For obvious reasons, the Park Slope 100 is being renamed. It is now the Park Slope More Than 100. It was already more than 100 names – if you include couples and teams and group listings. So the name change is apt. PARK SLOPE 100 IS NOW THE PARK SLOPE MORE THAN 100.

I wasn’t in New York on December 8, 1980, the night John Lennon died.

At 10:15 p.m., the time he was murdered in front of the Dakota on West 72nd Street, I was asleep in a rooming house in London.

A high school friend, who was studying with a famous English opera
teacher, invited me to stay with her for a few weeks at the Repton
House in London’s Bloomsbury section, where she was also working as a
chambermaid.

I was en-route to Israel set to spend a year on a kibbutz. My
planned 2-week stay in London turned into more than a month for reasons
I don’t now remember. Perhaps we were were just having too good a time
exploring that city and being on our own in a foreign country.

Most of the guests at the Repton House were foreigners who, for one
reason or another, were living in London for an extended period of
time. The University of London was nearby and  there were quite a few
graduate students in the mix. The other chambermaids were young Italian
women from Naples, who were studying English in London.

We got friendly with these women who taught us how to curse in
Italian. One of them, Rosaria, used to say: Porco Dio, which translates
as Pork God.  She’d pronounce it dramatically as she railed against the
Repton’s owner who was exploiting the chambermaids terribly.

During my stay at the Repton House, a catastrophic earthquake hit
Naples, and we comforted Rosaria in the chambermaid’s kitchen as she
cried, uncertain of the fate of her family. She finally spoke to her
mother and learned that everyone was okay. She was holding the London
Times, which had a photograph of elderly Italian women in black shawls
mourning the earthquake dead on its cover.

We used to hang out in the chambermaid’s kitchen in the basement of
the hotel, boiling water for tea, which we’d learned to add milk and
sugar to. For dinner, we’d make fried eggs and toast slathered with
plenty of butter and English jam.

Our room was on the top floor with a perfect view of the rooftops of
Bloomsbury. Like an artist’s garret, it felt to me the perfect place to
be an American abroad, keeping copious notes in my journal, writing
letters home, discovering one of the great cities of the world.

On the night of December 8th there was late-night party at the
rooming house. It may have been a party for me as I was leaving the
next morning on a flight to Jerusalem. It was a raucous evening,
running up and down the stairs, going in and out of each other’s rooms.

There must have been wine, food. Surely we played music and danced.
I barely remember anymore what went on. But I do remember there was a
wistful feeling in the air. I wasn’t ready to leave, to go off on my
own to a part of the world I had never been.

We barely slept that night. The party went late and after it ended,
we packed up my things and talked until the first light of dawn.

(Were we awake at the moment of his death? What were we doing? )

On the morning of December 9th, when we went down to the lobby, I
noticed that the woman at the reception desk, a cheerful person who
reminded me of Lulu, the British singer in "To Sir with Love," was
crying. Her dark eye make-up was running; I wondered why she looked so
uncharacteristically sad.

"John Lennon died. He was shot." she said. I thought I was hearing things.
"What did you say? " I said certain that I’d misunderstood.
"John Lennon is dead."

I don’t remember how I found out the rest. My friend and I took the
Underground to Heathrow, where she waited with me to board the plane. A
quiet day at the airport, everyone seemed unaffected by the news. Maybe
it was too early. Little did we know of the crowds in Central Park, on
West 72nd Street, in Hyde Park.

It was the most awful of good byes. Me flying off alone, my friend
returning to a foreign city on her own. John Lennon had been murdered
in Manhattan. What was happening to the world?

We discussed my staying longer. Everything seemed up in the air. But I decided to get
on the plane, to go forward with my plans despite the fact that nothing
was the same.

The flight to Jerusalem passed in an instant; a blur of absence and
regret. I do remember some Hasidic men standing in the aisles praying.
They were davening, moving their upper bodies up and down, while
reciting words from tiny Hebrew prayer books. I remember thinking: Say
a prayer for John.

My first days in Israel, I stayed with a group of counter-culture
Americans who founded a Kibbutz near Jerusalem. They played Beatles
records all day in their one-room houses and wanted to talk to me about
what had happened, what it had been like in London, in New York. I was
a witness from the outside world, but there wasn’t much I could say:

(I woke up in London. Got the terrible news from Lulu. Cried at the
airport. Said good bye to a friend. And flew to Jerusalem in a mournful
daze.)

