Scott Turner, who runs Rocky Sullivan’s, the pub across the street from IKEA in Red Hook, sent this tribute to George Carlin, who died over the weekend. He also mentioned that there’s a pub quiz this Thursday. Like always.

..and what I want is to pay tribute to George Carlin by listing, in all their glory, the Seven Words You Can’t Say On T.V. Carlin’s routine wasn’t about cheap laughs or working blue, as the old Borscht Belt comics used to call explicit routines. Carlin was pointing out the U.S. government’s usual hypocritical proclivities. In this case, a society that uses these words all the time, except for the tiny little realm called “television.” Like if television programs don’t use dirty words, dirty words don’t exist.

By the way, here’s George Carlin’s take on electoral politics: “It is the illusion of choice.” He’s 99% right…this fall might, for the first time in most of our lives, be the yang to Carlin’s yin. But when the Democrats punked out last week and voted for George Bush’s FISA bill, Dems in New York City favor big real-estate developers over their local constituents clear instructions to stop Bloomberg’s wild-west construction explosion, and those vote against their own best interests in this country — well, it’s easy to see the wisdom of Carlin’s eloquence.

Still, agreeing with Carlin doesn’t mean it’s good to stay away from the voting booth. You want a country that works the way it should? Use all the tools in the shed. Voting’s one of ’em. With a two-party system that works together to keep all other parties out in the cold, it’s not freedom of choice — more like freedom to choose who the folks in Washington tell us to choose from. It’s like only being allowed to buy items that Wal-Mart stocks, and convincing yourself you can purchase anything in the world.

Carlin’s gone, and with it, another gale in our sails. We’ll just have to row harder now.

Rocky Sullivan’s Pub Quiz
Quiz ‘Neath The Stars
General Knowledge Night
with Quizmaster Scott M.X. Turner
This Thursday evening, June 26th
8:00 pm
free admission, potable prizes, per chance wearable winners and aural awards
Rocky Sullivan’s
34 Van Dyke Street
Red Hook, Brooklyn
F/G to Smith/9th Streer -or- F/R to 4th Avenue/9th Street Stations
transfer for the B77 Bus to corner of Van Dyke & Dwight Street, Red Hook
free Ikea shuttle buses and ferries, go here for more info: http://info.ikea-usa.com/brooklyn/
http://www.rockysullivans.com/quiz.html

Here’s his tribute to George Carlin:

Black Pearl, a well-liked restaurant and bar on Union Street near the Tea Lounge has closed.

Five Guys Burgers will be opening in July on Seventh Avenue near 6th Street.

Construction on the new Bank of America on 6th Street and 7th Avenue is moving along. They have removed the red wood construction covering.

The mysteriously named Carmen’s Exclusives for Children is set to open soon in the space that used to house Park Slope Books, on Seventh Avenue between 2nd and 3rd Streets. They have not, however, removed the plain brown wrapping on the windows. They will sell clothing for children birth through five years old.

Red Hot is back. Red Hot II, the second iteration of the Szchuan restaurant on 7th Avenue and 10th Street, is set to open in early July.

The Chocolate Girl, kosher chocolates on Seventh Avenue near 11th Streets has gone out of business.

Big Nose, Full Body is opening a wine bar on Seventh Avenue across from their shop near 12th Street.

From June 18 through August 30th, the Brooklyn Public Library will feature an exhibition of Nate Kensinger’s photographs called “Twilight on the Waterfront: Brooklyn’s Vanishing Industrial Heritage.”

This exhibit documents off-limits industrial sites along Brooklyn’s waterfront, shedding light on what Brooklyn has lost to development over the last five years. The photos in the exhibit are drawn from a long-term project documenting Brooklyn’s industrial waterfront. “Twilight on the Waterfront” will be on display at the Central Library at Grand Army Plaza.

Kensinger is also a documentary filmmaker.

Great news.

