Monthly Archives: May 2008

Civics and Urban Life

Thanks Marty: Narrow Streets for Carroll Gardens

Pardon Me For Asking has all the breaking news. Marty Markowitz saves the narrow streets of Carroll  Gardens!!

Borough President Marty Markowitz approved the Carroll Gardens Wide Street Text Amendment yesterday without revision. In a 10-page document, Markowitz brought the neighborhood a step closer towards protecting it from out-of-context development.

This Text Amendment is intended to correct a mistake in the definition of Carroll

Garden’s signature garden blocks as wide streets. Wide streets are allowed larger buildings which jeopardize the scale and character of the neighborhood. Developers have taken advantage of this loophole and are breaking up the historic row house street scape.

VERSE RESPONDER: LEON FREILICH

The Oh-So-Prolific-One: Leon Freilich/Verse Responder

A HYMN TO THE G

It’s the runt of the litter gets most of the love
And the one that a parent’s the proudest of
For the strongest and brightest and best-looking too
Will get by on their own whatsoever they do.
This is true of all species in the animal chain
And applies as well to the underground train.
Consider the G line, the tiniest of all,
Only four cars in
length, which is not very tall,
While its brothers and sisters stretch to eight or ten.
So they tower above it like a jungle hen.
And being so small, the G can’t go  far
Never reaching Manhattan, the glamorous star.
Watch it rattle between Forest Hills and Smith-Ninth,
Huffing most of the way on its limited strignth.
Anybody who knows how to read any map’ll
Realize that poor  G never sees the Big Apple.
Woodhaven is fine and so is old Greenpoint
But to limit the G is to make one big mean point.
And its undersized wheels, just like those of a tot
Mean that straphangers wait around quite a lot
For its speed is reduced almost all of the way,
An occurrence not found on the 1 or the A.
But it tries–how it tries–with all of its means
To move people from Brooklyn who’re going to Queens.
You can count on this train, it is wholly predictable–
To be late, to break down and to seem oh-convictable.
Yet the heart has its reasons for loving some things
Whether people or places or teething rings.
If one underdog merits our charity,
It’s the subway that couldn’t–the little G.

          
Postcard from the Slope

A Walk Around the Blog with OTBKB: Ban on Plastic Water Bottle at the Coop

For those of you who haven’t seen the A Walk Around the Blog piece with OTBKB here it is. I reported  on the Park Slope Food Coop’s decision to ban plastic water bottles.

That’s a reality now. This segment was taped before the big vote at the April general meeting. Here’s the video. I really enjoyed working with Narina and Jay from BCAT.

To see all of the Walk Around the Blog Videos go here.

Civics and Urban Life

Tomorrow: The Brooklyn Flea Gets Sun

I think it has rained every Sunday since Mr. Brownstoner and Signor Flea started the Brooklyn Flea, the new mega-groovy flea market in Ft. Greene. But the weather is changing and the sun is on their side.

Is it payback time for the crappiest spring in recent memory? Let’s
hope so, because Sunday’s shaping up to be the biggest Flea yet. New
vintage dealers join the famous pupusa purveyorswallpaper and porcelain dealers making their debut this weekend. If the good weather is a reminder that you need a pair of wheels, we’ve got some sweet vintage bikes
on tap as well. For the uninitiated, the Flea runs from 10 a.m. to 5
p.m. on Sunday and is located at 176 Lafayette Avenue in Brooklyn.
Closest trains are the C and G to Washington/Clinton. Or you can take
any of the number of trains that go to Atlantic Station and make the
10-minute stroll up Lafayette Avenue from there.

formerly of the Red Hook Ballfields. We’ve also got a new

Civics and Urban Life

The Jamie Livingston Frenzy Continues

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The Jamie frenzy continues. And the site, created by Hugh Crawford and Betsy Reid, seems to be up and running. Fingers crossed. The story and the link is making its way around the world. So we hope the site can accommodate all the visitors it’s getting. It’s cool to see the many languages discussing the Jamie Livingston blog. Here’s a post from a Spanish language photo blog.

Un proyecto personal de esos que a mi me encantan: He Took a Polaroid Every Day, Until the Day He Died que cuenta la historia de cómo Jamie Livingston hizo una fotografía con su Polaroid todos los días de su vida, durante los últimos 18 años.

En la página de Mental Floss pueden verse algunas de ellas; la
colección completa abarca desde el 31 de marzo de 1979 hasta el 25 de
octubre de 1997. Son 6.697 fotos en total (durante 6.732 días), tomadas
con una Polaroid SX-70.

this is a pix from 5/24/89

Civics and Urban Life

10th Street Tea Lounge To Close

The Brooklyn Paper reports that the 10th Street Tea Lounge is closing, due to rising rents. Whoa that’s big news.

South Slope writers, mommies and, yes, even a few coffee lovers,
were crying in their lattes this week at the news that the original Tea
Lounge — a neighborhood staple on the corner of Seventh Avenue and 10th
Street — will close at the end of July, a victim, its owner said, of
soaring rent demands.

“It’s killing us,” said co-owner Greg Wolf,
who opened the popular java joint in early 2001. “The closing is
completely ruining our lives.”

