The wife of the man we lovingly refer to as the Mayor of Third Street died a few days ago. She’s been very ill for some time; she was in her mid-seventies.

The mother of nine children, I didn’t know her well. She raised them all in that apartment on Third Street, where they lived for most of their married life, I believe. While the Mayor was often outside, she stayed in due to her illness.

I wave to the Mayor most mornings. Sometimes I see him at the newsstand, where he gets his Daily News or Post. I admired the way he took care of their cement yard. Tidying around the garbage pails, sweeping the yard.

He was apartment-building-proud.

A few years ago, he put bright red fake flowers in a whiskey barrel. His window is always up to date with the laest holiday decorations: Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, St. Patrick’s Day, Easter. Those windows delight the children on Third Street; he always puts a flag out on national holidays.

Neighbors saw an ambulance in front of the building a few weeks ago. From what I know, she died at home. They were set to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary In April.

RIP to a neighbor; Third Street says good bye. Condolences to the Mayor, his family and all who survive this longtime Third Street resident.

So Loretta of Third Street, the woman who had a plaster bust of Elvis Presley in her window for 15 years or so is finally moving to her new digs in the South Slope.

OTBKB reported last year that Elvis left the building. That’s because when Loretta started to pack up her apartment, she took Third Street’s iconic window celebrity out of her window.

Neighbors were aghast. One woman, who has a dog named Monkey, said that she used to tell visiting friends, “We’re in the building next door to Elvis.”

Little did I know, Loretta put her painted plaster bust of Elvis on her back deck. Sadly, exposure to the elements caused much of his paint to fall off.

Loretta was dismayed. She was, of course, planning on taking Elvis to her new home. But without paint, she didn’t want Elvis anymore.

I saw Loretta’s Elvis bust on Thursday afternoon sitting on a tasteful beige couch that Loretta was throwing away. Mostly white plaster with peeling paint, he had a almost Grecian purity. There were hints of blue, the the last relics of his famous one-piece suit visible. I thought Elvis looked really interesting that way.

I stood in front of the couch in the garbage contemplating whether I wanted Elvis in our apartment. But where? We are full to bursting with stuff.

Still, the urban historian in me knew that Elvis needed to be preserved, landmarked, put someplace special, with a plaque detailing his long history in Loretta’s window.

I called Hepcat and told him to quick, leave the apartment and take a picture but he was on a long conference call and couldn’t get away.

A duo of nannies was staring at the Elvis, admiring it. One said that she’d seen that Elvis for years in the window.

The next day when I told Teen Spirit he yelped:

“What, you didn’t take it? It’s ELVIS! MOM!,” he said disgustedly.

This morning, Hepcat started riffing on the dea of a pure, unpainted Elvis bust:

“We now know that the Greek statues were painted in vivid colors and that the purity of white marble forms was a modern misconception. Not to say that Elvis was like Athena giving the gift of the olive to mankind, but there could be a parallel here…” he trailed off.

“You could say something about painted statues losing their paint, iconic Elvis…” he ran out of steam. Lucky I was typing while he spoke.

Ah, Elvis you left the building, went on the deck and sat on the beige couch in the garbage. Now someone has taken you home…

Where oh where can you be?

Fiske Terrace has finally become a landmarked district. Phew.

Think for a moment how long it took for this to come about. Fiske Terrace and others applied for landmark status years ago and were refused. I don’t know the history of Fiske Terrace landmarking process, but it’s hard to believe that Landmarks didn’t do it sooner.

Come on: historic Flatbush: the largest collection of Victorian and other architectural styles of merti houses in the country. IN THE COUNTRY. What took them so long?

But New York is the town that demolished Penn Station. Thanks to Jackie O and many, many others, New York has seen the light since then.

Still, NYC has been slow to the landmarking. But despite the understaffed, overworked Landmarks Commission, NYC is making up for lost time. It’s a slow, laborious process. But New York is finally getting it.

