This from Hillary Clinton’s website: You can also see video of Barack Obama announcing his intention to form exploratory committee on his web site.

I’m in. And I’m in to win.

Today I am announcing that I will form an exploratory committee to run for president.
And I want you to join me not just for the campaign but for a conversation about the future of our country — about the bold but practical changes we need to overcome six years of Bush administration failures.
I am going to take this conversation directly to the people of America, and I’m starting by inviting all of you to join me in a series of web chats over the next few days.
The stakes will be high when America chooses a new president in 2008.
As a senator, I will spend two years doing everything in my power to limit the damage George W. Bush can do. But only a new president will be able to undo Bush’s mistakes and restore our hope and optimism.
Only a new president can renew the promise of America — the idea that if you work hard you can count on the health care, education, and retirement security that you need to raise your family. These are the basic values of America that are under attack from this administration every day.
And only a new president can regain America’s position as a respected leader in the world.

This is from a Third Street friend who left Park Slope for Buffalo. Thanks for writing Buffalo Girl. Great to hear from you. And you are, of course, absolutely right. I did leave out a whole bunch of reasons why people leave.

Addressing your “Deserters” article. We too left several years back & I think too many NY’ers think NY is the only city in the world! The cost of living and trying to maintain self preservation was simply too high, trying to keep up was simply too impractical. Let’s not forget Park Slope is primarily upper middle class with some leftover strugglers and young whimsical newcomers. If one were to either have struck it well in the 90’s, were well on their way to high positions in life, or perhaps had maintainted the 3rd very common reality of having families with $ to back them, well they seemed to at least maintain a casual smile. Any one of those options afforded our friends the luxuries of being able to simply rent a car to leave the slope on a sizzling weekend in July-or if bored with that- they crossed the ocean to Madrid or Switzerland for a happy family vacation or perhaps Summer camp for the wee ones. That not being the case for all, but rather an i llusionary promise of rejuvenation, perhaps that is at the core of this so called “desertion”.

I ‘m convinced you wrote the article with intentions of love-so I guess I can’t be too hard on you…but I also have many friends I left behind and most had a small trust fund or a rather large bank account. Come on SMART- MOM- get real!! I’m not particularly bitter, but I left knowing myself & my children would never be completely happy about the move, leaving behind all the fabulousness NY offers, but some of us simply had no back-up or personal independent future there, at least not at that time. Though we loved everything,…. except the 60 mice we killed in our apartment, the fact that our landlord was a shit , the fact that we were forced to stick ice packs on the thermostat to warm ourselves above 66 degrees in the cold of winter, and even more important, the fact that we couldn’t create anything of substance because we were big object makers, painters etc. and had two kids in our work space, or rather we worked in our living space, or I don’t know it was all a jumble all the while working & traveling 16 hours a day, to put home-made food on the table with no real promise. All that in 800 sq ft!! Yep it was awesome!

I find it disturbing that your opinions seem to neglect so many other realities- No, not an attachment to the burbs or the yards…but rather, out of options. Your poking reminders of the reality that we left behind is frustrating and somewhat insensitive. Do your really think everyone that leaves, does not deeply miss the activities and relationships NY has to offer? – And offer though it may, it still adds up to one high income or slaving for environment.

Looking back , I have rich memories of how my friends & I had crossed cultural and financial boundaries- to find unity in common values, goals and desires but I question that now. One of my very good friends left Park Slope & bought a 4 million dollar spot in Switzerland & somehow we are still connected. Others who stayed in Park Slope simply ignore those who leave- what does that say about the “Slopers”?

The seemingly general lack of sensitivities from those who stayed in the Slope, to all who may have left for this or that reason makes me wonder if I too was living in the cultivated, Park-Slope, landscape of delusional fantasies…

Let’s face it -there are many great cities and though Park Slope holds my heart, I realize now it was even more about the people that I loved including you, Smart Mom- Yep I thought we were becoming good friends and I too have not heard from you once since leaving- though I had sent e-mails several times- they all went unanswered.

For those who work to stay connected, relationships are the same now as they were then with our NY friends- though we can’t hang with them directly, and we’re not able to drink wine with them weekly, gaze stupified at the Halloween parade as we all watch in awe, or lazily hang & gossip on the stoop, we still manage to talk about the same old subjects- $ Art. politics, our disdain for Bush, environment, progress, missing the Co-op, not missing the Co-op, our fabulous teens, education, family issues, private dreams etc. Those issues continue on and have been the thread that binds, if you will, regardless of geography and whose doing what. Perhaps those connections are your road to reunions with old friends. Much more genuine than location! To me it seems the “deserters” are still in Park Slope!

