Lara Wechsler’s Website

Here’s an excerpt from my article on Newsweek.com called: Helicopter Moms Vs. Free Range Kids by Louise Crawford.

Would you let your fourth-grader ride public transportation without an adult? Probably not. Still, when Lenore Skenazy, a columnist for the New York Sun, wrote about letting her son take the subway alone to get back to her Manhattan home from a department store on the Upper East Side, she didn’t expect to get hit with a tsunami of criticism from readers.

“Long story short: My son got home, ecstatic with independence,” Skenazy wrote on April 4 in the New York Sun. “Long story longer: Half the people I’ve told this episode to now want to turn me in for child abuse. As if keeping kids under lock and key and helmet and cell phone and nanny and surveillance is the right way to rear kids. It’s not. It’s debilitating—for us and for them.”

Online message boards were soon swarming with people both applauding and condemning Skenazy’s decision to let her son go it alone. She wound up defending herself on the cable news networks (accompanied by her son) and on popular blogs like the Huffington Post, where her follow-up piece was ironically headlined “More From America’s Worst Mom.”

The episode has ignited another one of those debates that divides parents into vocal opposing camps. Are modern parents needlessly overprotective, or is the world a more complicated and dangerous place than it was when previous generations were allowed to roam unsupervised?

Read the rest here.

My friend and fave poet, Michele Madigan Somerville, is starting a brand new poetry reading series at an Irish pub on Smith Street called Ceol.

Come hear two GREAT poets,  Tony Towle and Michele Madigan Somerville, on Wednesday May 7, 2008 at 6:30 pm at Ceol: 191 Smith Street (between Baltic and Warren) 347-643-9911.

Michele writes: "Tony should be the Poet Laureate!  Honestly. 
His book, North, was the first poetry
collection I ever bought — @ Books & Co., Madison Ave. in ’78, with
waitressing money!!"
 

An OTBKB reader wrote in about a found dog:

I am a regular reader of both your blog and The Gowanus lounge, so I am
familiar with how broad your spectrum of topics are. 

I was hoping that
you might do me a favor.  My girlfriend, along with a few caring and
concerned Brooklynites, found this dog around Smith and 9th Streets.

After having almost been hit by a couple of cars, this dog was rescued
and is now being cared for in a temporary foster home. 

We are posting
fliers in hopes of reuniting her with her rightful family, but I was
hoping that a little exposure on the OTBKB might help our cause. 

Would
you be willing to help us out?  If anyone has info as to the location
of this dog’s rightful family, they can contact Joanna at jfern.cf(at)erizon(dot)net

Attached is a good picture of her.  It appears the dog is a chocolate lab pit bull mix with a wonderful temperament.

A reader wrote in with this request. Please send repsonses to: poppy43tou(at)hotmail(dot)com

I am trying to track down an obituary announcing the death on September
23, 2006 of a 15 year old boy killed by an automobile or truck in
Brooklyn Heights.

The boy’s first name was Adam. I don’t have the last
name. He was killed chasing a baseball into the street.

Is there any
chance you can/would help me with this? Any assistance you could
provide would be greatly appreciated.

Declan Curran from Richmond, Virginia, neees help identifying the WWII crew members in this photo.

One of the crew, Leonard Hersch, was from Brooklyn. Declan asks, "Would it be too much to ask for a one-liner on your blog – perhaps there may be family still living in Brooklyn and they could identify him?"

I love doing this kind of thing on OTBKB. Here is info from Declan’s blog as to why he’s doing this:

Several weeks ago my eleven year old son Alec had to do a school project, an essay about members of his family. Being a war buff he decided to focus on members of the family that had gone to war. There were several on my wife’s side of the family that I already knew of but we discovered another – Victor Ratliff – front row, right, in the photograph above. Hand written on the edge of the photo is “Victor + crew killed April 18 1944”. My wife found out that Victor was buried in Arlington Cemetery but that’s all we really knew.

A search on the internet found that “Good Pickin”, serial no. 42-6153, was used as a trainer with the 452 Bomb Group and was stationed at several bases in Texas so I’m assuming that’s where Victor received his training and that the others in the photo were his crew mates.

