhilarating and wonderful.
The cast is very young: one of the performers is a student at Laguardia High School. Kids under 12 or 13 might be too young for this but it’s a must see for teenagers. I overheard a woman in the Ladies Room saying, "No one under 16 should be here," but I disagree.
Here’s what Charles Isherwood had to say in the Times.
"Spring Awakening" depicts or discusses adolescent sexuality in a
variety of guises, including (possible) rape, masturbation and
homosexuality. It explores the confusion and desperation that ensue
when the onrushing tide of hormones meets the ignorance of children
raised by parents too embarrassed or prudish to discuss what those new
urges signify. Two of the three lead characters are sacrificed on the
altar of propriety: one tormented by shame over sexual fantasies and
bad grades, the other, a girlfriend, the victim of a botched abortion.
Spring Awakening is at the Eugene O’Neil Theatre on 49th Street. For $31,00 you can sit on the stage (which would be very interesting). We paid $80 bucks for mezzanine tickets but it was totally worth it. Plus the usher upgraded us to the front of the balcony. Cool.
NO WORDS_DAILY PIX BY HUGH CRAWFORD
SMARTMOM: TOP TEN THINGS THAT WENT RIGHT IN 2006
This from the Brooklyn Papers, fabulous year-end issue, which has a feisty interview with Marty Markowitz.
In these last
days of the year, Smartmom is busy, busy, busy organizing drawers and
closets. Christmas night, she took all of Oh So Feisty One’s shirts out
of her shirt drawer, refolded them and put them back in by color and
style.
Then she hit the
armoire in the foyer, which is stuffed full of art supplies, children’s
games, and all manner of miscellaneous junk like Littlest Pet Shop
figurines, bottles of dried non-toxic poster paint, file folders filled
with Teen Spirit’s pre-school art, and more ceramic bowls from Paint
Your Own Pottery than anyone could possibly need (Correction: TS’s pre-school art is not junk).
The day after Christmas, Smartmom, re-folded everything in her own shirt and sweater drawers.
Later she went
through Teen Spirit’s dresser and pulled out everything that doesn’t
fit anymore. Black jeans with a size-30 waist: Out. Small or medium
Threadless brand t-shirts: Out (no matter how cool the design).
Then, she put
all these non-fitting items in a bag for Housing Works and folded the
rest. Neat as a pin. It should stay that way for at least five hours.
Later, when OSFO
was busy playing with her new Nintendo DS, Smartmom made a beeline for
the toys on her over-stuffed shelves. Out with the old, in with the
new; Smartmom filled a couple of shopping bags full of toys that OSFO
never touches. She doesn’t have enough space for what’s she’s got let
alone all of her new Christmas and Hanukkah gifts (Uh oh, she noticed…).
So what gives? Why all this straightening?
Smartmom doesn’t need her fabulous therapist to tell her that she gets a feeling of control from all this organizing.
The world is going to hell in a Key Food basket, and there’s not a whole lot she can do about it.
There’s a war on
in Iraq, and hideous conflict all over the world. Global warming is an
inconvenient truth and the Atlantic Yards project was approved. AIDS is
destroying Africa and there are more impoverished people than voters on
American Idol.
There’s little
she feels she can do in her daily life to alleviate the pain and
suffering of those around the world, right around the corner, and in
her very own extended family.
So the cleaning
is her way of coping with feelings of hopelessness. Things may fall
apart and the center may not hold, but, boy, can she re-fold OSFO’s
shirts.
John F. Kennedy
famously said, “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you
can do for your country,” but he should have added, “…and when you run
out of ideas, the cabinet underneath the sink is a whopping mess.”
So daily life
goes on. The clock ticks, the Internet connection hums, the children
need dinner and there is the laundry (cleaned at the seriously nice Equadorian laundry on Sixth Avenue) to be put away.
The daily grind
keeps Smartmom going when nothing else does. So, from the home office
on Third Street, here’s Smartmom’s top 10 list of the ordinary things
that helped her get through a lousy 2006:
1. Smartmom’s
solitary first cup of coffee of the day, while listening to NPR in the
kitchen (and the new toaster that doesn’t burn her toast).
2. The innocent
post on Park Slope Parents that sparked a flurry of gender-related
controversy: “Friday, at the corner of 11th Street and Eighth Avenue,
[I found an] adorable navy blue, or maybe black, fleece hat with
triangles jutting out of it of all different colors.” Just don’t call
it a “boy’s” hat in Park Slope!
