OSFO just told Smartmom that she can write about her as much as she wants.

Everybody hear that?

OSFO is home sick today and she and Smartmom are having a great time eating cinnamon toast and reading nasty comments about Smartmom in the Brooklyn Paper.

OSFO is even writing back to some of Smartmom's most vehement detractors. That girl is fearless and she says exactly what she thinks. Oy, Smartmom is very proud of her girl.

The Paper is definitely milking this so-called controversy for all it's worth.They even ran this story:

After posting Smartmom’s piece last week — the one in which Smartmom wondered whether she should stop writing about her children in her tell-all column — The Brooklyn Paper asked readers

whether our popular parenting columnist should stop invading her kids’ privacy.

The overwhelming response? Yes.

Some readers even blamed Smartmom for the widespread perception of Park Slope as an island of self-obsessed parenting.

“Smartmom’s no small part of why Park Slope parents have become the
target of so much derision,” wrote “Advil Please” from Park Slope.
“Perhaps The Brooklyn Paper has allowed her to babble on for so long in
hopes of keeping the ‘controversy’ alive, but when even her kids are
telling her to shut up, you’d think she would finally get the picture.”

Tough luck, Advil Please — in this week’s column, Smartmom says she’s sticking to her guns!

In that case, most respondents said that Smartmom should prepare for
some hefty therapist bills as her tots grow up. And what’s worse, she
might even lose some of her readers!

“If your kids and neighbors won’t talk because they fear being
written up, think of something else creative,” wrote RK from Park
Slope. “It’s run its course. Bring it to the next level.”

“If Smartmom doesn’t stop, I suspect that she will find out many
years from now that the resentment on her children’s part will grow,
not diminish,” added Andrea from Gowanus.

Bottom line: few (except for Dumb Editor, of course, but he poses in the nude!) defended Smartmom’s decision to put her life — and the lives of her children — on display.

“These are her children — the heart of her heart — she’s playing
with,” added “Another Mother from Downtown.” “Maybe if she gets in
touch with that reality, she’ll reconsider her career imperatives, find
a more meaningful, less hurtful way to express herself and wind up a
much smarter mom (and wife, neighbor and friend, too).

The editors of Newgeography.com sent me an email about Peter Smirniotopoulos's recently-posted article "Musings on Urban Form: Is Brooklyn the Ultimate City?".

The New York Times reports that there were 598,000 job losses spread across both
manufacturing and services industries. Joblessness hits 7.6%. Pretty bleak. Especially as someone who is looking for WORK. Hello?

Here it is. That Park Slope upper duplex you always wanted. Space, charm, historical detail, AND A DECK

The public is invited to share their views on mayoral control of the schools. There are hearings on future dates in other boroughs. Info here.

Manhattan:
Friday, February 6, 2009
10:00 a.m.
Assembly Hearing
250 Broadway, Room 1923
19th Floor
New York, NY

Leonie Haimson, executive director of  Class Size Matters sent in this response to an OTBKB post about Learn NY, which she claims is an organization established by
allies of Mayor Bloomberg "to retain his choke hold on
our schools after the current governance system sunsets in June 2009."

Here is Haimson's take on that organization and what she thinks are the real problems and solutions:Whatever you think of Ms. Haimson's point of view you have to admit that the NAME of her organization is brilliant. 

 The organization’s paid representatives, including Peter Hatch,
Robin Warren, Brian Keeler, and Julie Wood, all claim that their activities
are not funded directly by Bloomberg, but they refuse to divulge who is
paying their salaries.  They also admit to having raised millions of
dollars, and have hired several prominent and well-connected lobbying and
consulting firms to push their agenda with the Legislature in
Albany . 

 The problem is that there are few if any involved public school
parents who trust this administration’s good intentions, after having
witnessed six years of unilateral, strong-arm tactics, in which the Mayor and
Chancellor have ignored their views, and have imposed misguided policies on
our children’s schools.  So Learn
NY is hard at work, trying to
recruit parents and make them
believe that they are actually interested in what
parents think.

On the Learn NY website, they may say they have “made open
dialogue with parents a priority”,
but they have turned down several offers to meet with established NYC parent
groups, and have so far refused to speak at any public forum that includes
representatives from groups with opposing views. They also claim to want to
increase parent input and transparency in the current governance system, but
have not made any substantive proposals on how this would be achieved, except
to suggest that there should be more public hearings. 

