Monthly Archives: September 2008
Is My Money Safe? And Other Questions
During these volatile times, all of us have questions, questions, questions about what is really going on and what it means. There’s a helpful Q&A in the Times today by Ron Lieber. It’s not exactly comforting but it is informative. Here’s an excerpt.
For all of you on Main Street who have been watching the turmoil on Wall Street for the last few weeks, Monday’s shockwaves rattled even the most steadfast.
The day began with the announcement that another big bank — Wachovia — had been taken over, just days after Washington Mutual collapsed and was sold. In early afternoon, the House rejected the bailout package for the financial industry. Stocks plunged, with the Dow ending the day down nearly 778 points in the worst single-day drop in two decades.
What is a regular investor to make of it all? What about people who have money in bank accounts? Below are some answers to questions that are probably on your mind.
Best Sushi in Brooklyn
According to Yelp, three of the best sushi places in Brooklyn are right here in Park Slope and Windsor Terrace The choice was made by members of Yelp, a social networking site, where people comment on their local restaurants and stores. Recently they’ve added a Brooklyn Yelp. This is by no means a scientific survey. It’s just a bunch of Yelpers yelping about places they like.
Floundering in a sea of options? Many Brooklynites swear by Park Slope’s Blue Ribbon Sushi, including Jeff M who touts their “beautifully prepared, exquisitely fresh” sushi that “compares favorably to Next Door Nobu.” High praise, indeed! The Slope is also home to Taro Sushi, another top-notch destination to get your sashimi fix. Juston P ‘s calculations demonstrate its superb value: “sushi + delicious + fresh + small restaurant + well-known Chef is meant to equal $$$. Yet, it’s only $.”
Simona G is all about Sushi Yama and declares it “the best in Windsor Terrace.” She is a fan of their tasty morsels, friendly waitstaff, and the fact that “the price is right.”
The Disappearing Face of Brooklyn’s Storefronts
That’s the name of a new show at the Brooklyn Historical Society on Pierrepont Street in Brooklyn Heights. It’s a lovely place, which has beautifully designed exhibits and this one sounds interesting.
Brooklyn’s neighborhood storefronts have the city’s history etched in their facades. Each store is as unique as the customers they serve and are run by owners who share a commitment to provide a special service. Many shops are lifelines for their communities, vital to the residents who depend on them for a multitude of needs. Yet such shops are disappearing on a daily basis as their neighborhoods rapidly change. Photographer-curators James and Karla Murray have scoured Brooklyn to observe “mom and pop” businesses from humble neighborhood stores tucked away on narrow side streets to well-known institutions on historic avenues.
Through panoramic photographs, portraits of individual storefronts, and illuminating interviews with shop owners, this exhibition reveals how neighborhood stores help set the pulse, life, and texture of their communities.
The Where and When
Brooklyn Historical Society
128 Pierrepont Street at Clinton Street
September 10-December 28, 2008
The museum is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays
Weekdays open 12-5, weekends 10-5
Owner of Park Slope’s Song is a “Kick-Ass Rocker”
An OTBKB reader sent word of a new album from the owner of Song, a fave Park Slope Thai restaurant. Sure, Song is named Song, but who knew the owner was also a “kick-ass rocker.”
I wanted to introduce you to a kick-ass rocker out of Brooklyn, Ariel Aparicio, who I thought you might be interested in blogging about.
Ariel is a Brooklynite at heart (though Cuban-born and Miami-raised); not only making his home in BK, but also home for the 2 successful Thai restaurants he owns: Joya in Cobble Hill, and its sister establishment Song, in Park Slope.
Ariel’s vocal stylings run the gamut from the ultra-cool Iggy Pop & The Stooges-style mumblings, to Bowie-esque pop-punk precision, to the modern-rocker style of Julian Casablancas of The Strokes.
Ariel’s new album, All These Brilliant Things, is set for hard release at the end of October
.
MS 88: 6 Teacher Marriages
Cute story in the Daily News about MS 88, a middle school on 18th Street and 7h Avenue:
One Brooklyn middle school specializes in reading, writing – and romance.
More than a dozen teachers have met their matches at Middle School 88 in Park Slope, which has spawned six marriages, one engagement and numerous long-term relationships.
