The Fifth Avenue store Flirt lives up to its name.
Photo by Tom Martinez

Brooklynology is the blog of the Brooklyn Public Library. This week they have an interesting piece about architect Axel Hedman. Here’s an excerpt:

The streetscapes of Brooklyn are shaped by the work of countless
builders and architects, some famous, some obscure.  Some deserve their
obscurity. But there are many too who may not have achieved fame, but
whose fine work continues to anchor neighborhoods and arouse interest
in passers-by.

Axel Hedman is a name known to people who like to read guides to
architecture and Landmark Designation Reports. Hedman’s buildings are
dotted through several Brooklyn neighborhoods. Born in Norrkoping,
Sweden, in 1861, Hedman immigrated to the U.S.  in 1880. He was
naturalized in 1901 and lived in Brooklyn until his death in 1943.
Barbara Hedman-Kettell, Hedman’s great-granddaughter, has been
researching her ancestor’s buildings in preparation for a celebratory
family tour, and is creating a list of his work gathered from various
sources including the Brooklyn Collection. Domestic architecture
predominates, but the list also includes some familiar public buildings
in Brooklyn and other parts of the city.

Read more at Brooklynology.

What a group of good movies at the BAM Rose Cinema. I am so there for Milk and Slumdog Millionarie. I already saw Synecdoche, New York and loved it (Hepcat saw it twice).

Milk
Starts Fri, Dec 5! / Fri, Dec 5—Sun, Dec 7 at 1:30, 4, 6:40, 9:30pm

Synecdoche, New York
Mon, Dec 1—Thu, Dec 4 at 4:30, 7, 9:30pm / Fri, Dec 5—Sun, Dec 7 at 1:30, 4, 6:45, 9:20pm

Slumdog Millionaire
Starts Fri, Dec 5! / Fri, Dec 5—Sun, Dec 7 at 1:40, 4:15, 7, 9:45pm

I just found out about this obit for my dad in the the Glens Falls Post Star

A legendary copywriter, creative director, author, songwriter and connoisseur
of the arts from Brooklyn has left a lasting imprint on his adopted
hometown of Glens Falls.

Monte Ghertler died Sept. 7 at the age of 79 at his home in Brooklyn Heights. His obituary, which appeared Sept. 10 in The New York Times,
ended with a line saying that in lieu of flowers, the family requests
donations be made in his memory to Crandall Public Library.

On
the blog, "Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn," his daughter, Louise
Crawford, writes lovingly of her father and especially his love of
literature. In one entry last month, she urged those who knew her
father to contribute to the Glens Falls library.

"The Crandall
is a small, vibrant library that my father loved; he always had loads
of books out from there when he was spending extended periods of time
upstate," she wrote. "I hope you’ll consider sending a donation in the
spirit of Monte Ghertler, a man who devoured books and loved libraries.
He was so pleased to have a decent library near his upstate home. A
great community needs a great library. This is especially true in small
town America, where resources are sometimes limited. In Glens Falls,
they’ve got the Crandall."

— Mark Mahoney

Saturday December 6th: Don’t miss the Park Slope 5th Avenue BID Tree Lighting ceremony featuring the MS 51 Chorus and Opera on Tap & Goodies for All! It all happens in Washington Park at 3rd Street and Fifth Avenue.
3rd Street @ 5th Avenue at 5 p.m.

Afterwards: A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens read byy Kevin Hogan at the Old Stone House.
appropriate for ages 12 and up. 7 pm.  $10 suggested donation includes snacks & drinks.

There’s just so much interesting stuff at Brooklynometry I think you just need to go over there to read the following:

Blank keys: "This is not exactly a Key Party at Brooklyn Hardware Supply. The maiden
keys you see in the window are on extra good behavior like orphans
hoping to secure surveying parents, waiting for the grinder’s peaks and
valleys to make them unique, wondering what locks they’ll lock and what
cylinders they’ll roll."

Prospect Park acorns: "It’s a relief to have proof that at least some of our Brooklyn oaks
have produced abundant acorns this season after what I’ve been hearing
about the conditions in Arlington, Va (my home town) and other areas, where there’s some really hungry squirrels."

Chekhov at Lefferts House:  "On December 11, 12, 13, 18, 19, 21, the Rebellious Subjects Theatre in collaboration with Lefferts Historic
House & the Prospect Park Alliance presents an unexpected
production of Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters. Erin Gilmore directs Paul
Schmidt’s distinctly American translation, infusing both the play and
the house with the zeitgeist of the American 1950s."