 Over the last six years, there have been numerous public hearings
held by the Chancellor and/or other Department of Education representatives,
but always after they have already decided what their policies would
be.  Never has
this administration’s decisions been affected by a single comment, suggestion
or proposal put forward by any parent or parent group.
 More public hearings without an administration that actually has to listen to the views of parents and
take them into account before making decisions would be useless.

 The position of Learn
NY on the need to improve
transparency also seems to be hypocritical, since they refuse to be
transparent about who is funding their own operations, and their tactics are
anything but transparent. An anonymous person
left pro-Mayoral control comments on several blogs,
until he was eventually unmasked as Brian Keeler of
Learn NY .
Moreover, their website includes much distorted data and PR spin, rather than
actual fact.

 Instead of Mayoral dictatorship, we need a system in which the
Mayor would have to forge a real partnership with parents.  Instead of
PR spin, we need the truth. For more information about our concerns,, please
visit the NYC public
school parent blog. Send us a message at NYCPublicSchoolParents@gmail.com.  And please, testify at the hearings on Mayoral control to
share your views; the schedule is here.

  My friend Nancy O. Graham reviewed the new Henry Selick 's Coraline, on her blog oswegatchie and Alternative Films for Kids. The film opens today at the Park Slope Pavilion at 2:00, 4:25, 7 and 9:40.
Here's an excerpt from Nancy's review:

My son Ray has been making movies since he was six: stop motion animation, live action, and lately, CGI parodies of Star Wars.
He reads film production books and bios of animators like Chuck Jones,
and loves ‘making-of’ bonus features and little biopics about revered
figures like Ray Harryhausen. One of his ‘mentors’ is Henry Selick, who
has just completed his adaptation (for 3D stop-motion animation) of
Neil Gaiman’s novel, Coraline.

It was our enormous good fortune—mine, my son’s, my daughter’s, my husband’s, and his mother’s—to visit the set of Coraline
a couple of years ago, and a real treat to see a preview screening of
the finished work the other night in Manhattan, with Henry Selick on
hand to answer audience questions.

Ray,
who is 11, wasn’t sure he wanted to see what he called a ‘horror’
movie. His 9-year-old sister, who acts in most of his movies and in her
own monologue-driven shorts, was firm: she wouldn’t go to the
screening. The monstrous Other Mother of the previews, and the prospect
of having her lunge from the screen, were horrors they could live
without.

So, Ray and I headed into NYC with the plan that he
would shut his eyes, pull his jacket up over his face, and hold his
hands to his ears if it all got to be too much. He was willing to
endure, if only for the Q&A portion of the evening.

As it turns out, he didn’t have to worry too much. He only shut his eyes once, and not for long. While the idea of Coraline
is truly terrifying—a girl is left alone to rescue her supernaturally
abducted parents—its creators have allowed the idea to carry most of
the weight of emotion, as with the best fairy tales, and haven’t piled
onto it with 3D shock effects or long, anxiety-provoking suspense
sequences. The Nightmare Before Christmas, with its cast of
characters in varying states of decomposition, is more horrific—at
least to me, and I think my son, who got to an age where he felt too
uneasy to watch it, and wouldn’t go near the undead-dominated Corpse Bride, would agree.

Henry
Selick has done a beautiful job of reconceptualizing the novel for the
screen and for stop motion. From the first moments, when metal hands
sew up a doll-sized version of the title character and cast her into a
void, this is a movie that invites contemplation of the animator and
the animator’s art. Our first view of the hands of the evil Other
Mother, creator and destroyer of the Other World, are bare of fleshly
trappings, primordial armature. We come to find that the energy of
children is what makes the Other Mother’s material other world, and it
is their life force that makes it beautiful, whimsical, and inviting.

If you have watched any of the featurettes about Coraline,
you have seen artist after artist toiling and tinkering away, as
artists always do on these projects, though now, with the Internet, in
less obscurity. They can even blog about their work for Laika Studios.
It’s hard to watch that image of armature hands making the Coraline
doll and not think of all the human hands that have gone into the
making of this supremely hand-made movie, and seeing in these moments a
tribute to them all (certainly they deserve a tribute, including those
several dozen Laika workers, I was sorry to read, who were recently
laid off).