Wolf blamed his landlord, Georgina
Tufano, for doubling the rent on his small storefront, though he
declined to reveal the dollar figure.

“It’s astronomical,” said Wolf, whose other bars are on Union Street in Park Slope and on Court Street in Cobble Hill.

Civics and Urban Life

Brooklyn Bridge Celebration with Richard Grayson

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Here’s the latest from author Richard Grayson, author of the forthcoming, Who Will Kiss the Pig? Sex Stories for Teens, I Brake for Delmore Schwartz, With Hitler in New York. He had fun yesterday at the Brooklyn Bridge celebration.

Dumbo Books spent most of today, now that our attorneys have given us the go-ahead, sending out PDF files of Who Will Kiss the Pig?: Sex Stories for Teens
by Richard Grayson, to the kindly cool young hipsters who answered our
Craigslist ad and agreed to take an advance peek at the book. (Not so
nice was the person who broke our confidential pre-publication press
blackout and leaked it to The Gothamist.  And a big boo to the mean commenters on that site.)

Anyway,
we were tired, but after a short nap during “All Things Considered”
(Darn! We missed the last show with those great pledge breaks), we were
up for some fun. The famous writer Tao Lin had a blog post mentioning a big party in honor of Brooklyn’s indie presses,
but when we looked down the list of publishers – Akashic, Melville
House, Soft Skull, etc. – we didn’t see our name. Dumbo Books wasn’t
invited! Sniff. Maybe we are not “Brooklyn” enough for them. We have
not been so bummed out since we were in Mrs. Eisenstein’s first grade
class at P.S. 244 in East Flatbush and a certain Walter O’Malley did
something really mean to us.

(After all, in our new book of teen
sex stories, a lot of the teen sex takes place in Brooklyn, a borough
famous for teenage sex. For example, on page 77 of the book, after a
lot of sex involving a whole bunch of friends, Kevin has to take Libby
to the free city gynecological clinic in Coney Island and while he is
anxiously waiting to hear if she has an STD, another boy asks him: “You
done knock up yo’ fox?” By page 83 Libby and Kevin are staring at a
baby in the maternity ward of Methodist Hospital in Park Slope although
by then Kevin is more interested in looking at Ted… but we digress.)

Downcast
at not being invited to the shindig for Brooklyn small presses, Dumbo
Books glumly walked the streets of our eponymous neighborhood until we
heard about an even better party that, yes, we were invited to.  Wow!

It
was the kickoff of the celebration of the 125th anniversary of the
famous Brooklyn Bridge just a few blocks away at Empire-Fulton Ferry
State Park.

Entering the park, we admired the dark blue Brooklyn
Bridge anniversary T-shirts worn by the event volunteers, who were
probably freezing – we had a hoodie over a sweater over a long-sleeved
shirt over a Medgar Evers College T-shirt and were still cold.

The
T-shirts reminded us of the powder blue T-shirts honoring the bridge’s
centennial that we got in May 1983 for ten dollars at the Brooklyn
Museum gift shop. We wore the shirt proudly but either it shrunk or we
expanded and eventually it ended up usefully but rather ignominiously
as a dustrag in Grandma Ethel’s Rockaway apartment.

Back in
1983, we watched the Brooklyn Bridge centennial fireworks with our BFF
(and current Dumbo Books landlady) Nina, who was rewarded with her work
in the Cuomo campaign the year before with a great job in the state
department of transportation. So we got to see the spectacular
fireworks from the huge windows of her office on the 89th floor of a
building that doesn’t exist anymore.

Thinking about that made
us a little sad, but then right in front of us, we saw our old friend
Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, decked out in a top hat and
1890s-style suit, looking slightly steampunk but just as handsome as we
remembered him from the first time we saw him on the second floor of
LaGuardia Hall back in the day when he was the Graduate Student
Organization president at Brooklyn College and we were a lowly reporter
for the student government newspaper The Ol’ Spigot.

Mayor
Bloomberg was there with him, drinking one of the free Snapple
antioxidant waters in five colors and flavors that they were giving out
along with blue tote bags and other tchtotchkes. And also Manhattan
Borough President Scott Stringer, whom we recall as a little pisher
standing on the corner of 86th Street and Broadway hocking Nina and us
to sign his petition to get on the ballot as district leader. How time
flies!

Well, the night was fantastic. We found some friends from
Crown Heights by way of Trinidad who shared some goodies and a blanket,
and listened as Mayor Bloomberg told a little kid with a sippy cup,
“It’s all downhill from here…You have to go to school and get a job”
before he trailed off and went to the podium, where his image, and
everyone else’s was enlarged on two big Jumbotron screens.

After
a military officer from Fort Hamilton (we patriotically failed our
January 1970 draft physical there) sang “The Star-Spangled Banner”,
there was a great chorus from an intermediate school who sang and moved
to “Give Me That Old Time Rock and Roll” and other songs; and the
Brooklyn IMPACT Project; and the Brooklyn Philharmonic looking very
classy in white dinner clothes playing favorites like Brooklyn-born
Aaron Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man,” Dvorak’s New World
Symphony and the rousing John Philip Sousa march that goes, you know,
“because a duck may be somebody’s mother.”