And Victorian Flatbush is being landmarked neighborhood by neighborhood because it is a collection of smaller districts.

Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn, who lives in Fiske Terrac, had the heart to post this email written by Fred Baer, former President of the Fiske Terrace Association, and among the prime movers throughout this designation process. He sent this email to area residents/FTA members regarding the Landmark Preservation Commission’s designation of the Fiske Terrace and Midwood Park neighborhoods as Landmark Historic Districts.

Yesterday we witnessed a historic event for our neighborhood: The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission formally designated the Fiske Terrace/Midwood Park Historic District. The Commission members’ commentary this morning was extremely complimentary towards our neighborhood, and reflected their admiration for how well kept our homes are and how well we have maintained the original character of our neighborhood.

Now that we are officially and landmarked district, there will certainly be many questions that we all as homeowners will have as to what we can and cannot do, and how and when we will need approval by the Landmarks Preservation Commission to make changes to our homes.

Read more at Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn

The Atlantic Yards project is STALLED. Here’s the blog news, the blog analysis, the deep dish on it all; more to come in as more comes in over the blogwire.

Read Brownstoner

Read the Brooklyn Paper

Read Norman Oder at Atlantic Yards Report

Read Gowanus Lounge

Read No Land Grab

Read the skinny on the stalled Atlantic Yards project (Develop Don’t Destroy)

Read the front page article in the Times.

Read the architecture critic in the Times

Everyone was talking about chocolate chip pancakes on Park Slope Parents this week. Someone asked, and the answers came.

“Where can you get chocolate chip pancakes in this area?” was the question. Here’s a review of the responses that this curious parents received from her PSP comrades:

I got tons of responses to my query about finding a place that serves
Chocolate Chip pancakes.

Quite a number of people recommended Tom’s Diner, in Prospect Heights.

There were also a number of recommendations for Daisy’s Diner in Park
Slope.

A few people liked the pancakes at the Purity Diner branch that is on
7th Avenue and 12th Street (one person called that one the “Little
Purity Diner”.) About an equal number of people suggested Miriams on
upper Fifth Avenue (Upper Fifth? it’s down by the Key Food).

I also heard from a couple of people who liked Hope and Anchor in Red
Hook, but I’m afraid that’s not on our radar for tomorrow, since I
wanted to spend the day in or nearer to the Slope. We are all off
from work and school tomorrow (except my poor husband.) My oldest
will be visiting her grandmother in Manhattan, and I wanted to hang
around the Slope tomorrow with my youngest.

A LOT of people sent me recipes, or recommended making the pancakes.
I’m afraid I just want to eat pancakes, not make them. Or, to be more
specific, I wanted my daughter to eat them. I would rather go to a
place where I could eat something else, actually.

But thank you all. This was very helpful!

Just about every article article in today’s Google Alerts about Park Slope is about an incident that occurred in the Fourth Avenue subway station of the F train. An Israeli rabbinical student living in New York was allegedly attacked by a group of Arab teenagers.

It’s the first I’ve heard about this incident. Sadly, it had the feel of a hate crime. Afterwards, the attacker broke his leg when he ran out into traffic on Fourth Avenue.

Also sadly, the story is being used by right wing anti-immigration, anti-Arab news sources like Jihad Watch. Their lede went something like: “More of the wonderful fruits of unreflective, indiscriminate Muslim immigration into the U.S.”

The story really got around: it made it to Jerusalem and elsewhere:

From the Jerusalem Post:

A 25-year-old Israeli rabbinical assistant was assaulted by a group of Arab teenagers screaming “Allah akbar” in Brooklyn on Tuesday evening.

Uria Ohana, originally from Kfar Chabad, entered a subway station in the affluent Park Slope neighborhood in Brooklyn Tuesday evening, on his way to a lecture in Manhattan, when he noticed a group of Arab teenagers congregated on a bench in the station.

Ohana did not exchange words or make eye contact with the group, but proceeded upstairs to his train.

On his way, he felt someone grab his kippa from his head and then heard laughter. Ohana decided to chase the boys to retrieve his kippa.

