The Old Stone House is a major cultural center for Park Slopers. It’s hard to imagine life in Park Slope without the Old Stone House. That’s why you must come to the benefit costume party this coming Saturday. It’s only $40 per person and you will have a great time.

The Old Stone House is operated as a
historic interpretive center dedicated to its crucial role in the
American Revolution and in the evolving histories of Brooklyn, New York
and the United States. It also serves as a dynamic community resource through its
education programs and events. In addition to historical exhibits open
to the public, the House is available by appointment for tours, classes
and rentals.

And there’s so much more:

How did we live without Piper Theater at the Old Stone House. Last summer’s Coney Island themed Midsummer’s Night Dream was wonderful.

What about Shakespeare Camp with John McEneny. Parents are still swooning about what a great time their kids had.

How about last summer’s Brooklyn Film Works. Did you see The Candidate or The Manchurian Candidate and other great films?

How about the Harvest Festival today? More than 1,000 kids and adults gathered for pony rides, face painting, costume making and MORE.

How about Barbara Ensor’s show currently on view of her fanciful fairy tale silhouettes and cut outs?

How about Poetry Punch, the Memoirathon, the Edgy Mother’s Day, and other great readings at Brookyn Reading Works?

Concerts, readings, films, theater, gatherings of all kinds. We love the Old Stone House and they need this community’s support: Order Your Tickets Now!

This coming Saturday, October 25, come to the First Annual Makin’ History Costume Party Bash

A benefit for the Old Stone House @ the Brooklyn Lyceum

8-11 pm. Tickets:  $40

Advance tickets: http://www.nycharities.org/event/event.asp?CE_ID=3129

97 yr. young Toni Rowe with her latest creation. Toni ventures into 
Manhattan from Brooklyn once a week for an art class held at her late-husband’s union on 14th Street.
Photo by Tom Martinez

Note from Tom: "Toni is a truly amazing woman.  She remembers a time in NYC prior to 
electricity when the gas lights were lit in Washington
Square Park. 

As a young girl she lived above a blacksmith’s shop in the village that kept busy making wagon wheels.  About fall she chides her son, Dave (who’s included in this email) saying, ""People go upstate to see the changing leaves.  But
we’ve got beautiful leaves right here in Brooklyn!""

I got this email yesteday. OSFO loves to make sock monkeys so we’re probably going to do this.  Not sure where Gold Street is. Think it’s Greenpoint.

Join us for an afternoon of creating original sock monkeys for fresh
art’s sock monkey program. fresh art is a 501 (c) (3) non-profit
organization dedicated to providing expanded artistic, personal
development, and entrepreneurial opportunities to New York City artists
with special needs. The sock monkeys we create this afternoon will be
sold to raise funds to support fresh art’s programs. All skill levels
are welcome, though basic hand sewing skills are helpful.

Saturday, October 25, 2008; 10am-3pm
325 Gold St, 3rd floor, Brooklyn, NY 11222
Ages 12 & up are welcome.
Please RSVP at rsvp@etsy.com for this free workshop.

Hosted by fresh art (www.freshartnyc.org), the NewNew York Team
(thenewnew.blogspot.com), and Etsy Labs (etsylabs.etsy.com).

Join us in the Treehouse room of the Virtual Labs, for an online
workshop with AnnMarie Harris from fresh art for a chat about using
crafts to fund your non-profit organization.
Date & Time: Thursday, October 23, 6:30 p.m.
Where: http://www.etsy.com/virtual_labs.php

This event about local and small businesses in Brooklyn is for people who want to learn about the many exciting changes throughout the borough, from the establishment of major, anchor stores in Central Brooklyn and the installation of art work in Clinton Hill, to the creation of buy local campaigns and the development of green spaces.

In light of the current financial crisis and looming recession, the panel will consider the impact of the credit crunch and funding cut backs.  If small businesses are indeed the nation’s economic engine, what will help them survive and if they don’t, what will our neighborhoods look like?

This event is a Con Edison Power Breakfast, one of two hosted annually
by Brooklyn Public Library’s Business Library.  The Breakfasts
highlight economic developments in Brooklyn and usually attract an
audience of 100. They are free and open to the public.

Brooklyn, with its 2.5 million residents, has over 60 discrete neighborhoods, each with its own local shopping district. These 200-plus shopping streets not only provide convenience goods and services to local residents, but are part of the unique character of each neighborhood and are essential to creating a sense of identity and place.  On Thursday morning, November 6, the Brooklyn Public Library will host a forum, Keys to the Community:  Unlocking the commercial vitality of Brooklyn ’s neighborhoods, which will focus on the role successful commercial corridors play invigorating the borough’s economy.

