Category Archives: Civics and Urban Life

BROOKLYN BOTANIC GARDEN GETTING GREENER

Interesting news from Metro by way of Curbed: the Brooklyn Botanic Garden is getting greener. They are talking about a new visitor’s center and wanting to be the model of a green institutions.

PROSPECT HEIGHTS. The Brooklyn Botanic Garden was a trailblazer back
in the day. In 1914, it opened the country’s first Children’s Garden
and began the first bonsai collection in 1925. But the nearly
100-year-old institution recognizes it needs to reinvigorate its
mission and become even “greener.”

“We’re really getting our heads together on how we can be a
model of a green institution,” Scot Medbury, BBG’s president and CEO,
said yesterday at a breakfast forum. The garden wants to position
itself as “better interpreters” of what sustainability means and how
New Yorkers can incorporate it into their lives.

With New York’s population expected to grow by 1 million people
by 2030 — and half of those people expected to move to Brooklyn —
Medbury wants the garden to help “strengthen the greening of the
borough.”

To that end, BBG is planning to construct a new visitor’s
center — expected to be completed for the garden’s centennial in 2010 —
that will have a green roof that “we think will take it to the next
level,” Medbury said.

The garden is also getting more involved in working with local
gardeners on food issues — it’s hosting an event on Mar. 10 called
“Garden-wise greening: growing healthy soil, food and community.”

Patrick Cullina, vice president of horticulture and
facilities, hopes the new center will change perceptions of the
benefits of green roofs and “challenge the assumptions and change the
vocabulary of what we have on our roofs going forward.”

The center is still in preliminary designs by the New York-based firm Weiss/Manfredi.

OPEN HOUSE POSTPONED

This event has been postponed due to construction. Check here or Park Slope Parents
for the new date:


The Park Slope Child Care Collective
, which was scheduled to have its
Open House on Saturday, January 27th from 10:00 - 1:00, is postponing
this event. Construction will be going on in the church where the Open
House was to take place, and access to the church will be limited.
Because of this, the open  house is being postponed until sometime in
February. PSCCC apologizes for the cancellation of next weekend's open house
and will let the community know of the new date as soon as it is set.

We are trying to get the word out to as many families as possible.
Please let anyone and everyone you know who is interested in PSCCC or who
was planning to attend the open house that it is cancelled for January
27 and that it will be rescheduled before the end of February.

BROOKLYN SAILOR DIES IN IRAQ

This from 1010 Wins:

BAGHDAD  — A sailor from Brooklyn has died in Iraq, the Defense Department said Saturday.

Petty Officer 2nd Class Joseph D. Alomar, 22, died in a “non-combat
related incident” on Jan. 17, while serving at Camp Bucca, a U.S.-run
detention center in southern Iraq, the military said. Alomar was
assigned to a military police unit.

In a brief statement, defense officials said Alomar’s death was
“not the result of hostile action, but occurred in a hostile fire
zone.” They did not elaborate. The death is under investigation, the
statement said.

Meanwhile, a U.S. helicopter crashed Saturday northeast of Baghdad, killing all 13 people on board, the military said.

The military did not give a cause for the crash, saying only that
the incident was under investigation. But the brief statement lacked
the customary comment that the aircraft was not shot down, indicating
it may have come under fire by insurgents. The helicopter was carrying
13 passengers and crew members and all were killed, it said.

No further details were released, including the exact location of the crash.

The violent Diyala province sits northeast of Baghdad, and U.S. and
Iraqi forces have been battling Sunni insurgents and Shiite militia
forces around its main city of Baqouba for months.

Separately, the military also announced the deaths of two American soldiers and a Marine.

One soldier was killed Saturday in a roadside bombing in northern
Baghdad. Another was killed Friday by a roadside bomb in the northwest
province of Ninevah, while a Marine was killed Friday in fighting in
Anbar, the military said.

The crash underscored a major danger in Iraq as the military relies
heavily on air travel to transport troops and ferry officials to avoid
the dangers of roadside bombs.

The worst U.S. aircraft accident since the war began was on Jan. 26,
2005, when a Marine transport helicopter crashed during sandstorms in
Iraq’s western desert, killing 30 Marines and a U.S. sailor.

The deaths came as U.S. and Iraqi forces prepared for a major security operation to pacify the capital.

U.S. helicopters dropped off elite Iraqi police forces staging a
raid Saturday against an al-Qaida-linked Sunni militant group in
Baghdad, killing 15 insurgents and capturing five, the Interior
Ministry said.

Members of the militant group were hiding in two abandoned houses in
a Sunni stronghold in southern Baghdad, and resisted the assault by the
Iraqi forces, who were backed by gunfire from the helicopters, ministry
spokesman Abdul-Karim Khalaf said.

Those killed and captured were believed to be part of the militant
group known as the Omar Brigade, which Khalaf said was behind a series
of kidnappings and killings of Shiites in the neighborhood.

“We were provided with helicopter support by our friends in the
multinational forces and we did not suffer any casualties,” Khalaf
said.

Elsewhere in Baghdad, Iraqi police and hospital officials said a
joint U.S.-Iraqi force searched a hospital for an unspecified target in
the volatile Sunni-dominated western neighborhood of Yarmouk.

The Americans confiscated weapons and ID cards from the police and
guards at the hospital after a confrontation with a guard demanding
they leave their weapons at the door, Khalaf said.

“We resolved the matter within minutes and the Americans gave the
Iraqi policemen their weapons and IDs cards back and now everything is
OK,” he said.

Dr. Haqi Ismail, the hospital’s manager, said the raid occurred at 4:30 a.m.

“They were looking for someone, they searched all the rooms and the emergency unit,” he said.

The U.S. military did not respond to request for comment on either raid.