The 18-year-old boy who grabbed the kippa left the subway station and ran into the street, where he was hit by a car, breaking his leg.

While Ohana chased the boy, the other teenagers began chasing him, screaming “Allah akbar.”

From the Israel News Service:

Oriah Ohana, a 25-year-old Israeli rabbi from Kfar Chabad, was attacked by a group of Arab men in Brooklyn, New York City, Tuesday evening.

An 18-year-old Arab man grabbed the yarmulka (kippa) off Rabbi Ohana’s head at the 4th Avenue and 9th Street train station in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn, while his friends kicked and punched the victim and screamed “Allahu Akbar” [Arabic: Allah is Great].

Rabbi Ohana chased the man who grabbed the yarmulka. The attacker ran out of the subway station and was hit by a passing car

From the News Blaze in Folsom, California:

A 25-year-old Israeli rabbinical assistant was assaulted by a group of Arab teenagers screaming “Allah Akbar” in Brooklyn on Tuesday evening.

Uria Ohana, an Israeli from Kfar Chabad, now working in Wellesley, Massachusetts, was on his way to a lecture in Manhattan, Tuesday evening. Ohana entered a subway station in affluent Park Slope, the densely populated area of Brooklyn, known as one of America’s 10 best neighborhoods.

Ohana may now have a different opinion of the area. As he entered the subway, at the junction of 4th Avenue and 9th Street, he noticed a group of Arab teenagers on a bench, but he went directly up the stairs to the train. One of the boys, reported to be an 18-year-old, grabbed Ohana’s kippa, pulling it off his head.

Seems that a former borough president is the reason that JJ Byrne Park, the Park Slope Park on Fifth Avenue and Third Street, is named JJ Byrne Park. That’s right, Byrne named the park after himself because he restored the park and built the Old Stone House back in the 1930’s.

But, according to the Brooklyn Paper, the park is set to have it’s name changed back to its original name: Washington Park.

So why was it originally called Washington Park?

Because the first battle of the Revolutionary War was fought right there and General George Washington and his army escaped from British forces during the Battle of Brooklyn.

Byrne may have restored the Old Stone House in the thirties but come on. In Friday’s Brooklyn Paper’s article, Kim Maier(in that nice picture above by Noelle D’Arrigo from the BP), Executive Director of the Old Stone House, had this to say about its original name.

“That name reflected its historic importance,” said Kim Maier, executive director of the Old Stone House, who supports the name change back to Washington Park. “When people come [to the park] they will recognize what went on here and that history is where they live.”

In addition to the name change, which was approved by Community Board 6 and is set to go to the City Council soon, the park is in the throes of a major—and much needed—redesign. Again, the Brooklyn Paper:

Right now, the park is undergoing a multi-million-dollar transformation that includes new handball and basketball courts and a dog run — paid for partly by developer Shaya Boymelgreen to compensate for damages incurred during the construction of his NOVO condos nearby.

So I’m going to have to get used to typing Washington Park on the blog and flyers when I advertise readings at the Old Stone House instead of JJ Byrne Park.

I always wondered who JJ Byrne was anyway.

I went. I spent. I enjoyed myself there. I spent too much money on jeans for Teen Spirit and shirts for me. I also bought a great pair of red sunglasses for $18.

UO is a great shop for teenage boys. It’s also a great shop for teenage girls: skinny jeans, print dresses, t-shirts, leggings, fun jewelry.

Surprisingly, I was able to find three shirts that really fit me and that I really like (I may wear one to the Sidecar cocktail party so you can see). Two of the shirts could be dresses with leggings. They’re long (see the picture below though that’s not the pattern I got).

The new Brooklyn UO is in a beautiful space. I haven’t been paying attention so what was that space before? It’s very strange to be shopping in that kind of Manhattan-y shop on Atlantic Avenue right next door to a mid-eastern grocery, a barber, and other very Atlantic Avenue establishments.