Lots and lots of news this week from the Brooklyn Paper, including the latest on the real Powerplay story.

I ran into my blog friend, Pastor Daniel Meeter, and he told me that there were 400 people at the interfaith Martin Luther King event on Sunday January 15th. Here’s an excerpt from Pastor Meeter’s blog.

Last night we hosted our Martin Luther King Service on behalf of the
Brooklyn Interfaith Alliance. This is a new organization, and a whole
new partnership. At our final planning session last week, we said we
hoped for 200 but made figured that if we got 100, we would find a way
to turn it into a success.

On Saturday I printed up 200
bulletins. But the response was so tremendous that as the service began
on Sunday afternoon we were frantically printing up more. We believe we
had some 400 people. Rev. Clinton Miller and I were co-chairs of the
event, and I said in his ear, "Look at the response," and he said, "I
think we’ve got our quorum!"

We had to expand the program to
welcome an Imam chanting from the Holy Koran, extra speeches and extra
elected officials. Our keynote speaker was very gracious in his
patience as he waited for his turn, but it was well worth the wait. He
was Rev. Dr. Gary Simpson of the Concord Baptist Church, and he had us
on our feet as he ended with John 9:4, We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day, night is coming when no on can work.

The congregation gave about $1000 in offering to www.anysoldier.com (to support our under-supplied soldiers and sailors) and to Black Veterans for Social Justice.

We
are a small congregation with a big space. We are thankful that we can
serve God by offering special services that the community wants to
attend.

Thanks Cheryl Burke of Until Monday for this nice blurb about tomorrow’s reading at the Old Stone House. I don’t know about you, but I am really excited about this event. So what if it’s a cold night. There will be door prizes, treats, refreshments and a raffle. Plus a great writer!!!

Adarro Minton is a
survivor, who has, according to his bio, lived through “the disco era
in New York City, in imagined opulent splendor at Studio
54…mescaline, blotter acid, cocaine, freebase cocaine, crack, danger
sex in subway bathrooms, hunger, homelessness, and three serious
suicide attempts.” On Thursday he reads from his short story collection
Gay, Black, Crippled, Fat at at Brooklyn Reading Works.

Thursday, January 18, 8 pm
$5

The Old Stone House
Fifth Avenue (between 3rd & 4th Streets)

SpeakEasy: Stories from the Back Room: Biscuit Barbecue 230 Fifth Ave. at President Street, Brooklyn (formerly Night and Day) Thursday  Jan. 18 8:30 pm. Doors open at 8:00. 

Krista Weaver (One Guitar Woman) will perform.
Join
Sherry Weaver and her band of storytellers-Albert Stern, Jon Levin,
Darlene White, Peter Lubell, Michele Carlo, and Margot  Leitman-for an
evening of startling personal revelations!
$8 plus one drink or food item minimum. www.speakeasystories.com

Oops. It’s the same night as Brooklyn Reading Works with Adarro Minton, author of "Gay, Fat,  Crippled, Black, a collection of short stories. 8 p.m. The Old Stone House. Fifth Avenue between 3rd and 4th Streets.

Sometimes Hepcat and I are like ships passing in the night.

Like yesterday: He works. I work. He comes home, I go out to writer’s group. I go to bed, he stays up late printing pictures, posting No Words_Daily Pix, reading.

Sometimes I learn what he’s thinking about by looking at the Daily Pix. Like today. It’s a beautiful picture. He probably took it in the last day or three. Branches. Birds. Buds. Whisp of brownstone. Dots. Brooklyn abstraction.

It’s a nice photograph, yesireeee.

That Hugh. He sure makes nice photos.

I got this press release from Develop Don’t Destroy this morning in my inbox about constitutional Rights v. Naming Rights. Ratner has announced a naming rights deal with  Barclays Bank. From Develop Don’t Destroy:

BROOKLYN, NY — The NY Post announced today that developer Bruce Ratner has reached a lucrative arena naming rights agreement with London-based Barclay Bank.

