Bet you didn’t even know there were seven gubernatorial candidates. But there are and tonight there’s a seven-way debate in the New York gubernatorial race. You can, of course, listen to it on WNYC at 7PM and Brian Lehrer is having a live chat.

You can also watch it on TV.

Sure Democrat Andrew Cuomo and Republican Carl Paladino will have at it. But there are plenty more voices to be heard tonight. See if you can name ’em. Alright I’ll name ’em for ya:

The 90-minute debate will include Cuomo and Paladino, Brooklyn’s Charles Barron of the Freedom Party, Kristin Davis, of the Anti-Prohibition Party; Howie Hawkins of the Green Party (he’s David Pechefsky’s choice for governor), Jimmy McMillan of the Rent is 2 Damn High Party, and Warren Redlich of the Libertarian Party.

If you’re interested you can read about the five other candidates for governor at the New York Times.

Ran into an old mom friend on Seventh Avenue this morning and she told me about the Leon M Goldstein High School for the Sciences Open House tonight. It’s on the Kingsborough Community College Campus and know how to get there now so maybe me, OSFO and Hepcat will go at 6PM…

Apparently there was a burning smell in Brooklyn Heights last night. And the Brooklyn Bugle has the How ‘Bout that Smell? story this morning. Here’s an excerpt. You can read the rest at the Brooklyn Bugle:

We know now that the burning smell wafting over Brooklyn Heights last night came from a Jersey City junkyard fire.  But that didn’t stop me and Baby Fink  from thinking that the entire neighborhood was on fire during our 4am feeding (which is just an extension of the midnight feeding… can I get a witness, parents?).  Apparently we weren’t alone in our paranoia as BHB reader Lois writes…

They all are, of course. But if you’re interested in the gifted and talented programs the city’s Department of Education has to offer you might want to attend an info session tonight in Manhattan.

In order to get into programs in their local districts, students must test in the 90th percentile.  Those who test in the 97th percentile are eligible for the five more selective programs that take kids from across the city.

It’s the cough that won’t go away. First it was a sore throat, then an annoying cough, then an annoying, mucosy cough. I hate it and feel like such a disturbance.

During the screening of Vision at the Film Forum on Friday, especially the quiet parts: cough, cough.

During the live Selected Shorts program at KingsboroughPerforming Arts Center with Isaiah Sheffer, Tony Roberts and Marcia Tucci: cough, cough.

In my friend’s car, at Quercy, that French bistro on Court Street. Still coughing.

When is this annoying cough going to go away? Cough, cough.

This week OSFO and family will tour the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts High School in Queens, which was founded by Tony Bennett and Susan Bendetto.

Opened in 2001, the school offers programs in the arts and academics. Approximately 800 students attend the school which is near Kaufman Studios and across the street from the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens.

The facility includes the 800-seat Tony Bennett Concert Hall, black box theatres, dance studios, art studios, vocal and instrumental studios, with recording and practice rooms, as well as, a film studio with editing suites.

Will tell you all about it after our tour. In the meantime you can read about my tours of Brooklyn Latin, Edward R. Murrow High School, Midwood High School and the NYC iSchool.

Police officer shot in East New York: Brooklyn Ink

Who should be selling Green Cards: Noticing New York

Is Atlantic Yards on schedule: AY Report

Five other candidates for governor: NY Times

Abdication of judicial responsibility on eminent domain: Develop Don’t Destroy

BQE viewed as backward progress: Brooklyn Ink

Prospect Park bike lane still controversial: Brooklyn Paper

Brought to you by the Feldman Family from their local weather tower.

Here’s an excerpt from Bococaland,where you can read the full story:

So long Continuum Partners. That’s what Long Island College Hospital had to say this week after it finalized a merger with major public university and medical center, SUNY Downstate Medical Center. You may remember a few years ago, when LICH was desperately trying to keep open its pediatric unit and starting to sell real estate to keep itself afloat (how about the building at 110 Amity St., which is still sitting empty after townhouses were nixed?). Supposedly, this new agreement has changed the entire landscape for our local institute, starting with the HEAL-NY grant of $40 million, which will be issued to support the merger, supplementing a $22 million HEAL-NY grant announced earlier.

Today from 12:00 PM until 5:30 PM enjoy the Red Hook Community Farm Harvest Festival, a celebration of urban agriculture, youth empowerment, and sustainable living! Come down to Red Hook Community Farm, meet up with your neighbors, celebrate the bounty of the season, eat delicious food, watch incredible performances, and learn how to build a stronger, healthier, more vibrant, just and sustainable city.

