The Jamie frenzy continues. And the site, created by Hugh Crawford and Betsy Reid, seems to be up and running. Fingers crossed. The story and the link is making its way around the world. So we hope the site can accommodate all the visitors it’s getting. It’s cool to see the many languages discussing the Jamie Livingston blog. Here’s a post from a Spanish language photo blog.

Un proyecto personal de esos que a mi me encantan: He Took a Polaroid Every Day, Until the Day He Died que cuenta la historia de cómo Jamie Livingston hizo una fotografía con su Polaroid todos los días de su vida, durante los últimos 18 años.

En la página de Mental Floss pueden verse algunas de ellas; la
colección completa abarca desde el 31 de marzo de 1979 hasta el 25 de
octubre de 1997. Son 6.697 fotos en total (durante 6.732 días), tomadas
con una Polaroid SX-70.

this is a pix from 5/24/89

I think it has rained every Sunday since Mr. Brownstoner and Signor Flea started the Brooklyn Flea, the new mega-groovy flea market in Ft. Greene. But the weather is changing and the sun is on their side.

Is it payback time for the crappiest spring in recent memory? Let’s
hope so, because Sunday’s shaping up to be the biggest Flea yet. New
vintage dealers join the famous pupusa purveyorswallpaper and porcelain dealers making their debut this weekend. If the good weather is a reminder that you need a pair of wheels, we’ve got some sweet vintage bikes
on tap as well. For the uninitiated, the Flea runs from 10 a.m. to 5
p.m. on Sunday and is located at 176 Lafayette Avenue in Brooklyn.
Closest trains are the C and G to Washington/Clinton. Or you can take
any of the number of trains that go to Atlantic Station and make the
10-minute stroll up Lafayette Avenue from there.

formerly of the Red Hook Ballfields. We’ve also got a new

Check out the latest, A Walk Around the Blog, BCAT’s groovy show which uses nabe bloggers as reporters. This week, they hightligh Brenda of the great blog, Prospect: A Year in the Park and the blogger from Hawthorne Street.

This is a great chance to see Brenda doing what she does, visiting the park every day and finding interesting stories.

Pardon Me For Asking has all the breaking news. Marty Markowitz saves the narrow streets of Carroll  Gardens!!

Borough President Marty Markowitz approved the Carroll Gardens Wide Street Text Amendment yesterday without revision. In a 10-page document, Markowitz brought the neighborhood a step closer towards protecting it from out-of-context development.

This Text Amendment is intended to correct a mistake in the definition of Carroll

Garden’s signature garden blocks as wide streets. Wide streets are allowed larger buildings which jeopardize the scale and character of the neighborhood. Developers have taken advantage of this loophole and are breaking up the historic row house street scape.

At Katz’s Deli

We were eating pastrami and matzo ball soup,
 
A critical couple one night,
 
When the crusty waiter came over and asked,
 
"Is anything all right?"

photo by Mihira Jayasekera’s photo stream: www.flickr.com/photos/showtexture/

Here’s the latest from author Richard Grayson, author of the forthcoming, Who Will Kiss the Pig? Sex Stories for Teens, I Brake for Delmore Schwartz, With Hitler in New York. He had fun yesterday at the Brooklyn Bridge celebration.

Dumbo Books spent most of today, now that our attorneys have given us the go-ahead, sending out PDF files of Who Will Kiss the Pig?: Sex Stories for Teens
by Richard Grayson, to the kindly cool young hipsters who answered our
Craigslist ad and agreed to take an advance peek at the book. (Not so
nice was the person who broke our confidential pre-publication press
blackout and leaked it to The Gothamist.  And a big boo to the mean commenters on that site.)

Anyway,
we were tired, but after a short nap during “All Things Considered”
(Darn! We missed the last show with those great pledge breaks), we were
up for some fun. The famous writer Tao Lin had a blog post mentioning a big party in honor of Brooklyn’s indie presses,
but when we looked down the list of publishers – Akashic, Melville
House, Soft Skull, etc. – we didn’t see our name. Dumbo Books wasn’t
invited! Sniff. Maybe we are not “Brooklyn” enough for them. We have
not been so bummed out since we were in Mrs. Eisenstein’s first grade
class at P.S. 244 in East Flatbush and a certain Walter O’Malley did
something really mean to us.

