The Guardian Unlimited ran on story on Jonathan Lethem’s letter to Frank Gehry. I didn’t know Gehry was "embroiled in a long-running battle" on the Hove seafront in the south of England.

Frank Gehry is fighting a war on both sides of the Atlantic. The Pritzker prize-winning septuagenarian architect is already embroiled in a long-running battle to build a pair of tower blocks on Hove seafront, described by Gehry as "Victorian women in wind-blown dresses". Now it seems that he has some even more formidable opponents than the genteel residents of Brighton and Hove: angry Brooklynites.

The latest images of Gehry’s Brooklyn project, a $3.5bn forest of skyscrapers, were unveiled to the press last month. The New York-based novelist Jonathan Lethem, in an open letter to Gehry published in online magazine Slate, described the development as "a nightmare for Brooklyn" that would cause "irreparable damage" to the quality of life in the district. "To my unschooled eye," wrote the man whose 2005 novel The Fortress of Solitude was in many ways a paean to Brooklyn, "these buildings have emerged pre-botched by compromise, swollen with expediency and profit-seeking".

Teen Spirit, OSFO and I went to the 6:45 show of Superman Returns. It’s a great movie – all two and a half hours of it. I took a brief doze in the first hour (because I was exhausted from last night).  Other than that, it held my attention throughout.

The only trouble was, the movie theater was full of so many noisy kids. A kid behind us talked throughout the movie, "I’m scared dad, I’m scared." or "Is Superman going to die?" He also cried noisily at one point and kicked my seat.

But that wasn’t all. Many in the theater brought babies and children too young for the movie who talked or cried throughout. There was also a lot of hissing and loud verbal reactions to what was going on on the screen. It didn’t enhance the viewing experience at all.

The whole thing was very distracting and detracted from the viewing experience.

Curious and cool thing: Marlon Brando is credited with being in the
film. I think it was his voice. But still. When was it recorded? Turns out it was from audio outtakes from another Superman movie that he was in. And, Eva Marie Saint is in the movie, too. She and Brando were both in "On the Waterfront" many, many years ago.

I found the film, one of the most expensive ever made, to unexpectedly beautiful, even exquisite in places. And oddly spiritual. Suffice it to say, it’s pretty silly overall. But it’s fun and a great way to stay cool for two and a half hours.

Directed by the the director of "The Usual Suspects" it is full some great bits, characters, scenic artistry, and special effects that are very smooth and interesting looking, especially the Fortress of Solitude. The city of Metropolis is a great blend of Manhattan and an imagined city.

But Kevin Spacey takes the cake. He makes a fantastic villian and I loved the film the most when he was on the screen.

Good summer fun in air conditioned splendor. Superman Returns.  The following films are on my wish list:

The Devil Wears Prada
Prairie Home Companion
I’m Your Man, the doc about Leonard Cohen.

I have been hearing whispers of this on Seventh Avenue. Does anyone know more about the Pavilion being turned into condos?

Someone sent me this email last week. I couldn’t agree with her more about the neighborhood needing a movie theater.

Have you heard that plans are being considered to sell the Pavilion,  the only movie theater in Park Slope, to a developer who would turn it into a condo building with a large underground parking garage? 

We need a movie theater in this neighborhood — a place for teenagers to walk to locally, for families, and for local businesses to keep people in the neighborhood on nights out instead of heading to Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill, or Manhattan.

I’m not sure what needs to be done to keep it a theater. I heard that in Bayridge something similiar happened and the local realtors helped find a buyer who would  continue to keep it as a movie theater.  I can’t believe that in Park Slope there is not someone who wants to run a movie theater and/or restaurant since there is space inside for a restaurant (the former "Living Room" restaurant has been closed and is now just a large concession stand for the theater).

Today was the last day of school (stay tuned for my Smartmom column this Friday on this topic).

OSFO was very sad when she found out that she won’t be in the same class as her best friend Emmy.

She looked terribly disappointed after school. The two are still planning to walk to school together unassisted by parents next fall.  (We parents will be hovering in the background most likely).

I tried to convince OSFO that she would still see a lot of Emmy and that she’d make new friends in the class next year.

As I write this I see that I didn’t really let her have her feelings. I kept trying to fix it, comfort her, or make her see it my way. I should have just listened and sympathized.

It was on her mind until early evening. She was happy to hear that two of her friends will be in the class with her. But she still worried. What if they’re not? What if it’s a mistake?  Are they really in the new class with me?

When your children worry you just want to make it better like putting a Bandaid on a boo boo. Kiss it and make the pain go away. But that’s not always possible. She needs to feel this stress, this worry, this pain. It won’t go away (poof) just because I want it to.

I hope she feels better tomorrow. But if she doesn’t it’s okay. She feels strongly about the kids she was friends with this year. She doesn’t want to leave them. And she has to. I will let her mourn this loss and then move on.

She’ll be fine in the long run but this is a big deal right now.

