Polystyrene, also known as styrofoam, is composed of Benzene, Styrene and Ethylene. Styrofoam is a licensed trademark of its manufacturer, the Dow Chemical Company.

Benzene and Styrene are both listed on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s hazardous substance list. Styrofoam does not biodegrade; it crumbles into fragments that have no expiration date. Styrofoam trays, as they fall apart, prevent other trash from decomposing.

It’s an environmental menace.

Now, PS 154 in Windsor Terrace joins the cities of Berkeley, California and Portland Oregon, where prohibit polystyrene food packaging is prohibited. Due to public pressure, Mcdonald’s stop using polysterene packaging in 1990.

Councilmember de Blasio has also introduced legislation, Intro 609, which would prohibit the use of styrofoam by City agencies and food establishments.

This is very good news and it was a great lesson in civic activism for the kids at PS 154.

I heard about it all day on WNYC. Must of been a slow news day what with no Obama speech, no Spitzer debackle, not Paterson revelations.

At PS 154, Council Member Bill de Blasio joined students and parents in an effort to replace styrofoam lunch trays with environmentally friendly trays made from sugar cane fiber.

Sugar cane fiber.

The Department of Education (DOE) currently uses over 4 million trays a week!

Made from sugar cane fiber known as Bagasse, these trays are made fro the cane fiber pulp left after juicing. The cool thing is this: they easily break down either in a landfill or in backyard composting, within 45 days.

That’s 45 days compared with the 10,000 years it takes to break down styrofoam.

10,000 years.

Councilmember Bill DeBlasio made an appearance at PS 154 at lunchtime. He is a public school dad who is on the City Council’s Environmental Protection Committee:

“It is deeply troubling that the DOE knowingly purchases and uses million of styrofoam trays a year despite the fact that styrofoam is extremely harmful to our environment and creates massive amounts of waste.”

Eric A. Goldstein, Senior Attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council was also on hand:

P.S. 154 moves to the head of the class for seeking out more sustainable products for the school and its students. Now it’s time for the DOE to do its homework and bring recycling to all the city’s lunchrooms and classrooms,” said

A representative from Parents Against Styrofoam in Schools (P.A.S.S.) also made the scene: “With the help of local businesses and private donors we are choosing to serve our children their breakfast and lunch on biodegradable “sugar cane” trays. It is the first of many steps we are undertaking to ensure a greener, more ecologically sound Brooklyn and NYC,” she said.

Brooklyn Based, who is co-hosting a cocktail party with me tonight at Sidecar, got tired of reading about Park Slope hate. So she sked two Park
Slopers, Amy Sohn and Grace Bonney, to each name five things about the
Slope they love. I already published Amy Sohn’s. Here are Grace Bonney’s.

Grace Bonney, editor of Design*Sponge, and also on the Park Slope 100:

1. Great Restaurants: Applewood, Flatbush Farm, Franny’s, Beer Table and my personal favorite, Little D Eatery
(formerly Little Dishes). With so many great options for great dining,
Park Slope’s restaurant scene helps me deal with the hordes of babies
screaming next to me wherever we go.

2. The Park: Do I use it as much as I should?
Absolutely not. But when it gets warm and the Farmer’s Market revives,
I rediscover a different side of the neighborhood — and those delicious
apple cinnamon donuts.

3. Shopping: Though the staff at some stores could use a refresher course in how not to make customers feel like an inconvenience, I love not having to leave Park Slope to find gourmet food (D’vine Taste, Blue Apron and Grab) and up and coming clothing/jewelry designers (Bird and Diana Kane).

4. Convenience: After living in different, “hipper”
areas of the borough [like Williamsburg], I really appreciate having
all of my basic amenities within a four-block radius.

5. Architectural History and Character: Every time
I walk home down 3rd Street I remember why we pay a higher rent to live
in an area with so much natural beauty. That row of brownstones and
trees always makes me smile.

Sign up for Brooklyn Based, it a cool thing to get in your inbox:

Like all good things, we come in threes — three emails a week that will
help you get the most out of the County of Kings. We won’t cram your
inbox with a laundry list of things to do, or convince you to buy
things you don’t need, or tell you the same exact thing you already
learned from your favorite blog, mag or paper. (And we certainly won’t
spam you.) Think of us as an essential supplement to the best food,
art, services, shops and people the borough has to offer. Sound good?
Then sign up for BB, delivered Tuesday through Thursday.