(After all, in our new book of teen
sex stories, a lot of the teen sex takes place in Brooklyn, a borough
famous for teenage sex. For example, on page 77 of the book, after a
lot of sex involving a whole bunch of friends, Kevin has to take Libby
to the free city gynecological clinic in Coney Island and while he is
anxiously waiting to hear if she has an STD, another boy asks him: “You
done knock up yo’ fox?” By page 83 Libby and Kevin are staring at a
baby in the maternity ward of Methodist Hospital in Park Slope although
by then Kevin is more interested in looking at Ted… but we digress.)

Downcast
at not being invited to the shindig for Brooklyn small presses, Dumbo
Books glumly walked the streets of our eponymous neighborhood until we
heard about an even better party that, yes, we were invited to.  Wow!

It
was the kickoff of the celebration of the 125th anniversary of the
famous Brooklyn Bridge just a few blocks away at Empire-Fulton Ferry
State Park.

Entering the park, we admired the dark blue Brooklyn
Bridge anniversary T-shirts worn by the event volunteers, who were
probably freezing – we had a hoodie over a sweater over a long-sleeved
shirt over a Medgar Evers College T-shirt and were still cold.

The
T-shirts reminded us of the powder blue T-shirts honoring the bridge’s
centennial that we got in May 1983 for ten dollars at the Brooklyn
Museum gift shop. We wore the shirt proudly but either it shrunk or we
expanded and eventually it ended up usefully but rather ignominiously
as a dustrag in Grandma Ethel’s Rockaway apartment.

Back in
1983, we watched the Brooklyn Bridge centennial fireworks with our BFF
(and current Dumbo Books landlady) Nina, who was rewarded with her work
in the Cuomo campaign the year before with a great job in the state
department of transportation. So we got to see the spectacular
fireworks from the huge windows of her office on the 89th floor of a
building that doesn’t exist anymore.

Thinking about that made
us a little sad, but then right in front of us, we saw our old friend
Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, decked out in a top hat and
1890s-style suit, looking slightly steampunk but just as handsome as we
remembered him from the first time we saw him on the second floor of
LaGuardia Hall back in the day when he was the Graduate Student
Organization president at Brooklyn College and we were a lowly reporter
for the student government newspaper The Ol’ Spigot.

Mayor
Bloomberg was there with him, drinking one of the free Snapple
antioxidant waters in five colors and flavors that they were giving out
along with blue tote bags and other tchtotchkes. And also Manhattan
Borough President Scott Stringer, whom we recall as a little pisher
standing on the corner of 86th Street and Broadway hocking Nina and us
to sign his petition to get on the ballot as district leader. How time
flies!

Well, the night was fantastic. We found some friends from
Crown Heights by way of Trinidad who shared some goodies and a blanket,
and listened as Mayor Bloomberg told a little kid with a sippy cup,
“It’s all downhill from here…You have to go to school and get a job”
before he trailed off and went to the podium, where his image, and
everyone else’s was enlarged on two big Jumbotron screens.

After
a military officer from Fort Hamilton (we patriotically failed our
January 1970 draft physical there) sang “The Star-Spangled Banner”,
there was a great chorus from an intermediate school who sang and moved
to “Give Me That Old Time Rock and Roll” and other songs; and the
Brooklyn IMPACT Project; and the Brooklyn Philharmonic looking very
classy in white dinner clothes playing favorites like Brooklyn-born
Aaron Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man,” Dvorak’s New World
Symphony and the rousing John Philip Sousa march that goes, you know,
“because a duck may be somebody’s mother.”

Also, Marvin
Hamlisch and his many chins sat at a piano and after calling the bridge
“one singular sensation,” played some of his finest songs and even an
original one for the occasion. Mr. Hamlisch is a talented lyricist –
you try rhyming something with “Emily Roebling”!