U.S. and Iraqi forces are gearing up for a joint security operation
aimed at ending attacks between Shiites and Sunnis that have been
spiraling since the Feb. 22 bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra.

President Bush has committed an additional 21,500 American soldiers
for the drive and U.S. commanders have been promised a freer hand
against both Sunni insurgents and Shiite militiamen.

The top American commander in Iraq, Gen. George Casey, said Friday
that he thought some of the extra troops for Baghdad might return home
after a few months.

The deaths highlighted a major danger for U.S. forces in Iraq, where
the military relies heavily on air travel to avoid the dangers of
roadside bombs.

“I think it’s probably going to be the summer, late summer, before
you get to the point where people in Baghdad feel safe in their
neighborhoods,” Casey said.

On Friday, U.S. and Iraqi forces swooped into a mosque complex in
eastern Baghdad before dawn and detained Abdul-Hadi al-Darraji. The
office of Muqtada al-Sadr said al-Darraji was media director for the
cleric’s political movement and demanded his immediate release.

The U.S. military, in a statement that did not name al-Darraji, said
special Iraqi army forces operating with U.S. advisers had “captured a
high-level, illegal armed group leader” in Baghdad’s Baladiyat
neighborhood, which is adjacent to Sadr City, the stronghold of
al-Sadr’s militia, the Mahdi Army. It said two other suspects were also
detained.

Nassar al-Rubaie, the head of al-Sadr’s bloc in parliament, accused
U.S. forces of trying to provoke the Sadrists into violence ahead of
the security operation.

He said al-Darraji “is a peaceful man and what was mentioned in the
American release is lies and justification for the aggression against
al-Sadr’s movement.”

An adviser to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki complained there
was no coordination with the political leadership in the arrest.

IT’S OFFICIAL: HILLARY IS RUNNING

This from Hillary Clinton’s website: You can also see video of Barack Obama announcing his intention to form exploratory committee on his web site.

I’m in. And I’m in to win.

Today I am announcing that I will form an exploratory committee to run for president.
And I want you to join me not just for the campaign but for a conversation about the future of our country — about the bold but practical changes we need to overcome six years of Bush administration failures.
I am going to take this conversation directly to the people of America, and I’m starting by inviting all of you to join me in a series of web chats over the next few days.
The stakes will be high when America chooses a new president in 2008.
As a senator, I will spend two years doing everything in my power to limit the damage George W. Bush can do. But only a new president will be able to undo Bush’s mistakes and restore our hope and optimism.
Only a new president can renew the promise of America — the idea that if you work hard you can count on the health care, education, and retirement security that you need to raise your family. These are the basic values of America that are under attack from this administration every day.
And only a new president can regain America’s position as a respected leader in the world.

ON LEAVING PARK SLOPE: BUFFALO GIRL SPEAKS

This is from a Third Street friend who left Park Slope for Buffalo. Thanks for writing Buffalo Girl. Great to hear from you. And you are, of course, absolutely right. I did leave out a whole bunch of reasons why people leave.

Addressing your “Deserters” article. We too left several years back & I think too many NY’ers think NY is the only city in the world! The cost of living and trying to maintain self preservation was simply too high, trying to keep up was simply too impractical. Let’s not forget Park Slope is primarily upper middle class with some leftover strugglers and young whimsical newcomers. If one were to either have struck it well in the 90’s, were well on their way to high positions in life, or perhaps had maintainted the 3rd very common reality of having families with $ to back them, well they seemed to at least maintain a casual smile. Any one of those options afforded our friends the luxuries of being able to simply rent a car to leave the slope on a sizzling weekend in July-or if bored with that- they crossed the ocean to Madrid or Switzerland for a happy family vacation or perhaps Summer camp for the wee ones. That not being the case for all, but rather an i llusionary promise of rejuvenation, perhaps that is at the core of this so called “desertion”.

I ‘m convinced you wrote the article with intentions of love-so I guess I can’t be too hard on you…but I also have many friends I left behind and most had a small trust fund or a rather large bank account. Come on SMART- MOM- get real!! I’m not particularly bitter, but I left knowing myself & my children would never be completely happy about the move, leaving behind all the fabulousness NY offers, but some of us simply had no back-up or personal independent future there, at least not at that time. Though we loved everything,…. except the 60 mice we killed in our apartment, the fact that our landlord was a shit , the fact that we were forced to stick ice packs on the thermostat to warm ourselves above 66 degrees in the cold of winter, and even more important, the fact that we couldn’t create anything of substance because we were big object makers, painters etc. and had two kids in our work space, or rather we worked in our living space, or I don’t know it was all a jumble all the while working & traveling 16 hours a day, to put home-made food on the table with no real promise. All that in 800 sq ft!! Yep it was awesome!

I find it disturbing that your opinions seem to neglect so many other realities- No, not an attachment to the burbs or the yards…but rather, out of options. Your poking reminders of the reality that we left behind is frustrating and somewhat insensitive. Do your really think everyone that leaves, does not deeply miss the activities and relationships NY has to offer? – And offer though it may, it still adds up to one high income or slaving for environment.

Looking back , I have rich memories of how my friends & I had crossed cultural and financial boundaries- to find unity in common values, goals and desires but I question that now. One of my very good friends left Park Slope & bought a 4 million dollar spot in Switzerland & somehow we are still connected. Others who stayed in Park Slope simply ignore those who leave- what does that say about the “Slopers”?

The seemingly general lack of sensitivities from those who stayed in the Slope, to all who may have left for this or that reason makes me wonder if I too was living in the cultivated, Park-Slope, landscape of delusional fantasies…

Let’s face it -there are many great cities and though Park Slope holds my heart, I realize now it was even more about the people that I loved including you, Smart Mom- Yep I thought we were becoming good friends and I too have not heard from you once since leaving- though I had sent e-mails several times- they all went unanswered.