Yesterday I finally brought our deceased Volvo’s license plates to the DMV Express on 34th Street. We knew that we couldn’t discontinue our insurance unless we surrendered them.

Who can forget the hall of hell that the Department of Motor Vehicles used to be. Sometimes I think I am hallucinating when I go to the efficient, organized, even pleasant DMV Express. Like, is this for real?

Ah yes, it used to be an unfathomably horrific experience to get a driver’s license renewed or register a car. Yes, horrific. You never knew how long you’d be there. Entire lines would be stalled waiting for an employee to return from lunch.

Nowadays I go to the DMV with a kind of cautious glee. And yesterday was no exception. I looked forward to dumping the plates and truly entering life without a car.

“When I sold my car I wanted to throw a party,” the DMV employee who took my plates told me. “I mean, who needs a car. Especially if you live in Brooklyn. Driving around for at least a half hour looking for a space. It’s a waste of time.”

I couldn’t agree more.

“You’re going to be getting a check from us,” he said.

Apparently the City owes me what’s left of my registration fee.

You’re full of great news for me,” I said.

“Yes, it feels great to get rid of your car.”

The debate about the congestion pricing plan rages on. And you can hear it now on these live audio streams. Tonight, John Liu, Chairperson of the New York City Council’s Transportation Committee, will discuss the merits of Mayor Bloomberg’s plan to ease traffic congestion and generate funding for mass transit, as well as the
compelling need for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to strengthen its own credibility with the public. Listen up.

7:30 PM (EST) WBBR Radio (AM 1130) on “Bloomberg New York”
(Live audio stream available at http://www.bloomberg.com)

8:00 PM (EST) WNYC Radio News (FM93.9 or AM820)
(Live audio stream available at http://www.wnyc.org)

Congestion pricing hearing (Streetsblog)

“The Ten Year Nap” by Meg Wolitzer (New York Times)

“The Finder”, a new book by Park Slope’s Colin Harrison (New York Times)

The Cheese Beads (Brooklynometry)

Wheelchair stolen on 17th Street (Brooklynometry)

View from demolished Pier 1 (McBrooklyn)

Brooklyn Stonehenge (McBrooklyn)

The running of the eggs (McBrooklyn)

More than keys (Shelleytown)

Lara’s website

NO RESTAURANT FOR THE WEARY

Brooklyn Restaurant Week is here,
Time for curious diners to cheer.
How’s the food at Applewood?
Is Blue Ribbon really that good?
River Cafe still outta sight?
(Just this once, the price is right.)
Three full courses, all deluxe,
With no need to wear a tux.
Dozens of eateries on the ballot,
Eager tasters, cleanse your palate!
March twenty-fourth to the thirty-first,
Be gastronomically immersed.
Monday to Monday, eat like a king
And queen–or lovers on a fling.

Rosemary Moore will be reading, The Pain of Pink Evenings, a monologue she wrote that is SO GOOD it was included in, The Best American Short Plays of 2000-2001.

She will be reading with a bunch of other writers, who write at the Brooklyn Writers Space. Located in Park Slope at 58 Garfield Place just below 5th Avenue. BWS offers “a professional, respectful, and warm environment for writers. The 2,000 square foot space includes a writing area with partitioned desks, a wall of windows and a skylight, a lounge/kitchen area, two bathrooms , and a private roof deck. Writers may enroll as full time members (24 hour access) or part time members (nights and weekends).”

Brooklyn Writer’s Space Reading Series
At Freddy’s Bar and Backroom
Mon March 24 @ 7:00pm-
* Rosemary Moore *
* Joan Minieri *
* Michael Lazan*
* Ezra Goldstein *

FREDDY’S BAR & BACKROOM
485 Dean Street
Dean Street & 6th Avenue
FREE
Subway: 2/3 to Bergen

A big week at Brooklyn restaurants (NY Times)

Eggstravaganza at pagoda (Brooklynometry)

Stanley Greenberg: the romance of infrastructure (Self-absorbed boomer)

A Friday called Good (A Year in the Park)

Hyacinths and bunnies (A Year in the Park)

Instead of perfume there will be rottenness (Bad Girl Blog)

Sometimes New York rejects you on its terms and you have to come to it on your own terms (Shelleytown)

Who is tree killing madman? (Washington Square Park)

Pix from Shelleytown

Brought to you by The Feldman Family from their weather tower in Park Slope (truly), complete with maps, charts, graphs, sunrise, sunset times and more. This is a daily feature on OTBKB.