That offensive advertising banner on the wall of the sidewalk garden on President Street and Fifth Avenue has been taken down. As of 6 p.m. on Sunday. Seeing Green wrote in to OTBKB to say:

The banner’s been taken down as I walked by at 6pm today. Wonder how that happened?

Just in the nick of time, I’d say. Seeing Green came up with a great way to obscure the banner without breaking the law. Trained as an engineer, Seeing Green even did a drawing, which I will post as soon as it is scanned.

I suggest the garden put up their own banner strung from 2 10′ poles to obscure the wall. Probably totally legal and no permit needed.

Gowanus Lounge had this report and an email from the company that put up the banner, Rapid Realty.

The real estate agency rapidnyc.com that put up a marketing banner on a wall over a Community Garden on Fifth Avenue at President Street is taking it down. We had the first report yesterday about anger about an “intrusive banner” that was subsequently picked up elsewhere later in the day. We received a long comment from the agency, which we’re posting, because it’s important in the context of how peeved some residents became about the banner, which advertises apartments for rent. The email says:

Look, obviously you guys hate the sign. We get it. It won’t be an issue. We will take it down as soon as possible. Our goal was to post the banner up for branding purposes…not to upset anyone. We do plenty of business in Park Slope. We’ve been a member of the community for a long time.

Now Seeing Green won’t have to make his banner obscuring contraption.

[Photo courtesy of a GL Correspondent]

A Bright Spaces, a place for children and families in crisis to play, learn and have fun within existing homeless shelters and playspaces, is opening in Bed Stuy and Dan Zanes will be on hand at the ceremonial ribbon-cutting event on Monday morning at 10 am.

Zanes has been doing benefits and donating money to Bright Horizons Foundation for Children for their play-places for homeless children for years now.

Bright Spaces™ are warm, enriching places in homeless shelters and community agencies that give children and families in crisis a place to play, learn and have fun.
Bright Spaces are created in partnership with Bright Horizons employees, corporations, community agencies, and others. For more information on Bright Spaces, please contact Karin Weaver at kweaver@brighthorizons.com.
Bright Spaces might include:
Language and music centers with great books and children’s music,
Educational games
Soft toys and dolls
Arts and crafts supplies
Blocks and building materials
Play areas filled with props and costumes
Computers and activities
Comfortable spaces for families

Directions:
Providence House is located at 703 Lexington Avenue,
between Malcolm X and Stuyvesant Avenue,
Brooklyn, NY 11221

Bed-Stuy Banana has more information about the event.

Okay, so I wasn’t planning on re-emerging until July, but I received an email from Dan Zanes’ PR people to promote a ribbon cutting ceremony for a new Bright Space, “warm, enriching places in homeless shelters and community agencies that give children and families in crisis a place to play, learn and have fun,” at 10 am this coming Monday. Now I’ve heard Dan Zanes is a popular children’s musician but I’m not familiar with his music, and so have no compelling need to give him more press. However, it did seem like a good opportunity to highlight the organization at which he’ll be present, Providence House.

George Carlin died over the weekend:

Click here to listen to an mp3 version of the Ten Commandments section of When Will Jesus Bring the Porkchops (4 megs).

Brooklyn Beat is enjoying the natural beauty of his neighborhood, Fiske Terrace.

The unique and brilliant plumage of birds is only surpassed by the remarkable diversity of their song. The homes in Flatbush, especially in Fiske Terrace and Midwood Park, are nestled in their own wooded and verdant enclave. In the early morning now, as I get up early to start the coffee, empty the dishwasher, and basically set everyone in our home in motion for the final weeks of school, the tree canopy of Flatbush is filled with the tweats, twitters and percussive caws of birds birds birds.

