A cigarette may be to blame for the fire on Friday morning that killed an elderly woman.

NY 1 reports that the fire in a brownstone on Fifth Avenue and Carroll Street on Thursday night may have been by a cigarette. The fire began around 6AM on the 4th floor of a brownstone at 254 5th Avenue in Park Slope. The woman was pronounced dead at the hospital. There were no other fatalities.

Bob Goldberg is playing his accordion on Third Street

Serenading the neighbors with his favorite tunes

Walking up and down the street

Playing his favorite tunes

Bob Goldberg is playing his accordion on Third Street

Many days of the week I walk up Lincoln Place from Seventh Avenue to Eighth Avenue to my office at The Montauk Club or to the subway at Grand Army Plaza.

Many, many of those days I see Warren Fox, the tall, stocky, white haired man who smokes a pipe. I’ve never actually spoken to Fox, the owner of the red brick building on the southwest corner of Seventh Avenue and Lincoln, that houses the Tibetan store on the corner and three small storefronts, but we always nod politely to one another as I pass.

Two of those small storefronts (Paper Love and Fashion East) are vacant now and today I noticed a picture of Warren Fox standing on a rock smoking his signature pipe. It was taped to the front window of the empty Paper Love storefront.

In magic marker it said: Warren 5/39-2/11.

I stared at it incredulously and then noticed a black and white portrait of a much younger man, a slimmer man, with a goatee. It said: Warren Fox 1939-2011.

I was stunned because I feel like I just saw Warren last week. Or was it the week before. He was a constant presence, hovering over those small shops and often creating wood planters with customized wood embellishments for each shop.

Warren was an artist with wood, a neighborhood fixture, a landlord always tinkering with his building — painting this, fixing that.

I said to an older man, who happened to be walking by with a dog: What happened?”

“He died. Last month. Died in his bed. He’s been here for a long, long time.”

Strange. One minute here, gone the next. That’s the way of life, eh?

We woke up around 6AM to the sound of helicopters flying overhead.

“it’s either police helicopters or news helicopters,” Hepcat said.

“I think it’s news helicopters,” I said.

I was in the city most of the morning but found out just now from PS Patch that there was a terrible fire in a brownstone on Fifth Avenue at Carroll Street around 6AM, which left a 60-year-old woman critically injured. She’s now at Methodist Hospital.

According to Patch, 60 firefighters were on the scene and they had the blaze out within an hour. The cause of the fire is still unknown.

I went to class until 2PM but slept the rest of the day. Actually I’m feeling better now and am off to see Treasure Island at Irondale (read my review in the Brooklyn Paper next week). And then tomorrow: I am participating in a panel discussion presented by the Park Slope Civic Council at the illustrious Montauk Club: Growing a Business in Park Slope.

Sorry for the dearth of content. Hugh is away briefly but just noticed he gave me a NWDP to put up. Yipee. Thanks to Eliot and Now I’ve Heard Everything for posting about MUSIC.

This week in Park Slope Patch I explored what matters to the people of Park Slope.

There are many assumptions about the priorities of those who live here. According to the stereotypes, we like our babies, our organic food and our progressive politics. And we really like arguing about our bike lanes. But what is really on the minds of the locals and what do they think needs fixing to make this a better place for all?

In the spirit of an unscientific survey I consulted an interesting assortment of neighborhood leaders and locals.

Eric McClure, who runs Park Slope Neighbors, a local advocacy group that supports the Prospect Park West bike lane, is concerned about the cost of housing and neighborhood diversity.

“People can’t touch a halfway decent house for under $2 million, ‘mid-priced’ apartments and good rentals are in short supply, and there really is no lower end of the market anymore.  That is causing Park Slope to become increasingly less diverse, and diversity is a big part of the reason that we gentrifiers (speaking for myself) moved here in the first place,” he wrote to me.

For McClure education is also a big priority. He believes that the Brooklyn Millennium situation has been a real eye-opener.

“Of course people would love to have a great high school in the neighborhood.  On the other hand, the community’s lack of engagement and effort in trying to improve the schools that already existed in the John Jay building is a major issue.”