OtherMotherWorld is especially fanciful and so packed
with detail it's hard to imagine not seeing the movie many times to try
to take it all in. Henry S. has ensured that the Other Mother’s
overture to Coraline is suitably seductive. She—and we—are truly
tempted to stay and sample more delights from the animators’ cabinet of
wonders. The wonders really are wonderful; we laughed throughout the
early other world scenes. In the post-screening Q&A, Henry S.
talked a bit about his motivation for shooting in 3D. He wanted the
audience to have more access to the animators' world—2D doesn't really
allow it. So the other world—more colorful, more fanciful—really is the
animators' world. (One could imagine a version that is flat when we're
in Coraline's world and 3D only in the other world, like the sepia vs.
color worlds of The Wizard of Oz.)

 Lots of new pix on the Coney Island History Project flickr photostream:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/27583836@N08/

Lynn Kowalewski , a
Brooklyn resident and member of the Coney Island History Project,
helped carry the DO NOT ROCK THE BOAT sign from Astroland's Water
Flume. Tricia Vita, Administrative Director of the Coney Island History
Project, holds the REMAIN SEATED – KEEP HANDS IN BOAT sign. The
Astroland Archives, historic signage and other artifacts from the 46
year old park were donated to the History Project by Astroland owners
Carol Hill Albert and Jerome Albert.

I just heard from a reasearcher at StoryCorps, the national oral history project,
which records the lives of everyday people across the country. The idea
is that people visit one of SC's recording booths and interview one
another. A copy of the conversation is then archived for future
generations in the Library of Congress and you get a copy to take home
with you. http://storycorps.net

This researcher wrote in to to ask if I had any ideas of people she should record an interview with StoryCorps at their booth in downtown
Manhattan.

That got me thinking. There are so many stories around here. Hmmmmm. Ahhhhh. Ummmmm. Do you have a story you want to share or know of one?

StoryCorps is looking for larger-than-life local institutions,
oldest residents, anyone with a disappearing business or skill, but
above all, real talkers, the kind of people you could happily listen to
for hours.

With Valentine's Day coming up, they're especially interested in
finding the person or persons who have the "greatest love story in
Brooklyn". She'd love to know if anyone in your community or beyond fits that description.

(There's even a possibility that the
story could end up being broadcast on NPR's Morning Edition the week of
Valentine's Day.)

For a little context, here's a story with a Brooklyn couple they recorded a couple of years ago:

http://www.storycorps.net/listen/stories/danny-and-annie-perasa

This I gotta smell. The fragrance company, Bond No. 9 (their tag line is "Making Scents of New York) has already created fragrances for Harlem, the Upper West Side, Madison Avenue, Little Italy, NoHo and other parts of NYC. But now, finally, they're doing THE outer borough. And I just got the word from the publicist. And you know what I said: send me some. This I gotta smell.

They say it's a scent that captures the vibe of the fresh and ever changing legendary city within a city.

I will get back to you just as soon as I get me a sample of Brooklyn.

 zuzus is in a recession
state of mind.

we are discounting some of
your favorite things

and have added our Drapevine
Lamps to the list.

15% off singles or
doubles.

These lamps cast  the
most romantic glow.

On a dimmer,

from cozy reading lamp to
mood altering candlelight.

a very special gift for your
significant other.

Or just call to order that
zuzulove collection of

Valentine
Flowers.

Big Zu 718
638-0918

Little Zu 718
636-2022

375 Pearl St., Brooklyn, NY, 11201 google map | yahoo map

 The following are two events featuring Jonathan Baumbach (www.jonathanbaumbach.com), author of YOU or The Invention of Memory, praised by The Los Angeles Times as "beguiling… like any gesture of love, deserves your regard."

Jonathan Baumbach is the uber- Park Slope novelist/dad of Noah Baumbach, uber-Park Slope director of the uber-Park Slope film, The Squid and the Whale. A professor at Brooklyn College, the character of the dad/professor/writer in TSATW was openly based on Jonathan. None of the above still live in Park Slope but they're still Park Slope tropes.  

• KGB Sunday Night Fiction on February 15 at KGB Bar in the East Village. 7PM, FREE.
• Brooklyn College on Wednesday, February 18, in the Barker Room (2315 Boylan Hall). 6PM, FREE.

The latest buzz:

• The Morning News (Digest): http://www.themorningnews.org/digest/reading/you.php
• Flavorwire (Required Reading): http://flavorwire.com/7982/fw-required-reading-jonathan-baumbachs-you-or-the-invention-of-memory
• Maud Newton(Guest Essay): http://maudnewton.com/blog/?p=9125

I will be introducing Beth Harpaz tonight at the Park Slope Barnes and Noble for her reading of her new book, 13 is the New 18 … and other things my children taught
me while I was having a nervous breakdown being their mother (Crown,
2009) appeared on Wednesday's Good Morning America Now.