3. Her daily breakfast conversations with Teen Spirit before OSFO and Hepcat wake up.
4. Running into the oh-so-independent OSFO with her school friends on Seventh Avenue during lunch hour.
5. Watching two-year-old Ducky push her toy stroller and bunny baby down First Street. And Ducky kisses.
6. Hepcat’s photographs of the Gowanus at dusk. And his scallop risotto.
7. Mr. Kravitz’s new kidney courtesy of Mrs. Kravitz.
8. The Smartmom readers who stop her on the street and tell her which column they liked (or didn’t).
9. Standing with OSFO inside a voting booth at John Jay High School and giving George W. Bush a thumpin’.
10. That blessed
time of day when Smartmom clears all the books, coins, and
Build-a-Bears off her bed, lies in it, reads a magazine, and drifts slowly
off to sleep. Ahhhh.
WHAT TO DO ON NEW YEAR’S EVE
I am pretty much partied out. But I am still trying to figure out what to do on Sunday night. Any ideas?
Barbes should be quite fun and rambunctious with ZAGNUT CIRCUS ORCHESTRA. Here’s what the blurb on the Barbes calendar says:
Beware, Brooklyn has been balkanized. Its territory has been divided into a myriad of geo-cultural entities ready to wage war onto one anoother. The Zagnut will celebrate the new years by celebrating the chaos it helped create in the first place. The best party band around will usher the new year by playing the kind of brass and accordion music usually found at weddings throughout the Balkan. They combine elements of Greek, Turkish and Roma (gypsy) music. They will make you drink Serbian Moonshine and dance in odd meters faster than you can say Opa!. – until the dawn of 2007 – $10
They will be dancing on the street outside of Barbes. Wonder if Colson’s will be open, too.
THE LOW DOWN ON TIMES SQUARE ON NEW YEAR’S EVE
The streets in Times Square were littered with “practice confetti”
Friday, as the city prepares for Sunday night’s party.Organizers of the big New Year’s Eve bash tested the airworthiness
of the confetti being used this year by dropping it out of an eighth
floor office.To help usher in 2007, confetti will be released hourly from 6 p.m.
until midnight – and this year, there’s a lot more of the stuff than
usual."We have three times as much confetti because we’ve worked with
Target and they’re sponsoring practice countdowns at the top of the
hour with word-fetti – with words that are related to New Year’s
inspiration, things like ‘cheer,’ and ‘hope,’ and ‘peace,’ and
‘celebrate,’" said Treb Heining, a confetti master.More than 100 volunteers, so-called confetti dispersal engineers,
will drop the confetti from around a dozen Times Square buildings."Show up and enjoy the night and enjoy celebrating New Years Eve,
with not just a million people in Times Square but 100 million
domestically on television and a billion worldwide," said Tim Tompkins
of Times Square Alliance.And, Mayor Michael Bloomberg will once again start the official Times Square countdown, but he will not be alone.
He will be joined by representatives of the various branches of the
armed forces and the United Service Organizations just before midnight.
They will trigger the Times Square ball to start the final 60-second
countdown to 2007.Last year jazz great Wynton Marsalis joined the mayor to help the ball drop.
IF YOU’RE GOING
As usual, security will be tight in Times Square for the New Years
event. No large bags or backpacks are allowed and alcohol is
prohibited."We urge people to get there early, not to bring backpacks with
them or any alcohol, it will be confiscated," said Police Commissioner
Ray Kelly.Major traffic restrictions will begin in the afternoon, and revelers are encouraged to leave their cars at home.
Starting at 4 p.m. on Sunday, Seventh Avenue and Broadway will be
shut down between 42nd and 59th streets. In addition, 43rd to 47th
streets will be closed to traffic between Sixth and Eighth avenues.The closings will spread as the area gets more packed later in the evening.
There will also be changes on the mass transit system.
Starting at 7 p.m. on Sunday, the N, R and W trains will skip the
49th Street stop and northbound 1 trains will pass the 50th Street
station.
TITLE OF LAST HARRY POTTER BOOK REVEALED
The Guardian Unlimited had this story about the next Harry Potter book.