Lara Wechsler Street Photography

A good friend sent this poem by Bertolt Brecht from his iPhone. He translated it himself from the German. It is beautiful.

Early on this Easter Sunday, a sudden snowstorm swept over this
island. Snow lay over the budding hedges.
My little son took me over to a little apricot tree by the house wall,
away from my verses, in which I point a finger at those who were
preparing a war that must destroy this continent, and this island, my
people and my family and me.
Speechlesss, we placed a sack around the freezing tree.

— B. Brecht, Easter Sunday, 1935
tr. H. Lowengard, 2008

Here’s something from our pal Pete of Full Permission Living and Full Permission Writing about “sleeping on it.”

Did you ever end your day with an unresolved problem? A knot of some sort you couldn’t untangle at work, or a relationship conflict that seemed to have no clear resolution? Who hasn’t? But have you had the experience of waking up the next day with the solution suddenly as clear as could be, as if it had been there all along? Most of you have had such experiences, which is why the notion of “sleeping on it” is part of the common wisdom in all cultures.

I just had one of those waking-up light bulbs this morning. Last night, our kids somehow managed, as kids do, to break a contraption in our house (I’ll spare you the details) that was essential to our domestic tranquility. It had to be fixed before I started sessions this afternoon. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how to fix the darn thing last night. The better part of my wisdom told me to let it go because I was tired and ready to relax for the evening.

“Forget it. I’ll sleep on it.” I declared.

Low and behold, I woke up wide-eyed at 5 AM with the answer in its entirety right before me in a picture in my mind. I saw it. I knew what to do. I went back to sleep. A few hours later, and yes, now it’s fixed!
Just as I talked about in my essay on “Gut Feelings” (http://fullpermissionliving.blogspot.com/2008/01/gut-feelings.html), I was reminded that the bigger decisions and harder problems in life are better left to our unconscious mind, where our higher self wisdom, the knowledge of our entire species in the collective consciousness, and our imagination reside.

An article in New Scientist a couple of years ago referenced a study at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands that concurs (http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8732) entitled: “Sleeping on it’ best for complex decisions”

Here’s an excerpt:

“Complex decisions are best left to your unconscious mind to work out, according to a new study, and over-thinking a problem could lead to expensive mistakes. The research suggests the conscious mind should be trusted only with simple decisions, such as selecting a brand of oven glove. Sleeping on a big decision, such as buying a car or house, is more likely to produce a result people remain happy with than consciously weighing up the pros and cons of the problem, the researchers say.”

Have a good sleep!

Here’s this week’s Smartmom from the Brooklyn Paper:

Lately, Teen Spirit has been inviting his friends and fellow bandmates to sleep over in the apartment. Smartmom and Hepcat are thrilled. That’s not sarcastic, they really are thrilled — for a variety of reasons.

First off, it’s better than not knowing where he is on a Saturday night and getting worried when he calls from Brooklyn Heights or Union Square at 1 am and says that he’s sleeping over at the house of a friend they’ve never heard of.

And these sleepovers give Smartmom and Hepcat a chance to observe and oversee their son’s recreational behavior and enjoy quality time with him and his friends. With college (hopefully) lurking in the future, Smartmom and Hepcat want to savor every minute they have left with their only son.

These impromptu slumber parties actually make Smartmom a little nostalgic for her lost youth. Buddha knows, she has plenty of memories of that golden time, when she and friends would laugh their heads off watching Gilda Radner, Larraine Newman, Jane Curtin and Chevy Chase on that first season of “Saturday Night Live.” Later, they’d fall asleep in a sea of sleeping bags in the den of her parent’s Riverside Drive apartment.

Ah, to be 16 years old in 1975 in New York City. Smartmom and her friends felt like they were inventing the world of drinking beer and listening to jazz at the West End near Columbia University. It was a time of so many firsts: love, sex, Rosanne Rosannadanna, gin and tonics at the Dublin House on West 79th Street (did every under-age Upper West Sider drink there?).

The future may have been looming in the distant horizon, but she and her friends enjoyed the there and then when it was the here and now.