It is McClure’s hope that the advent of Millennium Brooklyn can serve as a catalyst for making all the schools better.

Speaking of schools, Nancy McDermott, a journalist who writes the Park Slope Parents blog and lives in the neighborhood with her husband and two young sons, thinks that a big pre-k for the district “where everybody gets a spot and is ideally located” would be a win-win for local parents. She thinks this would also create space in our already over crowded elementary schools.

Daniel Meeter, the minister of Old First Dutch Reformed Church on Seventh Avenue in Park Slope, writes a blog called Old First (oldfirst.blogspot.com) where he posts his weekly sermons and thought provoking pieces on civic issues. A resident of Kensington, he is member of the Park Slope Civic Council, and is currently chair of a committee to improve communication between the John Jay High School Complex and the Park Slope neighborhood.

Like McClure, for Rev. Meeter, housing affordability and availability are also important issues. He also cited the need for health care and other benefits for the “service class” (i.e. nannies, food service, etc.).

Gilley Youner, who lives in Park Slope with her husband and teenage son, believes that educational infrastructure is a primary concern. A vice president of the Park Slope Civic Council, senior associate architect at Kutnicki Bernstein Architects and a board member of Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, she is passionate about land use issues and the re-zoning of Fourth Avenue, as well as land marking and the preservation of historic streets in Park Slope and elsewhere.

For Youner, affordability and diversity are key when it comes to housing because that’s the only way to maintain a “diversely ethnic, creative, wide age-range community with sky-high housing costs,” she wrote.

Andy Bachman, the senior rabbi of Congregation Beth Elohim in Park Slope, writes insightful essays on secular, moral and religious issues on his blog, Water Over Rocks (andybachman.com). He is concerned about the lack of affordable child-care for the neighborhood’s burgeoning population. He also believes there should be adequate low and middle income housing for those being squeezed by gentrification.

Finally, he wrote, “there needs to be a true community-wide response to helping nannies and caregivers take advantage of their residencies in the United States with educational and vocational job training programs.”

Quite a few residents voiced concern about vacant storefronts piling up on Seventh and Fifth avenues…

Read the rest on Park Slope Patch…

Seventh Avenue

City Casuals, the store owned for 40 years by localista Esther Levitt, is closing. Bad news for me because I’ve bought many a pair of velvet pants and silky, over-sized shirts and dresses from Flax and Cut Loose at the store, which is conveniently located on Seventh Avenue near 4th Street (next to the barber shop). It’s often my go-to place when I need something new. They are having a 50% off moving sale. So sorry to see it go. Best of luck to Esther.

Across the street, Cheeburger Cheeburger opens on Tuesday. My sister was offended by their blasting music on Sunday but she doesn’t like the sign either. I’m curious enough to want to try their veggie burger.

Pearle Vision is going into a space formally occupied by a local eyeglass shop (whose name escapes me at the moment).

Fifth Avenue

According to Here’s Park Slope, there are management changes at Fornino. Michael Ayoub, who is the founding owner of Fornino in Williamburg and partner/chef/glass designer at the Fifth Avenue eatery, sold his portion of the restaurant to Dave Kearns, who was a general manager Porter House and Judson Grill.

There’s a new Colombian restaurant on Fifth Avenue near 7th Street.

A cafe/yogurt place called Culture is going in where Serene Rose used to be on Fifth Avenue between Third and Fourth Streets.

A 22-year old employee at Everybody Eat, a bakery on Third Avenue and Carroll Street, was brutally raped early Friday morning when she opened the shop. The armed assailant demanded money and then raped the woman when she said she had none. The victim was taken to Kings County Hospital and later released.

On Sunday the Department of Education came out with a list of how many teachers could be laid off and at which schools. All told there could be as many as 4,567 lay offs. That’s an outrageous 6% of the active teachers in the system. These cuts will take place in every neighborhood and at every school.

The newspapers and the DOE are saying this is a worst case scenario. According to the New York Times, the Senate is set to vote on a bill that would allow allow the city to lay off teachers based on factors like performance and disciplinary records, rather than seniority. If this bill doesn’t pass, those laid off will be the last hired.