Harry Potter’s arch enemy, Lord Voldemort, is odds-on favourite to kill
off the boy wizard in the final instalment of the series. Bookmaker
William Hill said punters were throwing their weight behind Voldemort,
and even Harry, to bring about his demise. The revelation came days
after JK Rowling’s seventh book was revealed as Harry Potter and the
Deathly Hallows. A William Hill spokesman said: "… the general
consensus seems to be that Harry is the final Horcrux and to ensure
that Voldemort dies he will need to be sacrificed." A Horcrux holds a
person’s soul, ensuring immortality.
HOW ARE THE FLAGS RAISED AND LOWERED ON THE BKLYN BRIDGE?
Can anyone help this Boston guy?
I’m a Boston guy and it bothers me that I cannot figure out how the flags are raised and lowered. When I noticed the flag at half mast for either Gerry Ford or James Brown, probably the former, I realized that the flags must be raised and lowered regularly. How is it done? Helicopter? Internal stairway? I presume not by someone climbing up the cables.
SOME NEW YEAR’S EVE IDEAS
I know a couple who are running the midnight 5K run in Central Park. On New Year’s Day they are doing a private reading of W.H. Auden’s poem, "New Year’s Letter.
Central Park Run
Resolving to get in shape for the New Year? Start 2007 off right with the
Midnight Run in Central Park
organized by the New York Road Runners Club. The evening begins at
Tavern on the Green with a DJ and dancing, a costume contest and
parade, and then fireworks and the 5K at midnight. Champagne at the
halfway point will keep you tottering toward the finish line, and
Emerald Nuts, the race sponsor, is offering a $300 cash prize for the
"Emerald Nuttiest" costume. Non-athletic friends and family can
volunteer with the Road Runners. At 10, Tavern on the Green, Central Park West and 67th Street, 212-860-4455, nyrr.org, $35 registration fee for nonmembers who sign up before December 16, $40 after that.
A.B.
Bargemusic
This all-Bach performance proves that you can find classical music
right on the water, for both culture and fireworks: Bargemusic is a
floating chamber-music hall on the Brooklyn side of the East River.
Price of ticket includes hors d’oeuvres and wine. At 7, Fulton Ferry Landing, Brooklyn, 718-624-4061, $125. A.B.
WINDSOR TERRACE BLOGGERS IN UGANDA
The Brooklyn Record discovered an interesting blog by two residents of Windsor Terrace who are traveling in Uganda.
It’s called A&K in Uganda and it’s really interesting. Here’s an excerpt from their Christmas eve post.
I will be following their travels for sure. It would be neat if thousands of Brooklynites followed their blog and learned about life in Uganda, as well as Aimee and Kevin.
"It is December 24th and it is 9am and we are chugging down the choked
highways of Kampala toward the bus park. We are determined to get to
Gulu. We have been communicating with the organization, “Invisible
Children”, for some months, ever since our friend introduced the
documentary of the same name to us. The film tells the story of the
children who have been displaced by the civil war in northern Uganda…"Anyway, our initial movement toward Uganda came as a result of the
film. Last Spring we started planning. Kevin has a friend at NYU who
works for Invisible Children, now an NGO (non-government organization),
and over the course of the last several months we have been speaking
with her and also e-mailing the Ugandan staff. Aimee, who has been
working as a doula for over two years, hoped to assist in some way.
Kevin, who has been working in educational theater, was curious to see
if there was a place for him to work with children or prisoners. Our
plan was to arrive in Kampala, settle for a day, then meet up with a
group from Invisible Children and take a bus with them to Gulu – 360
kilometers (1 k = 2/3 mile) to the North; just 80 kilometers from the
Sudanese border."In many ways we are so glad that our luggage
never arrived. Kevin has been wearing the same jeans for eight days.
Aimee has managed, somehow, to find the perfect African style. She has
her African dress (see: mu-mu) and a wrap, which she manages to finagle
into several strikingly different looking outfits. She’s getting a lot
of compliments from Ugandan and muzungu alike."
PAUL LESCHEN RESURFACES WITH TWIST
Got this in my inbox today. Remember Paul Leschen, OTBKB’s restuarant critic (Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn Restuarants)? He’s a very talented guy and a great food critic. He’s also a musician and composer. He wrote the songs for this new musical adaptation of Oliver Twist. Cool. Way to go, Paul.