For those who work to stay connected, relationships are the same now as they were then with our NY friends- though we can’t hang with them directly, and we’re not able to drink wine with them weekly, gaze stupified at the Halloween parade as we all watch in awe, or lazily hang & gossip on the stoop, we still manage to talk about the same old subjects- $ Art. politics, our disdain for Bush, environment, progress, missing the Co-op, not missing the Co-op, our fabulous teens, education, family issues, private dreams etc. Those issues continue on and have been the thread that binds, if you will, regardless of geography and whose doing what. Perhaps those connections are your road to reunions with old friends. Much more genuine than location! To me it seems the “deserters” are still in Park Slope!

NEW AND IMPROVED BROOKLYN PAPER

Lots and lots of news this week from the Brooklyn Paper, including the latest on the real Powerplay story.

1. WOW! Did The Brooklyn Paper really go after Ratner on the naming-rights deal? Read it all here:
2. You’ve heard the rumors, now get the REAL Powerplay story:
3. Politics: Finally, the Dems target Rep. Vito Fossella. Hmm, isn’t that about six months too late (or a year too early)?
4. Arts: Almost two-dozen Brooklyn arts groups are facing massive cuts in grants from Altria. (Smoke ’em while you got ’em)
5. The Brooklyn Angle: Tetherball — the original "city game" — is back!
6. Broken Angel update: Arthur Woods — with his artistic vision (and code violations) — is set to design MORE buildings!
7. Smartmom: The Oh So Feisty One gets a piano:
8. Backfat gets pinched! Graffiti vandal collared in Windsor Terrace:
9. HOW DARE THEY! Brooklyn Paper photographer Tom Callan is SMACKED on the job!
Of course, our GO Brooklyn section is on top of the latest restaurant, arts and cultural trends.
10. G’dinner, mate: Aussie restaurants popping up all over:
11. Camera Obscura hits Greenpoint!

LARGE TURNOUT AT INTERFAITH EVENT AT OLD FIRST

I ran into my blog friend, Pastor Daniel Meeter, and he told me that there were 400 people at the interfaith Martin Luther King event on Sunday January 15th. Here’s an excerpt from Pastor Meeter’s blog.

Last night we hosted our Martin Luther King Service on behalf of the
Brooklyn Interfaith Alliance. This is a new organization, and a whole
new partnership. At our final planning session last week, we said we
hoped for 200 but made figured that if we got 100, we would find a way
to turn it into a success.

On Saturday I printed up 200
bulletins. But the response was so tremendous that as the service began
on Sunday afternoon we were frantically printing up more. We believe we
had some 400 people. Rev. Clinton Miller and I were co-chairs of the
event, and I said in his ear, "Look at the response," and he said, "I
think we’ve got our quorum!"

We had to expand the program to
welcome an Imam chanting from the Holy Koran, extra speeches and extra
elected officials. Our keynote speaker was very gracious in his
patience as he waited for his turn, but it was well worth the wait. He
was Rev. Dr. Gary Simpson of the Concord Baptist Church, and he had us
on our feet as he ended with John 9:4, We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day, night is coming when no on can work.

The congregation gave about $1000 in offering to www.anysoldier.com (to support our under-supplied soldiers and sailors) and to Black Veterans for Social Justice.

We
are a small congregation with a big space. We are thankful that we can
serve God by offering special services that the community wants to
attend.

GAY, BLACK, CRIPPLED, FAT: ADARRO MINTON

Thanks Cheryl Burke of Until Monday for this nice blurb about tomorrow’s reading at the Old Stone House. I don’t know about you, but I am really excited about this event. So what if it’s a cold night. There will be door prizes, treats, refreshments and a raffle. Plus a great writer!!!

Adarro Minton is a
survivor, who has, according to his bio, lived through “the disco era
in New York City, in imagined opulent splendor at Studio
54…mescaline, blotter acid, cocaine, freebase cocaine, crack, danger
sex in subway bathrooms, hunger, homelessness, and three serious
suicide attempts.” On Thursday he reads from his short story collection
Gay, Black, Crippled, Fat at at Brooklyn Reading Works.

Thursday, January 18, 8 pm
$5

The Old Stone House
Fifth Avenue (between 3rd & 4th Streets)

RATNER NAMING DEAL WITH BARCLAYS BANK

I got this press release from Develop Don’t Destroy this morning in my inbox about constitutional Rights v. Naming Rights. Ratner has announced a naming rights deal with  Barclays Bank. From Develop Don’t Destroy:

BROOKLYN, NY — The NY Post announced today that developer Bruce Ratner has reached a lucrative arena naming rights agreement with London-based Barclay Bank.

Lost in this highly speculative agreement to brand the publicly funded* arena proposed in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, is that the construction of Barclays Arena depends on the outcome of the federal eminent domain lawsuit filed in October. The suit claims that the use of eminent domain to clear out homes to pave the way for the arena is unconstitutional.  Currently 12 individuals (homeowners, tenants and business owners representing 26 residents) are plaintiffs on a federal lawsuit which says that the seizure of homes by New York State for Bruce Ratner’s "Atlantic Yards" and its arena is unconstitutional.

The arena cannot be built without the taking of those homes.

“Barclays Bank and Bruce Ratner are grossly jumping the gun since this publicly funded arena cannot be built without my home. And currently a federal court has begun reviewing the constitutionality of the taking of my home and the homes of my neighbors. Of course this lawsuit throws into question the value of these highly speculative naming rights,” said Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn spokesperson Daniel Goldstein. “This lucrative, yet speculative, naming deal is yet another sweetheart deal for Ratner. The public funds the arena construction and Ratner makes the profit on the bank’s logo."