I remember this movie (but not much about it). I think I saw it in 1972 when it came out. It’s playing as part of the BAMcinematek Paul Newman series on Mon, Dec 8 at 6:50pm

Directed by Paul Newman
With Joanne Woodward

(1972) 100min

“Newman
has gotten it all together here as a director, letting the story and
the players unfold with simplicity, restraint and discernment.” —Variety

Newman
helmed this adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Paul
Zindel about a dysfunctional family struggling to get by on the bottom
rung of society. Joanne Woodward (Newman’s wife) plays Beatrice, a
self-destructive and abusive mother bent on destroying any chances her
two daughters might have to succeed. Despite this, the imaginative and
spirited Tillie, determined to overcome her mother’s tyranny, doggedly
pursues a love of science and stakes out her own identity

Good question. And it’s an interesting thread on Brooklynian. Here’s one response. I can’t vouch for its accuracy. But the person who wrote it does seem to know a lot.

The answer is Neergard. But it’s interesting to
talk about the other old places. O’Connors bar has an awning which says
"Since 1931," although that would mean it opened during Prohibition. I
remember a NY Times article saying that the O’Connor patriarch came
over from Ireland to start up his bar in 1933. Triangle goes back to
the ’40s – but didn’t it used to sell dry goods? The Mega Glass space
has been a glass shop under different names since at least the 1930s.
Steve Belsito & Sons (plumbing/heating) claims "Est. 1925," but I
don’t think they’ve been in the neighborhood all that time. Great
Western Fine Foods goes back to the 1930s at least. Leopoldi Hardware
goes back to 1966 but before then it was Fazio Bros. Hardware (check
out the art deco "hardware" sign on the second floor). A&S claim to
go back to 1942. Jackie’s 5th is a relatively recent name, but the bar
was Costello’s in the 1940s and numerous other names in between.
Tarzian is very old indeed – 1920s at the latest. Smith’s Tavern has
been in business under that name since the 1930s, probably right after
Prohibition ended. Same goes for Farrell’s. Garry jewelers opened in
1951 according to their sign. Lenny’s Pizza (5th Ave. & Prospect
Ave.) dates back to 1954. I believe the oldest continuously open
restaurant in the Slope is El Viejo Yayo on 5th Ave. near Dean,
although it used to be called Blanco’s and it was owned by a Cuban
family before a Dominican family bought it; it supposedly opened in
1963.

 
In terms of owned-and-operated by the same person, we should
mention Tony at the Record & Tape Center on 5th Ave. & 9th St.
He’s been running that place since 1972 and it had a former incarnation
up the street a few blocks in 1968-1972.

Rain may have kept crowds away from Buy in Brooklyn’s Snowflake Celebration on Thursday night but those who came out to the buy local, buy late event on Seventh and Fifth Avenues were greeted with special treats, discounts and high spirits.

There was a lively crowd at Brooklyn Mercantile, on Fifth Avenue near 4th Street, where the store’s artisans were on hand and there was a paper snowflake making workshop with Barbara Ensor, as well as a demonstration of bookbinding.

Under the Pig, an antique store on Fifth Avenue near Fifth Street, had a crowd of late night browsers (and hopefully shoppers) as did Zuzu’s Petals, where owner Fonda Sera was dressed as a reindeer and shoppers were treated to delicious cheese, salami and wine.

It was the usual wild and crazy business at Brooklyn Superhero Supply Company, which was also open late. And the Old Stone House was presenting Shorts 4 Dog, a fundraiser for the National Disaster Search Dog Foundation

Corduroy Kid, a children’s clothing shop with a nice selection of stocking stuffers deemed appropriate for older kids, and Diana Kane were open for business until 10 p.m. Diana Kane was offering delicious chocolate covered ginger and interesting nuts.

The Community Bookstore, epicenter of the Buy in Brooklyn campaign, had a snowflake machine (pictured in today’s No Works Daily Pix and Erica of Erica’s Rugalach was on hand to give out free rugalach and macaroons, as well as to show off attractive gift baskets.

Here’s hoping for better weather on Thursday December 11 at the second night of the Snowflake Celebration.

A great gift idea from the Brooklyn Paper that shows the history of life according to Darwin:

Most people don’t want to take the Christ out of Christmas. But one
former Brooklynite wants God to share some space in the toy chest.

To do so, Kate Miller started Charlie’s Playhouse, which sells
evolution toys and fills the black hole between the Noah’s Ark toys and
dinosaurs.

I was looking for toys for my kids,” said Miller, who now lives in
Providence, R.I. “There were dinosaurs, but there was nothing that
showed the history of life on Earth. So I had to start the company.”