In addition,
Harpaz was quoted in Wednesday's  USA Today
article on tweens. I’ve included links to both below:

http://abcnews.go.com/ABCNewsNow/GMANow/
(scroll down to “Highlights from the Latest Show”)

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-02-03-tweens-behavior_N.htm

A quick note from Blognigger first thing this morning. Here it is:

Brooklyn blogger CasaCara covers real estate, architecture, historic preservation and interior design from Brooklyn to Philadelphia, the Hudson Valley, the North Fork and beyond.

Today she talks about some lovely buildings close to home:

Never, unless you’re on the north side of Atlantic Avenue between Third and Fourth Avenues in Boerum Hill,
where a long, uninterrupted row of 1880s buildings with original
storefronts, no two alike, defied the odds. (The block is NOT even part
of the Boerum Hill Historic District.)

First developed in the 1970s by Bill Harris of Renaissance Properties
and called Atlantic Gardens, the original six buildings plus two
adjoining ones were purchased in 2006 by developer Barbara Koz Paley
and partners, and restored inside and out with the help of Taylor & Miller Architecture in Greenpoint.

Here is a
snapshot of the sustainability issues that faced the borough and City this past January. The links were compiled
by Rebeccah Welch, Senior Associate Director of Communications at the Center
for the Urban Environment (CUE). To learn more about CUE, click  www.thecue.org.

  What's
Happened to the Plant in the Park [Gotham Gazette]

 Brooklyn
Businesses Hit Hard by Recession [Crain's]

  Recession-addled
Bronx Stores Forced to Close [Daily News]

  "Defend
Gowanus" Petition Signers Leave Some Insightful Comments [PMFA]

 Community
Board Approves City Proposals on Staten Island Waterfront
[Staten Island Advance]

 Urban
Environmentalist NYC – Eco Lens [OTBKB] *

 Atlantic
Yards Looks to Slash Transit Upgrade [NY Post]

 Proposed
Budget Shuts Out Zoos, Aquariums and Gardens [NY Times]

 Can
Obama Help Save New York [Gotham Gazette]

 Aqueduct
Plans Revealed [Queens Courier]

 Bloomberg
Says Plan Would Create 400,000 Jobs [Newsday]

Exciting
Youth Program for Holiday Break: CUE Labs [Green
Brooklyn] *

Storage
for Bicycles Sought [NY Post]

 Lost
City’s Guide to Carroll Gardens [Lost City]

 Sunday
Snaps: Drawn to Greenpoint [Greenpointers]

 Rejuggling
of Plans for Red Hook Waterfront [Brownstoner]

 A New Name for Our Premier Waterway  [Gotham Gazette]

 Cutbacks
Coming for Botanic Garden, Aquarium [Brooklyn Eagle]

 Air
Cleaner in Lower Manhattan in 2008, Report Says [Downtown
Express]

 The
Gas Rush [Gotham Gazette]

Neighborhood
Electricity Substations [Report-Manhattan Institute]

Bloomberg's proposed budget cuts, which may eliminate funding for zoos, aquariums, and gardens have the heads of Brooklyn's beloved—and essential— institutions extremely concerned.

On Thursday, February 5, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, Scot Medbury of the
Brooklyn Botanic Garden ,
John Cavelli of the Wildlife Conservation Society, the Center for the Urban
Environment and elected officials are gathering to denounce the elimination of state funding
for zoos, aquariums and botanical gardens.

This is happening at 11 am Steinhardt Auditorium at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Entrance is at 1000 Washinton Avenue between Eastern Parkway and Empire Boulevard.

Show your support.

(
I wrote this quite a few years ago. I run it every February 3rd.)

Today is the day Groovy Grandpa and Manhattan Granny got married in 1957.

February 3rd. The date
is etched in Smartmom's mind. She and her sister would go to the same gift
shop on West 86th Street year after year to buy an anniversary gift for them. West Town
House smelled of bath soap and sachet. It was just a block and a half
from their Riverside Drive apartment. They'd browse for an hour or more.
And with only four dollars, they'd find something to buy: a stone paper
weight or a letter opener, which the owner would gift wrap in green
paper and a black ribbon bow.

