Please stop playing rocks: Gerritsen Beach
Best sandwiches in Sheepshead Bay: Sheepshead Bites
Pigeons: NY Shitty
Why do people bully?: Bushwick BK
Now you see it, now you don’t: Pardon Me for Asking
Having sex in Prospect Park: Effed in Park Slope
Lucas Fine Foods closes: Here’s Park Slope
New public K-8 proposed: Ditmas Park Blog
Don’t leave District 13, stay and help: The Local (Ft. Greene)
Taste of Hawthorne shut down: Hawthorne Street
Brad Lander is one of many NYC City Council Members speaking out against the nomination of Cathie P. Black for NYC schools chancellor.
Over the past few days he has heard from many in Brooklyn’s 39th district (which includes Park Slope, Carroll Gardens, Kensignton, Boro Park and Windsor Terrace) who are furious about her nomination. Lander is also urging members of his district to join him and other members of the City Council on the steps of City Hall at 11 a.m. on Wednesday in support of Councilmember Jumaane Williams City Council Resolution calling on the State to deny the waiver to Ms. Black. Here is an excerpt from his email:
“As I wrote on Huffington Post the nomination Ms. Black – with no background in education, no track record of public service or knowledge of government, and no demonstrated commitment to public education – through a brazenly secret process, reeks of contempt for democracy and disregard for our kids.
“And there’s more at stake than just cronyism. Her appointment is also symbol of a critical choice we are facing: Are our public schools a place to educate well−rounded citizens for the New York City of tomorrow? Or are they the junior academy of corporate America, oriented around test−taking and the bottom line?
“So, it’s time to stand up for our schools.
“Because she has no educational experience, under State Law Ms. Black requires a waiver stating that her “exceptional training and experience are the substantial equivalent” of teaching experience and academic credentials. How anyone could make this argument with a straight face, I’m really not sure.
“Sign this petition to urge State Education Commissioner David Steiner not to grant her a waiver.“
In search of the Chancellor-to-be: City Room
Mayor’s case for Klein could hurt Black: NY Times
What’s different today from Jane Jacobs’ time: Atlantic Yards Report
State Senator Adams denies testimony on corrupt Aqueduct plan: Brooklyn Paper
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Yesterday a serious fire in South Park Slope caused major damage to 615 5th Ave, 617 5th Ave, 619 5th Ave and 255 17th Street. According to a post on City Council Member Brad Lander’s blog: “all the apartments were empty at the time of the fire and no residents were injured, but two firefighters did sustain minor injuries.”
The buildings mentioned above are all uninhabitable at this time, and at least 10 families have been displaced. According to Lander, the Red Cross was on the scene right away, and is providing temporary shelter to these families.
You can assist these families by making a donation to the Red Cross of Greater New York.
A number of businesses were also affected by this fire, including the Associated Supermarket, Judy’s Hair Salon, Marble Lounge, and the Open Source Gallery.
There’s anger all over the city about Bloomberg’s proposed appointment of Cathleen P. Black as Chancellor of the NY City Schools. A publishing executive, she knows nothing about education and herself was educated in private schools as was her children.
On Monday morning, November 15th from 10AM until 11AM there’s a press conference and rally for a new education chancellor who knows education and AGAINST the secret and rushed “corporate model” appointment by Mayor Bloomberg.
“We want the New York State Board of Regents to deny nominee Cathleen Black the waiver of education credentials that she needs to formally fill the position of Chancellor,” write Chris Owens, newly elected District Leader in the 52nd district.
“The state of New York City’s education system equires that an educator be at the helm. New York City has talented and experienced people who can do the job … and better than Chancellor Klein did. (The fact that thousands of parents have their children on waiting lists for charter schools after eight years of Klein’s work is NOT a vote of confidence in his legacy!) I will serve as the MC for the Press Conference and I am inviting parent representatives, in particular, to come and speak out. All others are welcome as well. Please keep your remarks short and, preferably, bring some printed copies for the press.”
Yesterday’s fire on Fifth Avenue and 17th Street ravaged a supermarket, homes and gutted the Open Source Gallery. The gallery sent pictures today with the caption: Open Source will live again.
The fire began in the Park Slope Associated Supermarket on Friday afternoon. Firefighters battled the flames for more than three hours. There were no casualties though some individuals were taken to a nearby emergency room.
Open Source Gallery is a South Slope store-front, project space located at 255 17th street. They describe themselves “a nexus-point between long-time residents and recent transplants, a place for art in the midst of daily life. Open Source Gallery features monthly arts programming, gallery shows, happenings, dinners, and events.”
Since opening its doors in 2008 they have presented the work of dozens of artists and organized community participatory events, including “Thrift Shop”, which transformed the Open Source project space into a bazaar during the summer, and then “Soup Kitchen”, which invited a different artist to cook a one-pot meal for the public each night last December.