Get this: they’ve got a great pumpkin patch, Charlie Brown and lots of kids activities including face painting and live animals to pet, a farmers market featuring locally grown produce and hand made products, live music, cooking demonstrations and a center for sustainable living and learning.

Look here, look here: the Know It Express will start nonstop service between the U Street Metro in Northwest Washington and the Park Slope area of Brooklyn (more specifically, Flatbush Avenue and Fourth Avenue near the Atlantic Avenue Long Island Rail Road station).

The cost is $25 one way and $45 round trip with a reservation, or $30 for walk-ups. For now, the buses will run Friday through Monday.

The bus leaves from Washington at 8AM on Sunday, Monday, Thursday and Friday. It returns from Brooklyn on the same days at 5:30PM.

According to the website the buses have free wi-fi, plug-ins and more leg room, lap top borrow service, special student fares, deals on local dining and free bike transport.

Nice.

Release Party for Insight Magazine Issue 3

Saturday, October 16 from 7-11PM at Triomph Fitness (540 President Street between 4th and 3rd Avenues) celebrate the release of the third issue of INSIGHT: Volume III. View work from issues one and two of the current volume of INSIGHT Magazine. This art experience will feature work by Bishop203, Laura Galvin, Victor Giganti, Michael Malik Jones-Robinson, Jamie Killen, Rick Midler, Michael Sorgatz, John Tebeau, Johanna Treffy, Alejandro Guzman, Bud Ramsay, Maria Baraybar, Peter Patchen, Spring Hofeldt, Cat Celebrezze, Ward Yoshimoto, Steve Riley, Brian Dupont, James Chen-Feng Kao, Jisoo Lee, Genesis Tramaine and more.

Feast on delicious homemade Brooklyn ice cream from Phinizy & Phebe (free scoop of ice cream to the first 11 people), gourmet rice crisps from riceworks and refreshing beverages from Teany. Additional sponsors include Art in Brooklyn, Creative Times, Triomph Fitness and Fresh Industries. F.O.K.U.S. uses the arts as a tool for education, entertainment and empowerment. Since 2003, we have been creating exciting spaces for people to explore creativity and widen their appreciation for the arts. To learn more about F.O.K.U.S., our past events and why we believe art is what unites us. Read their  overview and press kit.

Architecture and Design Film Festival in Tribeca

October 14-17 at the Tribeca Cinemas, the first US film festival celebrating the creative spirit of architecture and design featuring a wide selection of feature length films, documentaries and shorts. Also: discussions with filmmakers, architects and designers about the design process, architecture in film, and the brilliant designs we see and use every day.

Movies

Starts Friday at BAM: You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger directed by Woody Allen.

Also at BAM: The Social Network, The Town and Wall Street Money Never Sleeps

Through October 26 at Film Forum: the stunning Barbara Sukowa stars in Vision, a new film about the 12th century mystic and composer Hildegarde Von Binghen directed by the great Margarethe von Trotta.

Saturday, October 16 at 2, 4:30, 6:50, 9:15pm at BAMCinematek: Clean directed by Olivier Assayas (part of the Post-Punk Auteur: Olivier Assayas festival)”Clean is one of the few fiction films to evoke realistically the grubby texture of existence for second- and third-tier rock celebrities crumbling under a combination of fading renown and drug addiction.” —The New York Times

Art

At Proteus Gowanus (543 Union Street, Brooklyn): Paradiso Contrapasso. “In Dante’s Inferno, Paradiso Contrapasso distinguishes each sinner by making his or her punishment uniquely appropriate to the committed sin, so that every soul inhabits a Hell all its own. Observatory encouraged artists to consider divine comedic retribution in all of its possible representations. The emphasis is on “Divine” and “Comedy”, and on our superstitious fear of getting what we wish for!”

Saturday, October 16 7PM – 11PM at Triomph Fitness (540 President Street, Brooklyn) launch party and art show for Insights Magazine.

Literary

Friday, October 15 at 7PM until 10PM at St. Francis College, Callahan Center (182 Remsen Street) in Brooklyn Heights: Poets & Passion provides a forum for celebrated poets and novelists, emerging New York City writers, spoken-word artists, and the general public to share their creativity, experiences, and insights. The fifth season kicks off with National Book Award nominee Marlon James and Rona Jaffe Award winner Tiphanie Yanique. Suggested donation is $5.

On Saturday, October 16, at 8:00 PM at Kingsborough Performing Arts Center (KPAC) founder of Symphony Space, Isaiah Sheffer, will take the stage with a special Selected Shorts program designed for KPAC with Tony Roberts and Marcia Tucci.