Smartom's parents aren't married anymore. They've been apart since 1976. But February 3rd still stops her short. And while they've
been separated for longer than they were together, February 3rd means
only one thing: the beginning of something that later came to an end.

Manhattan Granny showed OSFO her wedding album a few weeks ago. A
large, white, leather-bound book, there are black and white photographs of Smartmom's parents on their ceremonial day. In a simple and
elegant, calf-length gown, Manhattan Granny looks like Audrey Hepburn;
her hair is close-cropped like Hepburn's too.

Groovy Grandpa, with no trace of the beard that would later define
him, looks pleased with himself and his bride. Their parents gather
around them – mythical parents, they are all dead now. They look happy
for this union, for this coming together.

Later, OSFO said, "Manhattan Granny doesn't look like herself," Maybe she
didn't recognize her 78-year old grandmother as a beautiful young
bride. Maybe she was surprised to see her grandparents together; she's never seen them that way. It probably seemed strange; a little out of
whack.

The separation came as a surprise, dramatic as it was. The rupture
was sudden: black garbage bags filled with men's
clothing tossed in the garbage. All traces of him were banished from the apartment;
an anguished wife's ill-fated attempt at an exorcism.

Smartmom was only seventeen, a senior in high school, on the cusp
of going away. It was awful to see her family bifurcated. She was in
the throes of first love, first sex, her future. Now this?

Like an ostrich, Smartmom buried her head in her own sandy concerns
while her mother grieved and her father sublet a studio on the other
side of town.

And when her first love decided he didn't love her after all, she
bifurcated too. “Don't leave me,” she cried pathetically for days. She listened to Laura Nryo and Labelle over and over on the turntable in the living room.  "It's gonna take a miracle to make me love someone new cause I'm crazy
for you."

But he left anyway.

February 3rd is just another day. But for someone whose family
doesn't exist anymore, Smartmom will always honor the beginning of
something that later came to an end.

Today is the 50th anniversary of the day Buddy Holly died.

He died on February 3, 1959, alongside
fellow musicians J.P “The Big Bopper” Richardson and Ritchie Valens, when
their four-seater plane crashed in Iowa, a few minutes after take-off.

In the song "American Pie," singer/songwriter Don Maclean referred to that day as the day the music died.

At 10 am he's live on WNYC public radio from the Crain's NY conference on the Future of NYC.

The show will feature interviews with business and policy leaders, including:
Mitchell Moss, professor of Urban Policy and Planning at Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at NYU; Kevin Burke, CEO, chairman of the board, and president of Consolidated Edison; Sara Horowitz, executive director of Working Today Freelancers Union; Kevin Ryan, chief executive of Alley Corp; and Jonathan Tisch, chairman and CEO of Loews Hotels.

Monday: New York Writers Coalition Red and Black Party to Celebrate Love's Two Faced Heart and raise money for NYWC at Galapagos in DUMBO. General admission tickets are $25. Support a great group.

Tuesday: Special events, coupons and restaurant prix fixes on Fifth Avenue.

Wednesday: Special events, coupons and restaurant prix fixes on Fifth Avenue.

Thursday: Brooklyn Reading Works presents: Cupid's Arrow: Writers on Love the Old Stone House curated by Marian Fontana. With Elissa Schappell
author of Use Me and the upcoming Blueprints for Better Girls; novelist, poet and editor of Teachers and Writers Magazine, Susan Karwoska; poets Ellen Ferguson and Ira Goldstein
and memoirist, Mila Drumke. Marian will be reading an excerpt from her
upcoming book.

Friday: Joy Askew  and Pulse present Songs from the Hudson River.
Pulse is a New York-based composers' federation dedicated to music that
bursts through categories, unconstrained by convention. Their latest
project is a song cycle in honor of the Hudson River Quadricentennial
Celebration going on throughout 2009, Songs from the Hudson River
features singer Joy Askew with a 6-person Pulse chamber ensemble in a
dynamic melding of singer-songwriter and classical chamber music
sensibilities. Each original song is inspired by historical, fictional,
and contemporary life and communities on and around the Hudson River.
Joy Askew is an accomplished singer-songwriter who has performed with
Peter Gabriel, Laurie Anderson, Joe Jackson, Jack Bruce and others, and
also leads her own band.