Miller’s central product is an 18-foot-long, heavy-duty,
creature-covered timeline (pictured, $49), a journey that spans 12
geologic epochs, six mass extinctions and 600 million years.

Charlie’s Playhouse — the company name is a reference to Darwin —
also sells creature cards ($19) and T-shirts (“Product of Natural
Selection” is the big seller).

Thursday morning was an interesting morning on the Brian Lehrer show (hosted by Andrea Bernstein). I was listening but must have lowered the volume during all the following excitement. Luckily my pal, David Bukszpan,  publicist at WNYC, sent me this transcript and a note:

So here it is: Marty Markowitz, Tom Suozzi, Kate Slevin & Caller Rosie Perez on the first segment of today’s The Brian Lehrer Show, guest-hosted by WNYC’s Political Director Andrea Bernstein

Highlights:

    * Perez: bridge toll will “kill the commerce in downtown Manhattan, not Brooklyn”
    * Perez & Slevin get into it on who’s more of a Brooklynite
    * Suozzi: “It wasn’t me” who greeted Gov. Paterson outside a fundraising event, angling for Clinton’s Senate seat

Audio at http://www.wnyc.org/shows/bl/episodes/2008/12/04 (embeddable)

Here’s the transcript:

Andrea Bernstein: We have calling us Brooklynite, Rosie Perez. Are you taking it on the chin?

Rosie Perez: Um yes I am. You know, people say how can you talk because you know you make a lot of money, blah blah blah. Listen, just like the previous callers said, I have a lot of family members that have to drive into Manhattan. They do not, they’re not able physically to take the train so they have to drive back and forth to Manhattan. If you do the math, the drive in $5, they drive in and back $5. That’s $10 a day.

There are people…the woman who was saying she’s a Brooklynite, I would love to know how long she’s lived in Brooklyn. Because most new people in Brooklyn live in the downtown area and have no idea what it means to live in Red Hook – have no idea what it means to live in East New York in the Flatlands. In what Marty Markowitz was commenting on. And I can’t believe agreeing with Marty Markowitz here, but there is a transportation problem in Brooklyn where the trains don’t go to, the busses don’t go to. And every time they say they’re going to raise the prices on the MTA, and they’re going to benefit the boroughs, they don’t. So, here’s the problem.

And also – for the people that do make a lot of money in Brooklyn, what are you going to do at night when the taxis won’t bring you back because they don’t want to pay the toll. They’ll pay the toll coming into Brooklyn but they’ll charge you for the toll back. That means they’re going to be responsible for the toll back. It’s going to kill the nightlife, it’s going to kill the commerce in downtown Manhattan, not in Brooklyn. And people need to be aware of this. But also what really bothers me is what Marty Markowitz does say. Is that – why is the entire burden, well not the entire burden, excuse me. The majority of the burden is going to be replaced by Brooklynites. It’s not fair. And all these crazy people that have moved to Brooklyn say, Oh well I take the train, well I take the train. A lot of people do not take the train and do not live in the downtown area where a train ride is only going to be 20 minutes.

KS: well wait a second. You’re making assumptions about me that aren’t…I mean….

AB: Okay – Kate Slevin.

KS: I’ve lived in Brooklyn 10 years – I live in Flatbush – that’s a long time.

RP: I’ve lived in Brooklyn all my life.

KS: Okay that’s fine, that’s great. [lots of indiscernible voices]

AB: Okay I live in Brooklyn too, you know, so ah….A lot of people calling in live in Brooklyn

KS: I’m going off of the statistics which are that 57% of households in Brooklyn do not own a car. That means that they are on our transportation system. Households without a vehicle in Brooklyn make $32,000 a year versus households with a vehicle make over double that. That means that from an equity standpoint, tolling the East River bridges to reduce the fare hike is a smart thing to do.

AB: Hang on a second. Rosie Perez – if you can stay with us for just one sec, I know that Nassau County executive has to leave us, so I just want to see if you have any final response to Rosie Perez. Rosie Perez, if you can stay with us, I’d like to get back to you in one second. But what about what she said about killing the nightlife in lower Manhattan. Tom Suozzi.

Tom Suozzi: I don’t think that that’s a possibility. I think it’s so much of a draw that they’ll continue to be nightlife in downtown Manhattan.

RP: If you’re coming home at 3 o’clock in the morning, you’re not going to take the train.

AB: Okay hang on. Rosie Perez, let’s just let Tom Suozzi cause he has to jump off the phone. So we’ll get right back to you.