The public would entirely fund the construction of Bruce Ratner’s Barclays Arena. The arena construction is to be paid for by triple-tax-free bonds (government and the public don’t yet know how much that bond debt service is but the last arena construction cost estimate was $637 million). The debt service is to be paid in the form of Payments in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT). So while Ratner does not pay property tax, which would normally go into the city treasury, instead he pays an equivalent payment towards the arena bond. It’s as if government allowed you to forego your taxes and use that money to renovate your bathroom AND help pay off your mortgage. But we don’t publicly fund bathroom renovations or mortgages.

“Barclays Arena. That almost sounds like Brooklyn Arena…but not. It goes to show that, once again, ‘Atlantic Yards’ has nothing to do with Brooklyn and everything to do with lucrative deals for Bruce Ratner,” concluded Goldstein.

NICE PICTURE TODAY, HUGH

Sometimes Hepcat and I are like ships passing in the night.

Like yesterday: He works. I work. He comes home, I go out to writer’s group. I go to bed, he stays up late printing pictures, posting No Words_Daily Pix, reading.

Sometimes I learn what he’s thinking about by looking at the Daily Pix. Like today. It’s a beautiful picture. He probably took it in the last day or three. Branches. Birds. Buds. Whisp of brownstone. Dots. Brooklyn abstraction.

It’s a nice photograph, yesireeee.

That Hugh. He sure makes nice photos.

SEEING GREEN SAYS: SPEAK EASY

SpeakEasy: Stories from the Back Room: Biscuit Barbecue 230 Fifth Ave. at President Street, Brooklyn (formerly Night and Day) Thursday  Jan. 18 8:30 pm. Doors open at 8:00. 

Krista Weaver (One Guitar Woman) will perform.
Join
Sherry Weaver and her band of storytellers-Albert Stern, Jon Levin,
Darlene White, Peter Lubell, Michele Carlo, and Margot  Leitman-for an
evening of startling personal revelations!
$8 plus one drink or food item minimum. www.speakeasystories.com

Oops. It’s the same night as Brooklyn Reading Works with Adarro Minton, author of "Gay, Fat,  Crippled, Black, a collection of short stories. 8 p.m. The Old Stone House. Fifth Avenue between 3rd and 4th Streets.

PARK SLOPE: 1987

Writer Richard Grayson sent this "So You’re Thinking of Living in Park Slope" from the New York Times in 1987.

May 17, 1987

JAN HODENFIELD remembers six years ago when a town house in Park
Slope could be bought for less than $200,000 and Seventh Avenue was
mostly bodegas, cobblers and neighborhood bars. Today, brownstones cost
$750,000 and a Benetton clothing store opened on the avenue in October.

”When a Benetton opened on Seventh Avenue, we knew what had
happened,” said Mr. Hodenfield, a freelance magazine writer. ”When I
came to Brooklyn 12 years ago, it was certainly not chic. This is a really hot neighborhood now.”

Park Slope, once a place where middle-class urban pioneers could
find bargains on rowhouses, has become popular and, consequently,
expensive. Its exquisite Victorian town houses, shaded by Norwegian
maples and ginkgos, have in recent years lured droves of New Yorkers
seeking refuge from Manhattan’s frenetic pace, cramped apartments and
soaring rents. They have also helped win it a historic district
designation as a ”vivid illustration of the characterization of Brooklyn as a ‘city of homes and churches.’ ”

The influx has transformed what was largely a working-class
neighborhood into an upper-middle-class enclave of expensively
renovated private homes, co-ops, boutiques and restaurants.

Residents prize the Slope for its proximity to Prospect Park, the Brooklyn Mu-seum, the Brooklyn
Public Library and the Botanic Garden as well as for its hybrid
atmosphere of small-town intimacy and big-city sophistication that the
writer Russell Banks, who lives there, once called ”a sense of
domestic refuge.”

On a recent Sunday, its tranquil streets, bathed in the lambent
green of budding trees, were full of parents with children strolling
calmly toward the park. The sky stretched languidly above, free of the
towers that corral it in Manhattan.

”The place lives,” said Jacqui Miranda, who edits a local
newsletter and has lived in the Slope more than 16 years. ”We can see
the sky here and trees.”

”It’s not quite as oppressive as Manhattan,”
said Rachel Klein, a writer who bought a brownstone in the north end of
the neighborhood in 1980. ”It’s greener, more casual, like a little
town in a way. Everyone knows each other.” The area takes its name
from its geography, lying on the long slope west of Prospect Park above
Fourth Avenue, bounded by Flatbush Avenue to the north and the Prospect
Expressway to the south.

Real-estate agents say the supply of houses has been exhausted and
prices are climbing steadily by more than 20 percent a year. Today,
three-story brownstones range in price from $250,000 in fringe areas
near Fourth Avenue up to $900,000 for properties on Eighth Avenue and
Prospect Park West, the boulevard that runs north and south along the
park. Brownstones near the middle of the Slope average $750,000.
Condominiums and cooperatives are similarly expensive but more
available. One-bedroom apartments run from $90,000 to $180,000;
two-bedroom units range between $120,000 and $200,000; three-bedrooms
cost $300,000 or more. There is still a substantial amount of rental
property available, agents said, ranging from $850 a month for studio
apartments to $1,800 for a duplex.

The escalating values have priced many out of the town-house market.
”For a lot of people, the dream of owning a house is becoming nothing
more than a dream,” said George Cambas, a real-estate agent who has
lived and worked in Park Slope since 1973. ”They are forced to settle
for an apartment.”

The neighborhood’s main commercial artery, Seventh Avenue, is also
showing signs of changes wrought by rising rents. Boutiques and trendy
restaurants have proliferated at a rapid rate along the street, which
for years was a strip of laundries, newsstands, pharmacies, bodegas,
bakeries, hardware stores and a sprinkling of Irish bars. Some of the
notable local eating establishments are Raintree’s, a French restaurant
at 142 Prospect Park West; J.T. McFeely’s, a steak house at 847 Union
Street, and Thai Taste at Seventh Avenue and Carroll Street.