Each year, birds migrate and make their way through Brooklyn, on brief stopovers in the evergreens, elms, maples, oaks, birch, spruces, catalpa, cherry, gingko, apple, fig and other varieties that fill the Flatbush forests. It is a concert, combining bird call and response, jazz and scat singing, blues, anthems, and doo wop, a wild mix of bird songs from the mesozoic to the present day. Each year I look forward to, and savor, the few fleeting months of early summer, when I can hang out on the deck in early morning, sipping a home made macchiato, Guinevere the Corgi at my feet who also seems to listen with a huge grin, listening to the wild and crazy birdsong in the Flatbush forest, before I need to get dressed and ready and deal with civilization and its discontents

Thankfully, Richard Grayson, author of Who Will Kiss the Pig: Sex Stories for Teens and I Brake for Delmore Schwartz and many other books, participated in Brooklyn’s Fifth Annual Children of Abraham Peace Walk, and wrote about it for his blog. Thank you Richard for this excerpt, Go to his blog to see pictures. I saw no coverage of this amazing event, which was on June 12th. On the walk, Jews, Christians, and Muslims walk for peace from the Flatbush Dutch Reformed to Congregation Beth Emeth to the Albanian American Islamic Center. The walk included tours of each house, music, song and food at the mosque.

We were a bit tardy on June 12th for the 6 p.m. start of Brooklyn’s Fifth Annual Children of Abraham Peace Walk, which got started at the Flatbush Dutch Reformed Church on the corner of Church and Flatbush Avenues, on whose steps we used to hang out as junior high students (next door was a tiny bookstore, The Bookworm, where we got out under-a-dollar paperbacks of Franny and Zooey, God Bless You Mr. Rosewater and The Crying of Lot 49). Blame the B48 and B41 buses for the long trip from Dumbo Books HQ in Williamsburg.

We hadn’t been inside the church since about 1968, when we attended one Sunday service as our 17-year-old self decided to explore the borough’s various congregations before choosing atheism. Throughout the evening the crowd on the Children of Abraham Peace Walk ranged from about 150 to 200. We’d missed the words of welcome from Rabbi Ellen Lippmann, the much-admired Debbie Almontaser, Carol Horowitz and Rev. Tom Martinez, and found ourselves listening to Dr. Kurt Johnson, scientist and co-founder of the Coalition for One Voice, who discussed a recent meeting with the Dalai Lama and his call for the biggest movement in world history, to go beyond interfaith cooperation to achieve “the essence of religious experience, love.”

The ActorCor Chorus, “New York’s only choir of 100% actors” (maybe some are 95%?), sang prayers in English, Hebrew and Arabic, and then the church’s pastor gave a brief history of the church. Built in 1796, it is the successor to a church that was built in 1702 and which in turn is successor to a church that was built in 1654 by special order of Gov. Peter Stuyvesant, back when Flatbush was farms and wilderness.

George Washington marched by just before the Battle of Brooklyn (he should have stopped in to pray and maybe would have done better). The cemetery in the back is one of the area’s oldest. We also learned about the history of the Dutch Reformed Church in general and its successor church. Today the congregation are mostly of West Indian and West African descent and they stopped holding services in Dutch about a zillion years ago.

After acknowledging the help of Deputy Inspector Ralph Monteforte, Commanding Officer of the 70th Precinct, Detective Nasser and other members of the NYPD, the walk began after we lined up, water bottles and lime-colored flyers in hand, behind a large banner held up by half a dozen little kids. The banner had the Children of Abraham Peace Walk logo with three colorful doves, “peace” written on each in Hebrew, Arabic and Latin (English on the bottom of the banner).

We marched on the south side of Church Avenue west, past the great West Indian fruit stores and other emporiums and the Brighton line Q/B station (M/D in our youth). The last time we marched for peace by the Flatbush Dutch Reformed Church was on October 15, 1969, for the Vietnam Moratorium.

As we walked, an evangelical truck slowly made its way following us. We assume it was an uninvited guest, since its calypso music was loudly proselytizing. At Temple Beth Emeth on the corner of Marlborough Road at the start of Prospect Park South’s Victorian homes, all of us sat in the pews and listened to a talented singer and guitarist and heard a talk from Brooklyn Borough Historian Ron Schweiger, a member of the congregation on the history of Beth Emeth.