TS: There’s one thing I want to challenge about Rosie’s saying. The idea that the majority of the burden is going to rest with Brooklyn residents. Of course, I don’t have the statistic in front of me, the report is not out yet, but I’m reasonably certain that the majority of the burden is not going to fall on Brooklyn residents. It’s going to be equitably distributed based upon the fact that the corporate payroll tax has been proposed, based upon the fact that people use these bridges – all the bridges that are going to be tolled – from different parts of the region to enter into Manhattan. And we’ve got to distribute the burden. And right now, if you do think of it, we do have congestion pricing now in that people who take the midtown tunnel, and people who take the Triborough Bridge, must pay a toll. So they’re getting congestion pricing currently. And this will create a more equitable system that each of the different thoroughfares are treated equitably

Tonight beginning at 7 p.m. is part 1 of the second annual Snowflake Celebration, sponsored by  Buy in Brooklyn. December 11 is part 2.

Y’know those snowflakes hanging from the street lights on Seventh Avenue. That’s why this event is called the Snowflake Celebration.

Oh yeah.

And the Community Bookstore will have a snowflake machine out in front tonight.

Cool.

Once again, local merchants throw open their doors to stay open late
and create a holiday atmosphere, enabling the people Park
Slope, to do their holiday shopping . . . here!

Each participating
business will 1). Stay open until 10pm, and 2). Offer some special
promotion – Could be a sale, could be a giveaway, raffle, carolers,
snow machine (it’s been done!), mulled wine, special hors d’oeuvres,
etc. etc. The listings of participants grows daily!!!

Last
year there were 150 participating businesses — who knows what will happen
this year!?! In the current and impending economic climate, it’s more
important than ever to keep our local economy strong and healthy, so
let’s get together and Keep it Local!

Commuters on a Manhattan-bound Staten Island Ferry taking advantage
of slightly warming temps. 

Lights in the sky reveal that this shot was
taken on the inside of the glass doors/windows leading to the ferry’s outer deck.

Photo by Tom Martinez

Another installment of Michael Nolan’s Brooklyn memoir. This one, written 4 years ago, is about his daughter, who lives in Williamsburg.

Took the L Train to the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn yesterday.
Walked along Graham Avenue, where my daughter Rosy now lives, to Lola’s
Cafe where she works the counter. It’s her "living room." Young artists
and musicians like herself drop by for coffee, some breakfast, a bit of
neighborhood chatter, and today to meet Rosy’s Dad. On the surrounding
streets, alongside her young creative crowd lives, works and prays a
devoted Italian Catholic community with their chapel to St. Mary of the
Snow, men’s fraternal associations and card clubs, bakeries, grocery
stores, funeral parlors and annual patron saint processions.

Rosanna
Lowery Nolan turns 26 this Friday. She was destined to live in my
hometown of Brooklyn, I muse. Among the staff of midwives at the
Alternative Birth Center at San Francisco General Hospital in the
summer of ’78 was a handsome African American woman, pregnant herself
at the time, named Sharon Robinson. It was Jackie Robinson’s daughter. The
prospect of having my daughter’s birth guided by the daughter of legendary Brookyn Dodger’s player was exhilarating. In the end, she was not on duty at
the time and the glory of Rosy’s birth trumped everything anyway.

Last
year, I ran into Sharon Robinson at a book signing at Stacey’s on Market Street
in San Francisco. We had a delightful chat about both our children born
in the same year. Sharon now works for the Major League Baseball
Commissioner in New York.

Rosy is named after her paternal Irish
great-grandmother who also lived in Brooklyn on E. 2nd Street and gave
birth to 13 children, only 6 of whom survived. Blessedly one of them
included Harold Francis Aloysius Nolan, her grandfather.

This
Friday is also the birthday of our Jewish cousin, Lena Eisenson
Koblentz, who at 94 exhibits extraordinary good health and mental
acuity. I publish her reminiscences of growing up on the Lower East
Side and distribute them to the "gansa mishpuchah" via our family
website. On Monday, I sought out the address of her home birthplace,
listed in the birth certificate she sent me. The building still stands
at 122 Allen Street, between Delancey & Rivington. A recently
discovered draft card from 1918 showed that her father lived at 530 E.
11th Street. That building survives as well between Avenues A & B,
next to a former public bath house, now serving as a film studio.

Later
Lena’s family moved to The Bronx and then Williamsburg where her father
operated a candy store. The Rosy Nolan Band’s most frequent venue is a
"Billy Burg" club named Pete’s Candy Store on Lorimer Street. Who knew?
Just might be the same place.