Marty said they
had spent a lot of money on this celebration – they really went all out
for last night’s kickoff – but at least they did not have to sell the
Brooklyn Bridge to fund it. Ha ha.

At 8:30 p.m. a bunch of
people with white T-shirts that said CAKE TEAM on the back started
handing out the bridge’s birthday cake from Cake Man Raven. We were
hoping for a slice of his famous red velvet cake, but we got something
that was bright green instead. Whatever it was, it was good!

It
was a beautiful, if chilly, night and as the sky darkened, Mayor
Bloomberg counted down and then the colorful lights for the bridge went
on. They change colors every few seconds and will be on for the
remainder of the celebration. Also, a tugboat or something was spraying
water really high from near the Manhattan side, and one of the big
cruise ships from Red Hook passed by just before it took off (do ships
take off?) for the Caribbean or someplace exotic like Europe.

Then
the fireworks began. The Gruccis outdid themselves with a spectacular
display on both sides of the bridge, and even a little near the
Manhattan Bridge so it wouldn’t feel left out, we guess. (We could see
the people on the D train from my little spot on the grass).

There
were some fancy VIPs in a roped-off area by a structure, and they were
drinking wine (one of the state park rangers made a young hipster girl
sitting next to us on the grass leave because she had a sixpack of PBR,
which wasn’t allowed) and eating ravioli or lasagna or something. A lot
of them wore suits and stylish dresses and some of them had press
badges.

Waiting for the port-o-potty, we were kind of shocked
when not one but two teens came out of the little locked space. Well,
we guess they were making their own fireworks! We considered hyping our
book of sex stories for teens but frankly we hate hype – except when
it’s justified as it is for the magnificent Brooklyn Bridge (although
we had a terrible panic attack the first time we drove over it as well
as one the first and last time we tried to walk across it).

Despite
our being disappointed at Dumbo Books being left off the invitation
list for the Brooklyn indie presses party, we had a glorious evening
celebrating the 125th anniversary of the spectacular achievement of the
Roeblings and the brave sandhogs who built the bridge. We think we
heard Marty misspeak and pay tribute to the “sweathogs,” but that was
another group of Brooklynites headed by the cute teen Vinnie Barbarino).

At
Hoyt/Schermerhorn the fabulous G train conductor actually waited in the
station for those of us on the A train to get aboard. What a perfect
night! Isn’t life wonderful!

The Brooklyn Paper reports that the 10th Street Tea Lounge is closing, due to rising rents. Whoa that’s big news.

South Slope writers, mommies and, yes, even a few coffee lovers,
were crying in their lattes this week at the news that the original Tea
Lounge — a neighborhood staple on the corner of Seventh Avenue and 10th
Street — will close at the end of July, a victim, its owner said, of
soaring rent demands.

“It’s killing us,” said co-owner Greg Wolf,
who opened the popular java joint in early 2001. “The closing is
completely ruining our lives.”

Wolf blamed his landlord, Georgina
Tufano, for doubling the rent on his small storefront, though he
declined to reveal the dollar figure.

“It’s astronomical,” said Wolf, whose other bars are on Union Street in Park Slope and on Court Street in Cobble Hill.

We went to a Brooklyn Bridge birthday party at my dad and stepmother’s apartment in Brooklyn Heights. They live on the 27th floor and we had a great view of the festivities from their apartment—which has windows on New York Harbor, Lower Manhattan, the bridge and more.

There was an even better view from the building’s roof deck, where many tenants and their guests had gathered.

Brit in Brooklyn took the picture you see at left. He has loads of great pictures at his flickr site. There’s a gorgeous one on his blog, as well. Thanks Brit in Brooklyn (Adrian Kinloch).

The fireworks surprised everyone at the party by beginning at 8:40. It seemed early; the sky was still light.

"Maybe they’re practicing," my stepmother said.