Also, Marvin
Hamlisch and his many chins sat at a piano and after calling the bridge
“one singular sensation,” played some of his finest songs and even an
original one for the occasion. Mr. Hamlisch is a talented lyricist –
you try rhyming something with “Emily Roebling”!

Marty said they
had spent a lot of money on this celebration – they really went all out
for last night’s kickoff – but at least they did not have to sell the
Brooklyn Bridge to fund it. Ha ha.

At 8:30 p.m. a bunch of
people with white T-shirts that said CAKE TEAM on the back started
handing out the bridge’s birthday cake from Cake Man Raven. We were
hoping for a slice of his famous red velvet cake, but we got something
that was bright green instead. Whatever it was, it was good!

It
was a beautiful, if chilly, night and as the sky darkened, Mayor
Bloomberg counted down and then the colorful lights for the bridge went
on. They change colors every few seconds and will be on for the
remainder of the celebration. Also, a tugboat or something was spraying
water really high from near the Manhattan side, and one of the big
cruise ships from Red Hook passed by just before it took off (do ships
take off?) for the Caribbean or someplace exotic like Europe.

Then
the fireworks began. The Gruccis outdid themselves with a spectacular
display on both sides of the bridge, and even a little near the
Manhattan Bridge so it wouldn’t feel left out, we guess. (We could see
the people on the D train from my little spot on the grass).

There
were some fancy VIPs in a roped-off area by a structure, and they were
drinking wine (one of the state park rangers made a young hipster girl
sitting next to us on the grass leave because she had a sixpack of PBR,
which wasn’t allowed) and eating ravioli or lasagna or something. A lot
of them wore suits and stylish dresses and some of them had press
badges.

Waiting for the port-o-potty, we were kind of shocked
when not one but two teens came out of the little locked space. Well,
we guess they were making their own fireworks! We considered hyping our
book of sex stories for teens but frankly we hate hype – except when
it’s justified as it is for the magnificent Brooklyn Bridge (although
we had a terrible panic attack the first time we drove over it as well
as one the first and last time we tried to walk across it).

Despite
our being disappointed at Dumbo Books being left off the invitation
list for the Brooklyn indie presses party, we had a glorious evening
celebrating the 125th anniversary of the spectacular achievement of the
Roeblings and the brave sandhogs who built the bridge. We think we
heard Marty misspeak and pay tribute to the “sweathogs,” but that was
another group of Brooklynites headed by the cute teen Vinnie Barbarino).

At
Hoyt/Schermerhorn the fabulous G train conductor actually waited in the
station for those of us on the A train to get aboard. What a perfect
night! Isn’t life wonderful!

Postcard from the Slope

Have a “Staycation” at Park Slope’s Zuzu’s Petals

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Staycation
Here’s the word from Fonda at Zuzu’s Petals.

At long last…a clutch of sunny days timed perfectly for the long weekend. Listening to NPR yesterday, I heard Brian Lehrer discuss the Staycation.

So what’s a staycation"

Turn off the electronics, park the car, and stay home…No, not on the couch like a potato. Get out in the neighborhood. Take a walk in the Park or The Gardens. Get together with friends. Do some cooking, and for our zuzugardeners:

Come visit The Big. Our plant selection this week makes my heart thump!

Proven Winner Annuals: Supertunias, Nemesia, Diascia, Verbena, Bacopa, Coleus,Torenia, Bidens,Fuchsia, Oxalis, Asclepia…

Sun and Shade Perennials: Ferns, Solomon’s Seal, Jacobs Ladder, Euphorbia, Heuchera, Delphinium, Columbine,Campanula, Gallardia, Day Lilies, Bleeding Hearts, Hosta

Shrubs, Vines, Trees: Clematis, Roses, Wigela, Lonicera, Hypericum, Japanese Maple, Weeping Cherry, Stewartia, Nectarine, Rhodies and Azalea

AND! rustic stone troughs planted with miniature Alpines…picture below:

Both shops have fresh flowers …Little Zu is open Friday, Saturday, Sunday

The hunt for The New Zuzu is going well. Two lovely people started training this week and we are confident we will be fully re-staffed shortly….I was going to say, Zuzus don’t grow on trees, but….maybe…

Postcard from the Slope

New Sign at the Park Slope Post Office

Yesterday a sign crew removed the Park Slope Post Office sign. Underneath was an old black sign—a really cool old sign. I wished I had a camera with me.

A larger white sign was on the sidewalk. As of last night, it wasn’t up. At the moment there is no sign on the Park Slope P.O. I wish they could have left the old signage that was underneath the more recent one.

Postcard from the Slope

Park Slope’s Blognigger: New Blog on the Block

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I just found out about a new Park Slope blog called Blognigger and its author has written, Nobody Calls My Mom a Slut But Me, one of the best responses to the now infamous New York Times’ article about Slope hating, Where is the Love.

Blognigger describes himself this way: Black every day for 32 years; never a nigger until Wall Street moved to Brooklyn. On his first post in April 2008, he wrote:

I’m a 32 year-old Software Engineer. I grew up in Manhattan, went to a ritzy private school with 95% white kids where I was the token African American black kid.

