Key Food is going green. The store on Seventh Avenue at Carroll Street is painting their sign green, that is. First we thought it was being painted a putrid yellow over the old red. But that ugly yellow must’ve been the undercoat.

Now they’re painting it green. Diaper Diva reports. Green she says.

Hepcat loved the old red color. He is very sad. That sign was his muse: he took so many photographs of it. But maybe he’ll like the green.

Chchchchanges.

On October 13th at at the Old Stone House in Park Slope, join Cool and Unusual Punishment for their annual benefit concert. This year’s concert, Teens for Darfur, features a great line-up of local teen bands.

The Cool and Unusual benefit concert is an annual event. Teens for Darfur follows last year’s Teens for the Phillipines, which raised money for an orphanage for Manila street children, and 2005’s Teens for New Orleans, which raised money for musicians after Katrina.

This year’s concert features: Cool and Unusual, Dulaney Banks, Post No Bills, Banzai, and the newly re-formed, The Floor is Lava (Google their MySpace pages for info on all bands).

It should be a great, great show. The minimum donation for adults is $10. For kids: $5. There also will be refreshments for sale and plenty of information about the situation in Darfur and the American Jewish World Service  Refugee  Relief Effort in Darfur, where the band is sending their contribution.

The show starts at 6 p.m. at the Old Stone House. Fifth Avenue and 3rd Street. For more information contact louise_crawford(at)yahoo(dotcom).

A friend sent me a note about a new kind of physician in Williamsburg. He even has a blog.

I checked out Dr. Parkinson’s web site and it’s VERY interesting. He is most definitely not your typical doctor.

Check out the info below. Thanks to my friend for sending this in.

Dr. Jay Parkinson, a 31-year-old general practitioner, is opening a
solo practice today in which he plans to treat young, healthy,
uninsured New Yorkers in person by house call and over e-mail, IM and
video chat.

For a transcript of this interview, visit wavLength.

http://www.jayparkinsonmd.com/
http://www.publicradio.org/columns/futuretense/

I got a press release yesterday bout a rally by Fresh Direct workers and labor leaders on Friday outside the company’s Long Island City headquarters.

There is outrage because of the firing of two employees who were attempting to organize workers secure benefits, reasonable hours and fairer pay for their co-workers.

The rally is Friday morning at 9:30 am at Borden Avenue and 23rd Street in Long Island City, Queens.

Here’s an after-rally update from Evan Thies from Berlin Rosen Public Affairs.

 September 28, 2007 – Workers at food delivery
giant FreshDirect rallied with labor leaders and more than 100 protesters today
outside the company’s Long
  Island City
headquarters, outraged at the firing of two employees who were organizing to
secure benefits, reasonable hours and fair pay for their co-workers.

Warehouse
workers Loreto Gomez and Lonnie Powell were fired from their jobs at
FreshDirect earlier this month after they complained of poor working conditions
and publicly participated in a Teamsters’ organizing campaign at the
Internet-based grocer.

"I walked in to work with a union t-shirt on and FreshDirect fired me soon
after,” said Lonnie Powell, one of the two warehouse workers who were
terminated after encouraging their co-workers to unionize.  “All we
want to do is organize so that we can make sure our rights as workers are
protected.  FreshDirect is trying to keep us from doing that.  If
they ran a business that treated their employees fairly, this would have never
happened.”

The
fired workers cited standard shifts in excess of 12 hours, forced overtime, low
pay and unaffordable benefit plans as their reasons for organizing fellow
employees at FreshDirect.  Warehouse workers at FreshDirect start at just
$7.25 an hour while most workers make less than $9, with family healthcare
costs so high that employees can’t afford the plan, workers said.
By comparison, the average Teamster warehouse worker in the Tri-state area
earns $14 to $15 an hour plus employer-paid healthcare and pension
benefits.  Teamster workers also start at a much higher wage—$10 to
$12 an hour.

Teamsters
presidents and other labor leaders called the firings at the 800-person
Queens facility inexcusable, demanding swift changes by
FreshDirect to treat employees fairly and guarantee worker safety.  The
labor leaders said they would push hard for the workers to be re-instated and
for FreshDirect to allow organizing at the warehouse.

“The
firing of these workers is outrageous,” said Sandy Pope, President of
Teamsters Local 805.  “FreshDirect’s employees are sending a
message to the company brass that they feel they are being treated unfairly,
and now that they are trying to give their movement a voice, the company is
trying to shut them up.  In order for FreshDirect to be the respected,
thriving company it can be, it has to provide safer working conditions and treat
its workers fairly.

.”

In the "Karma is a boomerang" department, Poly Prep Lower School, which just completed construction of its new building on First Street, should invite neighbors in for a thank-you-for putting-up-with-the-construction party and tour.

That would go a long way in easing tensions on that block.

People are trying to like the new building just as they are getting over memories of a year’s worth of noise, garbage, and general construction mayhem.

Construction isn’t easy on anyone. Nor is a brand new modern school building on a beautiful block of landmarked brownstones and limestones.

Poly Prep should at least have a tour and welcome party for the neighbors. It would definitely be a nice gesture.

This from New York 1:

Several Jewish organizations banded together Wednesday to announce a
reward to help find the person behind several anti-Semitic messages
found in Brooklyn Heights earlier this week.

The American Jewish Committee, Anti-Defamation League and Jewish
Community Relations Council are offering $10,000 for information
leading to an arrest and conviction.

Police say a total of 19 locations were plastered with swastikas,
some were spray-painted on cars, others were found on sidewalks and
houses.

Despite an increased police presence, there have yet to be any arrests.

Anyone with information is urged to call the Crime Stoppers hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS.

Because of the Jewish holiday, Sukkot, there is no alternate side of the street parking on Thursday or Friday. Here’s some information about Sukkot from the Jewish Virtual Library:

The festival of Sukkot begins on the fifth day after Yom Kippur. It is quite a transition from one of the most solemn holidays of our year to one of the most joyous. The festival is sometimes referred to as Zeman Simkhateinu, the Season of our Rejoicing.

Sukkot lasts for seven days. The word Sukkot means booth and refers to the temporary dwelling that we are commanded to live in during the holiday. The name of the holiday is frequently translated as "The Feast of the Tabernacles."  If weather, climate, and one’s health permit, one should live in the sukkah as much as possible, including sleeping in it.