Here’s a story from the BBC.com from 2003 about Gehry’s Hove project. It is being fought by conservatives who say that the land should not be built on.  A story today in The Guardian said that the battle is on-going.  The tall buildings look a lot like the Brooklyn bride. They look quite nice on the water like that.

World-famous architect Frank Gehry, who has created eye-catching landmarks in Bilbao, Seattle and Las Vegas, has set his sights on Sussex.

This is what tourists would see from the end of the Palace Pier

He may have designed the iconoclastic Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao and the equally daring Experience Music Project in Seattle, but his English debut is by no means certain.

Gehry’s vision of a new development for the seafront at genteel Hove will first have to overcome a rival bid and then the opposition of the local Conservative group, which is against any housing on the site.

About 400 local residents have also signed a petition.

Brighton and Hove Council is expected to make a decision next month on which is its preferred option, but the proposal will still need to go through the normal planning application process.

The council came up with the idea of a competition when they decided it was high time they redeveloped the 70-year-old King Alfred Leisure Centre in Hove.

The idea was for the council to donate the land and a private developer would stump up the money and subsidise the development by building abound 400 flats with unrivalled sea views.

Most of the flats would be for the luxury end of the market but 40% would be earmarked for key workers like nurses and teachers, or people on the housing waiting list.

Several of the world’s top architects submitted bids for the project and the shortlist was whittled down to two, with Lord Rogers (formerly Richard Rogers) the latest to be rejected.

Now it is a straight fight.

In the red corner is Gehry’s bizarre vision – a collection of four tower blocks of varying height clustered around a swimming pool complex and "winter garden".

Each tower has giant glass panels, like wings, and each looks as if it has been melted with a giant blowtorch.

In the blue corner is the design put forward by Wilkinson Eyre, who are best known for their remarkable Millennium Bridge in Gateshead.

Their Hove proposal is far more low-key but no less bold – four interconnected buildings resting on the beach almost like jagged bits of glass.

–BBC.com (2003)

Dope on the Slope made a podcast of the First Annual Brooklyn Blogfest. It’s a great way to get a sense of what the event was like.

After much maladroit mixing, I finally managed to cobble together a brief podcast featuring some "interviews" with a small sample of the presenters at last Thursday’s Brooklyn Blogfest.  Like nearly everything else I’m interested in, I jumped into this with both feet and absolutely no idea what I was doing. I conducted entire interviews without hitting the record button, distorted the levels,  and had a devil of a time with my plosives (apparently it’s hereditary). Still, I think some of the spirit of the event manages to seep through my incompetence.

My apologies to anyone I didn’t get around to interviewing, and to anyone whose most brilliant observations didn’t make it into the mix.

A sensible person would give up after such a dismal debut performance. But I can’t quit while I’m behind.

Look for an upcoming show devoted to photoblogging, and, as special treat, a new series of classic poetry and literature readings featuring the incomparable Daisy Parker.  I’m going to call it "Trope on the Slope."

Here’s a link to download the podcast:

Brooklyn Blogfest 2006

From NY1:
Doctors are treating two construction workers who were pulled to safety
after being trapped under construction debris in Park Slope.

There’s no word yet on their conditions or specifics on their injuries.

The workers were buried under rubble at a construction site on 11th Street and 3rd Avenue at around 11 a.m.

Dozens of firefighters responded to the scene, freeing the workers,
securing them to stretchers and hauling them to waiting ambulances.

Con Edison was also on the scene with an industrial vacuum that was
reportedly used to suck dirt out of the trench to help free the
workers.

There’s no word on exactly what the men were doing at the site nor what caused the collapse.

Yes, says me, they’re our kind of celebs. Smart, interesting, in good movies, a little bit indie a little bit Hollywood. Edgy. They’ll fit right into the celeb community in Park Slope. They’ll be very comfortable here. No one will bother them. We’re very protective of our celebs.

According to Brooklyn Record, Maggie Gyllenhaal and fiance Peter Sarsgaard are looking to move to Park Slope. They’ve even got the address AND the listing. Leave it to Mr. Brownstoner.

A little rain didn’t rain on the Coney Island Mermaid Parade. Mermaids and Mermen love the water. Don Wiss, a photographer who lives in Park Slope, sent me a link to his pictures. I think the parade must be getting bigger and bigger every year. Check them out and experience the parade – vicariously.

I’ve just put my pictures from the weekend’s parade at:http://donwiss.com/pictures/Mermaid-2006/

I hope you can announce this page in your blog.

Thanks, Don.

It’s a typical morning after a wedding around here. Hepcat is going through his pictures from last night and I’m blogging about the event.

This one was special. Not only did the bride and groom pull off a seemingly effortless, stylish, heartfelt event, but they did something else, too:

They brought together three intersecting families, who danced, drank, and celebrated. Together.

As a child of divorce myself, I was impresssed that the bride, the bride’s daughter, the groom, the groom’s two daughter, the bride’s ex-husband and wife, the groom’s ex-wife and husband were all there celebrating the coming together of this wonderful couple.