Weeks later on another kibbutz, I got a letter from my cousin sadly
detailing the
events of the days after John’s death in Manhattan. In her neat, all
lower-case print, she conveyed her loss in words I still remember.
"nothing
seems to matter. john’s dead. a piece of ourselves is gone." My sister
sent me a similarly sad note and clippings from the  Times and
the Voice about John, which I cherished.

In my no-frills room at the kibbutz, I read and re-read those
articles my sister sent and  relived the details of that night.  If I
couldn’t have been there, I still wanted to visualize it all: the taxi,
the street, the hospital, his bloody eyeglasses. Yoko’s look of utter
despair.

(John and Yoko had spent the early part of the evening of December
8th recording Yoko’s single, "Walking on Thin Ice." — "Starting Over:
Lennon’s hit single from his new album, Double Fantasy, had been on the
radio constantly in the chambermaid’s kitchen.)

I wanted, no needed, to know what 72nd Street looked like with those
mournful crowds singing ‘Give Peace a Chance." I tried to imagine those
moments of silence in Central Park when an entire city grieved
together.

All those miles away, all these years away now, it is still so close
— that terrible night. Those awful days after. All these years later
it still hurts.

–written December 8th, 2005

Have a look at the 2006 Greater Park Slope 100. Just click on the Park Slope 100 icon on the right hand column of this blog. Or click here.

This from New York 1:

Mayor Michael Bloomberg cut the ribbon on a new office for the city’s emergency services Tuesday.

The Office of Emergency Management Headquarters officially opened in Brooklyn. The $50 million facility will house the city’s response units and coordinate activity in case of large scale disasters and emergencies. Bloomberg said the building is just one part in the big picture of keeping New York safe.

“This is not just a one agency project to keep us safe,” said the mayor. “It’s everybody working together and that’s what’s happened in this city. We’ve pulled together and we have every reason to be proud.”

The new building will be staffed 24-hours a day and give operators the ability to communicate information at the touch of a button. The agency’s former home was destroyed in the September 11, 2001 attacks.

This from New York 1:

The New York City Board of Health  voted unanimously to allow dogs to run without leashes at certain parks between 9 p.m. and 9 a.m. The proposal had been put out for public comment after some residents complained it was dangerous to have dogs running around in public places. But officials say out of 13,000 comments, only 200 were in opposition.

Good news for the health of everyone: Those artery clogging hydrongenated crap has been banned from New York restaurants. Compliance will be tough to control. Who will, who won’t? Brooklyn customers should demand it from their local restaurants.  This from New York 1:

he New York City Board of Health unanimously approved a measure that would ban trans fats from city restaurants during a meeting Tuesday morning, making New York the first city in the nation to ban the oils.

New York becomes the nation’s first city to ban artificial trans fats, which are linked to an increased risk of heart disease. Artificial trans fats are made when hydrogen is added to vegetable oil, and can be found in everything from french fries, to baked goods, to salad dressing.

"Neither the health department or the Board of Health is telling people what to eat. You will still be able to eat anything,” explained Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden. “All of the food items will be available; they just won’t have an artificial chemical in them that would increase your chance of heart attack, stroke, and death."

The board voted to give restaurants more time to make to switch to healthier oils. Restaurants will be barred from using most frying oils containing artificial trans fats by July 1, 2007 and will have to eliminate the artificial trans fats from all of its foods by July 1, 2008. Restaurants will have a three month grace period after the measure goes into effect.

Originally, restaurants were going to be given just six months to replace the oils, and 18 months to phase out the fatty ingredients altogether.

“We are trying to find ground where restaurants can comply,” said Mayor Michael Bloomberg. “We’ll be accommodating, trying to make food safer. If we can do it without trans fats, it will save about 100 lives a year in New York City.”

The restaurant industry still says that is not enough time to make what they say will be a costly transition to alternative oils, which they say may be hard to find.

"For a lot of the restaurants that have changed over to fat free oils, it has taken two years to test, and talk with their suppliers to find those alternatives," said Sheila Weiss of the National Restaurant Association.

But the ban has the support of the American Heart Association, which initially had some concerns with it.