Older businesses are moving to make room for more upscale
establishments. The six cobblers who used to ply their trade on the
avenue have all closed, while a D’Agostino’s supermarket, a hallmark of
affluent neighborhoods, plans a branch at Sixth Street and Seventh
Avenue.

Kevin Mooney, who has run Mooney’s Pub at 99 Seventh Avenue since
1969, said he has been unable to renew his lease, and the unglamorous,
low-key bar will soon move to Flatbush Avenue.

”They don’t want bars on Seventh Avenue anymore,” Mr. Mooney said.
”It was very, very sad, but we have to cope with the times.”

MOST of the new renovations and developments under way are in the
southern section of the Slope, once a working-class neighborhood with
several light industries. Developers have pushed past Ninth Street, the
previous mental boundary of the fashionable Park Slope, and begun
converting old factories and abandoned apartment buildings into co-ops.

The huge Ansonia
Clock Factory at 12th Steet and Seventh Avenue was converted in 1982,
spawning dozens of other projects. Today, more than 10 conversions are
under way or close to completion between 9th and 15th Streets and
Seventh Avenue and Prospect Park West.

Park Slope is ideal for rearing children because of the nearby
park’s ballfields, bicycle trails and zoo, but parents give the public
schools mixed reviews. The local grade school, P.S. 321, is considered
excellent with 84.7 percent of the students scoring at or above their
grade level on tests. But the junior high school, I.S. 88., fared worse
in the most-recent reading tests, with only 56.3 percent of the
students scoring at or above their expected level.

The neighborhood’s high school, John Jay, has been plagued in the
past by disciplinary problems and high dropout rates, but school
officials say it has made a remarkable turnaround in the last three
years. Since 1984, the dropout rate has declined to 9.6 percent, from
24 percent, and the school has started a new program to improve the
academic curriculum for college-bound teen-agers, according to Harold
Genkin, the principal.

The Berkeley
Carroll Street School, which has 540 students in classes from preschool
to 12th grade, is the only private school in Park Slope. Tuitions range
from $5,400 for preschool children to $7,400 for high school seniors.
The neighborhood also boasts several dance studios and the highly
regarded Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, which gives many recitals each year.

One drawback to living in Park Slope, residents said, is the rush-hour commute by subway to Manhattan, since trains are often crowded and delayed because of construction on the Manhattan Bridge.

Park Slope was virtually empty countryside in the 1850’s when Edwin
C. Litchfield, a lawyer and railroad executive, began developing
industry along the Gowanus Canal. After the Civil War, he sold off his
holdings near what is now Prospect Park, and developers built ornate
brownstones as summer homes for Manhattan’s wealthy.

During the first half of the century, the slope was a topographical
social ladder, with the working-class occupying modest rowhouses at the
bottom of the hill near Fourth Avenue and the rich living near the
park. It deteriorated during World War II when speculators bought up
private homes and turned them into rooming houses for workers at the Brooklyn
Navy Yard. In the 1950’s, the remnants of the upper-middle class
migrated to the suburbs and many buildings were left abandoned. Urban
”pioneers” moved in during the 60’s, buying dilapidated brownstones
for as little as $15,000, and they began the renewal that still is in
progress today. GAZETTEER Population: 65,202 (1980 census) Median
family income: $15,974 (1980 census) Rush-hour commutation: 30 minutes
to midtown via the D, M, Q or B trains from Seventh Ave. at Flatbush
Ave., 2 or 3 trains from Grand Army Plaza, or the F train from Seventh
Ave. and Ninth St. 20 minutes by car via Flatbush Ave. to the Manhattan
Bridge or the Gowanus Expressway to the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel. Median
town-house price: $750,000 Median co-op price: $195,000 Median rent:
$1,200. Public-school reading scores: P.S. 321 is 85th out of 613 New York City
grade schools. Councilmen: Abraham G. Gerges (D.-L.), Stephen DiBrienza
(D.). Historic building: The Montauk Club at Eighth Ave. and Lincoln
Pl., a men’s club built in 1891 in the style of a Venetian Gothic
palazzo. Its name is reflected in its varied Indian motifs

LAURIE ANDERSON READ ALLEN GINSBERG POEMS LAST NIGHT

So I got to hear Laurie Anderson read this poem by Allen Ginsberg at the Beat Celebration at the 92nd Street Y and you didn’t because no one wanted the extra tickets I had. Memoirist Joyce Johnson, poet Hettie Jones, author and photographer Ann Charters, and archivist Bill Morgan were great, too.

Song  

        The weight of the world
        is love.
        Under the burden
        of solitude,
        under the burden
        of dissatisfaction
        the weight,
        the weight we carry
        is love.
        Who can deny?
        In dreams
        it touches
        the body,
        in thought
        constructs
        a miracle,
        in imagination
        anguishes
        till born
        in human–
        looks out of the heart
        burning with purity–
        for the burden of life
        is love,
        but we carry the weight
        wearily,
        and so must rest
        in the arms of love
        at last,
        must rest in the arms
        of love.
        No rest
        without love,
        no sleep
        without dreams
        of love–
        be mad or chill
        obsessed with angels
        or machines,
        the final wish
        is love
        –cannot be bitter,
        cannot deny,
        cannot withhold
        if denied:
        the weight is too heavy
        –must give
        for no return
        as thought
        is given
        in solitude
        in all the excellence
        of its excess.
        The warm bodies
        shine together
        in the darkness,
        the hand moves
        to the center
        of the flesh,
        the skin trembles
        in happiness
        and the soul comes
        joyful to the eye–
        yes, yes,
        that’s what
        I wanted,
        I always wanted,
        I always wanted,
        to return
        to the body
        where I was born.