Now
I make $106,000 a year, and I’m a pauper in Park Slope. No, literally –
we have to leave. I have two kids and my rent has just been raised to
$3500 a month. I’ve lived here since 1999 (when 5th avenue was still a
total shithole), and now I’m going to have to uproot my family and move
out of Brooklyn.

Can I ask you a fucking question?

How can I be making $106,000 a year and not be able to afford to live in Brooklyn?

It
works like this: "Cool" people such as my wife and I, with my interests
in Almodovar and Jonathan Lethem and Apple’s HUIG and and Interpol and
Spinal Tap and KrsOne and boingboing and Fark and AphexTwin and Groovy
on Grails and Bob Ross and Glengarry Glen Ross and Jorn… we move into
a neighborhood just before it’s safe and desireable. We take "sketchy"
walks to the subway (yes, just because I’m black, it’s still sketchy –
maybe they can smell the whiteness within me) and we deal with not
being able to buy tapas on ever corner until the rest of the
neighborhood catches up.

His response to the Times’ article is among the best I’ve read:

Because really and truly, the kids own the neighborhood. Now, for me
and people like me, it’s fantastic, because we have to bring our kids
everywhere we go: to Barnes and Noble, to Two Boots, to a skinny
bookshop with no room in the doorway where our strollers take up all
the goddamn area and piss single people off…

..but the bottom
line is that if you don’t have kids, you’ll probably hate Park Slope.
And I can’t blame you at all – unless you actually live here, in which
case you’re a stupid muthafucka because who the hell would subject
themselves to this shithole if they don’t have kids? Aren’t you tired
of having your meals at Blue Ribbon ruined by screaming babies? Aren’t
you tired of having strollers bang into you when you sit curbside
witcha eggs benedict? Even the goddamn library has kids stickin Kasha
granola bars and shit all over the bookshelves. (Actually, do we have a
library? too lazy to google.)

So kidless: what the hell are you
doing here? Who the fuck joins a leper colony if they ain’t a leper? I
know if I didn’t have kids, I’d be outta here faster than you can say
angry lesbian. (Where did they all go, right?? Anyone remember 2003 up
in this muthafucka?!) Shit, I piss myself off and I *have* the little bastids.

So,
someone who hates park slope is kind of like someone who didn’t like
the movie "Junior" – which is a movie about Arnold Schwartzenegger
getting pregnant. It’s like, nigga you went to see a movie about Arnold
Schwartzenegger getting pregnant! The fuck did you expect?? That there
is the best movie that could ever be made about Arnold getting
pregnant, and if you walked into the theater then you asked for it and
we got no sympathy.

If you’re going to be pissed off by a
kid-obsessed neighborhood – and I can understand that it can be
enraging if you don’t have kids – then don’t even come to Dizzy’s, let
alone buy a house here and push my kid-havin ass outta the 321 district.

Blognigger, welcome to the neighborhood. You can bet I’ll be reading.

Jamie Livingston

Jamie Livingston’s Polaroid-A-Day Website Back Up

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Yesterday because of the intense volume of traffic to Jamie Livingston’s Photo-of-the-Day site, the site crashed.

Hugh worked on it all day and night and it seems to be up and running. I hope it stays that way. "The site is barely able to deal with the number of people right now. Please be patient. If you experience a problem, just try again later."

Jamie Livingston (1956-1997) took a Polaroid every day for 18 years, including the day he died in 1997.

He was an amazing artist who’s project seems to have captured the hearts of tens of thousands of people on the Internet.

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On May 21, Mental Floss ran a story by Chris Higgens about his discovery of Jamie’s website.

"What started for me as an amusing collection of photos — who takes
photos every day for eighteen years? — ended with a shock. Who was this
man? How did his photos end up on the web? I went on a two-day hunt,
examined the source code of the website, and tried various Google
tricks.

Finally my investigation turned up the photographer as Jamie Livingston,
and he did indeed take a photo every day for eighteen years, until the
day he died, using a Polaroid SX-70 camera. He called the project
“Photo of the Day” and presumably planned to collect them at some point
— had he lived. He died on October 25, 1997 — his 41st birthday."

The site wasn’t even public yet. Hugh and Betsy Reid have been working on it for years. They had to scan 6000 plus photographs; Hugh has spent days and nights of his life coding it. It is, truly a labor of love.

Hugh and Betsy are thrilled that the Internet has discovered Jamie. Friends were writing and calling all day with joy that Jamie’s work is getting to those, who really seem to appreciate it.

Betsy wrote me early Thursday morning:

i knew it would happen in some random way. i love it. the tears started coming when i pulled up OTBKB and read the first few words….
Another friend wrote to her:

i can just see the shit eatin’ grin on jamie — the new hero of the blogosphere’s — face! precious and priceless.

So why did the site crash? Because it’s an interactive site, the volume of visitors—and the amount of time they spend at the site clicking from one picture to the next—was more than the site could bear. Hopefully Hugh has fixed the problem. We’ll see as the day progresses.

Above is a picture of Hugh from 1991. Below that is a pix of Betsy Reid and Jamie on July 16th 1988. Below left to right: Billy Swindler, composer, musician, and friend, who died of AIDs. Tim Allen, friend. And the guy with the open mouth—that’s Jamie taking a picture of a tooth.