Don’t think so. The show began a few minute earlier than reported. There were Grucci barges on either side of the bridge, which sent euphoric splashes of firework’s color into the sky. The arches of the bridge were a light show of changing colors and the bright beam of kleig lights crossed in the sky.

Friends and neighbors, who sat on stools at my dad and sm’s living room and kitchen windows, ooohed and aaahed. Still, those who saw the Bridge’s 100 birthday celebration were disappointed.

"That was the 100th birthday," someone said.

But no-one will ever forget the fireworks waterfall that literally poured off the bridge that year (1983). t was breathtaking.

Still last night’s show was pretty wonderful. Even Hepcat, a veteran of many a fireworks display said, "They were pretty good, I guess.

Bleary eyed from all the problems with the  Jamie Livingston website, he is slowly working on getting those pictures up on OTBKB. In the meantine, enjoy Adrian’s pix. 

Last night there was a street corner memorial for Mrs. Kyong Sook Woo, who owned, the dry cleaner who was slain last week: "to remember a neighbor and business woman who was a kind and gentle soul to all she met."

Thanks to Gowanus Lounge for the beautiful poster that was on his site.

The Daily News reports today that a tree will be planted in her memory. Next week Windsor Terrace neighbors and the Parks Department will plant a tree on the corner ouside the store.

"I thought it
would be nice to put something on that corner that would reclaim the
positive energy that she had," said local resident and business owner Brenna Beirne told the Daily News. 

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

Wonder if these women still go to the parade. This year the parade is on June 21st at 2 p.m. There’s loads of information here.

Schools told to expect 5% budget cuts (NY Times)

Man saved by mystery surfer at Coney wants to say thank you (Daily News)

Teens arrested in assault in Crown Heights (Daily News)

Happy Birthday Brooklyn Bridge (Pardon Me For Asking)

Five o’clock shadow on Bond Street (Found in Brooklyn)

Brooklyn Bridge celebration continues: what’s on today (McBrooklyn)

Spring flowers along the Gowanus (Found in Brooklyn)

Sam Champion, the man, the band (Brooklynometry)

Vigil (A Year in the Park)

Which Voice Will Prevail (Andy Bachman’s Blog)

I’m running for office and so should you (Brooklyn Optimist)

BAM gears up for Sundance 2008 screenings (Gothamist)

Hurt Parade (Luna Park Gazette)

Here’s an excerpt from Paul LaRosa’s blog, Here is New York:

I live in Park Slope, Brooklyn, where a miracle has just taken
place, an event so unheard of that it’s been front page news in the NY Times — alternate side of the street parking rules have been suspended in Park Slope — my neighborhood — FOR THE ENTIRE SUMMER!!!

I was so happy — now you can park virtually on any residential
street in Park Slope and not be towed no matter what the sign says. The
miracle began Monday and lasted all of one day for me because
incredibly, amazingly, unbelievably, my wife succeeded in getting our
car towed THE SECOND DAY THE NO PARKING RULES WERE IN EFFECT!!!!

How can this be, you ask? All I can say is what Elaine said to Jerry Seinfeld in one episode: "Oh, it be."

In effect, my wife performed her own miracle that superseded the
city’s generosity. There’s a couple of things to remember here — in
all the years of living in Park Slope, our car has never been towed —
until now. AND…just imagine. You can park almost anywhere in the
neighborhood and not be towed but my wife picked the one block where
you CAN be towed.

Brooklyn Based has the buzz on all the activities connected with the Brooklyn Bridge Birthday.

The five-day blowout celebration of the Brooklyn Bridge’s 125th
anniversary begins next Thursday, May 22, and there are a multitude of
cool things planned: a Technicolor light installation, a Brooklyn
Philharmonic performance, outdoor films in Fulton-Ferry State Park,
guided tours, and Grucci fireworks (all detailed here).

But BB is particularly psyched about two great events that just happen to coincide with the bridge’s big birthday bash…read more at BB

Erin O’Neil of the NY Daily News came to the Blogfest and seemed to really get what was going on. Her story is a real nice shout-out about the event and a list of some of the bloggers, who were there.