Over Spring Break Alec and I headed for DC. Arriving at Arlington Cemetery we inquired at the visitors center. With just a first and last name and the year of interment (we assumed that he was buried the same year he was killed) a kind member of the Arlington staff started going through microfilm records and within 5 minutes had a Victor Ratliff, grave marker 4520 in section 34. Needless to say, Alec and I were elated to have a “hit” but were also aware that given the number of WWII buried in Arlington it was possible that the Victor Ratliff we were looking for was not the one we were about to find.

After a brisk walk to section 34 we found the grave marker and were amazed to discover that the marker had more than one name and more than one date, but it did have Victor Ratliff and the date April 18, 1944. (Click here to see enlarged image of grave marker) The names on the marker were; Albert C. Joyce, Anthony C. Formato, Leonard Hersch, Eugene J. Harpster, Victor B. Ratliff, Leon J. Sarnowski, Robert D. Stetler, Pete N. Rayhawk and James T. Finch. There were 4 other names with the date of May 24, 1944.

You can read the rest at at Declan’s blog.

This could be fun. I don’t know anything about the Miramar Yacht Club but learning how to sail in Sheepshead Bay. Sounds interesting.

To help promote safe sailing a LEARN TO SAIL In One Night class, will be given at Miramar Yacht Club in Sheepshead Bay Brooklyn.

This class will teach all the basics of how to sail. The class will take place Friday night June 6th, 8:00pm -10:30pm.

The total cost for the class, class materials, refreshments and a free sail is $25.

For reservations or information please call 718-743-5823 or email sail@miramaryc.com .

Miramar Yacht Club
3050 Emmons Avenue, Brooklyn NY 11235
sail@miramaryc.com
www.miramaryc.com
Miramar Yacht Club www.miramaryc.com (718) 769 – 3548 sail@miramaryc.com

Here’s this week’s Smartmom from the award-winning Brooklyn Paper:

Smartmom is thinking of getting the Oh So Feisty One a cellphone. On Sunday, they went into two shops on Seventh Avenue just to look at them.

Nokia. Samsung. LG. Motorola. Smartmom watched as OSFO studied every model on display. She even picked up a Blackberry.

“I don’t think you need that,” Smartmom said, grabbing the ubiquitous businessman’s device out of her hand. Yeesh.

At one store, OSFO made a beeline for a lavender Sony Ericsson Music Phone.

“This is the one I like,” she told Smartmom decisively.

“Excellent choice,” said the salesman behind the counter. He seemed eager to close the deal.

Patience, young man, Smartmom wanted to say. We’re just BROWSING.

The cellphone will be a gift for OSFO’s fifth-grade graduation, which is just around the corner. OSFO has already selected her outfit.

And, apparently, her present.

This impromptu shopping couldn’t be timelier, given that recent Lenore Skenazy column in the New York Sun in which she admitted that she allowed her 9-year-old son to ride the subway by himself.

Readers ended up concluding that Skenazy won’t win the “Mother of the Year” election any time soon.

But Smartmom understood Skenazy’s dilemma. Kids need to be given some breathing room at some point — and New York is the safest city in America — so whether the kid is 9 or 12, at some point, he is going to have to get on the subway, stand clear of the closing doors, and figure it all out.

Smartmom isn’t ready to let OSFO make such a subterranean journey, so the cellphone seems to be a good compromise.

And they certainly could’ve used that cellphone last week when Smartmom got stuck on the Upper West Side with Manhattan Granny, who was having dental surgery. She knew she wouldn’t make it back to PS 321 by 3 pm.

She called Hepcat, who was at an important meeting at the Edgy Web Design Firm in Soho, and couldn’t leave.

Smartmom did what she usually does when she’s running late for pick-up: she called a friend’s babysitter to ask if she could take OSFO home.

But that didn’t work. The babysitter was on vacation. Oops.

At 3:15, a panicked Smartmom called OSFO’s friend hoping that they were together.

“No, she’s not with me,” her friend said.

“Do you know where she is?”

She didn’t. At 3:30 or so, Smartmom got a call from Hepcat. The oh so resourceful Oh So Feisty One had gone into the office and called Hepcat’s cellphone. He told her to sit tight; he was on his way. Super Daddy!

Smartmom found herself seething with jealousy wondering why OSFO had called her dad and not her.

Then she got teary thinking of her little girl waiting for her in the school’s backyard. Isn’t that the most awful feeling in the world? Waiting and waiting for your mom to pick you up, you go through all of the stages of grief: anger, resentment, pathos, acceptance, but then a little more anger and pathos (Smartmom is summoning up memories from her own childhood now. Here come the tears).