Like Smartmom, Teen Spirit is soaking in the glory of being a teen in New York City. And like Smartmom, he’s blessed to have a great group of high school friends.

One of them likes to write songs with Teen Spirit in the living room. While the loud guitar playing and emotive singing may annoy their neighbors (Smartmom is sorry), these sessions have more than once resulted in some really good songs.

One evening, Teen Spirit and this friend sang through a long list of Beatles songs complete with rousing vocal harmonies. Smartmom secretly sang along in the kitchen while they sang “Happiness is a Warm Gun.”

Another friend is creative when it comes to seasoning his food. One morning, when Smartmom served him scrambled eggs, he asked if they had any interesting condiments in the fridge.

“Sure,” she said, a tad confused.

After minutes spent in deep exploration, he emerged with a jar of candied ginger and mayonnaise to add to his eggs.

Saturday night, Teen Spirit’s band, Mighty Handful, played a rollicking, frolicking set at Don Hills, a dark, skuzzy club on Spring Street just east of the Ear Inn. Afterwards, Teen Spirit brought home three boys and one girl to sleep over.

It’s all good, of course, but the apartment has begun to feel like the F train at rush hour. And the truncated size of their living room (where Hepcat now makes his office) makes for tight sleeping quarters.

Still, Smartmom grabbed some blankets, their inflatable mattress, sleeping bags and pillows and threw them into the living room.

When she got up the next morning, the living room floor was wall-to-wall kids: two on the couch, two on the rug and one on the hardwood floor without a blanket.

It reminded Smartmom of the time she and five high school friends went to hear a band called Deadly Nightshade at CBGB and afterwards all piled into the apartment of a friend on Central Park West where they all slept, chastely, in the same bed.

“What happened to the Noguchi coffee table?” Smartmom wondered out loud about the kidney shaped glass top table with the collapsible wooden legs.

“Oh, it was really heavy,” one of the kids said. “But we managed to move it over there,” he said pointing to a space right next to Hepcat’s desk

Hepcat will love that, Smartmom thought.

Smartmom remembers that freedom of being a teen. Sure, there were these obligatory grownups around, but the only people that really mattered were her friends. The world revolved around them and there was no one else she wanted to be around.

Teen Spirit feels the same way. It’s a time of intensity and discovery. And moving the coffee table if you need room to sleep.

O, to be 16 in New York!

It’s perfect for Teen Spirit, but you couldn’t pay Smartmom to sleep on a hardwood floor these days; her cozy bed suits her just fine, thank you very much.

Brought to you by The Feldman Family from their weather tower in Park Slope (truly), complete with maps, charts, graphs, sunrise, sunset times and more. This is a daily feature on OTBKB.

FLESH YIELDS TO POSH

The Lincoln Plaza Hotel in Park Slope
In the days of its full flower
Had twenty-six small rooms it rented
For fifteen dollars–an hour.

No reservations or luggage required
In this now-pricey canyon,
Though management resolutely insisted
Each guest bring a companion.

The couples in the Queen Anne manse
Enjoyed a soundtrack of glory
That emanated from next door’s
Music Conservatory

Until five doleful years ago
When the chandeliers went dark,
And well-worn hotsheets were withdrawn
From this amusement lark.

Today, five million dollars on,
The hotel’s end has come,
As it fatefully morphs into–what else?–
A condominium.

On Wednesday March 26th (aka the fourth Wednesday of the month) The Modernist Book Club will be discussing the Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford. Here’s a note from Josh, the czar of literary analysis at the Community Bookstore, Seventh Avenue between Garfield and Carroll.

Please keep your calendars open for next Wednesday, March 26th and Thursday, March 27th at the always welcoming Community Bookstore. We’re very excited to be discussing The Good Soldier at our book club, and we’re delighted that Mark Lilla will be here reading and discussing his new book, The Stillborn God. Details are below.
Remember, the good times here are always free, and the wine is usually flowi

The prez of the PS 107 PTA sent word that the school is having a fundraising screening of the Oscar winning documentary by Cynthia Wade, “Freeheld.” Wade will be on hand to do a Q&A afterwards. Sounds cool to me.

We are having a unique fundraiser next month and I was wondering if it was something you might write about on your blog. How unique? Well, I’m pretty sure we’re the only school with a 2008 Oscar winner: Cynthia Wade, the director of “Freeheld,” the Best Short Documentary. We will be hosting a screening of the movie, with a Q&A afterwards at the Pavilion on April 16th at 7 p.m.