       

SOLD AND SAVED: BROKEN ANGEL SAYS GW

Gowanus Lounge has the Broken Anel story:

It’s official, the Clinton Hill landmark, Broken Angel, has been sold and will be developed as condos. Creator Arthur Wood will work to design the new development. The move toward a sale had been reported over the last two weeks. The new figure in the Broken Angel saga is Shahn Andersen
(although an email from Chris Wood that arrived at midnight refers to
him as "Shaun" Andersen). An empty lot next door will also be developed
as "arts space." Mr. Wood says he feels it is the "best opportunity" to
work on the design and keep the "spirit and details of Broken Angel
intact." We assume that is Mr. Andersen with Mr. and Ms. Wood in the
photo from onebadapple

above. Here is the full text of Mr. Wood’s statement:

VIDEO GAME STORE HELD UP

I’m guessing that the store the Brooklyn Paper talking about is Game Stop. What people will  do for an X-Box.  By Lilo H. Stainton.

Two men with a gun stole nearly $3,000 in video games and $1,600 in
cash from a Seventh Avenue store and left the clerk tied up in the back
when they fled on Jan. 7, police said.

The 21-year-old clerk said the pair wandered into the store, at
Garfield Place, at 10:40 pm. As they browsed the games, one asked about
prices.

“How much is the Nintendo?” he asked.

But the second man had other plans. “I want an Xbox 360,” he insisted.

When the clerk went to the back room to fetch the device, the thugs
swung into action. One blocked his return to the floor, with a gun
drawn. He grabbed the game, and several others. But before they left,
the pair forced the victim to the bathroom and tied him up with duct
tape.

DO YOU WANT TICKETS TO BEAT GENERATION CELEBRATION AT 92ND STREET Y TONIGHT

I have two tickets to A 50th Anniversary Celebration of the Beats with Laurie Anderson, Ann Charters, Joyce Johnson, Hettie Jones and Bill Morgan at the 92nd Street Y tonight at 8 p.m.

In honor of the 50th anniversaries of two major works from the Beat era—Allen Ginsberg’s Howl (1956) and Jack Kerouac’s On The Road (1957)—writers and scholars gather to celebrate this influential movement. Recordings of Mr. Ginsberg are featured.

Tickets are $18. each. But I will give you a great DEAL if you want them. Email me: louise_crawford@yahoo.com

Pick them up on Third Street.

WHAT’S UP WITH SNOOKY’S?

A reader writes,

“What’s up with Snooky’s? “It was closed Friday and Saturday Yesterday, the windows were covered with brown paper. There are no signs. Two thoughts cross my mind: it’s going out of business or it’s been closed by the Health Department, but this is speculation on my part.”

I noticed that Snooky’s was closed and wondered if it was temporary or forever. If Snooky’s goes — that’s it. Snooky’s NEEDS to be on Seventh Avenue. It’s been there forever. We even went there once in 1992.

It’s a sports bar. A real bar. A party space. A repository of Park Slope history. It’s gotta stay. That’s all I can say. It’s gotta stay.

COULD IT BE THAT THEY’RE RENOVATING?

PARALLEL PLAY AT BARNES AND NOBLE: Tuesday at 7:30 p.m.

Park Slope writer, Thomas Rayfiel, got a great review in People Magazine of his new book "Parallel Play".

(I knew there was a good reason to get People this week. Dang. I also wanted to read about the new thing between Scarlett Johanson and Justin Timberlake).

I don’t have that review at my disposal (please send if you have it). But Publisher’s Weekly had this to say:

Rayfiel’s fourth novel is a dark, hit-and-miss snapshot of young
motherhood. Eve, now 27, is overwhelmed: her unexpected pregnancy
resulted in marriage to older doctor Harvey Gabriel and ambivalence
about caring for Ann, her seven-month-old daughter. Eve is a far cry
from the supermoms she encounters at the park ("Ow! You little bitch!"
she snaps when Ann bites her breast), and her relationship with Harvey
has cooled…

Rayfiel is reading at the Seventh Avenue Barnes and Noble this Tuesday at 7:30 pm. Anyone want to join me? Trust me, this is THE book for your book club. It’s really good — and great for discussion.
 

THE RABBI RUNS FOR HIS HEART

Here’s a lovely post from Rabbi Andy Bachman posted on his Brooklyn Jews’ blog. The Rabbi will be at today’s interfaith service in honor of Martin Luther King at Old First at 4 p.m.

On my way out today to do a run in the park, I got a call from the
front door that someone needed to see me. As I approached the security
desk at shul, there was a skinny, elderly woman with a big gold cross
on her neck and she had cornered one of our maintenance men with what
seemed to be a pretty animated monologue about miracles.

A live one, I thought.  Just my kind. 

“I’m
the rabbi,” I said, and she pivoted with enthusiasm toward me and began
asking me various theological questions like, “Can miracles happen? Is
God good to the Jews? Do you think I have special powers?” Who was I to
say “no?”

So we stood and spoke for a while. I’d say she was a
bit frayed mentally; together in some ways, unwound in others; in
mediocre health; strong and resourceful; funny and sad. She grew up in
the neighborhood and now lives in a nursing home on the other side of
Park Slope. I promised to go and find her sometime next week for a
longer conversation.

Find out what happened next here.

EXPLORING BROOKLYN

I ventured out of provincial Park Slope today and went to the Best Buy Store on Bay Parkway to buy a flat screen television for our Babysiterrandsomuchmore.

And that’s not all. I took the B6 bus on Cropsey Avenue to 86th Street and Cropsey, where there’s and elevated D-train station. Before getting on the train, I went to an amazing middle eastern eatery and had a hummus pita sandwich, which was excellent. A television was tuned to a belly dancing tournement and the owner walked a customer’s small baby around. Once on the train I rode and rode and rode until we got to 36th Street where I could change for the R-train and home to Ninth Street and Fourth Avenue.