The synagogue got started in 1911 and moved to the present location three years later; in the 1990s, after many of the area’s Jewish residents had moved (along with us) to what Mr. Schweiger called “that new New York City suburb, South Florida,” Beth Emeth merged with two other nearby Reform temples and now has about 100 families and a very long official name.

As in the church, a rabbi explained the basics of the congregation’s mode of worship. Interestingly, the churchlike stained glass panels featuring Moses and David are not traditionally Jewish practice, but they did serve as backdrops to episodes of such TV shows as “Law and Order” and Richard Dreyfuss’s short-lived “Education of Max Bedford.”

Behind a police officer and the kids with the banner, we all marched south the one block of Marlborough Road (some purple-robed Buddhist monks waved to us from their house) and west on Albemarle Road to the Albanian American Islamic Center at the corner of Rugby Road.

Taking off our shoes and leaving them on the porch, we all went inside to the mosque, where we learned that the Albanian American Islamic Center started in 1963 and bought the house here in 1971. Naji Almontaser introduced an imam who discussed some of the basics of Muslim worship and the way in which Islam mixes faith with practice in dealing with others. He also discussed Islam as a global religion, with the Albanian Americans being of European descent while others are not only Arab but African, South Asian, East Asian and people all over the globe.

Thanks were given to many people who worked on the march, including other clergy members of all three faiths, as well as Mohammad Ravi, director of the Council of People’s Organizations (COPO), which has done such good work since 9/11 in the community here, especially with the businesses on what the New York Times called Brooklyn’s “highway of tolerance,” Coney Island Avenue.

After assembling on the porch for some delicious food and thanking everyone for the Peace Walk, we walked on Albemarle Road toward Coney Island Avenue, passing the home and office of our friendly neighborhood child psychiatrist from the mid-1960s, Dr. Abbott A. Lippman, M.D., F.A.C.P., whose faded sign is still up on the office attached to the once-grand dwelling that housed his collections of African masks and rare orchids. For some reason, the site of our adolescent encounters with Freud is in horrendous state of disrepair. We know the rabbi talked about tikkun olam – “repairing the world” – but someone’s fixing up 929 Albemarle Road would be a good start.

However, as we made out way to the F train, we were really glad we went on the night’s Children of Abraham Peace Walk. Isn’t life wonderful!

Last night as I was walking in the Staten Island Ferry on Whitehall Street I noticed lines from the poem Recuerdo by Edna St. Vincent Millay on the wall of the terminal.

Strangely OTBKB verse responder, Leon Freilich was also in terminal last night. We didn’t run into each other but he did send me this note in response to my post about Art By The Ferry.

I passed the Staten Island Ferry terminal in lower Manhattan last night and noticed the first line of Edna St. Vincent Millay’s memorable–what else?–“Recuerdo” written in letters about three feet high along the eastern windows of the building. But when I walked to the other side, I couldn’t find the second line, which refers to the S.I. ferry.

Does anyone know where that is?

Quite a coincidence. I didn’t go inside the building. My wife Rose and I were taking a fascinating Appalachian Mountain Club walking tour of lower Manhattan. Highlights:

The Wall St. heliport. A hidden flowered plaza on West St. Three or four sets of what look like concrete tiles in Bowling Green park that play musical notes (as in “Big”). An arched metal stairway outside Battery Park City that mirrors the contour of the Statue of Liberty. The Ritz-Carlton’s 14th floor penthouse bar with its view of the harbor. A hidden memorial pool dedicated to NYC policemen who died with donuts in their hand–I mean, in the line of duty. All the new cafes along the BPC

By the way you might want to mention the annual Smith Street Festival, which begins soon, rain or shine. I’ll be Food-Coop recruiting, along with two others, from 10:15 to noon. Lots of clothing buys from Central America; and of course a huge selection of luncheries.