Mad Men Finale Party

Sunday, October 17 at 9PM at The Bell House in Gowanus presents an event for Mad Men junkies: Dress up in your vintage wear and get drunk on whiskey while watching the final episode of Mad Men season four. If you dress up you’ll be automatically entered to win a prize. Important note: seated tickets are sold out – the reduced admission ticket link above is for STANDING ROOM ONLY.

Music

Saturday, October 16 at 9PM The Jewish Music Cafe on 9th Street in Park Slope presents Josef Karduner

Up and Coming October 24:

On October 24 Brooklyn Indie Market presents the third annual Steampunk Day at the Dumbo Loft (155 Water Street, Dumbo) from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Steampunk Shopping and Fashion Show at 4 p.m. $20 Victorian/Steampunk portrait sitting with vintage camera by Tsirkus Fotografika $5 entry. Take the F train to York Street Station and travel to a re-envisioned Victorian age that features retrofuturistic fashion, brass and copper clockwork, ray guns, jetpacks, bustles and inventions that go far beyond 19th century technology. Think steam-powered mechanical wonders, brass-fitted computers, dirigibles, goggles, airships, and clockwork inspired accoutrements.

The Brooklyn housing market is on the rise.   The market report, which is available as a PDF, was produced by Prudential Douglas Ellman Real Estate conjunction with Miller Samuel, shows that the average sale prices increased by more than 7% since last year but rates are sill well below levels that existed during the bubble years.

Good news for sellers, but bad news for those trying to crack into the expensive Brooklyn housing market. Apartments are also selling about a third faster than last year.

The average sales price is $583,790 up 7% from last year’s average price of $544,676.

While properties sold more quickly than last year the writers of the report state that the Brooklyn market still faces significant challenges:

The Brooklyn housing market quickly rebounded from the post-Lehman lows. Despit record low mortgage rates and prices well below peak levels, further improvement in the housing market is being restrained by elevated unemployment, shadow inventory and tight credit.

Today Hepcat, OSFO, Luvbud and I toured Brooklyn Latin, which calls itself “a replication” of the Boston Latin School, which is the oldest public school in the United States. The curriculum is a classical liberal arts education, that includes Latin, declamation (memorization and recitation of important texts), Socratic seminars, where students engage academic debate, and the International Baccalaureate.

Invigorating.

Hepcat said it was the kind of school he’d like to go to. Now. That said it’s not for every kid. I’m guessing if it’s right for your child you or your child will know it.

The BL students, who observe a dress code of white shirts and khaki pants (or skirts for the girls) of their own choosing, look intelligent, engaged, relaxed, energetic and enthusiastic about the school, which really seems to stress learning for the sake of being a well-rounded and educated member of the world.

That said, the school, which is one of the specialized schools requiring the Specialized High School Admissions Test (SHSAT) for admission, is college-oriented and we were told that colleges visit the school on a weekly basis during junior and senior year. The girl who led our tour said that she’s hoping to get into Harvard and that’s why she’s happy about doing the International Baccalaureate.

I expected to feel the rigor of the school but I didn’t expect the kids to be so relaxed, good humored and unpretentious.  During the Q&A at the end of the tour, a panel of kids spoke openly when asked what they found most difficult about the school:

“Getting up in the morning,” more than one kid said.

“Scheduling. There so much to do, so much to juggle: school work, classes, meetings, after-school activities and social life…”

“Freshman year it took a while to adjust to the teaching styles…”

Continue reading High School Tour Confidential: Brooklyn Latin →

On Thursday, October 21 at 8PM Brooklyn Reading Works at The Old Stone House Presents: New Plays by Brooklyn Playwrights (or three playwrights and a composer to be exact) curated by Rosemary Moore.

The Old Stone House is located on Fifth Avenue and Third Street. in Park Slope. Suggested donation of $5 includes refreshments and wine. Q&A will follow the readings.

The following playwrights will present unstaged readings of their works:

Barbara  Cassidy:   “Anthropology of a Book Club”
Joseph Goodrich:  “Mare’s Nest”
Lizzie Olesker:   10,000 SPECIES
Mary Lloyd-Butler: “Hide and Seek”

Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, along with Attorney Generals in all 50 states, is calling for a state-wide freeze on foreclosure actions from New York banks and financial institutions.

Bankers Ignored Signs of Trouble with Foreclosures, an article in today’s New York Times, outlines the egregious mismanagement of the mortgage and foreclosure process by banks.

The destabilizing effect of foreclosure adds tremendously to the stress of New York families in a city with an 8% unemployment rate.