Earlier I was on Court Street at the American Apparel, which I find very generic, somewhat sleezy, and quite overpriced. Which isn’t to say that I wasn’t able to find something to buy there. Just saying.

I welcome Urban Outfitters because they’ve got those skinny jeans Teen Spirit likes and it’s a very nice, sunny, beautifully renovated old space.

“Wow, my mother never shopped for me when I was a teenager,” the sales associate in the men’s department told me. I felt kind of funny about it. But Teen Spirit needed jeans.

In an article in Saturday’s New York Times, “What Will Be Left of Gehry’s Vision for Brooklyn,” Nicolai Ouroussoff, the paper’s chief architecture critic, packs a punch when he states his frustration with the current status of the Atlantic Yards Project.

Interestingly, it isn’t until the end of the article that he actually delivers the knock-out blow. I counted. It isn’t until paragraph 17 of the story that the article really kicks ass. In fact, if you only read the first 16 paragraphs you might think that the Times’ critic is just disappointed that the project isn’t turning out the way he hoped.

But it is in the 17th paragraph that Ouroussoff actually says something worth saying and it is something that the Times’ hasn’t said before. (I will be corrected if I am wrong, that’s for sure).

“No development at all would be preferable to building the design that is now on the table. What’s maddening is how few options opponents seem to have.

We could wage a public campaign to stop it. We could pray that Forest City Ratner comes up with more money. But given that the city approved the plan, we cannot prevent the developer from building the arena. Nor is there any way of preventing Forest City from selling off pieces of the property to other investors, who could then come up with any design they liked, as long as they abided by zoning and density guidelines.

Mr. Gehry, on the other hand, could walk away.”

These are strong words for the Times, which has been a strong supporter of Ratner and Gehry’s vision for the Atlantic Yards. The fact that Ouroussoff’s assertions are buried 16 paragraphs into the story is the real story for me.

The first many paragraphs of the story are about Ouroussoff original belief in the “greatness” of Gehry’s vision. But Ouroussoff admits that the project as now planned bears very little relation to the original promise that he saw in the project.

Maybe Ouroussoff had a little too much faith in Forest City Ratner and the realities of politics and development in this city.

“Designed by Frank Gehry, the project was a rare instance in which the architectural talent lined up for a New York project matched the financial muscle behind it. When it was unveiled in late 2003, it seemed to signal a genuine effort to raise the quality of large-scale development in a city still stinging from the planning failures at ground zero.”

Many Atlantic Yards detractors would certainly disagree with that. Others who were excited at the prospect of a Frank Gehry in Brooklyn might agree that Gehry brought some cache to what was basically a big, bad development.

While Ouroussoff admits that New York City has a terrible track record with development projects of this scale (i.e. Battery Park City. The MetroTech Center. Donald Trump’s Riverside South), he seemed to hold out hope that Gehry’s design coulda/woulda been of Rockefeller Center quality—despite Forest City Ratner’s architectural track record.

Hasn’t Ouroussoff ever been to the Atlantic or the Terminal Mall? That said, it was the Gehry name—and reputation—that seemed to give this Times writer so much confidence:

“If large-scale development is unavoidable, why not enlist serious talents like Mr. Gehry to come up with an alternative to the bottom-line proposals that have been the accepted norm for decades? Finally a big developer had turned to a legitimate architectural hero for help, rather than the usual corporate hacks.”

.
Many were lured by the promise of Gehry greatness. Myself included. But as the project evolved and was revealed to be the bloated mess that it is, faith even in the artfulness of Frank Gehry began to wane.

For me, Miss Brooklyn was one thing. But the residential towers were always a big mistake. Even Ouroussoff seems to agree with that assessment now.

“As it turned out, Mr. Gehry’s design revealed both the promise and the limits of that collaboration. The main residential blocks to the east of the arena lacked the architect’s signature ebullience. A series of mismatched towers along two sides of a central courtyard encompassing several blocks, they followed most of the usual planning rules: adhere to the street grid, pack in a good deal of retail along the street, add a dose of public space.”