"We are very pleased,” said Judith Wylie-Rosset of the AHA. “And we are particularly pleased with the support that’s going to be available to the restaurants and the evaluation, because this could set the stage for further restriction of trans fat in other locations."

In another move, the board approved a measure forcing restaurants which already make the caloric content of their food items public, to list that information on their menus. It will effect about ten percent of the city’s eateries, mostly fast food and chain restaurants.

This story about turning 110 Livingston Street, the building that used to house the Board of Ed, into condos is from the New York Daily News.

Talk about a turnaround. The infamous Board of
Education headquarters in downtown Brooklyn is being redone as luxury
condos — and people who worked there are buying them.

Despised as a symbol of bureaucracy gone wild, 110 Livingston St. was
sold to developer David Walentas when the Board of Ed was dismantled. A
former schools spokesman predicted it would be "the least missed
building in the history of New York City government."

But he was wrong. Just ask Joan Rosenberg.

She and her husband, Neal Rosenberg, have purchased a two-bedroom condo
in the 1920s-vintage beige-brown brick building, which was designed as
an Elks Club by famed architects McKim Meade & White.

"We have fond memories of the building," said Joan Rosenberg, who was
assistant to the director of citywide programs from 1978 to 1983 and is
now a New York University professor. "We developed wonderful programs
for kids who would not have been able to stay in school."

Also, it’s where she met Neal, who was working there as a Board of Ed lawyer.

Apartment buyer Brad Silver’s love of 110 Livingston dates back to his childhood.

His mother, Yaffa Silver, worked there in the 1990s as the head of the
music department. He’d visit her after school, and even sneak in to see
her when he was playing hooky.

An avid amateur photographer, she took hundreds of pictures of the building.

"I’m going back into a part of history that my mom was obsessed with," he said.

The old Board of Ed building is one of a pair of historic
office-to-condo conversions in downtown Brooklyn — closely watched
projects in a nabe that’s been rezoned for denser residential and
commercial development.

The other is the former Verizon building, a 27-story Art Deco landmark
on Willoughby and Bridge streets, known as 7 MetroTech Center until its
sale early last year to landlord David Bistricer. Its new name is
BellTel Lofts.

The two projects are out in front of a wave of condo construction in
the area — including ground-up projects at 75 Smith St. across from the
Brooklyn House of Detention, and the 40-story Oro tower at 306 Gold St.

Despite a citywide slowdown in condo sales, apartments are going fast
at 110 Livingston — where Walentas is adding a modern glass crown to
the building.

There were nearly 1,200 people on the waiting list to visit 110
Livingston before marketing started 11 weeks ago. Since then, sale
contracts have been signed for 162 condos — more than half the
building’s 300 units, said Asher Abehsera of Two Trees Management,
Walentas’ firm.

Part of the appeal is the pricing — which has averaged $678 per square
foot, he said. That’s a deal compared with Manhattan condos, which go
for an average $1,171 per square foot, according to appraisal firm
Miller Samuel.

The smallest apartment that’s been sold at 110 Livingston was a
$340,000 studio. The priciest — a 1,680-square-footer with a
wrap-around terrace — was sold for $1.425 million.

The building’s makeover includes a trompe l’oeil painted on its
courtyard facade by famous muralist Richard Haas. And space that was
the Elks’ grand meeting hall will become a cultural center. Eight
bidders are vying for it; the winner gets it rent-free for 10 years.

The other historic property, BellTel Lofts, has a good architectural
pedigree. The 1920s-vintage tower was designed by preeminent Deco
skyscraper architect Ralph Walker, and built as the Long Island
headquarters of New York Telephone Co.
Apartments at the orange-brick building have been on the market for
five weeks. Contracts have been signed for 13 condos, and drawn up for
another 14 condos, said Hal Henenson of Prudential Douglas Elliman,
which is handling the sales.

Asking prices start at $500,000. Two duplex penthouses will be offered
for nearly $3 million apiece — after most of the building’s 219 units
have been sold.

If things go according to plan, residents will have an upscale place to
grocery-shop right on the premises.
Elliman’s retail-leasing maven Faith Hope Consolo has offered space in
the base of the building to Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s and D’Agostino.

"We’re pushing for a food retailer," she said.