Bet you didn’t even know there were seven gubernatorial candidates. But there are and tonight there’s a seven-way debate in the New York gubernatorial race. You can, of course, listen to it on WNYC at 7PM and Brian Lehrer is having a live chat.

You can also watch it on TV.

Sure Democrat Andrew Cuomo and Republican Carl Paladino will have at it. But there are plenty more voices to be heard tonight. See if you can name ’em. Alright I’ll name ’em for ya:

The 90-minute debate will include Cuomo and Paladino, Brooklyn’s Charles Barron of the Freedom Party, Kristin Davis, of the Anti-Prohibition Party; Howie Hawkins of the Green Party (he’s David Pechefsky’s choice for governor), Jimmy McMillan of the Rent is 2 Damn High Party, and Warren Redlich of the Libertarian Party.

If you’re interested you can read about the five other candidates for governor at the New York Times.

Ran into an old mom friend on Seventh Avenue this morning and she told me about the Leon M Goldstein High School for the Sciences Open House tonight. It’s on the Kingsborough Community College Campus and know how to get there now so maybe me, OSFO and Hepcat will go at 6PM…

Apparently there was a burning smell in Brooklyn Heights last night. And the Brooklyn Bugle has the How ‘Bout that Smell? story this morning. Here’s an excerpt. You can read the rest at the Brooklyn Bugle:

We know now that the burning smell wafting over Brooklyn Heights last night came from a Jersey City junkyard fire.  But that didn’t stop me and Baby Fink  from thinking that the entire neighborhood was on fire during our 4am feeding (which is just an extension of the midnight feeding… can I get a witness, parents?).  Apparently we weren’t alone in our paranoia as BHB reader Lois writes…

They all are, of course. But if you’re interested in the gifted and talented programs the city’s Department of Education has to offer you might want to attend an info session tonight in Manhattan.

In order to get into programs in their local districts, students must test in the 90th percentile.  Those who test in the 97th percentile are eligible for the five more selective programs that take kids from across the city.

It’s the cough that won’t go away. First it was a sore throat, then an annoying cough, then an annoying, mucosy cough. I hate it and feel like such a disturbance.

During the screening of Vision at the Film Forum on Friday, especially the quiet parts: cough, cough.

During the live Selected Shorts program at KingsboroughPerforming Arts Center with Isaiah Sheffer, Tony Roberts and Marcia Tucci: cough, cough.

In my friend’s car, at Quercy, that French bistro on Court Street. Still coughing.

When is this annoying cough going to go away? Cough, cough.

This week OSFO and family will tour the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts High School in Queens, which was founded by Tony Bennett and Susan Bendetto.

Opened in 2001, the school offers programs in the arts and academics. Approximately 800 students attend the school which is near Kaufman Studios and across the street from the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens.

The facility includes the 800-seat Tony Bennett Concert Hall, black box theatres, dance studios, art studios, vocal and instrumental studios, with recording and practice rooms, as well as, a film studio with editing suites.

Will tell you all about it after our tour. In the meantime you can read about my tours of Brooklyn Latin, Edward R. Murrow High School, Midwood High School and the NYC iSchool.

Police officer shot in East New York: Brooklyn Ink

Who should be selling Green Cards: Noticing New York

Is Atlantic Yards on schedule: AY Report

Five other candidates for governor: NY Times

Abdication of judicial responsibility on eminent domain: Develop Don’t Destroy

BQE viewed as backward progress: Brooklyn Ink

Prospect Park bike lane still controversial: Brooklyn Paper

Brought to you by the Feldman Family from their local weather tower.

Here’s an excerpt from Bococaland,where you can read the full story:

So long Continuum Partners. That’s what Long Island College Hospital had to say this week after it finalized a merger with major public university and medical center, SUNY Downstate Medical Center. You may remember a few years ago, when LICH was desperately trying to keep open its pediatric unit and starting to sell real estate to keep itself afloat (how about the building at 110 Amity St., which is still sitting empty after townhouses were nixed?). Supposedly, this new agreement has changed the entire landscape for our local institute, starting with the HEAL-NY grant of $40 million, which will be issued to support the merger, supplementing a $22 million HEAL-NY grant announced earlier.