Lost in this highly speculative agreement to brand the publicly funded* arena proposed in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, is that the construction of Barclays Arena depends on the outcome of the federal eminent domain lawsuit filed in October. The suit claims that the use of eminent domain to clear out homes to pave the way for the arena is unconstitutional.  Currently 12 individuals (homeowners, tenants and business owners representing 26 residents) are plaintiffs on a federal lawsuit which says that the seizure of homes by New York State for Bruce Ratner’s "Atlantic Yards" and its arena is unconstitutional.

The arena cannot be built without the taking of those homes.

“Barclays Bank and Bruce Ratner are grossly jumping the gun since this publicly funded arena cannot be built without my home. And currently a federal court has begun reviewing the constitutionality of the taking of my home and the homes of my neighbors. Of course this lawsuit throws into question the value of these highly speculative naming rights,” said Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn spokesperson Daniel Goldstein. “This lucrative, yet speculative, naming deal is yet another sweetheart deal for Ratner. The public funds the arena construction and Ratner makes the profit on the bank’s logo."

The public would entirely fund the construction of Bruce Ratner’s Barclays Arena. The arena construction is to be paid for by triple-tax-free bonds (government and the public don’t yet know how much that bond debt service is but the last arena construction cost estimate was $637 million). The debt service is to be paid in the form of Payments in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT). So while Ratner does not pay property tax, which would normally go into the city treasury, instead he pays an equivalent payment towards the arena bond. It’s as if government allowed you to forego your taxes and use that money to renovate your bathroom AND help pay off your mortgage. But we don’t publicly fund bathroom renovations or mortgages.

“Barclays Arena. That almost sounds like Brooklyn Arena…but not. It goes to show that, once again, ‘Atlantic Yards’ has nothing to do with Brooklyn and everything to do with lucrative deals for Bruce Ratner,” concluded Goldstein.

Two men with a gun stole nearly $3,000 in video games and $1,600 in
cash from a Seventh Avenue store and left the clerk tied up in the back
when they fled on Jan. 7, police said.

The 21-year-old clerk said the pair wandered into the store, at
Garfield Place, at 10:40 pm. As they browsed the games, one asked about
prices.

“How much is the Nintendo?” he asked.

But the second man had other plans. “I want an Xbox 360,” he insisted.

When the clerk went to the back room to fetch the device, the thugs
swung into action. One blocked his return to the floor, with a gun
drawn. He grabbed the game, and several others. But before they left,
the pair forced the victim to the bathroom and tied him up with duct
tape.

Gowanus Lounge has the Broken Anel story:

It’s official, the Clinton Hill landmark, Broken Angel, has been sold and will be developed as condos. Creator Arthur Wood will work to design the new development. The move toward a sale had been reported over the last two weeks. The new figure in the Broken Angel saga is Shahn Andersen
(although an email from Chris Wood that arrived at midnight refers to
him as "Shaun" Andersen). An empty lot next door will also be developed
as "arts space." Mr. Wood says he feels it is the "best opportunity" to
work on the design and keep the "spirit and details of Broken Angel
intact." We assume that is Mr. Andersen with Mr. and Ms. Wood in the
photo from onebadapple

above. Here is the full text of Mr. Wood’s statement:

So I got to hear Laurie Anderson read this poem by Allen Ginsberg at the Beat Celebration at the 92nd Street Y and you didn’t because no one wanted the extra tickets I had. Memoirist Joyce Johnson, poet Hettie Jones, author and photographer Ann Charters, and archivist Bill Morgan were great, too.

Song  

        The weight of the world
        is love.
        Under the burden
        of solitude,
        under the burden
        of dissatisfaction
        the weight,
        the weight we carry
        is love.
        Who can deny?
        In dreams
        it touches
        the body,
        in thought
        constructs
        a miracle,
        in imagination
        anguishes
        till born
        in human–
        looks out of the heart
        burning with purity–
        for the burden of life
        is love,
        but we carry the weight
        wearily,
        and so must rest
        in the arms of love
        at last,
        must rest in the arms
        of love.
        No rest
        without love,
        no sleep
        without dreams
        of love–
        be mad or chill
        obsessed with angels
        or machines,
        the final wish
        is love
        –cannot be bitter,
        cannot deny,
        cannot withhold
        if denied:
        the weight is too heavy
        –must give
        for no return
        as thought
        is given
        in solitude
        in all the excellence
        of its excess.
        The warm bodies
        shine together
        in the darkness,
        the hand moves
        to the center
        of the flesh,
        the skin trembles
        in happiness
        and the soul comes
        joyful to the eye–
        yes, yes,
        that’s what
        I wanted,
        I always wanted,
        I always wanted,
        to return
        to the body
        where I was born.