When Petra Symister moved from Chelsea to Bedford-Stuyvesant she lost her sense of community – but blogging cured her loneliness.

"I feel more connected to this neighborhood by blogging than I did in nine years living in Chelsea," she said.

Symister created the Bed-Stuy Blog 14 months ago, joining a Brooklyn-based
network of citizen and professional writers, photographers and
videographers who leave the comfort of their computer desks to meet in
person every year at the Brooklyn Blogfest.

Last week, the Brooklyn Lyceum hosted the third annual event, which
was started by Louise ("Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn") Crawford in 2006
to put virtual names to actual faces.

"We were calling each other by our blog names," said Crawford, whose
blog is four years old. "We’re not that sort of cyber-weird. People
come out from behind their computers and meet up."

This year’s blogfest attracted hundreds of people who blog, want to
blog or find blogging interesting. The event also featured guest
speakers from online and print media, as well as video montages and a
"Shout-Out" where bloggers new to the scene could announce their names
– and URLs.

Go to the article and you can start connecting with the bloggers of Brooklyn here.

The exhibition is actually called "Bridge as Icon" and it is a celebration of the 125th anniversary of the Brooklyn Bridge.

The opening is on May 25nd and will stay open until July 26th. The Tabla Rasa Gallery is located at 224 48th Street between 2nd and 3rd Avenues. It is accessible by the R-train.

A group of terrific artists are included in the show, including Ginger Andro & Chuck Glicksman, Vijay Kumar, Lucy Nurske, Nick Savides and Simon Dinnerstein. Go to the Tabla Rasa site for a full list.

The exhibition includes a large and major work by Simon Dinnerstein, an artist who lives and works in Park Slope, called Purple Haze. The artist writes and I agree: “This is a highly dramatic and mystical image.  Over five feet in width, Purple Haze alludes to New York’s vulnerable beauty and the bridge between a panorama of the city and a mystical dreamscape.”

My son is working on an experiment for his high school neuroscience class to explore synesthesia in people and you can help. Please go to henrycrawford(dot)com and answer a few question about music and colors. It’ll only take 3 minutes or so. In his words:

"Synesthesia is when two or more senses intermingle with each other for
instance one might see colors while listening to a song.

In my experiment subjects will listen to 30 second clips of 5 songs and then
pick from a choice of 5 colors (red, green, blue, yellow and grey).

The experiment is running through midnight Monday May  19, 2008.

My friend Ed Velandria has
been sketching people on the F-train for a long time now. It’s his
yoga, his meditation, his way of relaxing while riding the subway.

That time on the subway is his "in-between"; the limbo time between
his busy life at home with two kids and a wife and his busy life
running a web development company.

With his tablet and his pen, Ed gets to zone out and focus on the shapes, colors, textures, patterns expressions of people’s faces.

Not thinking, just drawing, the ride from Seventh Avenue in Brooklyn to Broadway Lafayette in SoHo just whizzes by.

He used to do it with pen and paper. Then he tried using his pocket
P.C. Even off the subway, Ed draws incessantly wherever he is on scrap
paper, a

napkin, a Post-It note. Now on the subway he uses a HP tablet called a
TC1100 with a Wacom pen, which he bought off of a high school student
on Craig’s List. The tablet has been discontinued and is only available
on Craig’s List or maybe ebay.  The tablet is
touch-sensitive and capable of different kinds of strokes. He uses a paint program he bought for $20. called Art Rage.

At first, Ed was very low key about the pictures.  Just some
drawings I did on the subway he might say. But overtime, it was obvious
that he was quite serious about making these pictures — at least once
a day. It’s a habit now, or more precisely, a practice — a ritual to
capture the time.

Ed catches his subjects during their in-between time, too. Eyes down,
reading, sleeping, iPod listening, they are either going to work or
going home.