Today from 12:00 PM until 5:30 PM enjoy the Red Hook Community Farm Harvest Festival, a celebration of urban agriculture, youth empowerment, and sustainable living! Come down to Red Hook Community Farm, meet up with your neighbors, celebrate the bounty of the season, eat delicious food, watch incredible performances, and learn how to build a stronger, healthier, more vibrant, just and sustainable city.

Get this: they’ve got a great pumpkin patch, Charlie Brown and lots of kids activities including face painting and live animals to pet, a farmers market featuring locally grown produce and hand made products, live music, cooking demonstrations and a center for sustainable living and learning.

Look here, look here: the Know It Express will start nonstop service between the U Street Metro in Northwest Washington and the Park Slope area of Brooklyn (more specifically, Flatbush Avenue and Fourth Avenue near the Atlantic Avenue Long Island Rail Road station).

The cost is $25 one way and $45 round trip with a reservation, or $30 for walk-ups. For now, the buses will run Friday through Monday.

The bus leaves from Washington at 8AM on Sunday, Monday, Thursday and Friday. It returns from Brooklyn on the same days at 5:30PM.

According to the website the buses have free wi-fi, plug-ins and more leg room, lap top borrow service, special student fares, deals on local dining and free bike transport.

Nice.

Release Party for Insight Magazine Issue 3

Saturday, October 16 from 7-11PM at Triomph Fitness (540 President Street between 4th and 3rd Avenues) celebrate the release of the third issue of INSIGHT: Volume III. View work from issues one and two of the current volume of INSIGHT Magazine. This art experience will feature work by Bishop203, Laura Galvin, Victor Giganti, Michael Malik Jones-Robinson, Jamie Killen, Rick Midler, Michael Sorgatz, John Tebeau, Johanna Treffy, Alejandro Guzman, Bud Ramsay, Maria Baraybar, Peter Patchen, Spring Hofeldt, Cat Celebrezze, Ward Yoshimoto, Steve Riley, Brian Dupont, James Chen-Feng Kao, Jisoo Lee, Genesis Tramaine and more.

Feast on delicious homemade Brooklyn ice cream from Phinizy & Phebe (free scoop of ice cream to the first 11 people), gourmet rice crisps from riceworks and refreshing beverages from Teany. Additional sponsors include Art in Brooklyn, Creative Times, Triomph Fitness and Fresh Industries. F.O.K.U.S. uses the arts as a tool for education, entertainment and empowerment. Since 2003, we have been creating exciting spaces for people to explore creativity and widen their appreciation for the arts. To learn more about F.O.K.U.S., our past events and why we believe art is what unites us. Read their  overview and press kit.

Architecture and Design Film Festival in Tribeca

October 14-17 at the Tribeca Cinemas, the first US film festival celebrating the creative spirit of architecture and design featuring a wide selection of feature length films, documentaries and shorts. Also: discussions with filmmakers, architects and designers about the design process, architecture in film, and the brilliant designs we see and use every day.

Movies

Starts Friday at BAM: You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger directed by Woody Allen.

Also at BAM: The Social Network, The Town and Wall Street Money Never Sleeps

Through October 26 at Film Forum: the stunning Barbara Sukowa stars in Vision, a new film about the 12th century mystic and composer Hildegarde Von Binghen directed by the great Margarethe von Trotta.

Saturday, October 16 at 2, 4:30, 6:50, 9:15pm at BAMCinematek: Clean directed by Olivier Assayas (part of the Post-Punk Auteur: Olivier Assayas festival)”Clean is one of the few fiction films to evoke realistically the grubby texture of existence for second- and third-tier rock celebrities crumbling under a combination of fading renown and drug addiction.” —The New York Times

Art

At Proteus Gowanus (543 Union Street, Brooklyn): Paradiso Contrapasso. “In Dante’s Inferno, Paradiso Contrapasso distinguishes each sinner by making his or her punishment uniquely appropriate to the committed sin, so that every soul inhabits a Hell all its own. Observatory encouraged artists to consider divine comedic retribution in all of its possible representations. The emphasis is on “Divine” and “Comedy”, and on our superstitious fear of getting what we wish for!”

Saturday, October 16 7PM – 11PM at Triomph Fitness (540 President Street, Brooklyn) launch party and art show for Insights Magazine.