Two married couples are on staff, and four other current teachers met their spouses or significant others there. And several other couples who have since left were introduced at the school.
“Nobody comes to work thinking, ‘I’m going to meet somebody,'” said Deanna Kaufman, who began dating her husband while teaching English at the school. “It sounds so cheesy, but you can’t help it.”
Principal Aileen Altman Mitchell attributes the couplings to the school’s young and driven staff, who work long hours and devote so much of their personal time to the job.
“You hire people with similar beliefs and values,” she said. “They have a mutual interest, so it’s a natural outgrowth. They passionately believe in what they are doing.
“
Bid on this Ruth Orkin Photograph at Art Obama
At Art Obama you can bid on this photograph by photo legend Ruth Orkin printed from the original negative.
Art Obama is the brainchild of a committee of smart, creative Park Slopers, who are mad as hell and can’t take what’s happening to this country anymore. So they got organized out of frustration and passion and put together this home-grown effort to raise money. Lucky thing they know a lot of New York artists, who were willing donate some terrific art, including this painting by Ann Agee.
On October 3, there will be a silent auction of over 100 small works by American artists to support the election of Barack Obama and down-ticket Democrats.
Proceeds benefit the Obama Victory Fund. Donations also accepted for ActBlue , a clearinghouse supporting progressive House and Senate candidates nationwide. Space is limited, and pre-registration for this event is strongly recommended.
The Where and When:
Friday, October 3, 2008
Silent Auction 7 to 10 pm (bidding 7-9). $25 at the door
62 Eighteenth Street, Brooklyn NY, 5th Floor
Root Stock & Quade: Fire at Seventh Avenue Location
A sign on the door of Root Stock and Quade, says that there was a fire in that shop recently. Because of fire and water damage, the owners are closing that location; they have a location in Clinton Hill, where they will continue to run their urban gardening and floral arrangements business.
RIP: Pioneering Urban Preservationist Dies
Margot Gayle, who fought for the preservation of New York City’s 19th-century architecture—even before there was a historic preservation movement or a Landmarks Commision, died today at the age of 100. This quote is from the New York Times:
‘’Margot Gayle is the only reason we have a SoHo,’’ Brendan Sexton said in a 1998 interview, when he was president of the Municipal Art Society. ‘’The only person who comes close or who shares with Margot that honor is Jane Jacobs, who stopped Robert Moses from putting an expressway through what is today SoHo and TriBeCa. Margot turned her eye on the cast-iron district and it appeared like magic.”
No Words Daily Pix: Photograph by Hugh Crawford
Whole Foods on 3rd Street Will Never Happen?
The Whole Foods superstore that’s been planned for the corner of 3rd Street and 3rd Avenue in Gowanus will never happen, according to a source with close connections to the State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), the government agency that needs to sign off on the clean-up of the polluted site before any building can begin. Environmental concerns aside, evidently the trend in the supermarket biz has swung away from superstores, our source notes; in addition, in the wake of poor earnings this summer, Whole Foods announced that it would be cutting back on the number of new stores next year. The likely upshot? Even if Whole Foods decided to open a smaller store in Brooklyn, says our source, it’s unlikely it would want to use this site. You buying it?
Trader Joe’s: Welcome to Brooklyn
Photographer Max Flatow grabbed a bunch of great shots of the new Trader Joe’s located in that glorious bank building on Court Street and Atlantic. Check out more at his blog.
Vote on $700 Billion Bailout Bill Today
As reported everywhere, The House votes today on the $700 billion bailout of the financial industry after a weekend of marathon negotiations produced a 110-page bill, intended to relieve the historic credit crisis with an emphasis on oversight and limits on golden parachutes.
Squad 1 Widow Runs in Tunnel to Towers Race
Nice story in the Daily News about Susan Siller, who ran in this year’s Tunnel to Towers Run.
The widow of hero Firefighter Stephen Siller, who sprinted through the Battery Tunnel on 9/11 to get to the burning towers, ran in his footsteps for the first time Sunday.
Sarah Siller took part in the seventh annual Tunnel to Towers Run, which honors her husband, whose selflessness on that tragic day will live on forever, she said.