I love the titles of the sketches: Long Day, Not Really Listening, Goatee Guy, Red Hoody, Intense, Kind of a Mohawk:

It is life lived on the subway — day in, day out. The artist looking, noticing, sketching…honoring the faces before his eyes.

See more of Ed’s pictures on his Flickr website.

March 26, 2007   | Permalink
|

Ed Levine of NY Eats is excited because the free IKEA ferry from Lower Manhattan to Red Hook means one thing and one thing only to him (hint: and it’s not about swedish meatballs).

It means: delicious food from the Mexican food stands in the Red Hook ball fields

That’s right. NY Eats is suggesting that starting June 18, New Yorkers ride the ferry, which will run from Pier 11 in Lower  Manhattan every 40 minutes during the hours of 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., to the Red Hook ballfields on weekends and enjoy some tasty Mexican food from the vendors

Some consider it the best Mexican food in the city. The stands are open from 9 am until 10 pm Saturday and Sunday. Previously hard to access, this could be a huge boon for those vendors, who have had their existence threatened by the city on more than one occasion.

The ferry is operated by New York Water Taxi,
the boat will run seven days a week, so you’ll totally be able to hop
that ship on weekends. (The soccer taco stands operate from roughly 9
a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.)

The ride is free, and it’s open to everyone, not just Ikea customers. The Red Hook Ikea store opens June 18, and the ferry holds 74 passengers.

Pier 11 is on the East River at the base of Wall Street; the nearest subway stations

Check out more info and maps at NY Eats.

In a column called, We Hate Your Kids, Gawker gawked the Edgy Moms reading this way:

How Did We Miss the Edgy Moms Reading
Seriously. It happened last night at the Montauk Club, and every edgy momwriter was there. There were gift bags from sex shop Babeland—that’s edgy! In attendance was the Sun‘s Lenore Skenazy, who wrote about leaving her kid in Bloomingdale’s to fend for himself on the subway (he wanted to!), Amy Benfer (Salon), and New York contributor/novelist Amy Sohn.
Her piece was about "trying to get her daughter into Brooklyn Heights
Montessori School and all the raw, competitive feelings that the New
York private school admission process rouses." (Sohn once said—jokingly, but still—"When I had a kid, it seemed natural to me to start exploiting it for material.") [Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn]

The comments are way nasty. Read with a thick skin…

GREENEST OPTION

California’s okayed

Same-sex marriage, I see;

What then’s left to approve–

The no-sex variety?

Ooooh. It was quite the night at the 2nd Annual Edgy Moms Reading. This year it was edgier than ever—and the gift bags from Babeland were quite a coup. The Montauk Club was a perfect—and elegant setting, too.

Christen Clifford, who’s show Babylove is running Off Broadway at the 45 Bleecker Theater, started the show with an excerpt from her one-woman show about motherhood and sex.

Amy Benfer, an editor and staff writer at Salon, Paper and Metro lives in Park Slope, read an honest and  vivid piece about having a child at 16. Her daughter, who is now 18, was in the audience and many in the audience were moved to tears by her story.

Michele Madigan Somerville, an OTBKB fave, read two poems that I loved.

Louise Crawford was up next with a Smartmom column called, Smartmom’s Little Mushroom.

Amy Sohn read a funny piece about trying to get her daughter into Brooklyn Heights Montessori School and all the raw, competitive feelings entry into private school arouses.

Sophia Romero, read a wonderful excerpt from her blog, The Shiksa From Manila, which was followed by Louie Sloan’s story of getting knocked up from her book, Knock Yourself Up.

Last but loads of fun was Lenore Skenazy, reading her famous New York Sun piece about letting her 9-year-old ride the subway. It was great to finally meet her.

Yesterday, I got a press release from IKEA USA about the Swedish company’s first store in New York City. The 346,000-square-foot IKEA Brooklyn in Red Hook opens on June 18th. Here’s a quote from the PR:

“We are thrilled that our plan to make IKEA Brooklyn accessible for our many customers is now set to go for the variety of planned alternative transportation options,” said Mike Baker, store manager of the future IKEA Brooklyn.  “Now we are focused on hiring and training new coworkers, as well as on transforming the building’s interior into a furnished IKEA store.”