A panel of policy experts and community stakeholders will explore the state of retail in Brooklyn’s many diverse neighborhoods and the contribution local grassroots organizations are making to the vibrant communities that are revitalizing Brooklyn .  The discussion will consider the important impact of purposeful planning and management of commercial corridors; such as the creation of jobs, the generation of tax revenue, and the development of walkable, sustainable communities. 

Dr. Tom Schutte, President of Pratt Institute and Chair of the Myrtle Avenue Revitalization Project will provide introductory remarks.  Joan Bartolommeo, Director of the Brooklyn Economic Development Corporation, the convening organization for commercial revitalization in Brooklyn , will be the moderator.  The panel consists of:

Catherine Bohne, Park Slope Civic Council, Rachel Fuentes, Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council, Larisa Ortiz, consultant for the Local Initiatives Support Corporation, Lori Raphael, Flatbush-Nostrand Junction Business Improvement District, and Stacey Sutton, Assistant Professor of Urban Planning, Columbia University.

The Where and When

November 6, 2008
8:30 a.m. until 10:30
Dweck Center at the Brooklyn Central Library
Grand Army Plaza

Harvest Festival – Sunday, October 19th, 11 am – 4 pm

Farmstands,
pony rides, petting zoo, face painting, music… It’s big fun with OSH,
the Park Slope Farmer’s Market, the Park Slope Civic Council and Park
Slope Parents outdoors in JJ Byrne Park, 3rd Street and 5th Avenue,
Brooklyn,

The Where and When
Sunday, October 19, 11 am 0 4 pm
Harvest Festival
in JJ Byrne Park
3rd Street and Fifth Avenue

On the site New Geography read Jan Rosenberg’s account of gentrification in Ditmas Park over the last 20 years. Here’s an excerpt:

Twenty some years ago my husband, 2 young sons and I moved from our
cramped 16-foot wide attached row house in Brooklyn’s trendy Park Slope
to a free-standing, 7-bedroom Victorian house in the Ditmas Park
section of Flatbush with stained glass windows, pocket doors, original
wood paneling, a back yard, front porch, driveway and 2-car garage in a
little-known, tree-lined neighborhood about 10 minutes away – on the
other, high-crime side of Prospect Park. Friends thought we’d taken
leave of our senses!

Built early last century, our neighborhood Long has been known for its
architecture, with the largest concentration of Victorian houses in
America. It’s the kind of neighborhood sensible new urbanists dream
about it; the only block in New York with subway stations at each end.
This was a tribute to the clout of the neighborhood’s original
developers who had a strong commitment to building “suburbs in the
city,” and secured the best in public transportation for their
customers.

Here’s the occasional—and lovely—note from Fonda at Zuzu’s Petals:

Zuzushopperdears…

I have nothing to say about the Economic news this week …
except one small reference to my lifelong avoidance of roller coasters and other "amusement" rides where one is totally out of control
strapped into some contrivance
which is throttling along an unseen track
pitching one from side to side,
with the  sudden "thrill" of being turned upside down…
while being dropped into freefall.
Am I the only one who felt tossed about?

On to the Joys of the Season.

For purely selfish reasons, I will not encourage you to leave town
and catch a look at the leaves changing Upstate.
We have some very nice colors happening all around us:
Prospect Park, The Botanic Gardens,The Old Stone House Park on Third Street,
not to mention our neighbors’ front yards, our street trees…and of course, The Zuzus.

Stick around this weekend,
save gas,
take a nice long walk in the neighborhood,
head towards The Old Stone House
have lunch out..
what a selection we have to choose from:
‘snice, Stone Park Cafe, Earth Tonez,
Belleville, Get Fresh, Pollio’s ,Brooklyn Bread!
come visit The Zuzus, maybe pick up one of our Recession Proof Seasonal Bouquets
stop in at the new wine shop between 3rd and 4th street
collect dinner materials, do the wine thing again with some friends.

Ran into an OTBKB reader at the Rock Obama show last night (which was great by the way). He lives in the South Slope and saw the piece about The Little Princess Hotel.

He had some questions about the Little Princess Hotel. Is it really a hotel. Who’s running it? What’s really going on over there?

Does anyone know?

Tonight: Walk Don’t Destroy 4:

A Candlelight Walkathon to shine light on the
abuses of the Atlantic Yards Project and
raise funds for the legal gight against the failing project.