Twist is a new rock musical by Gila Sand, with music by
the Scissor Sisters’ songwriter Paul Leschen. It casts a spell of
luscious drag, scintillating S & M, twisted humor, delicious candy
and other addictive treats. In this fantasy of Victorian England,
Dickens’ orphan has grown into an attractive young man with a taste for
trouble, caned at the Workhouse, strait jacketed at the Undertakers,
and picked up on the street by a wolfish Artful Dodger, portrayed by
Brian Charles Rooney (‘Lucy Brown’ in the 2006 Broadway revival of The Threepenny Opera), who brings Twist home to a decidedly different Fagin than ever seen before.
The score of 14 new songs is performed by Paul Leschen & band, live at the Kraine Theater at the following dates and times:
Dec 13 & 14 10:30 pm
Dec 20 & 21 10:30 pm
Dec 27 & 28 10:30 pm
Dec 29 & 30 8 pm
No show first week of January
Jan 8, 9, 10 8 pm
Jan 11 10:30 pm
Jan 15, 16, 17 8 pm pm
Jan 18 10:30 pm
NO WORDS_DAILY PIX BY HUGH CRAWFORD
MARTY: THREE BEST THINGS TO HAPPEN IN BROOKLYN
The Brooklyn Papers has a year end interview with Marty Markowitz. "The fur
started flying from the moment editor, Gersh Kuntzman, pressed “record” on his MP3
player." Read more in the Brooklyn Papers. Kuntzman asked Marty what he thought were the three best things to happen in Brookyn this year.
Marty: The cruise ship terminal opening in Brooklyn. Promise made, promise kept. It will be a growing industry and opens the doors to a lot of tourism opportunities, making Brooklyn a destination of choice, especially if the cruise ship industry expands to the other pier … And someday, Brooklyn will be a port of call.
The second thing of course is Democratic control of the House of Representatives and the Senate. Brooklyn, like most urban centers, is impacted by federal policies as they relate to health care and under-employment and affordable housing. Also, we lost a significant number of men and women in the war in Iraq … It all impacts the quality of life that we want to improve in Brooklyn.
And Atlantic Yards! I feel it is the project of the early part of the 21st century. It will propel Brooklyn into the 21st century and will create, in my humble opinion, a fantastic new city center and create synergy between the downtowns.
NO WORDS_DAILY PIX BY HUGH CRAWFORD
JAMES BROWN TO LIE IN STATE AT THE APOLLO
He was supposed to be playing BB King’s on New Year’s Eve but he’s appearing at the Apollo instead. This from New York 1:
The Godfather of Soul will get a New York-style tribute Thursday, when he lies in state at the Apollo Theater in Harlem.
Tomorrow afternoon and evening the public will get the chance to say their goodbyes to James Brown in person, starting at 1 p.m. His close friend Reverend Al Sharpton will deliver a sermon at 7:30 p.m.
The viewing brings Brown’s life and career full circle, since the Apollo is where he made his debut more than 40 years ago.
He will be buried in his hometown of Augusta, Georgia, where dozens of fans gathered Tuesday to remember the rock legend.
There will be a private service for the family Friday in Augusta on Friday, led by Sharpton. Saturday, there will be a Homecoming Celebration at the James Brown Arena, which will be open to the public.
Brown died of heart failure Christmas morning at an Atlanta hospital, where he was being treated for pneumonia.
The revolutionary performer is often viewed as the inspiration for rap and funk music. His trademark dancing inspired other music greats, like Michael Jackson and Mick Jagger.
Sharpton, a longtime friend of Brown’s, says Brown was more than just an entertainer.
"I never had a father at home growing up, but I had James Brown,” said Sharpton. “I had him personally and I had him with the world. James Brown was not just a guy who made a lot of hits. He changed culture for us. He made the common man matter. We’ve lost more than an artist. We lost a way of life."
“He is one of few people that I have ever known that believed what he was doing,” said Brown’s personal manager Charles Bobbit. “He was all for children, all for America, and all for love."
Brown won several Grammies, including one for lifetime achievement. He was also one of the first artists inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Brown’s life was marred by drug addiction. He also spent time in prison in the early 1990s.
He was set to play BB King’s Blues Club in Times Square this weekend.