Saturday: Valentine's Day

Irene LeRoe, who owns Aunt Suzie's, the beloved Italian restaurant on Fifth Avenue, sent word that the Fifth Avenue BID is celebrating Valentine''s Day all week and offering promotions, prix fixes, and coupons for Valentine's week. Here's her fun pitch:

This morning, the editors of Newgeography.com sent an email alerting me to Joel Kotkin's recently-posted article "New York Should End Its Obsession With Manhattan".

Tired of working at home? Need a place where you can really concentrate?

Share an office with OTBKB. It's a lovely room painted a soft green; a great place to work, to focus and really get things done!

The office is in the basement of the Montauk Club, where there's a cluster of rooms for small businesses. The rent includes use of a small kitchen, bathrooms, and a shared conference room. It is located on 8th Avenue and Lincoln Place right around the corner from the Grand Army Plaza 2/3 train.

Very convenient.

I've been here for 6 years and I love it. Email me if you are interested. The price is reasonable. You will have the office to yourself at night and on the weekends.

Perfect for a writer, a graphic designer, or someone in business for themselves. Also possible if you want to use it after-school for tutoring.

Let me know: louise_crawford(at)yahoo(dot)com

Brooklyn Reading Works
presents Cupid's Arrow: Writers on Love curated by Marian Fontana.
Another one of the great themed readings at Brooklyn Reading Works
curated by interesting writers.

Marian  Fontana,
author of The Widow's Walk; A Memoir of 9/11 and the upcoming,  The Middle of the Bed, has gathered together some
wonderful writers, including  Elissa Schappell
author of Use Me and the upcoming Blueprints for Better Girls;
Novelist, poet and editor of Teachers and Writer Magazine, Susan Karwoska; and Poets Ellen Ferguson and Ira Goldstein
and memoirist, Mila Drumke. Marian will be reading an excerpt from her
upcoming book.

As Marian writes: Join us two nights before Valentines as six talented authors tackle the profound, challenging and even funny topic of love.

"Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind." — Shakespeare

It should, as always, be a great night. These
themed group readings are fascinating as you see the subject matter
shift, the approach, and the language shift from author to author.

Alison, the owner of Paper Love, the
new card and stationery shop on Lincoln Place, is thinking of selling
letter press Valentine's cards at the show. She happens to be a fiction
writer and was very excited to be part of this event.

The Where and When:

February 12th at 8 p.m.
Brooklyn Reading Works at the Old Stone House
Fifth Avenue between 3rd and 4th Streets (in Washington Park)
A $5 suggested donation includes light refreshments and wine.
There will probably be candy hearts and chocolates.

As I said last week I am paying attention to the City Council race for Bill de Blasio's seat. Nine months until the primary, it's interesting to hear that this crowded race is already being called a two-man race by the Brooklyn Paper, when most citizens are barely aware of the candidates at all.

So what gives? Well, according to the BP, it's all about the money –who's got it and how much. Alright. So who are the two candidates with the most money?

Brad Lander, director of the Pratt Center for Community Development, has, according to recently released campaign finance documents, raised $105,548.

Josh Skaller, president of Central Brooklyn Independent Democrats for the past two years, and an executive member of Democracy for New York City, has raised $75,788. 

But what about the other candidates?  Hammerman just rolled out his campaign last week and hasn't turned in  his campaign finance forms yet.

And what about the others who have thrown their hats in to fill Bill de Blasio's big shoes. Hats and shoes this is getting weird. Let me start again: who's running and how much money have they raised?

–Bob Zuckerman — executive director of the Gowanus Canal Conservancy — has raised: $43,098.

–John Heyer — community liaison for Borough President Markowitz — has raised — $18,080.

— Gary Reilly, lawyer and subway advocate  — has raised — $14,865.

–Craig Hammerman, district manager of Community Board 6, has not yet filed campaign finance documents.

–Steve DiBrenza has just announced. 

It's time for the citizens of this district to start paying attention before the media tells us who's winning when we barely know who's who. It's a crowded race and a respectable list of candidates for deBlasio's seat. But it's up to each citizen to do the homework, meet the candidate, learn about the candidates and even contribute money if they are are so moved.

Don't let this race happen without your input. Even nine months ahead of the primary.

Catch Simone Dinnerstein's ONLY New York recital of the season at The Metropolitan
Museum in the Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium.

Get your tickets early!  Simone's last two concerts at The Metropolitan Museum (in 2006 and 2007) were sold out. Tickets: $45 available by calling 212-570-3949 or online at www.metmuseum.org/tickets

www.thirteen.org/sundayarts