It’s a cool space and they deserve our support after this terrible fire.
An OTBKB reader wrote in to report a fire on Fifth Avenue and 17th Street earlier today.
I don’t know if you’re aware of this but there is a TERRIBLE fire on 5th Avenue and 17th Street. Total destruction but, so I’ve heard…fingers crossed…nobody hurt.
It seems to have started in the grocery at noon and they still don’t have it under control. Many people lost their homes, the art gallery on the corner was destroyed. My daughter (who lives up there) just stopped by and she smelled like smoke. They can’t stay in their home tonight because it’s filled with smoke and fumes.
The Brooklyn Paper has more details. Here’s an excerpt:
A raging fire ripped through a Park Slope Associated Supermarket on Friday afternoon, closing off Fifth Avenue between 17th and 18th streets in all directions for several hours.
Firefighters were called to the fire at 12:15 pm. Three hours later, they were still battling the conflagration, which consumed most of the supermarket and was eating its way through the upper floors of the three-story corner building, according to an FDNY spokesman.
Last weekend, the Park Slope Civic Council hosted “Moving Forward on Fourth,” a walkabout to discuss the future of Fourth Avenue. Rebecca Welch’s interview with Josh Levy, Civic Council Trustee and lead organizer of the event, is on All About Fifth. Here’s an excerpt:
AF: I imagine that there is a wish list for 4th Avenue and there is a “reality” list. Setting the wish list aside for the moment, what can residents expect in the next year or two in terms of change along the Avenue?
JL: My read is that given the current state of affairs in the commercial real estate and development lending universe, I fear that no major or substantive building or development will be taking place in the next year or two—lending terms are far too prohibitive. Needed but draconian government budget cuts aren’t helping either. For the near term, we will have to make do with scaled-down (but fully cash-funded) projects less grand in scope and smaller, incremental improvements that we can implement (as a community) at little cost. The initiative to convert the 4th Street cul-de-sac west of 5th Avenue into a pedestrian mall/piazza is a good example.
It’s Friday and the weekend beckons. Here’s the best and most interesting stuff I could find. Now it’s up to you to get out there and do something. Click on read more to see it all…
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Last night I had a hell of a time getting home from 23rd Street at 9PM because there was a police investigation at Jay Street/Metro Tech (the new name of Jay Street/Borough Hall).
The F-train I was on turned into an A, which then skipped Jay Street for Hoyt-Schermerhorn. I ended up taking the G train to Seventh Avenue. The entire trip took more than an hour.
You can also go to the MTA website for their list of service advisories.
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By now you probably know that there’s going to be a new school’s chancellor and her name is Cathleen P. Black.
She’s got quite a resume—for a publishing executive that is. When it comes to education or education policy she hasn’t done much. But Mayor Bloomberg seems to think she’ll be a good leader of the Department of Education, a position one would think requires some knowledge of education.
Think again.
According to the NY Times, “she’s a tough-minded chief executive who never left her employees guessing what she wanted.”
She wrote a book called Basic Black: The Essential Guide for Getting Ahead at Work (and Life) published in 2007. Here from the publisher’s book jacket blurb: “She is the wise, funny mentor that every woman dreams of having. She was a pioneer in advertising sales at a time when women didn’t sell; served as president and publisher of the fledgling USA Today; and, in her current position as the president of Hearst Magazines, persuaded Oprah to launch a magazine. In 2006 she was named one of Fortune’s “50 Most Powerful Women in American Business” for the seventh consecutive year. Now, in the exuberant, down-to-earth voice that is her trademark, Cathie explains how she achieved “the 360° life”—a blend of professional accomplishment and personal contentment—and how any woman can seize opportunity in the workplace.”
As noted above, Black was the chairwoman of Hearst Publishing and one-time chief at USA Today, and will be the first woman to head the NYC school system, which serves 1.1 million students in over 1,600 schools.
Interestingly she nor her children ever attended public school. Born on the Southside of Chicago, she went to Catholic school and her children attended boarding schools.
Not only has Bloomberg hired an education novice to head up the largest school system in the US, he’s hired someone who’s probably never been inside a public school either.
But lets give her a chance…it’s a tough job and someone’s got to do it. I withdraw this comment I was just being glib.
This just in: Joel Klein, the NYC education chancellor, is leaving government to work for News Corp. Cathleen P. Black, the chairwoman of Heart Magazines (and former editor of USA Today) will run the NYC Department of Education.
Huh?
What is Bloomberg thinking? Why does he always choose people with no experience in education to run the city’s Department of Education?
When Joel Klein was tapped for the job by Bloomberg, he also had no background in education. He was chief executive of Bertelsmann and head of the antitrust division at the Department of Justice. He came on board in 2002 after Bloomberg got the state to give him control of the Board of Education.