And, Director Spike Lee said Wednesday that he is on board to make a movie based on the singer’s life. The film, which will be produced by Brian Grazer and Imagine Entertainment, is an authorized biography agreed to by Brown before his passing. Production could begin late next year.
Meanwhile, Brown’s widow says she hasn’t been allowed back into the home the couple shared.
Tomi Rae Hynie told the Augusta Chronicle that when she returned yesterday to the South Carolina home the couple shared, she found the gates padlocked and security guards barring her entrance.
Brown’s lawyer says the singer’s partner was locked out of their home for legal reasons. He says the couple was not legally married because Hynie was already married to another man when she married Brown in 2001, making her marriage to the singer null. Hynie later annulled the previous marriage, but she and Brown were never remarried.
Hynie says she does not own a deed to the house, but does have a legal right to live there with the couple’s 5-year-old son.
TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS AND DOUGLAS RUSHKOFF GOT MUGGED
Another person left off the Park Slope More Than 100, Douglas Rushkoff, is an unbelievably prolific writer, an impressive resume, and an apartment in Park Slope. He was mugged on Christmas Eve while he was taking out the garbage. He tells the story on his blog:
I got mugged at knifepoint while taking out the garbage Christmas Eve at 9pm.
I negotiated with him for my health insurance card
– not only because it has my Social Security number and was really hard
to get, but because I knew that such a request would humanize me in the
mind of my attacker, and make it harder for him to stab me. Such are
the benefits of studying human behavior. All I lost was my phone,
cards, and money.Getting a knife pushed into your ribcage now
and again is just part of the price we pay to live in a city, and New
York is supposedly one of the safer of the bunch. But I have to admit, it
makes me question working two extra gigs (I won’t divulge which ones
they are) in order to pay the exorbitant rent in this part of Brooklyn – when the streets are less safe than they were in the supposedly bad parts of Manhattan where I used to live.It
may just be the humiliation of not fighting back that’s getting me
down, but I fear that Brooklyn may be a crock. And with a two-year-old
daughter, I feel a strong urge to spend my effort elsewhere.
Here’s some info about fellow Park Sloper Douglas Rushkoff. Check out his blog, too.
Winner of the first Neil Postman award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity, Douglas Rushkoff is an author, teacher, and documentarian who focuses on the ways people, cultures, and institutions create, share, and influence each other’s values. He sees "media" as the landscape where this interaction takes place, and "literacy" as the ability to participate consciously in it.
His ten best-selling books on new media and popular culture have been translated to over thirty languages. They include Cyberia, Media Virus, Playing the Future, Nothing Sacred: The Truth about Judaism, and Coercion, winner of the Marshall Mcluhan Award for best media book. Rushkoff also wrote the acclaimed novels Ecstasy Club and Exit Strategy and graphic novel, Club Zero-G. He has just finished a book for HarperBusiness, applying renaissance principles to today’s complex economic landscape, Get Back in the Box: Innovation from the Inside
NEW DOCUMENTARY ABOUT ATLANTIC YARDS
On the subway a few months back, I met Isabel Hill, the filmmaker who created this documentary. We talked a bit and she told me about this film that she was working on about the Atlantic Yards. I am amazed that it is already completed. It sounds very interesting and I will definitely try to catch this screening.
On Thursday, January 4th, at 6:00 p.m., the Center for Architecture – home to the New York City chapter of the American Institute of Architects – will screen “Brooklyn Matters,” a documentary by Brooklyn filmmaker, urban planner and historian Isabel Hill. The timely and urgent film exposes how powerful interests are circumventing community participation and skirting legal protections to push the “Atlantic Yards” project forward at any cost.
Ms. Hill, a Brooklyn resident, and former planner in New York City’s Department of City Planning, directed the award-winning “Made in Brooklyn,” a documentary about the borough’s manufacturing industry.
What:
Brooklyn Matters, a documentary film by Isabel Hill.
Panel discussion to follow.
When:
Thursday, January 4th
Doors open at 6:00 pm
Film starts at 6:30.
Where:
Center for Architecture
536 LaGuardia Place (between West 3rd Street and Bleecker Street)
Greenwich Village
For mass transit access, take the A, B, C, D, E or F subway to West 4th Street
FORD DIDN’T SAY DROP DEAD (BUT WE KNEW THAT)
I remember the headline very well. During the fiscal crisis in the mid-1970’s, it was one of the great Daily News headlines. Ford to City: Drop Dead.