A PIANO FOR OSFO

Yesterday, we bought OSFO an electronic keyboard that really looks like a piano at The Guitar Center. Hepcat, Teen Spirit, and I were at the store returning Teen Spirit’s right-handed electric guitar for a lefty.  While there, we checked out the keyboards.

And there it was.

Not cheap or anything — it was a reasonably priced floor model of a Casio with 88 weighted keys and the look and feel of a very small piano. The most important thing: the weighted keys.

Hepcat wanted to get a portable keyboard but I liked this one for its faux piano look. It really played into my fantasy that a home should have a piano — not a keyboard on an ironing board type of stand.

It wasn’t really a price thing. Hepcat thought the portable keyboard would be great "in case OSFO  starts a band or something. It’ll be easier to move," he said.

But I was thinking — traditional piano, piano bench, a metronome sitting on top… Of course this thing has an electronic metronome and over 60 sounds. It’s pretty high tech.  But within a traditional-looking piano body.

What can I say, I grew up with a grand piano in the foyer of our Upper West Side apartment. It was a Knabe, given to my grandparent’s when they were married in 1920. My sister took piano lessons from an old woman named Mrs. Halstead and my father played a made up kind of atonal jazz and his take on the Goldberg variations.

Hepcat left it up to me "and my vision of what I wanted," he said. We had the piano delivered and it arrived less than two hours later. Not without a crisis. The delivery guy left the power supply back at the store and there was no manual.

But we got all that ironed out and within an hour or so, OSFO was practicing for her Thursday lesson. There’s a quiet switch on the piano so we’re hoping not to disturb our neighbors.

OSFO has been wandering over to the piano a lot, picking out her music, getting ready for her first recital in a month.

It’s just the way I always wanted it to be…

MY FATHER’S BIRTHDAY

My dad’s birthday went without a hitch. Which is a good thing. We always say that momentous things happen on his birthday.

In 1989, Hepcat and I announced our engagement at the Gotham Restaurant. Before we got around to it, we nearly walked out because the service was so bad and my father asked if there was a mutiny in the kitchen. Fortunately we stayed. They gave us free champagne and Hepcat made the announcement at dessert.

In 1990, while dining in a restaurant on Spring Street, the Gulf War broke out and we taxied home to Brooklyn to watch the invasion of Kuwait on television.

Recent years have been more subdued. We had a festive meal at Mario Batali’s Lupa for dad’s 75th. A birthday dinner at 360 in Red Hook was especially nice.

Usually, the temperatures are much lower and his birthday is a cozy night in from the cold. Last year, we gave him a down jacket from Brooklyn Industries, which he loved. Unfortunately it didn’t fit and good old Brooklyn Industries wouldn’t exchange it (FINAL SALE ITEM).

Tonight we ate in a new French place in Brooklyn Heights on Henry Street. The joint was packed and the food was good. We gave my dad a book of photographs of Katrina and a book of Tiepelo’s work published by the Frick Museum. He was happy. MiMa Cat gave him $100. to make a Pick-6 bet with — as in six horse races in a row.

Back at their apartment, we talked about the state of the world, Iraq, and the need to impeach George W. Bush. We listened to Anita O’Day scat sing and ate bread pudding from Sweet Melissa’s.

All in all, an unmomentous night. And that’s always a good thing.

By the way, DAD: Happy Birthday!

PURE POETRY FRM ARIELLA COHEN

296485018_ee308e297d
Gowanus Lounge thinks that Ariella Cohen’s piece this week in the Brooklyn Papers about the Revere Sugar Plant is pure poetry. I agree. Kudos to Ariella Cohen for such evocative writing. Photo by Soupflowers.

At the Revere Sugar refinery on the new gold coast of
Red Hook, the high ceiling is a silver dome over the South Brooklyn
waterfront. Look past the tree growing in that window and see how the
Statue of Liberty shines on the water, see the skylines of Manhattan to
the north and Sunset Park to the south.

To be inside a factory on the verge of demolition is like visiting a
place of worship emptied by earthquake. The ceilings are high.
Unfiltered sunlight washes over everything: chairs that once held
people, stray leather shoes, a suit jacket, ink-stained ledgers,
bashed-up books. A sapling grows in the arch of a broken, scroll-shaped
window.

At the Revere Sugar refinery on the new gold coast of
Red Hook, the high ceiling is a silver dome over the South Brooklyn
waterfront. Look past the tree growing in that window and see how the
Statue of Liberty shines on the water, see the skylines of Manhattan to
the north and Sunset Park to the south.

BROOKLYN PAPER: THEY’VE GOT A BRAND NEW BAG

I got this exciting note in my in box today from Gersh Kuntzman, the editor-in-chief of the Brooklyn Paper. Got that? Brooklyn Paper—singular.