And here is the lovely poem. Part of it is on the wall of the ferry terminal. Somewhere.

RECUERDO
We were very tired, we were very merry–
We had gone back and forth all night upon the ferry.
It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable–
But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table,
We lay on the hill-top underneath the moon;
And the whistles kept blowing, and the dawn came soon.
We were very tired, we were very merry–
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry;
And you ate an apple, and I ate a pear,
From a dozen of each we had bought somewhere;
And the sky went wan, and the wind came cold,
And the sun rose dripping, a bucketful of gold.
We were very tired, we were very merry,
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
We hailed, “Good morrow, mother!” to a shawl-covered head,
And bought a morning paper, which neither of us read;
And she wept, “God bless you!” for the apples and the pears,
And we gave her all our money but our subway fares.

I took the Verrazano Bridge to Staten Island and returned on the ferry.

In between I enjoyed hours and hours at Art By the Ferry in the St. George neighborhood, drinking beer, listening to the music of Pupa Santiago and his incredible band and Queen Tipsy, a bluesy rock singer named Phyllis. I also saw rooms and rooms of art including a devastating installation of photographs taken in Iraq, as well as the work of master printmakers and painters. Brooklyn photographer Tom Martinez’s photographs of a hawks were also a high point. Martinez, the pastor of the All Souls Bethlehem Church in Kensington, Brooklyn, frequently shows his remarkable photographs as part of his church services. “I feel compelled to witness the beauty of creation. In that spirit, I’ve photographed the hawks who were recently relocated from Prospect Park to Greenwood Cemetery,” he writes.

Much of the artwork was located at 120 Stuyvesant Place,where there were 18 group exhibitions including: “Battlespace;” “Bunkin, Tango, Arcia, Grabel;” “The Collagraph Circle;” “Alan, Joanne, Barbara, and Janine;” “Wagner Sculpture Group;” “Creative Photographers’ Guild;” “Unique Art;” “DMBZ Group;” “Bogaert Group;” “ArtLab;” “Staten Island Camera Club;” “ArtLab Printmakers;” “Photographers Group;” “Wagner People;” “McCormack Family;” “Snug Harbor Studio Artists,” “Unaffiliated Group;” and “Independent Artist.”

Indeed, Staten Island, which has its own Philharmonic Orchestra, ballet, and a host of cultural institutions, is full of the arts. My reading at the St. George Library was great fun. I mostly read from my Smartmom column and talked a little bit about blogging.

Credit goes to Joyce Goldstein, who with the help of her husband Ira and a group called, Staten Island Creative Community organized this ambitious and well-organized three-day community arts event. As anyone who has ever organized a special event knows, it takes a very determined, creative, and dedicated group to put on an event of this magnitude. Props to all who were involved.

Clearly, Joyce is the unofficial mayor of Staten Island with a deep and abiding love for the arts and people of her borough. Did you know that artist Romare Bearden and his wife, Nanette, a choreographer were residents of the island?

Joyce told me.

“The ride on the ferry at night is magical,” she told us as she and Ira drove me and another Broolynite to the ferry. “The view of the city; it’s like Oz,” she said with unflappable enthusiasm and awe.

She described the plethora of artists on the island. “There’s a lot of talent here. I really think it’s going to be the next Williamsburg,” she told us.

“Look, that’s going to be the new lighthouse museum in that space near the ferry,” she pointed out the car window at what will soon be the new National Lighthouse Museum.

Saturday, the third and final day of Art By The Ferry, was a gorgeous blue sky day to roam around the St. George section, inhale views of the Hudson River and Manhattan, and take in the mixed-bag architectural landscape that is Staten Island.

Talk of doing it next year was in the air as were ideas about how to get more tourists—and people from the other boroughs—who ride the ferry to get off the ferry in Staten Island and enjoy some of the bounty that the borough has to offer. The ferry ride is one of the most popular tourist attractions in New York City.