Truth is, OSFO was fine. The backyard is a lively place after school with the many familiar faces of parents and friends.

After a while, OSFO got bored waiting in the office and discovered that she had the house key that Smartmom gave her a few weeks ago (with a cute domino key ring) in her bag.

The latch key kid called Hepcat (again!).

“I’ll meet you at home,” she said. And that’s what she did.

Long live cellphones. And 11-year-olds who are ready to walk home and let themselves in!

Smartmom doesn’t know what they’d do without Teen Spirit’s cellphone. At 16, he’s on a very long leash and the phone helps them keep tabs on him (especially when he’s out as late as 2 am).

“Where are you?” Hepcat always asks in lieu of hello.

“I’m sleeping at Eric’s,” Teen Spirit tells him. He always seems to be at Eric’s.

“Does this Eric guy really exist?” Hepcat always asks Smartmom when he gets off the phone. “Do we know where he lives, who his parents are?”

Eric is a real person, Smartmom tells him. His parents are very nice. But with a cellphone, a kid could say he’s anywhere. There’s really no way to trace it unless you get one of those GPS attachments for the phone.

And Smartmom isn’t ready for that level of helicopter parenting. You might as well put a tail on your kid or put a wire on his best friend.

The cellphone, ultimately, gives Hepcat and Smartmom what they really crave: the illusion of control. If they can hear his voice, they figure he’s probably not lying in a pool of his own blood in Union Square. Or Herald Square. Or even Bartel-Pritchard Square.

They can even say parental things and boss him around.

Smartmom reckons that OSFO will actually need a cellphone when she goes to middle school next year. It’ll help them feel like they’re watching over her even when they’re not.

She can already imagine OSFO’s voice on her outgoing message. “Please leave a message after the beep…”

Beep. I love you, OSFO. Come home soon. I miss you…

It’s always a pleasure when author Richard Grayson sends me stories of his life in Brooklyn. This one is in honor of Earth Day. I remember this earthquake, too. We were living on the Lower East Side then and felt it.

This morning I was reading  the New York Times reports of yesterday’s rare Midwestern earthquake and comments by Chicagoans like this one: “It actually woke me up. And I thought, my bed is shaking! What’s going on?"

I had the same experience in Park Slope in 1985.  For four months I’d taken over my friend Judd Silverman’s share in a duplex apartment on President Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenue while he was in Pennsylvania directing plays.  On Saturday, October 20, I was sleeping soundly in bed when suddenly the bed started shaking violently enough to wake me up.  I looked up and the lighting fixture above was swaying back and forth.  It lasted just a few seconds and I drifted back to sleep.

I woke up around 7:30 a.m. and hurried off to a Saturday graduate class in computer education at Teachers College.  On the subway I remember musing about that weird dream I’d had about being in an earthquake.  It wasn’t until the class took its break after a couple of hours and we headed to the basement cafeteria for snacks that I heard our professor ask, "How’d you like that earthquake this morning?"

I couldn’t believe it was real.  When I got back to the Slope, I went over to Sterling Place, where my friend Susan Mernit (now a well-known dot-com entrepreneur in Silicon Valley) lived with her family.  She said they’d heard a rumbling noise with the earthquake and the ground shook considerably, if very briefly. 

Talking to other people in the neighborhood, I discovered that many people felt the quake and then turned on the radio or TV and got confirmation that there had indeed been an earthquake, preceded by a smaller foreshock.

They struck about two minutes apart shortly after 6 a.m. and were centered in Ardsley in Westchester County.   Seismologists at Columbia University said the quake had measured 4.0 on the Richter scale and the foreshock 2.0.

Other people in the Slope, like Judd’s two roommates, seemed to sleep through the whole thing.  I was the only one I could find who’d assumed I was dreaming.

I wonder if other Slope residents have memories of that quake.  It occurred just three weeks after Hurricane Gloria came through and downed a number of trees and lots of branches in the neighborhood.

