Today. What a brilliant blue sky day. Just like that day. That day. How many times did I look up and remember?

That day.

At one time it seemed like September 11th would never be a normal day. No birthday celebrations, block parties, shopping trips, normal activities on that day that was anything but normal in 2001.

But today on the streets there was the crowded energy and excitement of a typical early fall weekend. The fashion shows in Manhattan, the Brooklyn Book Festival, the Brooklyn Flea, farmer’s markets in parks around town, streets closed for block parties.

It really did feel like a normal Saturday.

So it was startling to come upon a candle on a stoop and a handmade sign which read: “There is not enough darkness in the world to extinguish the light of just one candle.”

In the years after 9/11, this was a day of mourning and service: we cried, we sat quietly remembering our friends, our city; we were encouraged to do something good for others, for the world. We relived the emotion, the commotion, the revulsion of that day. The waiting, the hoping the missing would return, the wondering if there really were people in those “voids”.

Who can forget the way the city smelled in the days and  months after, when people searched the site for the remains of their friends?

And the first anniversary, the solemn intonation of the voices reading the names of their loved ones.

We didn’t think our city would ever be the same. We didn’t think we’d ever stop waving at firetrucks. We didn’t think we’d ever really relax on bridges, tunnels and trains…

It’s not that we’ve forgotten, it’s that we’ve gradually moved along despite our ever repeating memories of that day and all that came after.

But all it takes is a brilliant blue sky day to remember that which we can never forget.

Understanding Search & Online Marketing.
September 15th – October 20
Wednesdays 6:45-9:45
Location: 475 Park Ave South, New York City

Gracey Newman is the instructor for this very worthwhile course. She and I were on panel together along with Jessica Cohen (editor of Jezebel) at the Newswomen’s Club of NY back in June. She is going to cover a lot of Marketing topics from Basic SEO, Social Media, Blogging and more.

Trust me you will learn a lot in this course! The goal of the course is for you to apply what you learn immediately. So it will be great for professionals who are already working.

This year the Brooklyn Arts Council decided to do a poetry event for their annual September 11th Memorial Project. Last night at the PS Bookstore in DUMBO there was a reading of poems by Brooklynites on the experience of 911 and the process of remembering and memorializing it. This morning, an article in the New York Daily News described the project as a way to help a nation heal and move on—but “never forget”:

Howard, a lawyer living in Downtown Brooklyn at the time of the attack, decided others shouldn’t forget it, either – so she put it into verse, penning lines such as: “our eyes drawn over there/to the broken skyline./a reminder of why we/walk away from Manhattan.”

“It’s important to document that history, as tragic and horrible as it is,” she said. “With words and poetry and stories, you really get inside the head of the people that experienced it.”

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

If it’s Tuesday it must be neighborhood day on the Bklyn Bloggage:

Police swarm Sheepshead Bay station for armed robberty: Sheepshead Bites

Community leader arrested for theft: Bushwick, BK

Kindergarten classes are full: Effed in Park Slope

Williamsburg street art: NY Shitty

Paradise at Proteus Gowanus: Pardon Me for Asking

Picture perfect West Indian Carnival: Carribean Life

Yeshivah of Flatbush: Brit in Brooklyn

Find a job in Brooklyn: McBrooklyn

The first day back after the summer. It always begin with a SIGH. The end of summer, the gradual beginning of fall. A transition from one kind of energy to another. The Jewish high holy days mark the end of one year and the beginning of a new one.

On Wednesday night Rosh Hashanah begins and one week later we Jews revisit the sins of the past year with the Yom Kippur fast.

The shofar will sound.

School schedules resume, energy levels quicken, the weather changes (or it doesn’t); it’s time to buy new shoes for school, notebooks, pencils. Even if you don’t have children or aren’t a student that beginning of school schedule is hard to forget.

Today, the day is kind of a start your engines kind of day. Fall ahead.