Go to the school website for more information about this benefit screening of Freeheld.

I feel really bad for Debbie Almontaser, founding principal of the Kahlil Gibran International Academy, who was removed before the school even opened.

On Thursday, her legal appeal to return to her job at the school she founded was denied. It’s crazy. She founded the school and was the visionary behind it. Then she defended a t-shirt that said Intifada. She said something that was deemed inappropriate by the DOE to the New York Post or News and was promptly fired.

Whatever happened to freedom of speech?

Here’s the story from New York 1:

A federal appeals court ruled Thursday that the former principal of a Brooklyn Arabic school can not force the city to give her another chance to get her job back.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan agreed with a lower court that Debbie Almontaser was acting in her official capacity when she refused to condemn a shirt with the Arabic phrase “intifada” on it.

Almontaser sued saying she was forced to resign in August and that her First Amendment rights were denied.

Her lawyer says they haven’t decided whether they’ll appeal again.

A new principal for the Khalil Gibran International Academy was hired in January.

MEET THE SEXPRESS

Forget about being a communist,

A terrorist or occulterer;

The question topping reporters’ list

Is, Have you been an adulterer?

Wednesday March 26: Join OTBKB and Brooklyn Based for cocktails at Sidecar, the groovy newish bar in the South Slope. 560 Fifth Avenue. 6:30 – 8 p.m.

Thursday March 27: Brooklyn Reading Works presents: Inner Lives Out Loud at the Old Stone House. Readings from Regina McBride’s workshops. 8 p.m.

Saturday March 29: If you are a Brooklyn blogger, come be interviewed for a video about Brooklyn blogging by Blue Barn Pictures and me. Let me know what’s a good time for you (louise_crawford(at)yahoo.com. The shoot is from 11 am until 7:30 on Saturday the 29th in DUMBO. Email me if you can be there and what’s a good 90-minute time slot for you. You must be a Brooklyn blogger, who’s been around for 3 months, who updates with some frequency. This video will be at the May 8th Blogfest!

Park Slope’s Met Food (Brooklynometry)

John Jay High School in stone (Brooklynometry)

The face of Bed-Stuy (Bed-Stuy Banana)

Where’s my Easter Basket (Callalillie)

Weekend at the movies (Brooklyn Skeptic)

Video poker at Brooklyn Borough Hall (McBrooklyn)

Bob at Gowanus Lounge has a story that’s near and dear to many a long-time Park Sloper’s heart, the Lincoln Place Bordello.

That’s right. There’s a big, gorgeous building on Lincoln Place next door to the backyard of the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music that used to be called The Lincoln Hotel or the The Park Slope Hotel—does anyone remember?

To quote from the Kander and Ebb song, "Cabaret": "She wasn’t what you’d call a blushing flower. As a matter of fact, she rented by the hour."

Yes, the Lincoln Hotel was the real deal. Rooms by the hour. Limousines and cabs out front all night. My mother and a friend once went in years ago because her friend was curious about this "hotel" in her neighborhood.

They said the person at the front desk acted pretty funny when they asked for room rates.

A few years back the hotel was sold and it’s been in construction hell ever since. Yesterday Gowanus Lounge’s story included this tip from a reader.

My companion noted that
there was a worker perched on the chimney way up on the roof. No harness.

A few hours
later, I walked by again. There was an unharnessed worker (couldn’t
tell if it was the same one) in the same place. I called through the
gate to ask if there was a supervisor I could speak to. A worker told
me that he was "inside." As I had a child with me this time, I didn’t
pursue the boss further, but said to the worker that the other man
didn’t have a harness–which was dangerous. He replied, "It’s only 20 minutes work."

Clearly, the brothel condo isn’t the safest construction site around. Seriously, though. Why has it taken so long to convert that place into condos? I mean, it’s not the Sistine Chapel.