Apparently Klein has been wanting to leave for some time. At the press conference he said that he signed on for two terms. Then he told the mayor he’d see him through the election. He plans to leave at the end of 2010.
Seems that Bloomberg thinks that schools should be run like businesses. Maybe that’s why he keeps selecting businesspeople to run it.
Over at Inside Schools, a NYC public schools website, the headline reads: Cathy Who? Folks are scratching their heads about Bloomberg’s selection of Black.
Clearly, she has an impressive resume: she began her career in the advertising department of Ms. magazine and went on to be the first female publisher of New York magazine and the president and chairman of Hearst magazines. She is on the boards of Coca Cola, IBM, and Harlem Village Academy, a charter school. But what in that resume prepares her to run the New York City schools?
“She is friendly, vivacious and smart,” someone who knows her told me. “She has a good feel for talent. She is a good people person and she is good at massaging egos.”
Did Bloomberg appoint her to repair the Department of Education’s frayed relations with parents, community groups, and the teachers’ union? That’s only speculation, but it seems like a possibility. Because she lacks education credentials, Black, 66, can only be approved with a waiver from the state education department. But it seems unlikely that the mayor would present her as his choice at a press conference if he had not spoken to the state first.
Big News: State Supreme Court Justice Marcy S. Friedman issued a ruling today in favor of Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB) and other neighborhood groups, criticizing the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) for “what appears to be yet another failure of transparency” in its approval of Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards project.
Justice Friedman granted the motion by DDDB and the other petitioners for reargument of her March 10, 2010 position. She held that the December 2009 Master Development Agreement should have been provided to the Court and having now reviewed that agreement, Justice Friedman found that the ESDC did not properly consider the full 25-year schedule.
HERE’S THE GIST: Justice Friedman has sent the case back to the Empire State Develope Corp (ESDC) for reconsideration, requiring the ESDC to provide a “detailed, reasoned basis for [its] findings.”
Needless to say the folks at Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn are thrilled. Says Candace Carponter, Esq, chair of DDDB’s Legal Committee:
“We are thrilled with the Court’s decision. It has laid bare the pattern of lies and deception by ESDC and Forest City Ratner that underlie this project. We have always contended that the project will take decades to complete, if ever and the supposed public benefits of affordable housing and open space would never happen. Instead we are faced with decades of developer created blight in an area that may never be redeveloped due to ESDC’s and FCRC’s malfeasance.”
Does it really matter what the high school building looks like?
In New York City, the quality and condition of educational facilities vary from school to school. They can be attractive and impressive like Stuyvesant, The Frank Sinatra School of the Arts and NEST or small and depressing like The Lab School. Some schools occupy one floor in a large, old school building.
Should any of this factor into the decision? It’s easy to get swayed by the attractiveness of a school setting. Or turned off by a neighborhood or a rundown building. But these things can be misleading. Here’s an excerpt from a column on Inside Schools called the High School Hustle about this very matter:
It’s hard to overlook the amenities – or the lack of them – when searching for a New York City Public high school. Who wouldn’t be wowed by Stuyvesant’s swimming pool, Frank Sinatra’s rooftop garden or The Harbor School’s fish tanks and stunning campus? At the same time, some of the best and most coveted high schools in the city can have drab, crowded classrooms in serious need of renovation…
Illustration by Kevin Kocses: www.kevinkocses.carbonmade.com
Yeah. It’s pretty exciting. And I’ve never even been to the Manhattan Shake Shack. But Hepcat has and he LOVED IT.
Part of Danny Meyer’s foodie empire, the hamburger, fries and shake shack made its name and fame in Madison Square Park in 2004 (pictured above). It is now crossing the bridge to Brooklyn and people are pretty darn excited.
Well, not everyone.
Sal Casaccio, owner of Tony’s Famous Pizzeria, which has been in business for 20 years, at the corner of Fulton and Adams Streets, is reportedly not too thrilled.
He told the Brooklyn Paper: “We got caught in the flood of landlords trying to bring in so-called big business — I can’t believe they’re taking this building from us,”
By now you’re probably aware of the Neighborhood Classics series organized by acclaimed SONY classical artist, Simone Dinnerstein, a win-win for classical and new music enthusiasts in Park Slope, as well as a worthy fundraiser for PS 321.
Well, she’s taken that idea on the road and is organizing high caliber musicians to help other NYC schools.
PS 142 Amalia Castro School on the Lower East Side is one of those schools. Their music department was recently cut due to recent fiscal cutbacks.
Simone Dinnerstein, friends and colleagues wanted to do something about that! That’s why they organized this Sunday special concert.
On Sunday November 14 at 4:00 PM the American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME) will perform a concert featuring music associated with New York’s Downtown new music scene, including works by Philip Glass, Phil Kline, Sarah Kirkland Snider and Nico Muhly.