Last week, we unveiled a stunning Web site. This week, it’s jam packed with action. Here goes:

1. 94 year old guy EVICTED! He’ll be homeless by next week. Says he’ll sleep in his Buick. Only in New York, kids, only in New York:
2.
The Stoop: The Paper’s NEW neighborhood feature, which (for now) only
appears as a concise unit in our five separately zoned editions (it’s
GORGEOUS; I hope you’ll check it out). For now, here are the separate
links from each page (man, it’s a lot of news and features, so hold
onto your mice!):
 a) Fort Greene: Liquors gives up the ghost: http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/30/2/30_02liquors.html
 b) Bay Ridge: The PLO on the move? http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/30/2/30_02plo.html
 c) South Slope: A war of words, and more, on 16th St: http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/30/2/30_02condowar.html
 d) Park Slope: Rev. Liz speaks about the sale of her church garden: http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/30/2/30_02gethsemane.html
 e) Red Hook: Inside the Revere Sugar factory (no, really, inside!): http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/30/2/30_02sugarplant.html
 f) Fort Greene: The Baby invasion spreads: http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/30/2/30_02babies.html
 g) Brooklyn Heights: A wild charge of anti-Semitism at a Kosher restaurant: http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/30/2/30_02bagel.html
 h) Bay Ridge: Al Gore teaches our columnist’s babysitter a thing or two: http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/30/2/30_02algore.html
 i) Brooklyn Heights: Housing Works to open Montague Street thrift store: http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/30/2/30_02fishseddy.html
3. The Rushkoff mugging: Our take:
4. Smartmom weighs in on people who leave Brooklyn:
5. Payback isn’t always a bitch: Andrews lands job with Spitzer:
6. Global warming in Brooklyn: Our editorial cartoonist’s take:
7. Editorial: The Paper calls it like it sees it: Brooklyn Bridge Park is still no park.

THE O.C. IS ENDING: ONLY 6 MORE EPISODES

Features_pic_1
Tonight I found out that there are only 6 more episodes of The O.C. That’s it. Kaput. It’s over. Needless to say, this girl from Kings County will really miss her dopey TV friends from Orange County.

The O.C. is my weekly does of dumb television. And I look forward to it. So much. Thursday is O.C. night. OSFO and I watch it together. I am, like, so completely sad about the fact that it’s ending.

Why you might ask? Well, er, ah, uhhh…

For some reason, I am very attached to the characters. I think the show is funny. The nasty characters are satisfyingly nasty. The cute characters are really, really cute (I have a crush on Ryan, pictured left). There’s some good acting. Some good writing. Some ridiculously bad writing. Some pretty bad acting.

I love that ditzy, crazy Taylor is going out with my Ryan. I love that Taylor speaks French and was briefly married to a French intellectual (who wrote a bestselling book about their sex life).

Ryan is the oh so troubled one. His great love, Marisa, died last season. He’s a child of the streets. A little bit tough. A little bit tongue-tied. Estranged from both parents, he was adopted by a rich lawyer and his wife. He’s raw. He’s shy. He’s hurtin’. He’s cute.

1280x960_rachel
I love Summer and her transformation from Newport Beach girl into envionmental activist at
Brown University until she gets kicked out for freeing the rabbits in
the science lab. And she keeps one and names it Pancake.

1280x960_adam
I love funny, shy, comic-book artist Seth who is Jewish and in love with Summer.

I love Peter Gallagher playing a Jewish super lawyer, super dad. Plus, he did a great Jerry Lewis imitation tonight.

1280x960_kaitlin
I love Kaitlin for her utterly bitchy, "too cool for school", utterly debased and debauched high school attitude.

And then there’s Julie, the queen of mean. Heck, she’s running a
male (twenty-something men for middle-aged women) prostitution ring out
of the office she shares with too-good-to-be true-Kirsten. Yes,
Kirsten, the most plastic character on the show. Wise, womanly, above
the fray…

Whoa. Whoa. Wait a minute, Kirsten used to have a drinking problem
and went to rehab (that’s when I first started watching. She has
backstory, I forgot).

Wouldn’t you miss these characters, too. If you read The O.C. message boards, most fans think the show went to hell after Marissa died. This season’s plots have been very off the wall. The ship is definitely going down and some are glad that they’re ending the misery.

But what about: THE SOUNDTRACKS!!!

 

THE FOURTH GRADE TESTS AND MEDITATION

This year’s public school fourth graders are done — done with three days of standardized testing. The math test is in March. But for now they can just relax and give themselves a big hug.

The parents and teachers can give themselves a big hug, too. Because they’re done with months of test-prep and anticipation of THE TEST, which is important largely because it can determine entry to certain middle school. I repeat: some, not all  The kids are:

–Done with having to have good nutritious breakfasts even if they’re not hungry because they’re so nervous.

–Done with having to go to sleep earlier than usual even when they’re not tired because they’re so nervous.

I ran into a writer friend who said, "So, are you writing about the test?" I told her that I have nothing to say and I’m not going to say it.

But that wasn’t really true.

Really. What can you say? Boo Hoo. It’s a drag to see our kids put through this rigamarole.

Perhaps there are some positives:

–Much of life is a test: so this is good preparation. Sad to say.

–Teaching to this particular test isn’t a waste — some of it is quite worthwhile. Again, it’s good preparation for things to come.

That said, I could say: Oy vey. Sigh. What a drag. Why put them through it? Does the test really measure anything important?  Should children be measured by bubble tests? Should they be stressed out at age nine about their future?

Lawyer Friend told me  that in the weeks before the test she taught the kids in her son’s class relaxation techniques and meditation breathing. She read them Thich Nhat Hanh poetry. She played soothing music. She taught them to be still.

Now that’s a life lesson worth learning.

‘DEM DEMS WILL BE IN DENVER NOT NYC

This from NY1:

New York City was passed over in favor of the Mile-High city as the
site of the 2008 Democratic National Convention in a vote Thursday.

The vote was supposed to take place last fall but was pushed back because both cities were struggling with logistical issues. 

New York City had sought the convention, but Mayor Michael
Bloomberg had said he would not commit the city to underwrite the
convention’s costs.

“We are disappointed, but as I had pointed out a number of times, these conventions have gotten very expensive,” said Bloomberg.

Bloomberg added that he felt the fundraising would fall on him, but
he has other obligations, like the World Trade Center memorial.

Denver had an enthusiastic bid, but critics say it was riddled with
logistical problems. Democratic Chairman Howard Dean says the decision
was a strategic one. The recent Democratic gains in the west have given
the party hope that it can make more progress in the region come 2008.

.