The St. George Ferry Terminal is no longer the drab, depressing place it was when I last rode the ferry too many years ago. Completed in 2005, it has been transformed into welcoming space with large windows, views of the harbor and high ceilings to provide a well lit, open and inviting environment.

It was a surprise to see that there are two 8-foot tall, 1,600-gallon fish tanks in the waiting area of the terminal. The tanks, which were introduced in February 2008, each hold 200 tropical fish and will be maintained by the Staten Island Zoo. Watching the fish is a great way to while away a wait for the ferry.

The ferry ride is free of charge and lasts about 25 minutes. It may be one of the greatest shows in tow. Wind in your face, the water below, subway style drummers banging sheet rock pails, the Statue of Lady passing by, Manhattan, like Oz, in the distance, a ride on the ferry is the quintessential New York experience recapitulating the immigrant’s arrival experience again and again.

You like blogs. You read blogs. You have a blog???? Come to the Brooklyn Blogade a fun gathering of Brooklyn bloggers today at noon.

Have some first rate coffee. Have some breakfast/brunch. Meet host and photographer extraordinaire, Brit in Brooklyn, who will discuss photo blogging. Meet other bloggers and blog readers and other Brooklyn folks.

Root Hill, the new cafe on Fourth Avenue at Carroll Street. Be there. I will.

Just discovered what I think is a fairly new blog on the New York Times’ website. Measure for Measure: How to Write a Song and Other Mysteries is cool. I loved reading Suzanne Vega’s story of the song, Luka. The authors of the blog are Suzanne Vega, Roseanne Cash, Andrew Bird, and Darrell Brown.

With music now available with a single, offhand click, it’s easy to forget that songs are not born whole, polished and ready to play. They are created by artists who draw on some combination of craft, skill and inspiration. In the coming weeks, the contributors to this blog — all accomplished songwriters — will pull back the curtain on the creative process as they write about their work on a songs in the making.

Richard Grayson, the author of Who Will Kiss the Pig: Sex Stories for Teens, was in Prospect Park on Friday night for the opera. He is currently running for Congress in Phoenix in a Republican primary: http://republican-grayson.blogspot.com.

We left Dumbo Books HQ in Williamsburg well after 7 p.m. last night and so were a little worried about getting to the Met’s only summer concert in the park this year, with the magnificent Angela Gheorghiu and Roberto Alagna. The Times had suggested the crowd might be over 100,000. But the G and F trains got us to Bartel Pritchard Square and the park entrance by 7:50 p.m. with a whole lot of other folks. Police were everywhere from the subway platform to every few feet in the park. As we got to the meadow, we could hear the bombastic voice of our friend Borough President Marty Markowitz, and we knew he’d speak long enough for us to find a place to put down our blanket before the music started.

Back in the 1970s, when we lived in our childhood home, we attended the summer Met performances at nearby Marine Park. Our friends the literary agent Linda Konner and the sculptor David Devrishian would arrive with a picnic basket filled with Zabar’s goodies. It was in our old neighborhood that we learned about opera from Joe the barber on Avenue O and East 55th Street, where we got our Beatles haircuts and listened to Puccini, Verdi and Rossetti. We didn’t find out opera was a gay thing till much later. Still, our knowledge of opera is pretty limited; we just know what we like.

Anyway, a friend estimated the crowd at 30,000, far from what was expected, though we don’t know how he reckoned this. Still, lots of people there: kids running around, old people in wheelchairs, young couples and friends with munchies and wine, at least one guy selling marijuana, and a number of women who resembled Ruth Messinger. It was a beautiful night, and summer had just begun at 7:59 p.m. We could really see only on the two giant video screens but we could make out people onstage.