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Civics and Urban Life

Windsor Terrace Mourns Slain Dry Cleaner

Windsorterracememorial
Last night there was a street corner memorial for Mrs. Kyong Sook Woo, who owned, the dry cleaner who was slain last week: "to remember a neighbor and business woman who was a kind and gentle soul to all she met."

Thanks to Gowanus Lounge for the beautiful poster that was on his site.

The Daily News reports today that a tree will be planted in her memory. Next week Windsor Terrace neighbors and the Parks Department will plant a tree on the corner ouside the store.

"I thought it
would be nice to put something on that corner that would reclaim the
positive energy that she had," said local resident and business owner Brenna Beirne told the Daily News. 

Civics and Urban Life

Brooklyn Bridge Birthday Fireworks: Party on the 27th Floor

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We went to a Brooklyn Bridge birthday party at my dad and stepmother’s apartment in Brooklyn Heights. They live on the 27th floor and we had a great view of the festivities from their apartment—which has windows on New York Harbor, Lower Manhattan, the bridge and more.

There was an even better view from the building’s roof deck, where many tenants and their guests had gathered.

Brit in Brooklyn took the picture you see at left. He has loads of great pictures at his flickr site. There’s a gorgeous one on his blog, as well. Thanks Brit in Brooklyn (Adrian Kinloch).

The fireworks surprised everyone at the party by beginning at 8:40. It seemed early; the sky was still light.

"Maybe they’re practicing," my stepmother said.

Don’t think so. The show began a few minute earlier than reported. There were Grucci barges on either side of the bridge, which sent euphoric splashes of firework’s color into the sky. The arches of the bridge were a light show of changing colors and the bright beam of kleig lights crossed in the sky.

Friends and neighbors, who sat on stools at my dad and sm’s living room and kitchen windows, ooohed and aaahed. Still, those who saw the Bridge’s 100 birthday celebration were disappointed.

"That was the 100th birthday," someone said.

But no-one will ever forget the fireworks waterfall that literally poured off the bridge that year (1983). t was breathtaking.

Still last night’s show was pretty wonderful. Even Hepcat, a veteran of many a fireworks display said, "They were pretty good, I guess.

Bleary eyed from all the problems with the  Jamie Livingston website, he is slowly working on getting those pictures up on OTBKB. In the meantine, enjoy Adrian’s pix. 

Postcard from the Slope

Urban Environmentalist: Reduce Your Computer’s Emissions

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Here are some interesting ideas from Joshua Pereira, Senior Associate Director of IT at the Center for the
Urban Environment (CUE), about ways that you can reduce your computer’s emissions and lessen the environmental impact of your computer. Go here for more information about the Center, which is located in Park Slope.

When you think of lessening your impact on the environment, how you use your computer may not come to mind. But, in fact, a computer that rarely gets turned off could produce close to a ton of C0² emissions per year.

Here are some ways to reduce your computer’s emissions while still getting your stuff done!

•    In the market for a new computer? By doing a quick search on the internet with the phrase “sponsor a tree planting,” you can find an organization that will help you do just that. Recently, some computer manufacturers have made this even easier, by offering to plant a tree on your behalf during the checkout process.

•    Adjusting your Power option settings can always help to save some electricity. You can set your monitor to turn off after 10-15 minutes, and have your system go into Stand-by mode after 20 minutes of no activity on your computer. This saves your work, but puts your computer in a low-power mode while it’s not being used. And once you set it up, it will always happen automatically.

•    Thinking of purchasing a new computer? Go for the gold (EPEAT gold that is)! EPEAT (The Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool – http://www.epeat.net/) is a website that rates the environmental impact of specific computer models. With a wide range of new models to choose from, make sure that your new computer is made by a company with your health (and the earth’s) in mind.

•    Got an external backup drive? What about those awesome desktop speakers with a subwoofer? If you know you’ll be away from your computer for the day, don’t forget to turn them off too. To make easy, make sure they’re all plugged into one power-strip, and just flip the switch on that to shut everything down in one step.

Even if you take just one of these steps towards greening your computer, you’ll be making a difference—and by talking about the steps you’ve taken, you can inspire others to do the same.

Got any of your own green computer tips? Feel free to comment below.

Postcard from the Slope

A Park Slope Storefront is Rented: Two More Available

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There’s action in the vacant storefronts on Seventh Avenue between 3rd and 2nd Streets. Someone has rented the Mark Ravitz storefront, the space that housed Park Slope Books.

We used to think of that building as the house of the dripping cows. Now it’s the house of the dripping cyclops/octopus/suns.

For a month or so the neighborhood was treated to Mark Ravitz’s whimsical creations while he waited to fill the storefront.

I wonder what’s going in. I saw the sign company truck yesterday. The 2nd Street Cafe space and the Seventh Avenue Books space are still, alas, vacant.

But I’m guessing there will be action in those spaces, too. Barrio seems to be busy and successful! It should bring more to this vacated slice of Seventh Avenue.