Community After-Party at Brooklyn Lyceum, Featuring:
Legendary New York City DJ Delphine Blue
and live Music from Brooklyn’s Own Atomic Grind Show.

Go here for The Where and When.

Just got this email from David Berreby, Park Sloper and author of the book, Us and Them: The Science of Identity, which is just out in  paperback from the University of Chicago Press this week. The subtitle of the book has changed. It used to be: Understanding Your Tribal Mind.

On the website Blogging Heads, there’s a dialog (or, ahem, diavlog) posting this Saturday, Oct 18, in which John Horgan and I discuss Us and Them aspects of the 2008 election, whether progress exists,how much people understand why they do stuff, and other cheery topics.

It’s keyed to the paperback edition of my book, US AND THEM, which was
published this week by the University of Chicago Press.

Be grateful to know what you think, if you care to check it out.

Here’s the blurbage from Amazon about Us and Them: 

Democrat and Republican. Meat Eaters and Vegetarians. Black and White.
As human beings we sort ourselves into groups. And once we identify
ourselves as a member of a particular group—say, Red Sox fans—we tend
to feel more comfortable with others of our own kind, rather than, say,
Yankees fans. Yet we all belong to multiple groups at the same time—one
might be a woman, a mother, an American, a violinist. How do we decide
which identities matter and why they matter so much? And what makes us
willing to die for, or to kill for, a religion, a nation, or a race?

In this award-winning book, David Berreby describes how
twenty-first-century science is addressing these age-old questions.
Ably linking neuroscience, social psychology, anthropology, and other
fields, Us and Them investigates humanity’s “tribal mind” and
how this alters our thoughts, affects our health, and is manipulated
for good and ill. From the medical effects of stress to the rhetoric of
politics, our perceptions of group identity affect every part of our
lives. Science, Berreby argues, shows how this part of human nature is
both unexpectedly important and surprisingly misunderstood.
            —Henry Gee, Scientific American

Visit artist’s studio’s located in garages, brownstones, and warehouse along the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn sponsored by AGAST.

We invite you to visit the 12th Annual A.G.A.S.T. tour on Saturday and Sunday, October 18-19, 2008 from 1-6 p.m.   This is a free event open to the public.

Visitors of A.G.A.S.T. have the opportunity to meet face-to-face with
the creators of photography, drawing, printmaking, mixed-media, video,
ceramics, glass, installation, paintings, sculpture & etc. in their
own working studio environment. Artist studios are located in large
industrial buildings as well as garages, brownstones and warehouses
along the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn. Everyone can be easily found on
the tour map here. The Gowanus area is conveniently located from many
subway stations and the LIRR Atlantic Avenue station between Park
Slope, Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill and the Boerum Hill neighborhoods.

Harvest Festival – Sunday, October 19th, 11 am – 4 pm

Farmstands, pony rides, petting zoo, face painting, music… It’s big fun with OSH, the Park Slope Farmer’s Market, the Park Slope Civic Council and Park Slope Parents outdoors in JJ Byrne Park, 3rd Street and 5th Avenue, Brooklyn,

The Where and When
Sunday, October 19, 11 am 0 4 pm
Harvest Festival
in JJ Byrne Park
3rd Street and Fifth Avenue

An OTBKB reader wrote in with some information about the Berkeley Carroll eviction story. I’d like to thank her for doing so. She said that she was having trouble posting a comment. A lot of people say that to me. Just so you know, I moderate all comments so your comment won’t show up immediately. I thought there was a message about this but I guess not. Will look into it.

The tenant dispute concerning
BC school is about a building on Carroll St., not the Child Care Center
building owned by Methodist Hospital. We got a letter from Head of
School today and I thought you’d be interested.

I thought it was the building that houses the Berkeley Carroll Child Care Center, which is actually owned by Methodist Hospital. The building is on Carroll Street near the school. Oh so that’s why the want to use it for extra classroom space. Got it. Sorry for the mistake. The original article is below with the corrections, cross-outs, etc.

Ella Taliercio moved into her Park Slope two-bedroom on Carroll
Street in 1958, the year I was born. She’s been living in that
apartment for as long as I’ve been alive and has raised three
kids there. Two of them died and are buried in Green-Wood Cemetery.

Now the Berkeley Carrol School, which bought the building a few
years ago, wants Taliercio out so they can turn the building into
classrooms. Why do they need classrooms so far away from the school buildings on Carroll Street and Lincoln Place? The whole things sounds fishy to me.