Writer Richard Grayson sent this "So You’re Thinking of Living in Park Slope" from the New York Times in 1987.

May 17, 1987

JAN HODENFIELD remembers six years ago when a town house in Park
Slope could be bought for less than $200,000 and Seventh Avenue was
mostly bodegas, cobblers and neighborhood bars. Today, brownstones cost
$750,000 and a Benetton clothing store opened on the avenue in October.

”When a Benetton opened on Seventh Avenue, we knew what had
happened,” said Mr. Hodenfield, a freelance magazine writer. ”When I
came to Brooklyn 12 years ago, it was certainly not chic. This is a really hot neighborhood now.”

Park Slope, once a place where middle-class urban pioneers could
find bargains on rowhouses, has become popular and, consequently,
expensive. Its exquisite Victorian town houses, shaded by Norwegian
maples and ginkgos, have in recent years lured droves of New Yorkers
seeking refuge from Manhattan’s frenetic pace, cramped apartments and
soaring rents. They have also helped win it a historic district
designation as a ”vivid illustration of the characterization of Brooklyn as a ‘city of homes and churches.’ ”

The influx has transformed what was largely a working-class
neighborhood into an upper-middle-class enclave of expensively
renovated private homes, co-ops, boutiques and restaurants.

Residents prize the Slope for its proximity to Prospect Park, the Brooklyn Mu-seum, the Brooklyn
Public Library and the Botanic Garden as well as for its hybrid
atmosphere of small-town intimacy and big-city sophistication that the
writer Russell Banks, who lives there, once called ”a sense of
domestic refuge.”

On a recent Sunday, its tranquil streets, bathed in the lambent
green of budding trees, were full of parents with children strolling
calmly toward the park. The sky stretched languidly above, free of the
towers that corral it in Manhattan.

”The place lives,” said Jacqui Miranda, who edits a local
newsletter and has lived in the Slope more than 16 years. ”We can see
the sky here and trees.”

”It’s not quite as oppressive as Manhattan,”
said Rachel Klein, a writer who bought a brownstone in the north end of
the neighborhood in 1980. ”It’s greener, more casual, like a little
town in a way. Everyone knows each other.” The area takes its name
from its geography, lying on the long slope west of Prospect Park above
Fourth Avenue, bounded by Flatbush Avenue to the north and the Prospect
Expressway to the south.

Real-estate agents say the supply of houses has been exhausted and
prices are climbing steadily by more than 20 percent a year. Today,
three-story brownstones range in price from $250,000 in fringe areas
near Fourth Avenue up to $900,000 for properties on Eighth Avenue and
Prospect Park West, the boulevard that runs north and south along the
park. Brownstones near the middle of the Slope average $750,000.
Condominiums and cooperatives are similarly expensive but more
available. One-bedroom apartments run from $90,000 to $180,000;
two-bedroom units range between $120,000 and $200,000; three-bedrooms
cost $300,000 or more. There is still a substantial amount of rental
property available, agents said, ranging from $850 a month for studio
apartments to $1,800 for a duplex.

The escalating values have priced many out of the town-house market.
”For a lot of people, the dream of owning a house is becoming nothing
more than a dream,” said George Cambas, a real-estate agent who has
lived and worked in Park Slope since 1973. ”They are forced to settle
for an apartment.”

The neighborhood’s main commercial artery, Seventh Avenue, is also
showing signs of changes wrought by rising rents. Boutiques and trendy
restaurants have proliferated at a rapid rate along the street, which
for years was a strip of laundries, newsstands, pharmacies, bodegas,
bakeries, hardware stores and a sprinkling of Irish bars. Some of the
notable local eating establishments are Raintree’s, a French restaurant
at 142 Prospect Park West; J.T. McFeely’s, a steak house at 847 Union
Street, and Thai Taste at Seventh Avenue and Carroll Street.

Older businesses are moving to make room for more upscale
establishments. The six cobblers who used to ply their trade on the
avenue have all closed, while a D’Agostino’s supermarket, a hallmark of
affluent neighborhoods, plans a branch at Sixth Street and Seventh
Avenue.