“It was time,” the Staten Island mother of five said.
“It was a very emotional experience, and to go through the tunnel and hear everybody cheering was amazing,” said Siller, 41, of Staten Island.
On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, Stephen Siller, 34, a firefighter with Squad 1 in Park Slope, Brooklyn, raced on foot through the smoke-filled tunnel carrying 80 pounds of gear when he wasnot allowed to drive to Manhattan.
He was last seen alive at West and Liberty Sts.; the rest of his fire company was already there, and they all perished.
Siller’s story is memorialized in the annual 5K run that began in 2002. For the past six years, Sarah Siller stood at the finish line and cheered on runners.
Buy Some Cool Art: Support Obama at Art Obama This Friday
Art Obama is the brainchild of a committee of smart, creative Park Slopers, who are mad as hell and can’t take what’s happening to this country anymore. So they got organized out of frustration and passion and put together this home-grown effort to raise money. Lucky thing they know a lot of New York artists, who were willing donate some terrific art, including this painting by Ann Agee.
On October 3, there will be a silent auction of over 100 small works by American artists to support the election of Barack Obama and down-ticket Democrats.
Proceeds benefit the Obama Victory Fund. Donations also accepted for ActBlue , a clearinghouse supporting progressive House and Senate candidates nationwide. Space is limited, and pre-registration for this event is strongly recommended.
The Where and When:
Friday, October 3, 2008
Silent Auction 7 to 10 pm (bidding 7-9). $25 at the door
62 Eighteenth Street, Brooklyn NY, 5th Floor
Kids Rx: It’s Beginning to Look Like a Pharmacy
This is Kids Rx, the children’s pharmacy and healthcare shop going into the old Second Street Cafe storefront on Seventh Avenue and 2nd Street.
Sycamore is Such a Pretty Flower Shop; It’s Also a Bar
It’s called Sycamore. By day it’s a flower shop; at night it turns into a cool bar. From the folks who brought you the Farm at Adderly, Sycamore is located on 1118 Corteylou Road. Simply loverly.
Major Setback for Ratner’s Atlantic Yards Plan
This is the press release from Develop Don’t Destroy.
BROOKLYN, NY— A State Appellate Court* panel has rejected the Empire State Development Corporation’s (ESDC) motion to dismiss Goldstein et al. v. Empire State Development Corporation—the Atlantic Yards eminent domain lawsuit filed by nine property owners and tenants with properties in the footprint of Forest City Ratner’s foundering megaproject proposal. The case was filed on August 1st of this year.
The ESDC unsuccessfully tried to dismiss the petitioners’ case, which charges that New York State’s use of eminent domain to seize private homes and businesses for developer Forest City Ratner’s (FCR) Atlantic Yards project violates the New York State Constitution’s public use, due process and equal protection clauses, as well as low-income resident requirements.
The petitioners’ victory is a major setback for FCR and the ESDC. FCR President/CEO Bruce Ratner recently told The New York Times that he plans to “break ground” in December. Ratner does not own the land he needs to build his proposed arena and skyscraper project, and is attempting to have New York State seize the land for him by eminent domain.
“Though Ratner claims that he’ll ‘break ground’ for his Atlantic Yards proposal in December, he cannot do so unless New York State uses eminent domain to seize the owners’ and tenants’ properties and give them to him as planned. But the plan is now in doubt,” said Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn Legal Director Candace Carponter.
The Court has given the ESDC until October 15th to file its answer to the petitioners’ complaint. According to the normal briefing schedule, petitioners will then file their brief on January 15th, 2009. The ESDC would reply in mid-February and petitioners would file their answering brief at the end of February. Oral argument would then most likely be scheduled for sometime in March or April and a decision would presumably come somewhere between late spring and fall of 2009.
“The seizure of my clients’ homes and businesses is unconstitutional. We are pleased that the Court has recognized the merit of our case and will now hear the arguments in full,” said lead attorney Matthew Brinckerhoff of Emery Celli Brinckerhoff & Abady LLP. “We are confident that when we finally have our day in court, we will show that New York State’s condemnation and seizure of my clients’ homes and businesses for Forest City Ratner’s enrichment violates New York’s Constitution.”