I am not sure how many Red Hook residents have been employed by IKEA thus far but the store says that it is making an effort to hire up to 500 residents. IKEA has a good reputation as an employer. It has been ranked in FORTUNE’s annual “100 Best Companies
to Work For” list for three years in a row. They are, apparently, offering full health benefits to part-time employees.

IKEA is also on Working Mother magazine’s annual list of “100 Best Companies for
Working Mothers” (four years in a row) and Training magazine’s annual
“Top 100” ranking of companies that excel at human capital development (whatever that means).

Hopefully they will be a positive force for
employment of Red Hook residents

Transportation to and from Red Hook is famously limited. Perhaps IKEA will bring about some much needed changes in this department as well.

The Red Hook IKEA, which is located on 22 acres along the Erie Basin waterfront in Red Hook, south of the BQE/Gowanus Expressway and southeast of the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel. Expanded transit options to the store include:

Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) Bus – The routes of both the MTA B61 and B77 bus lines have been extended to stop in front of IKEA Brooklyn.  Customers can consult regular bus schedules for designated times.  Bus stop locations at IKEA will be marked with signs.

IKEA Shuttle from Subway Stations – IKEA will operate a free shuttle every 15 minutes from subway stations at 4th Avenue / 9th Street and Smith/9th Street for visitors riding the F, G, M, or R trains.  A similar service on a different route will be offered to visitors taking the 2, 3, 4, 5, M, N or R trains to Court Street/Borough Hall.  All routes will have signage, indicating a stop for the shuttle to IKEA Brooklyn, and will run every day from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.

And then there’s the IKEA Water from Pier 11. The good news ist hat  IKEA has contracted with New York Water Taxi to provide free water taxi service from lower Manhattan ’s Pier 11 across the East River to IKEA Brooklyn.  This service is available every 40 minutes, seven days a week, from 10:00 a.m. – 8:30 p.m.

For shoppers, there will also be a range of delivery options. IKEA Brooklyn will offer same-day or next-day courier service (for smaller items) and home delivery (for larger items) options so customers can transport their purchases to their home.  There also will be Enterprise rent-a-van service available on-site, as well as Zip Cars and approximately 1,400 parking spaces.

.

Stephen Holden, the music reviewer for the New York Times, heaped praise on Louis Rosen and Capathia Jenkin’s show of songs set to the poems of Nikki Giovanni at Joe’s Pub (through May 26th). Read the review but here’s an excerpt.

"Monday’s show heralded the release of Ms. Jenkins and Mr. Rosen’s
second album, “One Ounce of Truth” (PS Classics), a collection of songs
based on Ms. Giovanni’s verses. The music is notable for its modesty
and its care not to impede the conversational rhythms of the poetry.
You might describe Mr. Rosen’s uncategorizable, continually shifting
musical patchwork of blues, folk, jazz and pop as earthy, tuneful art
song. He is from the South Side of Chicago, and the polyglot influences
show."

Holden also had praise a-plenty for Capathia Jenkins, the multi-octave vocalist beloved by Park Sloper’s who have heard her perform Rosen’s Maya Angelou songs and his Southside Stories at the Old Stone House. 

"Ms. Jenkins, familiar from Broadway (“Caroline, or Change”) is not a
vocal showoff. She dramatizes Ms. Giovanni’s poetry only to the degree
that the language calls for it. For the most part, the songs are sly,
playful observations that take an off-center, positive view of life and
love. “I Wrote a Good Omelet (After Loving You)” is a mischievous
celebration of nurturing sex.

Even the more cosmic numbers, like
the album’s title song, a meditation on the life cycle, refrain from
outright declamation. As Ms. Jenkins sang the words “Remember my smile
when I’m gone” in a sweet, sunny voice with an undertone of resolve, a
poet in touch with her life force smiled through the music."