Back then we knew Ford didn’t actually say, "Drop Dead." But the art of the headline is such that liberties can be taken. The headline did, however, express the essence of what Ford was saying.
And it really resonated with New Yorkers at that time.
The Times’ reports today that many think that Ford actually said those infamous lines and it cost him the election in New York (Jimmy Carter carried New York State by a slim margin).
Here are the facts: On Oct. 29, 1975, Ford gave a speech denying federal assistance to spare New York from bankruptcy. The front page of The Daily News the next day read: “FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD.”
Those were tough financial times for New York City. The city was broke and Ford’s reaction seem to epitomize a general feeling that nobody cared about New York City anymore.
Ford apparently resented the way that the headline became a stand-in for what he’d actually said. “It more than annoyed me because it wasn’t accurate,” he recalled years later. “It was very unfair.”
According to the Times’ "Ford’s treasury secretary, William Simon, warned that bailing out NYC would amount to nationalizing municipal debt and rewarding local officials who lacked the will to stanch the inevitable hemorrhaging inflicted by bankrupt liberalism. (The investment banker Felix G. Rohatyn, recruited by Mr. Carey to rescue the city, would liken default to “someone stepping into a tepid bath and slashing his wrists — you might not feel yourself dying, but that’s what would happen”)."
The following demands were made to city officials: raise transit fares, abolish rent control, scrap free tuition at the City University. "This prompted Victor Gotbaum, the municipal labor leader, to complain that Mr. Simon barely believed in government at all, except for police and fire protection, “and he’s not sure about fire.” writes the Times.
NO WORDS_DAILY PIX BY HUGH CRAWFORD
THE NEWLY ELECTED: FROM THE NY TIMES
The newly elected officials: from left, Eric Adams, 46; Hakeem
Jeffries, 36; Darlene Mealy, 42; Yvette D. Clarke, 42; and Karim
Camara, 35. Photo by Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times.
Brooklyn Record thoughtfully ran this picture and link to the story in the New York Times about the new generation of black politicians in Brooklyn.
In case holiday festivities kept you away from the Sunday Times,
we wanted to share this story about the new, post-civil rights
generation of black politicians in Brooklyn…
GERALD FORD IS DEAD
The 38th president of the United States, Gerald R. Ford, died yesterday at the age of 93. He was thrust into the presidency after the Watergate scandal but lost his own election bid after pardoning Richard M. Nixon.
Ah. such memories of that time. That’s my era. I came of age during Watergate. Who can forget the day Nixon resigned. Who can forget, "I am not a crook."
Who can forget the day Ford was sworn in (it was Aug.
9, 1974). I was just back from an AYH bicycle trip. And then his pardon of Nixon. How unpopular that was. How angry we all were.
He ended the war in Viet Nam and is credited for being a "healing" influence after a tumultuous breach of civic trust during the Watergate years. He is rarely remembered for anything he actually did.
He was defeated by Jimmy Carter, the first presidential candidate I ever voted for, in the 1976 election.
Who can forget Chevy Chase’s pratfalls as Ford on Saturday Night Live? Chase channeled the clumsy Ford in an unforgettable way. I think Ford even appeared on SNL once back then.
RIP Gerald Ford. We love your wife for her honesty and spirit. She came clean on the fact that she was heavily addicted to alcohol and drugs and paved the way for so many to seek help.
CLOUD OF TOXINS MOVING TO PARK SLOPE
Reporter Ariella Cohen reports in the Brooklyn Papers that an underground cloud of toxins is moving from the industrial
neighborhood along the Gowanus Canal toward Park Slope.
An engineer told state officials that a dangerously high levels of benzene — a gasoline byproduct that can
cause cancer if it is inhaled — have seeped into the soil below the
Third Avenue site where Whole Foods is building its first Brooklyn
store.The engineering report traces the Whole Food site’s toxins to a
canal-front parking lot and fuel station owned by Verizon at Third
Street, a block west of the epicurean grocer’s future home (pictured in today’s No Words_Daily Pix).
ZANA CAFE: POST DIVORCE ROSANA ROSA OPENS NEW SHOP
Hepcat and I happened into the Zana Cafe on Seventh Avenue near Ninth Street. We noticed Owner Rosana Rosa, who also owns Delices de Paris and assumed that the new place was a branch of Delices de Paris. But Brooklyn Papers has the real story.