I just heard from Joseph M. McCarthy, the development director of  Irondale Ensemble Project, an innovative theater group now located in the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church in Fort Greene, Yesterday he sent out an email requesting donations for the theater but he created a bad link. He sent this follow-up email.

Ugh. I hate when I do this.  It has come to my attention that the "donate"
link in yesterday’s email doesn’t work.

Here’s one that does…
http://www.nycharities.org/donate/c_donate.asp?CharityCode=2260. Sorry
about that.

Also, I heard from a friend that when she told another friend she was
going to see London Cries, the response was, "Oh, the one at
Joe McCarthy’s theater? We want to see that."

I want to disabuse you of that locution.  You can’t look it up in the Times
or The New Yorker or Time Out or New York.  It
is the Irondale Center – and the company is the Irondale
Ensemble Project – much as I would like to have a theater named
after myself!

Hey everybody: the annual 2008 PS 321 Holiday Craft Fair Park Slope is this Saturday. That’s right. It’s this Saturday!!!

I wouldn’t miss it for the world.

–Over 80 artists of
–Extraordinary hand crafted creative gifts and d
–Decorations for the holiday season
–Family fun –
–Gourmet food –
–Kids make-your-own craft area to
keep the little ones entertained while the big people shop
–indoors rain or shine
–Free admission

The Where and When

The 2008 PS 321 Holiday Crafts Fair
Saturday, December 6
11am-4pm
180 Seventh Avenue @ 1st Street
Park Slope, Brooklyn 11215
Contact tel: 347-446-8254
Closest subways:  B/Q to Seventh Avenue, 2/ 3 to Grand Army Plaza, F to Seventh Avenue

Photograph by Rudolph Vernaz-Colas

Just heard from my friend Kathy Malone about a benefit the Brooklyn Indie Market is doing for St. John’s Bread and Life,the largest provider of emergency food services in this area. THey are one of the designated charities of the "Give Where You LIve Campaign."

Brooklyn Indie Market, a collective of fashion and product
designers based in Brooklyn, will donate 15- 20% of its proceeds from
sales (which will be doubled by a matching grant from Independence
Community Foundation) during the weekend of December 20th and 21st,
11-7pm.  St. John’s Bread and Life is Brooklyn’s largest emergency food
provider.  Members of the market gather to sell items each weekend at
Smith and Union Streets in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn.

The shopping event will be part of Bread and Life’s "Give Where You
Live Campaign," which seeks to involve the local Brooklyn community in
charitable programs.  The organization provides meals to more than
1,500 people each day both at its location on Lexington Avenue in
Bedford Stuyvesant and via its Mobile Soup Kitchen which makes
deliveries throughout Brooklyn and Queens.  In addition to sales at the
market, local designers, artists and merchants have donated prizes to
be raffled off during the December 20/21 weekend, including designer
clothing and accessories, art, dinners and bottles of wine.  Donations
will help Bread and Life reduce poverty and hunger, which affects one
in five of every New Yorker.

Info about Brooklyn Indie Market
Brooklyn Indie Market is a collective of
fashion and product designers. Emerging Designers converge weekends
under the red and white striped tent on Smith & Union Street,
offering the public a first glimpse of the many new names in fashion
and product design. Visit Brooklyn Indie Market at www.brooklynindiemarket.com.

Info about St. John’s Bread and Life
Besides
serving more than 1,500 meals daily, Bread and Life also provides an
array of social services, including nutrition counseling, housing
referral services, medical support, education, support groups and a
legal clinic.  You can learn more about St. John’s unique Digital Food
Pantry and other innovations by visiting Bread & Life online at www.breadandlife.org or calling a real person at 718-574-0058, ext 145 to speak with Dorothy Kellogg.

Kristin Goode is so good at her job as about.com’s Brooklyn corespondent. She always knows the coolest stuff.

Now she’s gone ahead and put together a selective list of things to do in Brooklyn in December.

It’s December, the holidays have officially arrived, and there are
plenty of ways to celebrate in Brooklyn. Below I’ve tried to give you
at least one great event for nearly every day of the month.

Check it out here.  And here’s just one cool event she has listed. I’ve never gone.

Thursday, December 11
A Brooklyn Nutcracker

A Brooklyn holiday favorite
for ten years, this show’s cast is almost completely made up of
children. Tickets are $20 for adults and $10 for kids. Show runs
through Sunday.

7pm at The Brooklyn Music School, 126 St. Felix Street

(718) 638-5660