Continue reading Simone Dinnerstein to Host Concert to Benefit School in Need
Tonight is the inaugural meeting of the Galapagos Futurist (and Kite Flying) Society at Galapagos Art Space. They will present futurist Dr. Dickson Despommier, of the Colbert Report, Good Magazine and The Vertical Farm, who will discuss the future of urban vertical farming.
At the New York Post you can watch a video of the heroic Park Slope shopkeeper who fought off robbers in his shop, New Star Tobacco Shop on Fifth Avenue and St. Marks Place.
Morning murder on Avenue U: Sheepshead Bites
Property owners meeting: Gerritsen Beach
Johnson Avenue reminder: NY Shitty
Sage becomes Rachel Salon: Pardon Me for Asking
Student dies in St. George fall: Brooklyn Eagle
New drips for Seventh Avenue building: Here is Park Slope
Raccoon terror alert = red: Effed in Park Slope
Harry Houdini is buried in Ridgewood: Bushwick BK
Filmmaker piles up accolades: Bushwick BK
Abstract Rhytym: Dumbo NYC
What did you do with that extra hour?: The Local (Ft. Greene)
On Veteran’s Day, November 11 at 8PM: Brooklyn Reading Works at the Old Stone House presents Writing War: Fiction and Memoir by Veterans of Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan with Matt Gallagher, author of Kaboom, Embracing the Suck in a Savage Little War, Juri Jurjevics, Roy Scranton, Philip Klay and Jacob Siegel.
The Old Stone House, the site of the Battle of Brooklyn, one of the bloodiest battles of the Revolutionary War, is an appropriate setting for this literary event, which will highlight writing by those who know war first hand. All of these writers have transformed their experience of the violence, the chaos, the devastation, pain, fear and even hilarity of war—in Vietnam, Iraq, or Afghanistan—into honest and searing prose. As Roy Scranton writes in an essay published in the New York Times that chronicles his path from youth to soldier to civilian writer in New York City “The prior four years of my life hung over my days like the eerie and unshakable tingle of a half-remembered dream — “my time in the Army” — and the sense of chronic disconnection was getting to me. I walked between two worlds: the New York around me and the Army in my head.”
Cuomo’s urban agenda: Atlantic Yards Report
C-rated restaurants hiding their grades: NY Post
Phones apps aim to fight harassment: NY Times
Pols to be towed for unpaid fines: NY Daily News
Tupper Thomas fights back at critic: Brooklyn Paper
Vito rails against his enemies: Brooklyn Paper
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Brought to you by the Feldman Family from their local weather tower.
Read the Brooklyn Ink’s report on the economy in Brooklyn now. They asked Brooklynites: How ya doin? Are we poorer than we were three years ago? Are our houses worth less? Is it more expensive than before to raise our children? Here is an excerpt from their informative report. Click here to read more.
We learned that the unemployment rate in Brooklyn is 10 percent, higher than the national average of 9.6 percent. Almost 40 percent of Brooklyn residents are receiving some kind of government income support, such as food stamps and unemployment benefits, up from 23.5 percent in 2000. Public transportation will cost more starting Dec. 30, with a single-ride MTA ticket going up to $2.50 and a 30-day pass to $104, up from the present $89. The Northeast estimate for raising a child from birth until 17 years of age is $191,490, up from $149,700 in 2005. The national estimate is $160,410, up from $139,110 in 2005. When it comes to the health of the housing market, location is the defining factor. The properties dominating the market in Williamsburg and Greenpoint are new and relatively luxurious. While western and southern Brooklyn have seen a steady increase in sales and prices, neighborhoods east of Flatbush Avenue, such as Crown Heights and East New York, are still dealing with foreclosures and dropping home values. There are 654 homes in the pre-foreclosure, auction or bank-owned stages of the foreclosure process in Bedford-Stuyvesant.
Brooklyn is blue because the Republicans took over the House and the Tea Party swept many races, here’s a little sugar with your tea: Brooklynites voted for the following Democratic winners. Go to New York 1 to see all the regional results.
Gov: Andrew Cuomo
Comptroller: Thomas DiNapoli
Attorney General: Eric Schneiderman
US Senate: Chuck Schumer
US Senate: Kirsten Gillebrand
Congress: Yvette Clarke (Dist 11)
Congress: Jerrold Nadler (Dist 8)
Conress: Nydia Velazquez (Dist 12)
State Senate: Velamanette Montgomery (Dist 18)
Sate Senate: Daniel Squadron (Dist 25)
State Senate: Eric Adams (Dist 20)
State Assembly: Joan Millman (Dist 52)
State Assembly: James Brennan (Dist 44)
State Assembly: Felix Ortiz (Dist 51)
State Assembly: Hakeem Jeffries (Dist 57)
And Green:
Gubernatorial candidates Howie Hawkins and Gloria Mattera (for Lt. governor) got 50,975 votes and Greens got their ballot lines back!
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