Make your reservations at these participating Park Slope restaurants for a prix fixe dinner for $23:

12th Street Bar & Grill (D)*
1123 8th Avenue
718-965-9526

200 Fifth (D)*
200 5th Avenue
718-638-2925

Alchemy Restaurant & Tavern (D)*
56 5th Avenue
718-636-4385

Anthony’s (D)*
426A 7th Avenue
718-369-8315

AOC Bistro (D)*
259 5th Avenue
718-788-1515

applewood (D)
501 11th Street
718-768-2044

Aunt Suzie’s Restaurant (D)*
247 5th Avenue
718-788-2868

Bar ToTo Italian Bistro (L/D)
411 11th Street
718-768-4698

Belleville (D)*
330-332 5th Street
718-832-9777

Blue Ribbon (D)*
280 5th Avenue
718-840-0404

Blue Ribbon Sushi (D)*
278 5th Avenue
718-840-0408

Bogota Latin Bistro (D)*
141 5th Avenue
718-230-3805

Café Tapeo (D)*
52 5th Avenue
718-638-1066

Canaille Bistro Francais (D)
78 Fifth Avenue
718-789-8899

Cantina Restaurant & Bar (L/D/#)*
494 4th Avenue
718-369-5850

Elementi (D)*
140 7th Avenue
718-788-8388

KitchenBar (D)*
687 6th Avenue
718-499-5623

Long Tan (D)
194 5th Avenue
718-622-8444

Los Pollitos II (L/D)
148 5th Avenue
718-623-9152

top

Lucious Food (L/#)
59 5th Avenue
718-398-5800

Magnolia Restaurant & Bar (D)*
486 6th Avenue
718-369-4814

Maria’s Bistro Mexicano (L/D)*
669 Union Street
718-638-2344

Melt (D)*
440 Bergen Street
718-230-5925

Miriam (D)*
79 5th Avenue
718-622-2250

Mulino Ristorante Italiano (D/#)*
133 5th Avenue
718-398-9001

NoNo Kitchen (D)*
293 7th Avenue
718-369-8348

Palo Santo (D)*
652 Union Street
718-636-6311

Piramide (D)*
499 5th Avenue
718-499-0222

Rose Water (D)*
787 Union Street
718-783-3800 

Sakura Cafe (D)*
388 5th Avenue
718-832-2970

Santa Fe Grill (L/D)
62 7th Avenue
718-636-0279

Scottadito Osteria Toscana (D)*
788A Union Street
718-636-4800

Sette Enoteca e Cucina (D)*
207 7th Avenue
718-499-7767

Sotto Voce Restaurant (L/D)*
225 7th Avenue
718-369-9322

Stone Park Cafe (L)*
324 Fifth Avenue
718-369-0082

Tempo Restaurant (D)*
256 5th Avenue
718-636-2020

Tonio’s Restaurant (L/D)*
306 Seventh Avenue
718-965-4252

Trattoria Mangia (L/D)*
119 5th Avenue
718-636-5259

The Park Slope ChipShop (L/D/#)
383 5th Avenue
718-832-7701

March 26: Join OTBKB and Brooklyn Based for cocktails at Sidecar, the groovy newish bar in the South Slope. 560 Fifth Avenue. 6:30 – 8 p.m.

March 27: Brooklyn Reading Works presents: Inner Lives Out Loud at the Old Stone House. Readings from Regina McBride’s workshops. 8 p.m.

March 29: If you are a Brooklyn blogger, come be interviewed for a video about Brooklyn blogging by Blue Barn Pictures. Let me know what’s a good time for you (louise_crawford(at)yahoo.com. The shoot is from 11 am until 7:30 on Saturday the 29th in DUMBO. Email me if you can be there and what’s a good 90-minute time slot for you. You must be a Brooklyn blogger, who’s been around for 3 months, who updates with some frequency. This video will be at the May 8th Blogfest!

Hey, Grace and Amy are two of my faves in Park Slope and they’re BOTH on the Park Slope 100. Brooklyn Based asked them to come up with five things to love about the Slope. And I love them for doing it. Here’s Amy Sohn’s. I’ll run Design Sponge’s Grace Bonney tomorrow. And check out Brooklyn Based. It’s cool. You have to sign up for it to get her emails 3x a week. We’re doing cocktails together on March 26th at Sidecar.

1.   The Old Stone House

2.  Al di La – moderate prices for amazing Northern Italian food, and ambiance that can’t be beat

3.  The Prospect Park Boathouse and the electric boat rides around the reservoir

4.  The Montauk Club — a private club open to all, which just welcomed a new executive chef [Joel Thompkins]

5.  Picnic nights at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden [this year, June 25, July 30 and August 27]