According to Gothamist: "The
apartment is rent-stabilized—Taliercio paid $33 a month in ’58 and
$147.08 today—but Berkeley Carroll has non-profit status, enabling the
school to evict the couple. Taliercio tells the Daily News through tears, "It’s my home. How do you just shut the door on something where you’ve been for so many years?" Don’t worry, Ella, Berkeley administrators will have the eviction marshal help you with that."

This is a publicity nightmare for Berkeley Carroll, portrayed in
various local newspapers as a fancy school that charges more than
$25,000 per child a year. There must be a better way to handle this. Is
Berkeley Carroll  finding Taliercio a new home in the Slope. I heard
they offered her $20,000 but that doesn’t sound like enough to me.

There must be a way that Berkeley Carroll can handle this situation with grace and humanity.

A group from the Pilgrim Mennonite Mission (PA) passed out literature 
and sang hymns at the Union Square subway station.

Photo: Tom Martinez

A nice note from the Irondale Center in Fort Greene, a new and vital performing arts center in Fort Greene, where you can see Peter Pan.

Last weekend we opened the new Irondale Center in Fort Greene, three
blocks up Lafayette Avenue from BAM.  450 people stopped by at our open
house, and 200 stayed for dinner followed by five entertainment
sketches.  The "house warming" was sponsored by the Brooklyn Daily
Eagle and Brooklyn Brewery, and 22 restaurants and other merchants
provided vast quantities of very tasty food and treats. 

Now, beginning next Friday, October 24 (previews 10/22 & 23), we
will be reviving our "somewhat dark" version of J.M. Barrie’s novel, Peter
Pan.  D. J. R. Bruckner described it in the New York Times in
November, 2001 as, "…a bit unnerving but also very good fun." This
not the original play, nor remotely like its animated Disnification. It
is a child’s story told for adults with strong psychological
undercurrents. It will run through November 8, Wednesday through
Saturday, with a Saturday matinee.

To find out more about Irondale and to buy tickets, go to
www.irondale.org.  Hope you can join us.

Great News: Buy in Brooklyn is doing the Snowflake Celebration, a shop local campaign, this year. The Snowflake dates are the first two Thursdays in December (4th and 11th). But many local businesses will also  stay open late on the third Thursday and
possibly run additional programs.

However, most of the festivities will center
around these first two two evenings.

If you nibbled your way down Seventh Avenue during Restaurant Night back in September you experienced how FUN these events can be. That event was like trick or treating for adults (with loads of kids in tow). It was fun to wander in and out of restaurants, sample tasty treats and run into friends and neighbors.

That’s what the Snowflake celebration can be like with the emphasis on Christmas and Hannukah shopping. Buy in Brooklyn wants to encourage Park Slopers to do some or all of their gift  shopping on Seventh and Fifth  Avenues; it’s a win win for local businesses, great fun for the locals and a real economic enhancement for the community.

If you have any questions about Buy in Brooklyn or the Snowflake Celebration you can contact buyinbrooklyn@gmail.com.

You won’t want to miss this. Take it from me: The Black Loom is FANTASTIC.

Broadway
vocalist Jenkins and award-winning composer Rosen offer selections from
The Black Loom, a trilogy of song cycles based on the works of Langston
Hughes, Maya Angelou and Nikki Giovanni.

The Where and When

Saturday, October 18,  4:00 p.m.
Central Library, Dweck Center

Medusa Hair Salon is out-doing itself for change in the White House.

Think you have more foreign policy experience than the GOP VP?….Well, you probably do. Are you more equipped to handle the economy? Most likely. Think you would make a better VP than Sarah Palin? Definitely! So what are you missing? I’ll tell you….That amorphous bundle of good ol’ fashion small town kitsch resting safely atop Mrs. Palin’s head. Which is why the ladies of Medusa are bringing the Sarah Palin updo to Brooklyn. For $75 the Sarah Palin updo is yours and places you in the running to win best Sarah Palin look-a-like. Winner claims a prize valued at over $200 and ALL PROCEEDS FOR THIS EVENT GO TO OBAMA’S CAMPAIGN FUND! The ladies "Submerged: Tales from the Basin" will be reading excerpts from their anthology; a book dedicated to hair (a portion of the books proceeds go to Katrina victims). And if you would like to participate and are running low on funds $25 allows you to enter the competition. Please bring your checkbooks and lipstick and don’t forget to brush up on your Tina Fey impressions.

The Where and When
Medusa Hair Salon
Saturday, October 18 at 7 p.m.
177 7th Ave (btwn 1st St. & 2nd St.) Park Slope, Brooklyn