Conductor Ion Marin and the orchestra began the concert with the overture to Verdi’s La Forza Del Destino, and then the married team of soprano Angela Gheorghiu and tenor Roberto Alagna came out and did their magic. We knew a couple of the pieces they sang, individually and together, but mostly they were unfamiliar to us barbarians. But they were all beautiful, especially for us Gheorghiu’s rendition of that desperate aria from Puccini’s Madama Butterfly and Roberto Algana doing an aria from his brother David Alagna’s Le Dernier Jour d’un Condamné. The Met’s Chorus sang that thing from Verdi’s Il Trovatore that we know from the Marx Brothers movie. And in the encore we got “O Sole Mio” plus “It’s Now Or Never”! And lots, lots more good music. We and thousands of others left Prospect Park in a great mood. Isn’t life wonderful!

This morning on Park Slope Parents I read about this incident on Sixth Avenue and Lincoln Place. Read on…

I just read about this and don’t remember seeing it posted here and I
thought it would be helpful for us all to know this happened and do be
alert in general. Below is a message from brooklynian.com about a
random attack on 6th avenue on Lincoln. The comments suggest that it
wasn’t actually a butcher knife but it was a violent attack and that
the victim is now fine. Apologies if people are already aware of this
and I am just a day late.

hi all

i got the following email from a coworker. this happened to her friend
on wednesday, and i haven’t found any other info about it here or
elsewhere online. not to cause unnecessary alarm, but i thought i
would pass along the warning. stay safe.

Subject: park slope attack

A good friend’s girlfriend was attacked by a mentally ill man with a
butcher knife on Wednesday walking along 6th Ave in Park Slope. She’s
going to survive, but it was bad. My friend asked me to warn anyone I
know around Park Slope because they think he’s still in the
neighborhood. She was just walking along the street talking on her
cell phone and he attacked her without a word. I think the police
have an idea who he is and that he’s extremely ill. They say he’s
probably under 30, slender, about 5’9″, and was wearing checkered
shorts, a white tshirt and gray sweatshirt. And they think he’s
latino, but I never trust them to get

that right.

Here’s fellow scribe, Leon Freilich, on last night’s opera in Prospect Park.

Gheorghiu on my mind Alagna husband Roberto were indeed magnificent. Opera’s first superstar couple.

If the ecstatic crowd–I heard an estimate of 25,000–failed to reach Peter Gelb’s prediction of 150,000, two reasons are possible. Gelb scared off music lovers who feared chaos-in-the-park; or we’re still Backwater Brooklyn. Yes, pre-yuppies, the mere mention of Brooklyn anywhere in the country evoked titters. I was here and I remember.

In any case, three cheers for the Met’s greatest-ever director, Gelb, and for the reviled yuppies who gave us arrugula, balsamic vinegar and an entree into the 21st century

THE BEAST IS YET TO COME

Optimists think for pessimists

The glass is half-empty in any weather

Yet every pessimist insists

The glass is empty altogether.

If you’re thinking of being in the parade, register TODAY at 10 AM, Rain or Shine! Marchers and Push Pull Floats should register at West 10th Street. Antique Cars should register at West 15th Street. Motorized Floats should register at West 16th Street.

$10 per adult, $5 per kid, $10 for a push pull float, $25 for a motorized float, $25 for an antique car, $100 for a flatbed truck. Here’s the blurbage from Coney Island USA.

The parade is completely original creation of Coney Island USA, the Mermaid Parade is the nation’s largest art parade and one of New York City’s greatest summer events. The parade is proud to have some incredible sponsors. Click here for answers to common questions.

Founded in 1983 by Coney Island USA, the not-for-profit arts organization that also produces the Coney island Circus Sideshow, the Mermaid Parade pays homage to Coney Island’s forgotten Mardi Gras which lasted from 1903 to 1954, and draws from a host of other sources resulting in a wonderful and wacky event that is unique to Coney Island.