Postcard from the Slope

Make Dreamland a Reality: Coney Roller Rink Needs Help

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As reported on Gowanus Lounge, Lola Staar’s Coney Island roller rink, Dreamland, needs a little financial help to get going. There’s info on Dreamland’s website on how you can help make Dreamland a reality.

Lola has been working night and day to reopen the Dreamland Roller Rink.
She has overcome many obstacles in the labyrinth of obtaining permits
and insurance for the rink. These obstacles have added exorbitant costs
to the reopening of Dreamland! Costs that we simply cannot cover with
the budget in our business plan. After some generous donations we are
very close to being able to reopen…. but we aren’t quite there yet!
Hence, we need your help to reopen the fabulous Dreamland Roller Rink.

Postcard from the Slope

Times: Painful Budget Cuts to City’s High Performing Schools

The Times delivers some pessimistic news to New York’s public school parents and kids. We’re bracing to find out how District 15 schools will be affected. This is bad news for schools all over New York City, which are already reeling from earlier budget cuts this year.

Some of New York City’s highest-performing schools could suffer
“painful” budget cuts as high as 6 percent next year, Schools
Chancellor Joel I. Klein said on Wednesday, blaming state rules that restrict how the city can spend state education money.

Calling
on Albany to loosen the rules, Mr. Klein said that if he had more
flexibility, he would cut school budgets uniformly, by 1.4 percent, so
as not to “destabilize” any schools.

“This is an effort to treat schools equitably,” Mr. Klein said at a briefing.

But
state lawmakers, as well as education advocates whose historic 1993
lawsuit is resulting in billions of extra state dollars for the city’s
underfunded schools, instantly attacked the chancellor’s proposal,
suggesting that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg
use city money to fill any shortfall from the state. They said the
restrictions were designed to ensure that more money would go to
schools that were labeled by the state as failing or with high student
poverty rates. Under the current rules, some of those schools could see
their budgets grow by as much 4 percent.

      

Jamie Livingston

Mental Floss Discovers Jamie Livingston’s Photo-of-the-Day Website

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070289_std_2Somehow Mental Floss (Where Knowledge Junkies Get Their Fix) uncovered Photo-of-the Day by Jamie Livingston, the not-yet-public website Hugh Crawford and Betsy Reid created for Jamie Livingston’s 6000+ Polaroids. Because it’s a work-in-progress site (a Beta site), there are no names on it, no credits. No contact information. Nothing.

It took Chris Higgens at Mental Floss some time to figure out Jamie’s name. Or to learn that it was Hugh Crawford and Betsy Reid who spent years putting the site together after Jamie Livingston died.

“Yesterday I came across a slightly mysterious website — a collection of Polaroids, one per day, from March 31, 1979 through October 25, 1997. There’s no author listed, no contact info, and no other indication as to where these came from. So, naturally, I started looking through the photos. I was stunned by what I found.”

Higgens did some impressive Internet detective work to  find out more about Jamie. He discovered OTBKB and learned the story.

What started for me as an amusing collection of photos — who takes photos every day for eighteen years? — ended with a shock. Who was this man? How did his photos end up on the web? I went on a two-day hunt, examined the source code of the website, and tried various Google tricks. Finally my investigation turned up the photographer as Jamie Livingston, and he did indeed take a photo every day for eighteen years, until the day he died, using a Polaroid SX-70 camera. He called the project “Photo of the Day” and presumably planned to collect them at some point — had he lived. He died on October 25, 1997 — his 41st birthday.

After Livingston’s death, his friends Hugh Crawford and Betsy Reid put together a public exhibit and website using the photos and called it JAMIE LIVINGSTON. PHOTO OF THE DAY: 1979-1997, 6,697 Polaroids, dated in sequence. The physical exhibit opened in 2007 at the Bertelsmann Campus Center at Bard College (where Livingston started the series, as a student, way back when). The exhibit included rephotographs of every Polaroid and took up a 7 x 120 foot space.

Because of that post (and others), thousands of people are visiting the Jamie site and OTBKB to find out more about Jamie Livingston

Apparently a bunch of Spanish language newspapers picked up the story today and the volume of visitors caused the Jamie site to crash in the middle of the night. That problem is being remedied as we speak.

I heard Hepcat speaking loudly on the telephone at 3 am and it woke me up. Turns out he was on the phone with the people from Host Monster, trying to get them to restore the site. It should be up and running soon. We hope.

There are so many interesting comments on Mental Floss and other places that have picked up the story. Over and over people are saying that it’s one of the most moving things they’ve ever seen on the Internet.

Indeed, the story of Jamie’s life and work is an incredible one. Here’s an excerpt from the post I run every October 25, the day Jamie died, which happened to be his birthday. Every October 25th is Jamie Livingston Day at OTBKB. This post was originally called, On Polaroids and Lasting Friendship.

When Jamie Livingston, photographer, filmmaker, circus performer, accordian player, Mets fan, and above all, loyal friend, died on October 25th (his birthday) in 1997 at the age of 41, he left behind hundreds of bereft friends and a collection of 6,000 photographs neatly organized in small suitcases and wooden fruit crates.

Jamie took a polaroid once a day, every day, including his last, for 18 years.