Incidentally, the strongest earthquake to hit metro New York was centered right here in Brooklyn on Sunday afternoon, August 10, 1884.  Scientists say it was a 5.0 on the Richter scale.  Here’s a contemporary newspaper report:

"The policemen on the Brooklyn bridge report that the shock was distinctly felt there, and the great towers at either end oscillated visibly, while the bridge itself rocked as if struck by a hurricane.  The shock was felt generally along the river fronts, and the piers were shaken as if by a heavily loaded truck passing over them.  At the iron steamboat pier, which is built of solid masonry, the motion was so violent that the ticket-takers rushed from their offices to ascertain the cause of the commotion.

The late afternoon boats brought back crowds from Coney Island, where it was said that the shock was much more violent that in the city.  The piazzas and dining-rooms at the Manhattan and Brighton Beach were well filled when a rumbling noise was hear, followed by a rocking of the ground, which made window panes rattle and shock dishes and wine glasses from the tables.  There was a general rush for the open air, and great excitement prevailed.  There was a general rush toward the main entrance, the people being under the impression that the structure was giving way.

In Brooklyn the earthquake was felt very generally throughout the city.  Along the river front and in the eastern district the chock appears to have been heavier and of longer duration.  Everywhere people ran from their houses in terror.  People in Greenpoint started on a run for the immense oil works which are located on the shore of Newton creek, thinking that an explosion had occurred there, while all the fire companies harnessed their horses in readiness to respond to an alarm of fire, which they thought would soon follow.

The sensation experienced on board the receiving ship Vermont, lying in the Brooklyn navy-yard, was similar to that felt when a broadside is discharged from a ship at some distance.  According to the story of one of the sailors, there was a distinctly perceptible jar felt, and it was noticed by all on board.  Persons traveling in street cars felt the vibration, and in many instances the wheels of the car seemed to leave the track, producing the same effect as when they pass over a loose switch.

The bell of a Presbyterian church in Greenpoint swayed back and forth and rang several times loud enough to be heard by all the people living in the neighborhood.  Among other evidences of the violence of the agitation in Brooklyn may be mentioned the stopping of clocks, the throwing down of a high pile of bricks, the swinging of lamps and pictures and the like.  Many of the Sunday-schools were in session at the time, and the teachers had in some instances great difficulty in allaying the fears of the scholars."

I’m sorry that I didn’t make it to the walk-through of the brand new Center for the Urban Environment on 7th Street between 3rd and 2nd Avenue, which is quite the up and coming street.

Judging by the pictures on Gowanus Lounge, it looks like a very interesting space.

The Center is in the same building as Brooklyn Artist’s Gym and Room 58 (part of the Brooklyn Writer’s Space). And on the same block where the new branch of Union Hall will be.

Quite the hot spot of a block.

Today at 3 p.m. Assemblymember Joan L. Millman presented the Center with a $250,000 check for its new state-of-the-art green building in the Gowanus seciton of Brooklyn. The Center is on schedule to be Brooklyn’s first LEED-certifed building for commercial interiors by the US Green Building Council.

LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.

The Center’s Community Grand Opening is scheduled for Saturday, May 10th and will feature public tours of the building, you and family programming, a local tour of the Gowanus neighborhood and a Sustain Business Corner. Founded in 1978, the Center has been involved in urban environmental education in NYC. THey are a leading innovator in the field, with programming that promotes sustanability and a healthy living enviornment.

Check out their website.

 I got an email last week from the director of St. Ann’s Warehouse in DUMBO about Ireland’s premiere theater company, DRUID, and their award winning hit, The Walworth Farce, from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, "en route" to a Fall engagement at London’s National Theatre.

This not-to-be-missed production is playing at St Ann’s from April 19th until May 4th. Today it got a glowing review from Ben Brantley in the Times. Get your tickets now.

HOW I PEEL ABOUT BANANAS

My breakfast wouldn’t be complete
Without a fresh banana to eat
It’s just the right material
To go with milk and cereal.
Bright as the sun and shaped like the moon,
The slice floats onto my spoon,
But now too many banana bits
Are making the cereal have fits
Look at this bowl, so full of stuff.
Some fruits don’t know when enough’s enough!
The problem is, bananas have grown
To the size of a yellow telephone
Pole. Much too, much too large –
Why, one’s enough to fill a barge.
And once you peel it, everyone knows,
It has to be eaten, or there is goes.
Something needs doing about the peel,
Which coils up like a sleeping eel.
Banana, mine, I love your taste
But hate being tempted to go and waste.
So Mr. Grower and Mr. Shipper,
How about bananas with a zipper?