The initial complaint to the Court and the briefs on the motion to dismiss for Goldstein et al. v. Empire State Development Corporation can be downloaded at: www.dddb.net/eminentdomain
The Court’s order denying the motion to dismiss can be found at:
www.nycourts.gov/reporter/motions/2008/2008_84057.htm
Bill T Jones & Jane Bowles at BAM
This sounds interesting:
In the company’s 25th anniversary season, social commentary takes an intimate turn with A Quarreling Pair, based on the Jane Bowles puppet play about two elderly sisters, one of whom wants to leave the nest. It’s her strange journey, as re-imagined by Jones, that unleashes pure and gorgeous dancing punctuated by a scheming vaudevillian, a nasty cross-dresser, a bawdy emcee, and many others. Beautifully designed (by Bjorn Amelan) and magical, A Quarreling Pair plays with notions of family, self-realization, and courage, taking us on a time-bending voyage.
The Where and When
BAM
Sept 30-Oct 2 at 7:30 PM
Are You Making Brisket?
Tonight is the start of Rosh Hashanah and I’m making this Brisket with Portobello Mushrooms and Dried Cranberries recipe I found in Epicurious:
1 cup dry red wine
1 cup canned beef or chicken broth
1/2 cup frozen cranberry juice cocktail concentrate, thawed
1/4 cup all purpose flour
1 large onion, sliced
4 garlic cloves, chopped
1 1/2 tablespoons chopped fresh rosemary
1 4-pound trimmed flat-cut brisket
12 ounces medium portobello mushrooms, dark gills scraped away, caps thinly sliced
1 cup dried cranberries (about 4 ounces)
Preparation
Preheat oven to 300°F. Whisk wine, broth, cranberry concentrate and flour to blend in medium bowl; pour into 15 x 10 x 2-inch roasting pan. Mix in onion, garlic and rosemary. Sprinkle brisket on all sides with salt and pepper. Place brisket, fat side up, in roasting pan. Spoon some of wine mixture over. Cover pan tightly with heavy-duty foil.
Bake brisket until very tender, basting with pan juices every hour, about 3 1/2 hours. Transfer brisket to plate; cool 1 hour at room temperature. Thinly slice brisket across grain. Arrange slices in pan with sauce, overlapping slices slightly. (Brisket can be prepared 2 days ahead. Cover and refrigerate.)
Preheat oven to 350°F. Place mushrooms and cranberries in sauce around brisket. Cover pan with foil. Bake until mushrooms are tender and brisket is heated through, about 30 minutes (40 minutes if brisket has been refrigerated).
Transfer sliced brisket and sauce to platter and serve.
Eric NYC: The New Shoe Store on Seventh Avenue
No Words Daily Pix: Photograph by Hugh Crawford
Smartmom in the Morning
Here’s this week’s Smartmom from the Brooklyn Paper:
The alarm rings at 6 am for Teen Spirit. But that doesn’t mean he actually gets out of bed. No, it’s Hepcat who pops out of bed and goes to Teen Spirit’s room right next door.
“Up, up, up, up, up,” he says loud enough to wake the neighbors. “The bed weasels are coming. The bed weasels are coming.”
Hepcat has been saying that for 10 years at least. It was cute when Teen Spirit was 7. Now, well, it’s a tad pathetic. But it seems to rouse the 17-year-old sleeping giant.
Teen Spirit slowly rises clinging to every last second of his dreams, which he is sometimes still muttering about as he rises. Finally, he makes his way to the shower but first to the kitchen where he routinely takes a long swig out of Tropicana container.
While Teen Spirit is in the shower, Smartmom takes over. Hepcat usually goes back to bed because no doubt he’s been working (or so he says) until 4 in the morning.
Smartmom waits in the dining room for Teen Spirit to emerge from the shower wearing the black terry-cloth robe with polka dots she gave to Hepcat for their first anniversary. Hepcat never wore it and now that Teen Spirit has claimed it, it’s lost to him forever.
The half hour or so before Teen Spirit leaves the house can be a special time of parent/teenager bonding and connection. Or not.