The Zana Cafe is Rosa’s solo effort. She and husband, Michael Martin, have split up. They continue to own Delices de Paris together. But at the new place, Rosa sells French and Italian pastries and European
products — just like Delices de Paris. I wonder who is baking for her now? If memory serves, Martin was a big deal Upper East Side French baker who worked for Jackie Kennedy. The couple owned a shop in the mid-west before coming east to Park Slope.
With all the drama: customers are confused: Martin hung a sign in the front window of Delices de Paris warning his customers that his shop has nothing to do with his ex’s new shop — despite
how much it looks like his 9th Street shop.
He told the Brooklyn Papers: “They are completely different products,” he said. “She used the
same [paint] to mislead the customers and make them think that the two
shops are related.”
She told the Brooklyn Papers: “Sure, there is competition, but so what? Each block in Park Slope
is different, there are people who live up here and don’t even know
about the shop down near Fifth Avenue."
In the Brooklyn Papers article, Rosa defends her right to create a shop that looks like the other one. She told BP: “I built Delices de
Paris with my own hands. When we began, there was no place in Park
Slope to get a chocolate croissant, now you have Colson Patisserie on
Sixth Avenue and everyone is doing the French thing.”
I can attest to that: Delices de Paris was for a long time the only good French bakery in the neighborhood. Many people in Park Slope were unaware of it as it is located on 9th Street near Fifth Avenue. But word spread.
I was always very impressed with the shop and Rosa struck me as a savvy, dedicated and adventurous entrepreneur She was very much the front-person of the shop. But Martin, of course, was the master baker in the kitchen.
Obviously the Rosa-Martin divorce has gotten ugly. Still, I am quite sure that Rosa will make a success of her new location.
NO WORDS_DAILY PIX BY HUGH CRAWFORD
JEWISH MUSIC CAFE
Looking for something to do this Saturday night?
Live Music and Kosher food at
THE JEWISH MUSIC CAFE
401 9th street (between 6th & 7th ave.)
Park Slope Brooklyn
F train to 7th Avenue.
This Week-
PEY DALID – HAMAKOR – BENNY BWOY
Saturday Dec 30th 8:30pm $15
more info at http://www.jewishmusiccafe.com
TWO YEARS AGO IN OTBKB: RECOLLECTIONS
I was just reading my blog from two years ago (that no longer updated blog is thirdstreet.blogspot.com). This was written just days after the Tsunami of 2004. That year, like most, was filled with tragedy and pain around the world. But also the joy in small moments of connection.
The last day of 2004 and we’re well rid of that one. It was a year, alright, quite a year. The pain and suffering this year has seen: Natural disaster, human suffering of unfathomable proportions, war, political disaster, tragedy, human cruelty…
And yet daily life goes on. The clock ticks, the internet connection hums, the children need lunch, there is work to be done. The dailiness of things keeps us going when nothing else does. It’s the ordinary things that pull us through.
There’s a lot of talk right now about the absence of God, the existence of God in the first place, the reality that bad things happen to good people often, unremittingly, all the time, a lot. Too much.
There are a lot of people who are very angry at their God right now. And there are many whose belief in their God will pull them through. Those without a belief in God are also in a quandry. No matter what kind of God or no God you’ve got, you’re probably struggling to understand the breadth of this tragedy.
There is also the unpleasant feeling of uselessness. At this distance, other than contributing money, there is nothing to do but watch and cry. With this comes a kind of survivor’s guilt – guilt for the fact that our lives are (thankfully) untouched by this kind of pain and suffering. Guilt for our abundance, guilt for the superficiality of what ails us right now.
And then there’s the fear, a deep, penetrating one: what happens if and when our lives are touched by such terribleness. What would we do?
When bad things happen, Fred Rogers, that dapper genuis of children’s television, used to say, "Look for the good." Even in the worst of times, he’d say, there is good to be found.
In this case, one has only to look at the faces of the survivors who are burying the dead, beginning to clean up, helping one another heal. Good people the world over are also flocking there to help: Doctors Without Borders, the International Red Cross, and other local and international organziations are pitching in. There is good to be found.
For the moment, the world’s focus is on this tragedy — everyone is grieving for the missing, praying for the survivors, and trying to help in some small way.