This photographic diary, which he called, “Polaroid of the Day,” or P.O.D., began when Jaime was a student at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson. The project continued when he moved to apartments in New York City including the incredible circus memorabilia-filled loft on Fulton Street, which he shared with his best friend Chris Wangro.
That loft was the site of many a Glug party, an “orphans thanksgiving,” a super-8 festival of Jamie’s lyrical Super-8 films, and a rollicking music jam.

The picture taking continued as Jamie traveled the world
with the Janus Circus, the circus-troupe founded by Chris Wangro, and later when he became a much-in-demand cinematographer and editor of music videos back in the early days of MTV. He contributed his talents to the ground-breaking Nike “Revolution” spot and many other commercials, too. Through it all he took pictures, made movies, and loved his friends. And the Polaroids reflect all of that: a life bursting with activity, joy and sadness, too.

Jamie brought his camera wherever he went. As one friend said, “It probably helped his social life because everyone wanted to be in a photo of the day.” It was always interesting to see what Jaime deemed worthy of a P.O.D. My husband remembers his own 30th birthday party in his photo studio on Ludlow Street: “Hundreds of people filled my loft and the party snaked down Ludlow Street to Stanton. But what did Jamie take a picture of? A potato chip or something. It was a gorgeous shot, though.”

But more often than not, the photos were of friends, family, himself, special places he had visited, or just something that caught his discriminating eye. And if he’d been to a Mets Game that day, that was it — a Mets game was always a worthy P.O.D.

And the pictures are utterly gorgeous miracles of photographic artistry. The color, the light, the time lapse swirls, the unerring composition. Whether it was a still life of what he’d eaten for dinner, an unblinking shot of his beloved grandfather (Pops), or swooningly romantic portraits of his beautiful wife or ex-girlfriends, any one of these photographs should be in a museum collection. But perhaps more importantly, Jamie’s friends and the world need access to these pictures, which is why his devoted friends have been talking for years about ways to exhibit this massive body of work.

The fact that so many people are discovering the life and work of Jamie Livingston via the Mental Floss site is unbelievably gratifying to Hepcat. Yes he’s a little overwhelmed at the moment and is trying to figure out how to resuscitate the Jamie site, all of this attention is a great way to honor a beautiful man and artist who died at the age of 41.

Postcard from the Slope

The Cyclones Really Do Love Park Slope

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The Brooklyn Cyclones really do love Park Slope. This is from their website. I’m sorry for thinking it was a joke. It’s just that there have been a lot of jokes about Park Slope recently.

Dear Ms. Crawford,
 
This past weekend, the New York Times ran an article that didn’t
paint a very rosy picture of Park Slope.  I was hoping you could pass
along word to your readers that the Brooklyn Cyclones are taking a
stand and proclaiming their love for Park Slopers everywhere!  On
Sunday, July 27th, the team will host "The Cyclones Love Park Slope
Night" at KeySpan Park in Coney Island, and celebrate the things that
have made the neighborhood famous.
 
As part of this special event, the Cyclones will:
 
.   hold "stroller olympics" events in-between innings
.   offer free valet stroller parking outside KeySpan Park
.   host a pre-game "Gymboree" class in centerfield
.   accept "brag about your kid" submissions to be displayed on the video scoreboard
.   highlight some of Park Slope’s most famous people and places
.   allow strollers onto the field after the game to run the bases
 
For one night, we will join the two to create … KeySpan Park Slope!  For more information, log on to www.brooklyncyclones.com.
Anyone wishing to participate in the evening’s Park Slope-related
activities may register at the information table the night of the game.
 
Best,
Jason
 
Jason Solomon
R.C. Auletta & Company

 

Jamie Livingston

Jamie Livingston is on Wikipedia Now!!!

It went up a few hours ago. We’re not sure who put it up there. But it’s here.

Hugh has also gotten quite a few offers to host the site if he’s having problems. The volume of visitors to the Jamie site, which is still broken, and OTBKB is record breaking. There is unbelievable interest in this.

On Wiki, Livingston is mispelled as Livingstone. Here’s what they have

Jamie Livingstone (25 October 1956-25 October 1997) was a New York-based photographer, film-maker and circus performer who from March 31, 1979 through to the day of his death on October 25, 1997 took a Polaroid photograph every day.[1]

Livingstone’s ‘Polaroid a Day’ photographic diary started at Bertelsmann Campus Center at Bard College
and though some photos have gone missing from the collection, 6,697
Polaroids remain. The collection, dated in sequence, has been organised
by his friends Hugh Crawford and Betsy Reid into an exhibit at Bard
College called "JAMIE LIVINGSTON. PHOTO OF THE DAY: 1979-1997", which
opened in 2007.[2]

Livingstone was a member of the musical, percussionist circus troupe
Janus Circus from Bard College. He also worked as a cinematographer and
editor of music videos for MTV, as well as working on advertisements with Nike. [1]

Livingstone’s Polarid a Day charted his experiences with cancer, and even his subsequent engagement. His photographs in and out of hospital continued up until the day of his death.[3]

  1. ^ a b Crawford, Louise. Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn: Jamie Livingstone. Retrieved on 2008–05-22.
  2. ^ Photo of the Day, by Bard Alumnus Jamie Livingston On View in October. Bard College Press Release (2007–09-13). Retrieved on 2008–05-22.
  3. ^ Higgins, Chris. "He Took a Polaroid Every Day, Until He Died", mental_floss, 2008–05-21. Retrieved on 2008–05-22.
Jamie Livingston

Reaction to Jamie Livingston’s One Polaroid A Day

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Betsy Reid, who has worked with Hugh Crawford for years to bring Jamie Livingston’s Photo-of-the Day project to the web has been reading the comments on Meta Filter, Mental Floss and elsewhere. She enjoyed on comment on Metafilter by someone named krippledkonscious.