Luckily, the Times didn’t “cut from the bottom” which is journalistic parlance for the practice of leaving the least important information for the end so that if the editor runs out of space, they can just cut from the “bottom” of the story.

It seems to me that Ouroussoff saved his boldest thoughts for last. Better late than never to acknowledge the false promises that were apparent to many all along. Still, it could of all hit the cutting room floor and maybe that’s why the Times’ put it there. Ouroussoff writes,

“But by pulling out he would be expressing a simple truth: At this point the Atlantic Yards development has nothing to do with the project that New Yorkers were promised. Nor does it rise to the standards Mr. Gehry has set for himself during a remarkable career.”

Drawing of Miss Brooklyn from 2006.

Yesterday was Maundy Thursday, named for “The Maundy,” which is what medieval English monks called the Footwashing they did on Thursday of Holy Week.

According to Reverend Meeter of Old First Church in Park Slope, “the word “maundy” derives from the Latin word mandatum, for “commandment,” as they repeated in Latin the text from John’s Gospel, “a new commandment (mandatum novum) give I unto you, that ye love one another.””

Apropos of this, Meeter wrote the following homily for the small group, who showed up last night for the footwashing. I told Meeter that he should send it to the Op-Ed page of the New York Times or the letters section of the New Yorker. He thought it was too preachy.

I didn’t. I found it very interesting and unpreachy. Here’s an excerpt. The rest can be found on Meeter’s blog.

This week’s edition of the New Yorker has a column by Hendrik Herzberg on sex and politics and Eliot Spitzer, which disappointed me. Herzberg repeats the charge that America, compared to Europe, is overly concerned with the private sex lives of our politicians. He describes Bill Clinton’s dalliance with Monica Lewinski as “trivial.” He quotes the distinguished Professor Martha Nussbaum, that to accuse Spitzer of betraying the public trust is “laughable.”

Well, I agree that Clinton should not have been impeached, but I do wish he had resigned. We would expect the same of any preacher who did that with an intern. And it was right for Spitzer to resign. The underlying issue in both cases, I think, is not the sex, or the sex and the money, in Spitzer’s case. Sex and money are both expressions of the real issue, which is power.

We gave those people power. We put them in power when we elect them. We entrust them with more power than the rest of us, we want them to have power for our common good. We do the same thing with our generals and admirals, with our police chiefs and our building inspectors, we give them power over us. Power is not evil in itself, it’s only partly true that power corrupts, to leave it that power corrupts is to excuse the human heart, it is the human heart in its sinfulness that makes power corrupt. Jesus had power, he had lots of power, and he is not corrupt.

Classical literature tell us that power is drawn to hubris and to arrogance. In Latin terms, the terms of virtue, we can point to Spitzer’s arrogance. In Greek terms, the terms of drama, we can point to his hubris. For Spitzer it was a tragedy because it brought him down. For Clinton, the buffoonery of the congress made it not so much a comedy as a farce, and we the people got the worst of it. The whole nation has been besmirched. Can we turn to the literature of the gospels?

If we see virtue and comedy and tragedy more comprehensively in terms of love, the love of God for us and for the world, can we see a kind of power that is both holy and righteous?

Yes, on the cross, which we bring closer to ourselves in the Supper. There is also a secondary way, in the footwashing, which is why we are trying it tonight.

Not only because it’s in the Bible, and it’s a symbol that is rich and physical and not a little discomforting, not only because it’s regularly practiced by monastics and Mennonites and those Amish people who stunned us by how they responded to the death of their daughters in that school, but also because our vision of power needs to be refreshed. Jesus does that by framing power within servanthood and humility.

To wash the feet is servant’s work. Jesus shows us that he will give us power for our servanthood. But this is America, we don’t have servants here. This is a democracy, with liberty and equality. This servanthood is not about status, it’s about self-giving. And you cannot voluntarily wash someone else’s feet unless you are quite free…