The problem is so bad that City Councilmember James Sanders, Jr. is speaking out (in a press release) on the devastating effects that forclosure brings on families and children. Of particular concern to the Councilman is the affect of foreclosures on the performance of New York City public schoolchildren.

“Foreclosure uproots families and devastates communities. The housing bubble was particularly egregious for the predatory actions of many banks when they made these loans.  Now they’re using new and even more unscrupulous methods, such as false affidavits, to force people out of their homes.  The greed is outrageous and needs to end today.

“Kids are far more perceptive than we often give them credit for; they know when mom and dad are under severe stress from the banks, and they feel that pressure too.  When our students are worried about where they’re going to sleep at night or where their next meal is coming from, they are understandably not as focused on their school work as they should be.  We need banks and lending institutions in New York to be good neighbors, and prevent the toll that foreclosure takes on our families and children.”

Councilmember Stephen Levin (33rd district which includes Park Slope, Cobble Hill, Brooklyn Heights, Dumbo, Williamsburg and Greenpoint)  is introducing a local law to the New York City Council today that would, if approved by the majority of the Council, suspend alternate side of the street parking around film shoots.

“I am thrilled to introduce a bill that makes parking easier during film shoots. Over the last year, I have heard from residents all over the 33^rd District from Brooklyn Heights to Greenpoint, Park Slope to Williamsburg , that film shoots have created difficult to navigate parking schedules and regulations. I want to emphasize that I truly appreciate the value of local filming and I have worked hard to make sure that this bill will not create an undue burden on production companies,” Councilmember Levin said.

Vital Vox, an ambitious three day festival November 11, 12, and 13, 2010 at the ISSUE Project Room in the Park Slope/Gowanus neighborhood of Brooklyn, will explore the exciting power of the human voice in its many permutations.

The festival will celebrate composer-performers in the vocal arts who stretch  the definition of vocal technique and tradition.

Click on read more to see more details about this festival of performers with a multiplicity of influences that span Taiwan, East Timor, Slovakia, Africa, South India, and more; genres ranging from jazz, experimental, contemporary, free improvisation, “noise” music, and abstract solo opera; and themes ranging from “maintaining one’s composure”, to cinematographic music theater inspired by the life, films and death of the German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder…

I know, it happens every day. Someone up and leaves this bucolic neighborhood with its high rents, its many strollers, and its multitude of coffee shops.

But for some reason the blogs are afire with news of Daryl Lang’s reasons for leaving Park Slope. Why is that?

Well, Lang has a cool blog called History Eraser Button and he writes marketing copy for a living, has a background in journalism and, as he says on his blog, “I know a lot about the Internet.”

Bingo.

So, this guy’s well-articulated reasons for leaving Park Slope are making news today. The truth is, he’s got some interesting things to say and he says them well. And maybe he’s a little bit right. The neighborhood is changing and not for the better. He doesn’t want to be the local grouch so he’s going. I’m pretty sure people aren’t much friendlier in Manhattan’s financial district,where he’s headed. Whatever. The exodus begins. One of the most over-hyped neighborhoods in America is facing the backlash. Again.

I am leaving Park Slope because I am increasingly impatient with people too socially deficient to act like good neighbors. People who won’t spare five seconds to help an old lady. People who can’t figure out their way around without checking their iPhones. People who don’t say hi to the neighbors with whom they share a stoop. These things are getting noticeably worse. Rather than stew here and become the local grouch, I’m recognizing that I have passed my expiration date in this neighborhood. Time to exit gracefully.

When I moved to the Slope 8 years ago, the place had a reputation as a friendly neighborhood, especially as a haven for lesbians, writers and young parents. I remember walking through Prospect Park in autumn 2002 and seeing dads in fleece pullovers playing with their kids on the swings. “Those guys look like me in 10 years,” I thought, feeling as if I’d found long-term home. The kids were precocious, but there was a Lake Wobegone-style charm to this urban neighborhood where all the children were above average. Today Park Slope has a different reputation. It’s become an insane pleasure island for new parents with no adult social skills. It’s a place where it’s acceptable to be a mom or a dad and stay up until dawn drinking Jack-and-Cokes on the roof of a warehouse. You pay your dues to the Food Co-Op or the CSA not out of any sense of social responsibility, but as absolution for staying out too late on a Thursday eating wings.