Literary

Friday, October 15 at 7PM until 10PM at St. Francis College, Callahan Center (182 Remsen Street) in Brooklyn Heights: Poets & Passion provides a forum for celebrated poets and novelists, emerging New York City writers, spoken-word artists, and the general public to share their creativity, experiences, and insights. The fifth season kicks off with National Book Award nominee Marlon James and Rona Jaffe Award winner Tiphanie Yanique. Suggested donation is $5.

On Saturday, October 16, at 8:00 PM at Kingsborough Performing Arts Center (KPAC) founder of Symphony Space, Isaiah Sheffer, will take the stage with a special Selected Shorts program designed for KPAC with Tony Roberts and Marcia Tucci.

Mad Men Finale Party

Sunday, October 17 at 9PM at The Bell House in Gowanus presents an event for Mad Men junkies: Dress up in your vintage wear and get drunk on whiskey while watching the final episode of Mad Men season four. If you dress up you’ll be automatically entered to win a prize. Important note: seated tickets are sold out – the reduced admission ticket link above is for STANDING ROOM ONLY.

Music

Saturday, October 16 at 9PM The Jewish Music Cafe on 9th Street in Park Slope presents Josef Karduner

Up and Coming October 24:

On October 24 Brooklyn Indie Market presents the third annual Steampunk Day at the Dumbo Loft (155 Water Street, Dumbo) from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Steampunk Shopping and Fashion Show at 4 p.m. $20 Victorian/Steampunk portrait sitting with vintage camera by Tsirkus Fotografika $5 entry. Take the F train to York Street Station and travel to a re-envisioned Victorian age that features retrofuturistic fashion, brass and copper clockwork, ray guns, jetpacks, bustles and inventions that go far beyond 19th century technology. Think steam-powered mechanical wonders, brass-fitted computers, dirigibles, goggles, airships, and clockwork inspired accoutrements.

The Brooklyn housing market is on the rise.   The market report, which is available as a PDF, was produced by Prudential Douglas Ellman Real Estate conjunction with Miller Samuel, shows that the average sale prices increased by more than 7% since last year but rates are sill well below levels that existed during the bubble years.

Good news for sellers, but bad news for those trying to crack into the expensive Brooklyn housing market. Apartments are also selling about a third faster than last year.

The average sales price is $583,790 up 7% from last year’s average price of $544,676.

While properties sold more quickly than last year the writers of the report state that the Brooklyn market still faces significant challenges:

The Brooklyn housing market quickly rebounded from the post-Lehman lows. Despit record low mortgage rates and prices well below peak levels, further improvement in the housing market is being restrained by elevated unemployment, shadow inventory and tight credit.

Today Hepcat, OSFO, Luvbud and I toured Brooklyn Latin, which calls itself “a replication” of the Boston Latin School, which is the oldest public school in the United States. The curriculum is a classical liberal arts education, that includes Latin, declamation (memorization and recitation of important texts), Socratic seminars, where students engage academic debate, and the International Baccalaureate.

Invigorating.

Hepcat said it was the kind of school he’d like to go to. Now. That said it’s not for every kid. I’m guessing if it’s right for your child you or your child will know it.

The BL students, who observe a dress code of white shirts and khaki pants (or skirts for the girls) of their own choosing, look intelligent, engaged, relaxed, energetic and enthusiastic about the school, which really seems to stress learning for the sake of being a well-rounded and educated member of the world.

That said, the school, which is one of the specialized schools requiring the Specialized High School Admissions Test (SHSAT) for admission, is college-oriented and we were told that colleges visit the school on a weekly basis during junior and senior year. The girl who led our tour said that she’s hoping to get into Harvard and that’s why she’s happy about doing the International Baccalaureate.

I expected to feel the rigor of the school but I didn’t expect the kids to be so relaxed, good humored and unpretentious.  During the Q&A at the end of the tour, a panel of kids spoke openly when asked what they found most difficult about the school:

“Getting up in the morning,” more than one kid said.

“Scheduling. There so much to do, so much to juggle: school work, classes, meetings, after-school activities and social life…”

“Freshman year it took a while to adjust to the teaching styles…”

Continue reading High School Tour Confidential: Brooklyn Latin →