Wouldn’t it be amazing if this shared moment could change the course of history? Wouldn’t it be amazing if the world came together and recognized the importance of daily life, the power of the ordinary, the simple things that everyone holds dear?
Wouldn’t that be amazing?
TOOLS
Hepcat is a great one for giving gifts that are, as he says, tools. He is quite extravagant when it comes to “tools”. I should have known. Pre-marriage, he gave me a telephone for my birthday. I was just….thrilled.
But that’s when I learned about his preference for useful gifts: something that promotes creativity or ingenuity.
Hepcat will search high and low for the perfect, toolish, gift. Sure, he’s done his time at The Clay Pot, and selected beautiful rings for me. But more likely, he’s off looking for toolish gifts come Christmas, birthdays and anniversaries.
Photographic accessories, for instance, make a perfect gift, of course. Or pens. Art supplies. Musical instruments. Computer stuff. Notebooks. Kitchen appliances…
This Christmas, he gave OSFO a sewing machine. A real, live, grown-up one. She loves to sew and has been asking for one for quite some time.
Well, it was the perfect gift. Already, OSFO has learned to operate it and she was sewing late into the night (in-between bouts with her Nintendo DL, a gift from her grandpa).
Hepcat came into bed late Christmas night. “I am so proud of OSFO,” he said. “She just loves to sew.”
BROOKLYN EMTs PLAY SANTA CLAUS
Brooklyn paramedics brought Christmas early to some of the city’s neediest children Sunday, continuing a tradition of their own.
For the past 17 years, EMT workers in Brooklyn have gone to the post office to read through the thousands of letters sent to Santa during the holiday season. They select about a dozen letters from the most unfortunate children, and then buy the gifts they want and deliver them in costume as Kris Kringle and his elves.
“We are able to save lives on a daily basis with our work as paramedics and EMTs but this is just a different way of touching a child’s life that normally you wouldn’t be able to do,” said paramedic Gary Smiley.
“This is the best Christmas ever,” said one gift recipient.
“I really can’t believe this,” added another grateful recipient. ”Thank you so much everybody for helping my family out.”
The EMT workers say the best part of the night is seeing the children’s faces light up when they realize Santa is real.
LAST YEAR ON OTBKB: THE DOLL HOUSE
This is from last December 26th:
‘Twas the day after Christmas and all through the Slope there was gift wrap and packaging in the apartment building garbage pails.
Daughter and I were walking to a friend’s house when we saw something quite extraordinary in front of one of the limestone buildings just a few doors away.
A beautiful doll house — a three-story mansion, really — with a small shopping bag full of faux-elegant doll furniture.
It was being discarded, we surmised, because its owner had to make space for her new gifts. The bedrooms are quite small in the buildings on Third Street. We knew that most of the girls in that building are ten or older — perhaps its owner had finally outgrown the doll house.
Maybe it was some kind of spiritual exchange. The child had been taught that in order to receive a gift, she had to give something away….
We pondered all possible explanations for the doll house’s presence on the Third Street pavement.
The doll house was in good condition—nothing a little Fantastik couldn’t shine up. And the small shopping bag filled with doll furniture was a gesture that said: here take this. It’s yours if you want to carry it away.
First we looked at the house, discussed whether or not to take it, and decided it was too much trouble as we had somewhere to be. I was surprised that OSFO was able to pass it by.
Then she backed up.
"Can we take it? Please?" she begged.
"Where are you going to put it?" I said. Her room is tiny.
"Please?"
"You already have a doll house," I said reminding her of the mid-century modern doll house I’d bought for $20 dollars at a stoop sale on Third Street complete with a shopping bag full of incredible doll furniture.
"I know. But one’s a mansion…"A mansion maybe. But it’s made out of molded plastic and says Fisher Price right on it. The mid-century modern one we’ve already got is so much more tasteful.
Still, we carried it into the vestibule of our building. "You’re going to need to clean this thing up." I said. "I know," she said. "I know."
The large plastic doll mansion is sitting on top of OSFO’s homework desk until we clear more space in her room. Her Polly Pocket dolls have already taken up residence. The scale isn’t quite right. Whatever.
Let’s see. What item can we choose to discard, to place on the street with a note that says: Take this. It’s yours if you want to carry it away.
–written on December 26th, 2005