Kevin Mooney, who has run Mooney’s Pub at 99 Seventh Avenue since
1969, said he has been unable to renew his lease, and the unglamorous,
low-key bar will soon move to Flatbush Avenue.

”They don’t want bars on Seventh Avenue anymore,” Mr. Mooney said.
”It was very, very sad, but we have to cope with the times.”

MOST of the new renovations and developments under way are in the
southern section of the Slope, once a working-class neighborhood with
several light industries. Developers have pushed past Ninth Street, the
previous mental boundary of the fashionable Park Slope, and begun
converting old factories and abandoned apartment buildings into co-ops.

The huge Ansonia
Clock Factory at 12th Steet and Seventh Avenue was converted in 1982,
spawning dozens of other projects. Today, more than 10 conversions are
under way or close to completion between 9th and 15th Streets and
Seventh Avenue and Prospect Park West.

Park Slope is ideal for rearing children because of the nearby
park’s ballfields, bicycle trails and zoo, but parents give the public
schools mixed reviews. The local grade school, P.S. 321, is considered
excellent with 84.7 percent of the students scoring at or above their
grade level on tests. But the junior high school, I.S. 88., fared worse
in the most-recent reading tests, with only 56.3 percent of the
students scoring at or above their expected level.

The neighborhood’s high school, John Jay, has been plagued in the
past by disciplinary problems and high dropout rates, but school
officials say it has made a remarkable turnaround in the last three
years. Since 1984, the dropout rate has declined to 9.6 percent, from
24 percent, and the school has started a new program to improve the
academic curriculum for college-bound teen-agers, according to Harold
Genkin, the principal.

The Berkeley
Carroll Street School, which has 540 students in classes from preschool
to 12th grade, is the only private school in Park Slope. Tuitions range
from $5,400 for preschool children to $7,400 for high school seniors.
The neighborhood also boasts several dance studios and the highly
regarded Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, which gives many recitals each year.

One drawback to living in Park Slope, residents said, is the rush-hour commute by subway to Manhattan, since trains are often crowded and delayed because of construction on the Manhattan Bridge.

Park Slope was virtually empty countryside in the 1850’s when Edwin
C. Litchfield, a lawyer and railroad executive, began developing
industry along the Gowanus Canal. After the Civil War, he sold off his
holdings near what is now Prospect Park, and developers built ornate
brownstones as summer homes for Manhattan’s wealthy.

During the first half of the century, the slope was a topographical
social ladder, with the working-class occupying modest rowhouses at the
bottom of the hill near Fourth Avenue and the rich living near the
park. It deteriorated during World War II when speculators bought up
private homes and turned them into rooming houses for workers at the Brooklyn
Navy Yard. In the 1950’s, the remnants of the upper-middle class
migrated to the suburbs and many buildings were left abandoned. Urban
”pioneers” moved in during the 60’s, buying dilapidated brownstones
for as little as $15,000, and they began the renewal that still is in
progress today. GAZETTEER Population: 65,202 (1980 census) Median
family income: $15,974 (1980 census) Rush-hour commutation: 30 minutes
to midtown via the D, M, Q or B trains from Seventh Ave. at Flatbush
Ave., 2 or 3 trains from Grand Army Plaza, or the F train from Seventh
Ave. and Ninth St. 20 minutes by car via Flatbush Ave. to the Manhattan
Bridge or the Gowanus Expressway to the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel. Median
town-house price: $750,000 Median co-op price: $195,000 Median rent:
$1,200. Public-school reading scores: P.S. 321 is 85th out of 613 New York City
grade schools. Councilmen: Abraham G. Gerges (D.-L.), Stephen DiBrienza
(D.). Historic building: The Montauk Club at Eighth Ave. and Lincoln
Pl., a men’s club built in 1891 in the style of a Venetian Gothic
palazzo. Its name is reflected in its varied Indian motifs

I have two tickets to A 50th Anniversary Celebration of the Beats with Laurie Anderson, Ann Charters, Joyce Johnson, Hettie Jones and Bill Morgan at the 92nd Street Y tonight at 8 p.m.

In honor of the 50th anniversaries of two major works from the Beat era—Allen Ginsberg’s Howl (1956) and Jack Kerouac’s On The Road (1957)—writers and scholars gather to celebrate this influential movement. Recordings of Mr. Ginsberg are featured.

Tickets are $18. each. But I will give you a great DEAL if you want them. Email me: louise_crawford@yahoo.com

Pick them up on Third Street.