The Mermaid Parade celebrates the sand, the sea, the salt air and the beginning of summer, as well as the history and mythology of Coney Island, Coney Island pride, and artistic self-expression. The Parade is characterized by participants dressed in hand-made costumes as Mermaids, Neptunes, various sea creatures, the occasional wandering lighthouse, Coney Island post card or amusement ride, as well as antique cars, marching bands, drill teams, and the odd yacht pulled on flatbed.

Each year, a different celebrity King Neptune and Queen Mermaid rule over the proceedings, riding in the Parade and assisting in the opening of the Ocean for the summer swimming season by marching down the Beach from the Boardwalk, cutting through Ribbons representing the seasons, and tossing fruit into the Atlantic to appease the Sea Gods. In the past, David Byrne, Queen Latifah, Ron Kuby, Curtis Sliwa, Moby, and David Johansen have graced our shores, presiding over the assembled masses.

The Parade is followed by the Mermaid Parade Ball, a post-parade gathering where costumed parade participants can get together with each other and parade spectators to listen to live music, purchase raffle tickets, and watch burlesque and sideshow acts performed by some of New York City’s hottest burlesque stars

.

I found this picture of the Mermaid Parade in the 1990’s on Jamie Livingston’s Photo-of-the-Day website.

Here are two Polaroids from 1994 and 1995 of the Mermaid Parade by Jamie Livingston

Is it Red Hot or a different Chinese restaurant on 10th Street and 7th Avenue???? An OTBKB reader sent this tip:

I noticed today when I came home from work that a new awning had appeared on Red Hot and the door was open, allowing one to see that they were sanding the floors and had new lighting fixtures installed and freshly painted walls. Looks like there will be cause for jubilation in the Slope soon.

So now we know why there were helicopters flying over Third Street. A routine training exercise, said the operator at the 78th Precinct when I called earlier today. Hah. That’s a line out of Iron Man. I saw the movie.

The real reason: There was a bank robbery at the Astoria Bank at Fifth Avenue and 10th Street. Two bank robbers with guns ran down Fifth. One of them was apprehended. The other ran down further down Fifth Avenue near MS 51, a Park Slope middle school at Fifth Avenue and 6th Street. It is not clear whether the suspect was in the school or not. The school is saying that the bank robber never entered the building. The school was put into lock down as a precautionary measure by a Swat team. Here’s a report from a Fourth Street resident:

According to reports, two bank robbers ran from the cops after robbing the Astoria bank on 10th Street and Fifth Avenue. They ran right into the school around noon. The police apparently caught one of the two, but the other got away.

An eyewitness told my source the one they caught had at least one gun strapped to his upper body. The school was evacuated…sounds like mayhem, but luckily no one was injured…could have been much, much, much worse.

Also luckily, police and all responders were all over the scene, including helicopters, very quickly, bravo to them all.

A friend who’s daughter is a student at Park Slope’s Middle School 51 today had this to say about the incident, which occurred around 12:00 Thursday afternoon.

“I was told by one of the school’s deans that there was a robbery at Commerce Bank (OTBKB note: it was actually Astoria Bank on 10th Street and Fifth Avenue). Two armed robbers ran out of the bank. One got caught near the bank; the other kept running. He opened the money bag and the dye that is packed with the money exploded on him. He kept running.

SWAT teams and helicopters were notified. One member of the SWAT team has a kid at MS 51. He notified the school to go into lock down. Teachers were told to close the classroom doors. The school is saying that the second armed robber was never inside the school.”

Today was the 8th grade graduation. The entire 8th grade, administration and many teachers were at the graduation at the Brooklyn Marriott. My friend, who runs the Old Stone House, got a message from the drama teacher between 12 and 1 warning her that she should lock herself inside The Old Stone House. At the time she was at the Havana Outpost having a celebratory graduation lunch.

At the school, the parents were notified and the kids were sent home. A letter went home informing parents about the incident. It is believed that the school was closed down as a precaution by the SWAT team.