"I had to think a little bit about why this is so stirring. This is not a technical achievement, nor an endeavor that requires an inaccessible skill set. This is one thing, done once a day. Something so spare and ordinary, just taken to extraordinary lengths. A simple thing: whatever struck his fancy on a given day – just capture one thing on film. Simple.

"I know a lot of people try to do this on Flickr, but this is strikingly different in many respects. This isn’t a collection of forced poses or composed shots or juxtapositions, he isn’t looking for something funny, weird, or ironic. I find myself thinking I should try this, but give up within days because I’d try to wait until something interesting happened. That’s me not appreciating the ordinary, or trying to force it, and not having the discipline to just do something on principle. These photos are as simple as memories. They don’t always make sense, they don’t always fit into some grand theme or design. Here is a memory. Here is another. All you need to know is: this was then, on this date. This happened, I was there. Do you remember?

"Nothing seems framed here. You don’t feel as if he is trying to sell you anything about himself. I like to think that the people in his life probably questioned this hobby or wondered what purpose it could ever serve – especially in those days before such a scheme could bring you internet glory. There was no market for this kind of thing. Who would care? Why keep at it? No one will see it. That camera isn’t even portable. The resolution is terrible. Why bother?

"I think we react to this because it is so rare. A refreshingly simple thing, devoid of polish or fanfare, suddenly set in front of us by chance. It doesn’t ask anything of you. You take what you will.

Photo above is one wall of Jamie’s photos from the exhibition organized by Friends of Livingston at Bard College October 2007 taken Tom Boettcher:   Osbeefeel2001

Postcard from the Slope

Birthday Party for Brooklyn Bridge Begins Today

My stepmother in Brooklyn Heights has been busy trying to get the details about the Bridge’s birthday party. It seems that, even in Brooklyn Heights, info about the celebration kick off has been kept on the low down.

Thankfully, there are loads of details at McBrooklyn. Thanks McBrooklyn!

And it all begins tonight with fireworks and music and will carry on through Memorial Day weekend, when Brooklyn and Manhattan celebrate the
Bridge’s 125th anniversary with a host of events honoring the
structure’s historic and cultural significance.

Read on for more information about the free festivities, go to the Official Guide for a complete schedule.

Thursday, May 22

Celebration Kick-off: Be part of the excitement with a
concert featuring the Brooklyn Philharmonic and special guest
performances including the legendary Marvin Hamlisch, followed by a
Grucci Fireworks extravaganza. A festive lighting ceremony will
illuminate the entire Bridge, which will remain lit every evening from
9pm–11pm through Memorial Day. Doors open at 6pm; concert starts at
7:45pm. Free. (Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park, enter at Main Street, Brooklyn)

The Telectroscope: A Window Through the World: Discover the long-forgotten transatlantic tunnel between London and Brooklyn with the Telectroscope.
Artist Paul St. George’s public media project is an amazing optical
device that allows viewers in Brooklyn to see all the way to London.
Through June 15. Free. (On Old Fulton Street at Fulton Ferry Landing, Brooklyn)

Continue reading Birthday Party for Brooklyn Bridge Begins Today →

Jamie Livingston

A Life Cut Short: Note from Hugh Crawford About Jamie Livingston Project

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Here’s a note from Hugh Crawford to Chris Higgens in response to his post, He took a Polaroid, Until The Day He Died on Mental Floss:

The Photo of That Day project is a work in progress, and the site was put up partly to help coordinate the effor to put together the show at Bard College. That’s why there is so little information on the site. The photos of the post-its with dates are placeholders for photos that were lost.

Once in an incident too complicated to relate here many of Jamie’s
possessions got put out on the street by a landlord picked up by the Department of Sanitation.

Fortunately the truck was intercepted by Jamie and friends en route and they
dumped an entire garbage truck load of garbage out on a NYC pier and sifted through it to recover the photos.

Some of the photos were lost then and in other random incidents while traveling etc. There were other times where there were no photos taken, often while filming in exotic parts of the world where it turned out that there was no Polaroid film.

The photos marked with the orange Xs are photos that I had to re-shoot after a hard drive crash.

It’s kind of cool having someone wander into the site and figure it out. I’m sort of enjoying that mystery aspect of it.

We were all quite amazed at the  personal connection people who didn’t know Jamie made with the work. One of the striking things at the show was that students at Bard were looking at the pictures as a full life experience to aspire to, at the same time that his friends were commemorating a life cut short.

The POD above shows the Polaroids in the suitcases Jamie used to organize them.