There was something very graceful about it. As graceful as an impromptu hora at a non-Jewish wedding, two dozen dancers moving from one room to another without coming apart (see above).

A lesson that divorce can be graceful and amicable. Eventually.

I was moved to be at this hopeful event – to see the three sisters together (two are his, one is hers). They are all one now. To see the radiant bride in her Narcisco Rodriguez dress (there’s a story but not for here), and the groom, whose utterly cool restaurant we were in (Painters in Bellport), looking happy and full of love.

This wasn’t one of those discreet second weddings at City Hall with the bride wearing a wool suit. NO, the bride was unspeakably sexy in her tight fitting white dress (see above). This wedding was a true CELEBRATION of the unexpected journeys we take in life.

It was a storybook wedding in the real sense of the word. The Story, the book of love, life, family, and marriage in all of its many permutations.

The real story. And I loved it.  Congrats to the happy couple and their families.

More news on that guy from Baltimore who wanted to know what street Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing was shot.  He writes:

By the way, if you’re interested, my band, Private Eleanor, is playing at Pete’s Candy Store at
709 Lorimer in Williamsburg tonight.  We’re an indie rock/folk band, similar to Wilco and Neil Young.

So that’s why he was going to be in Brooklyn tonight. If anyone goes, say hi from OTBKB.

Dope on the Slope and I exchanged emails over the last couple of days. Dope is putting together a directory of Brookyn Bloggers so if you were at the Brooklyn BlogFest but didn’t speak please leave a comment here so you can be included in the directory. He wants this to be a comprehensive list of Brooklyn bloggers so tell him about blogs he doesn’t know about, too.

I am also wondering if we should set up some kind of informal Brooklyn Blog
Association that would
–provide a directory of Brooklyn Bloggers
–spread the word about Brooklyn blogging
–provide info useful to bloggers about technology and other matters
–Help people set up blogs
–Provide outreach
–increase readership

I will definitely do another Brookyn Blogfest next year. I think we’ll do it in May – June may be too
steamy. I may also do a couple of smaller events before then. If anyone thinks this association is a good idea let me know. Dope on the Slope had this to say.   

We probably should start some sort of unstructured association designed
to promote blogging in general and connect people with each other. I’ve
heard a lot of talk about the relative homogeneity of the group from an
education, economic and ethnic standpoint. This is easily explained by
the fact that bloggers are a self-selecting audience – you have to like
reading and writing, you have to have internet access, and you must
have rudimentary computer skills. I was really inspired by Hugh’s
upbeat idea of connecting neighborhoods, but it may be awhile before we
see a demographic breakdown in the blogosphere that matches that of the
street. On the other hand, from a gender standpoint there seemed to be
a pretty good balance. I think the goal for next year’s event would be
to make sure we extended the reach…

Dope had a lot more to say and I’m sure he’s gonna be writing about it on his blog so stay tuned.

Here’s an interesting new book for all those interested in NYC (and specifically Brookyn) history, Learn lots of neat facts that’ll impress your friends. Reminds me of a book my father wrote but never published called; Who Was Major Deegan? also about how streets, parks and bridges got their names. It’s the kind of thing you wonder about every now and again. Usually you take the names for granted. Don’t think twice about them. But then you do and you wanna know. This book sounds like a must have for Brooklyn afficianados.

We wanted to share with Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn the fact that our
new book is out. Entitled Brooklyn by Name: How the Neighborhoods,
Streets, Parks, Bridges and More Got Their Names, and with nearly 600
entries, it is the first compendium of its kind. Hope you (and your
readers) might enjoy. Thanks much and best, Leonard Benardo and
Jennifer Weiss

There will be a book celebration on July 13 from 6-8 p.m.   at the beautiful:
Brooklyn Historical Society
128 Pierrepont Street
at the corner of Clinton
in Brooklyn Heights

Our friend on Third Street is getting married today. For the second time. They sent out a wonderful invitation that included photo booth pictures of the couple’s teenage daughters. It said:

Have you heard? A certain mom… and a certain dad…(you know who we mean.) are getting married!

We couldn’t be happier for our friend who has been divorced a long time now. We’ve known her through the pain of her divorce; watched her rise to new heights in her career; seen her beautiful daughter evolve from pre-school to tweendom; rejoiced when she met the man she will marry (and we’ve gotten to know him and like him a lot).

Now this. They announced their engagement a few months ago. They planned the wedding quickly but certainly with great taste and pizazz. Did I mention that she is the chic-est woman in Park Slope, a woman of great style and joie de vivre. We wouldn’t miss this event for the world.

It was supposed to be an outdoor wedding but judging by the flood warnings and the weather I am seeing outside the window, it will be in the restaurant owned by the groom on Long Island.

They don’t want gifts. "We’ve got everything we need," she told me. But they do want people to donate to their honeymoon fund. All of the photographers who have been invited, and there are many, have been asked to give a photograph of the wedding as a gift.

The pressure’s on. The bride is a connoisseur of photography. Hepcat will want to make one great picture for our friends on their wedding day.