As Teen Spirit carefully selects his jeans (“These aren’t tight enough; where are the really tight ones?”), his shirt (“This isn’t tight enough”), his tie (yes, he wears a tie. How else to rebel at the uber-alternative high school?), and his suit jacket (again, how else to rebel?), he checks his Facebook, charges his iPod, listens to someone’s MySpace page and even WNYC on the kitchen radio, while he takes a few bites of toast or cereal.
“Is it cold out today?” Teen Spirit always asks his mom.
“What am I, Soterios Johnson?” she often says, but that doesn’t stop her from checking weather.com.
Then comes the hunt for the shoes, a pair of black Bostonian wing tips.
“Have you seen my shoes?” Teen Spirit asks predictably.
“I assume they’re where you took them off last night,” Smartmom says (also predictably).
When Teen Spirit was 7, the Oh So Feisty One, who was only 1 at the time, always knew where his shoes were. While Teen Spirit, Smartmom and Hepcat searched high and low for his footware, toddler-sized OSFO would come down the hallway holding his Velcro sneakers. It was the cutest thing. After awhile, they’d just ask her first.
Now Teen Spirit finds them for himself. Eventually. And when he does, he packs his backpack, puts on his ear bugs and is ready for his walk to the Q train.
Phew.
It is always a great sense of accomplishment when Teen Spirit finally leaves the house in the morning. But it also means it’s time to wake up OSFO.
The OSFO Morning Show couldn’t be more different. When Smartmom comes into her room at 7 am, OSFO pops up like bread from an over-wound toaster. It takes her exactly one hour to do everything that she needs to do, including showering, selecting with great care her outfit (jeans and T-shirt), dressing in said outfit, carefully brushing her hair, eating breakfast, brushing her teeth, doing any homework she missed the previous night, packing her backpack, grabbing her lunch and running for her Seventh Avenue bus.
It is such an accomplished act of female independence and grace that it takes Smartmom’s breath away.
It wasn’t always thus. When OSFO was younger she was hard to rouse in the morning; she’d drag her feet getting dressed and was often late to school even though PS 321 was just around the corner.
But that was then and this is now. At New Voices, her new middle school on 18th Street near Sixth Avenue, the principal, Frank Giordano, urges the kids to get to school on time — and OSFO is taking that very seriously. She rides the Seventh Avenue bus by herself now and is determined to catch the 8 am. There’s nothing like a bus schedule to get you moving in the morning.
OSFO may only be 11 but she looks far older when she’s leaving the apartment. House keys. Check. Student MetroCard. Check. Cellphone. Check. Lunch.
“See you losers,” she says as she goes out into the world.
Spike Lee, Priced Out Of Ft. Greene, Moving Production Office to DUMBO
And the Brooklyn Paper has the story. Here’s an excerpt:
Acclaimed local filmmaker Spike Lee will set up an annex of his famed “40 Acres and a Mule” film company in DUMBO, The Brooklyn Paper has learned.
“Spike Lee is coming to 55 Washington Street in DUMBO,” said a spokeswoman for Two Trees Management, the David Walentas-owned company that owns half the neighborhood.
High rents had forced the “Malcolm X” director out of space at 124 DeKalb Ave., where he had been for 22 years, and into another space it already owned around the corner on South Elliot Place.
“Got priced out, the rent raise was insane,” Lee told The Brooklyn Paper in April.
Cool Obama and Family T-Shirts
An OTBKB reader wrote in to talk about these cool t-shirts. All profits go to the Obama campaign.
Me and a friend started a little t-shirt design group/gang (yet to be named) and made this Obama shirt as our first go-around.
Super limited edition – only 48 made ! (more in the works)
Men’s is grey, women’s is pink, various sizes. American Apparel brand
$25 each, with all profits going towards an Obama 08′ campaign contribution.We’ll be selling them at galleries and boutiques as well. They may go quick …..
Change is coming
Fire at Root Stock & Quaid
An OTBKB reader sent this email. I also noticed that Root Stock & Quaid looked closed (paper on the window closed). What happened? Anyone know
There’s a sign on Rootstock & Quaid that they are closed because of the fire. I hadn’t heard anything about a fire there or read anything about it. What’s the story there?