David Pechefsky, who ran for City Council in the  39th district as a Green last year, is supporting Green Party candidates  Howie Hawkins for New York governor and Park Sloper Gloria Mattera for Lt. governor and he thinks you should, too

Many in Brooklyn’s 39th district (which includes Park Slope, Gowanus, Carroll Gardens, Windsor Terrace, Kensington, and Boro Park) got to know Pechefsky during the race and were impressed with his energetic and creative campaigning, his intelligence, his knowledge of local politics, his experience as a staff member in the New York City Council and his consulting work in Africa.

We spoke last week at Connecticut Muffin and he urged me to tell OTBKB readers about Hawkins and Mattera because if they get 50,000 votes it’ll make things easier in the future for the Green Party to get on the ballot in New York State, where they make third party candidates jump through hoops just to get on the ballot.

A vote for Hawkins and Mattera is a vote for a more inclusive multi-party system like in other countries. Or so says Pechefsky: “50,000 votes for governor gets you ballot status, ballot status means it is much easier to get people on the ballot in City Council and State legislature races.” In other words: a vote for a Green candidate  is a vote for Greens and that could create a regular spot for the Greens on New York ballots.

Hawkins, who lives upstate, is a Teamster, who works for UPS for a living. He’s been an organizer in movements for peace, justice, labor, the environment, and independent politics since the late 1960s.

Gloria Mattera, who lives in Park Slope, has been active in the Green Party in New York State since 2001 and has run as a Green candidate for City Council in District 39 in Brooklyn in 2001 and 2003 and in 2009 she ran against Marty Markowitz for Brooklyn borough president.

In all likelihood, this is Andy Cuomo’s year and he will win by a landslide. Nonetheless, progressive Brooklynites are afraid to vote for Hawkins and Mattera because they think it’ll be a vote for Paladino, who’s hateful homophobic remarks to a group of Brooklyn rabbis last week created a firestorm.

Continue reading A Green Governor in New York State? →

We’ll be touring Brooklyn Latin on Friday, it’s a new specialized school located in Bushwick. On the Midwood tour two parents told me that they liked it very much.

In the meantime you can read about my tours of Edward R. Murrow High School, Midwood High School and the NYC iSchool.

Say hello to Girls Like it Loud , the just-released EP from Care Bears on Fire. Now 15 and 16 years old, the three Brooklyn girls who make up the pop/punk band that originated in Park Slope, have appeared on Letterman, toured in Japan and play all over New York City now.

The new EP was 72 on the iTunes alternative album charts yesterday. it’s got five new songs including two covers: ‘Everybody Wants to Rule the World’ by Tears For Fears and ‘Red Lights’ by the Marbles.

Sarah Brumble, an editor and blogger for Atlas Obscura, an online compendium of the world’s wonders, curiosities, and esoterica, passed along a link to a piece published not too long ago by Dylan Thuras a Greenpoint-based reporter titled: “Hail No — An account of the world’s biggest, deadliest hail storms.”

My mother graduated from Brooklyn’s Midwood High School in 1943, when it was brand new. She has nothing but the fondest memories of her alma mater and she urged me to take OSFO on the admissions tour for a look.

We went. We saw.

Impressive.

Midwood appears to be a traditional, orderly, rigorous, large (4,000) urban high school with excellent facilities, strong  sciences, humanities, PSAL sports and clubs.

Big as it is, the kids who spoke to the tour said over and over that the school has a  “family-like” atmosphere and many ways to feel known through caring teachers and involvement in clubs

It’s a real school spirit kind of place where kids attend football games and other varsity sports and cheer for the home team.

Rah.

A senior from Park Slope told the group that she wanted to go to Beacon but that her mother secretly signed her up for Midwood. She couldn’t be happier as she feels that the school allowed her to grow and excel.  “I would be different in another school. In a bad way,” she said.

We also met with this year’s mayor of Midwood, a fantastic, incredibly poised kid named Jules, who is on track for a four-year scholarship at a small liberal arts college.

The tour guide and the kids spoke of the numerous opportunities available at Midwood for those who work hard and seek them out.

While it’s not one of the “specialized schools” the selective programs in the science and humanities have the feel of a gifted academy with their many Advanced Placement and College Now classes and internships. It’s all for the taking to those who thrive at Midwood.

The school is also a “zoned neighborhood school” for its local catchment (which does not include Park Slope) and admits 475 kids per class without the screening process.

Last week we toured Murrow and the two schools couldn’t feel more different. Murrow is high school from another planet. Big, with its own way of doing things, it has a fun, messy, creative feeling to it: a progressive school for 4,000 students, which is no small feat.

Midwood is more recognizable. It’s high school with a capital H. Serious, competitive and full of opportunities for the hard working student.

In an educational era where small is considered good, Midwood seems to suggest that big can work, too. For the right kids.