WNYC reports that Eloise, the feisty 9-year-old resident of the Plaza Hotel immortalized in the Kay Thompson children’s book of that name, is back at the plaza. Her painting, that is.

Yesterday the painting was returned to its place of honor near the Palm Court in the lobby. The hotel has been undergoing a major renovation and reinvention as a high end condo building and boutique hotel.

The Palm Court, an ornate and historic lobby restaurant, has been preserved.

Edible Brooklyn is an appealing, well written and nicely designed magazine for foodies, that is given out free around the Slope. Today they’re throwing a local food and wine party at BAM. Tickets are $50.

Come
join your food community at Edible Brooklyn’s annual local-tasting
soiree. The only place to sample the full suite of Long Island wines,
from austere steel-fermented whites to robust reds to varietal roses,
without getting on the L.I.E.

Based on the sell-out success of
last years inaugural event, and the strong turnout from outer boroughs
(Manhattanites made up half of last years attendees), this year
Brooklyn Uncorked will spill over into the lobby of BAM, making way for
an increased number of wineries, local craft beers and much more food.

Sample
a selection of award-winning Long Island and New York microbrews,
including Blue Point Brewery, Brooklyn Brewery, Heartland Brewery,
Sixpoint Craft Ales, and Southampton Publick House.

In
addition to cheese from Stinky Bklyn and Whole Foods Market, Long
Island potato chips, palate-coolers from Wine Cellar Sorbets, freshly
pressed coffees from Bodum, and natural sodas from Grown-up Soda (GuS),
favorite neighborhood restaurants will be serving up samples, including
Bonita, Flatbush Farm, iCi, La Maison du Couscous, Little D Eatery,
Palo Santo, Smoke Joint, and Stonehome Wine Bar, as well as Great
Performances caterers. Music will be provided by WLIU radio. Glasses
are courtesy of Reidel.

Last year’s event sold out, so reserve your spot now.

The event runs from 4-8 p.m. and tickets to the general public are $50.

From the New Yorker’s Readings and Talks column:

“THE EDGY MOTHERS READING”

The writers Lenore Skenazy, Louise Crawford, Amy Sohn, Louise Sloan,
Christen Clifford, Michele Madigan Somerville, and Sophia Romero share
their jagged takes on motherhood. (The Montauk Club, 25 Eighth Ave.,
Park Slope, Brooklyn. No tickets necessary. For more information, call
718-638-0800. May 15 at 7.)

Benjamin Kaback of Second Avenue Sagas , a blog dedicated to blogging the subway from A to J/M/Z has posted his response to the Brooklyn Blogfest. He wrote to tell me about it and had this to say. Go to his blog (link above) for his more critical outlook.

I had a chance to write up my thoughts on the Blogfest on my personal
site. I took a more critical approach to the event, but I did want to
stress to you that I thought it was an excellent gathering. I think
there’s a lot of room for growth, and I know you mentioned in one of
your posts that you’re not sure if it will continue next year. I do
hope it continues next year and for years to come. The Brooklyn
Bloggers are a long way away from milking dry all of their experiences.

The New York Observer put together a list of the 100 most powerful people in New York real estate. It’s an interesting list. Power and money was, obviously, their most important criteria:

The list, especially higher up, contains those who animate the deals
and the trends. They are the deciders and the money providers. They
make the real estate world the rest of us live in; or cover, as the
case may be.

Robert DeNiro, the great actor and Tribeca restauranteur, hotelier and booster, is on the list. So is Edward Egan, the Catholic Archbishop because of all the church property he oversees and Amanda Burden for her role as the Commissioner of the Department of City Planning.

Where does Bruce Ratner come in on the list? He’s number 8 just under Craig Newmark of Craig’s List.

Bruce Ratner: Chairman of Forest City Ratner Companies

The leader of what is perhaps New York’s most
high-profile development, the controversy magnet Atlantic Yards, Bruce
Ratner is one of the most active developers in the city, often pursuing
large, publicly administered projects. He’s recently taken a liking to
famous architects, ensuring that his developments leave a notable
impression on the skyline.