October 4: Angels and Accordians: Meditation on New York’s Past & Present
It only happens once a year so this year I am going to try NOT to miss this event which is part of openhousenewyork. The organizers describe this event as both a historical walking tour and an exciting live performance. You get to follow a cast of thirty angels through the beautiful Green-Wood Cemetery in a guided meditation on New York’s overlapping past and present.
Angels and Accordions 2008
Directed/Choreographed by Martha Bowers
Narrated by Jeff Richman
Featured Accordion/Composer: Guy Klucevsek (with Featured Saxophonist
Steve Elson)
9 Other Accordions Directed by Bob Goldberg
Tons of Dancing AngelsSaturday, October 4th- openhousenewyork performances,12 noon and
3:30pm. FREE admission: please call (718) 768-7300 for reservations
(donations accepted).Friday, Octoer 3rd- Benefit performance for Green-Wood Historic Fund,
6pm. Handicap access available in Green-Wood’s trolley.Meet at Green-Wood Cemetery’s main gate, 25th Street and Fifth Avenue,
Brooklyn.Please arrive 15 minutes early. Wear comfortable walking shoes & bring
a bottle of water.Directions: BMT “R” Train to 25th Street Station, Walk East 1 block to
Green-Wood at 5th Avenue & 25 Street.
For driving directions and more information about Green-Wood Cemetery,
visit www.green-wood.comFor more information about the show, call (718) 643-6790 ext. 113 or
email jon@dtetc.orgAngels and Accordions
Returns to Green-Wood Cemetery
Saturday, October 4th
Performances at 12 noon and 3:30pm, free to the public.
_________________________
No Words Daily Pix: Photograph by Hugh Crawford
My Father’s Library Book
My father, always a constant reader, was reading Middlemarch by George Eliot, in the weeks before he died. He took it with him to his recent chemo therapy sessions and even to the emergency room on August 25th.
A huge book collector, my father always had a good selection of books out from the public library in Brooklyn or Glen Falls (depending on where he was spending his time). Middlemarch was a library book, which he took out from the Cadman Plaza branch of the Brooklyn Public Library.
On Thursday I saw Middlemarch on the wine rack near the front door in his apartment and immediately knew that I wanted to take it back to the library. I even thought about reading it before returning it as a sort of homage to my dad.
I thought about that Raymond Carver story about the baker who is livid because a woman doesn’t pick up the birthday cake for her son, who is killed in a car accident. Unknowingly, the baker keeps calling the mother to come get it…
On Friday, I decided to drop the book off at the Park Slope branch of the Brooklyn Library. I told the woman at the desk that I was returning it for my father. She said that there was a $4 fine on the book and another $3 outstanding fine (maybe another book still out?). She didn’t ask me to pay—I guess because I said I was returning it for my dad.
I wanted to tell her that my father died on September 7th. But I didn’t. Initially, I thought I would tell them to stop his library card just the way I stopped his AARP supplemental insurance and other things, too. On the phone, people offer their condolences and then take care of business. But to do it in person, it seemed too hard.
Besides, it felt too final to stop his card; he’s had a library card his entire life and I want that library card to go on forever.
There will always be an open library card for my dad. Why not?
We are encouraging donations in my father’s name, Monte Ghertler, to his favorite library in Glen Falls, NY:
Crandall Public Library,
251 Glen Street, Glens Falls
New York 12801
October 3: Support Art Obama
Put it on your calendar. Support Obama at this Park Slope benefit for change. Buy some art in the process; have a great time.
Art Obama is the brainchild of a committee of smart, creative Park Slopers, who are mad as hell and can’t take what’s happening to this country anymore. So they got organized out of frustration and passion and put together this home-grown effort to raise money. Lucky thing they know a lot of New York artists, who were willing donate some terrific art.
On October 3, there will be a silent auction of over 100 small works by American artists to support the election of Barack Obama and down-ticket Democrats.
Proceeds benefit the Obama Victory Fund. Donations also accepted for ActBlue , a clearinghouse supporting progressive House and Senate candidates nationwide. Space is limited, and pre-registration for this event is strongly recommended.
The Where and When:
Friday, October 3, 2008
Silent Auction 7 to 10 pm (bidding 7-9). $25 at the door
62 Eighteenth Street, Brooklyn NY, 5th Floor