“How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being Young and Arab in America,” by Moustafa Bayoumi, an associate English professor at Brooklyn College, is this year’s “common reader” at Brooklyn College (a book give to freshmen and transfer students at the beginning of the year to offer them a shared reading experience).

At BC, the books are typically set in New York City and written by authors, who are available to speak on campus. Past books included: Frank McCourt’s “Angela’s Ashes” and Jonathan Safran Foer’s “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.”

It sounds like an interesting book. Maybe everyone in Park Slope should read this book too?

So sad to read about the death (and the horrifying circumstances surrounding it) of 11-year-old Briana Ojeda, who was with her mother en route to the hospital Friday when their car was pulled over by an officer who refused to help.

Yesterday a funeral mass was held at St. Francis Xavier Church in Park Slope, Brooklyn. A horse-drawn carriage accompanied by a police escort brought Ojeda’s coffin to the steps of the church.

So sad. Briana died last Friday of an asthma attack

Carmen Ojeda, Brianna’s mothers, says that she was driving the wrong way down a one-way street in Boerum Hill to rush her daughter to Long Island College Hospital, when she was stopped by a police officer, who stopped her car. The mother cried for help for daughter who was having a severe asthma attack. He claimed he did not know CPR (note:  all city police officers are trained in CPR).

Eventually, the officer did take the Ojedas to the hospital, but by driving behind them with his lights on. Briana, who was set to start sixth grade in a few days, died at the hospital about an hour later.

According to the NYPD, Officer Alfonso Mendez, 30, of the 84th precinct was identified as the man involved in the incident.

Police say witnesses were able to identify Mendez, who has been on the force for five years and works out of the 84th Precinct, as the officer who failed to help Briana.

Sources say he was suspended without pay Tuesday for failing to take proper police action. An internal affairs investigation is underway.

Thanks to Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn for this information about mosquito spraying tonight:

According to a notification issued on 9/1/2010 at 4:00 PM, the Department of Health will be spraying for mosquitoes to help prevent West Nile Virus from 8 PM on 9/2 until 6 AM on 9/3 in the following Brooklyn zip codes:

11210,11214, 11223, 11224, 11229, 11230, 11234, and 11235.

Department of Health recommends that whenever possible, stay indoors during spraying. Go to http://www.nyc.gov/health or call 311 for details.

Yup. We knew that the Manhattan-bound lanes of the Brooklyn Bridge were closed nights and some weekends due to repairs but for some reason we didn’t realize it was closed the other way, too.

The schedule of night-time and weekend closures is complicated so you better check the NYC DOT site for updates so you don’t get screwed like we did last night.

At 3AM after our 14 hour drive from Chicago (accomplished in one day, mind you) we wanted to drive across the beautiful Bridge, a visually stunning way to enter Brooklyn at night.

Okay, I begged Hepcat to take the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel but no, he wanted to fill his eyes with a gorgeous view even after such a long trip. But it was closed Brooklyn Bound (which surprised us).

We ended up taking the FDR to Houston Street, going down Allen Street…and finally made it onto the Manhattan Bridge…

After 1400 miles of driving over the last few days what’s a couple more miles.

For those who don’t know, the Manhattan bound side of the Brooklyn Bridge be closed nights and some weekends. Like I said, check the DOT schedule for details

Continue reading Crossing into Brooklyn Last Night at 3AM →

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

Lucky penny paintings: Pardon Me for Asking

Breast feeding in public: Effed in Park Slope

Shane the repo man: Bushwick BK

Another Walgreens gone: Sheepshead Bites

No cabbies to Brooklyn: Brownstoner

Inside the mysterious world of Trader Joe’s: McBrooklyn

There goes the neighborhood: NY Shitty

The Coney Island Illusicination: Amusing the Zillion

Seems like everyone, I mean EVERYONE, is talking about bed bugs. Finally, the  EPA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have weighed in on what seems to be a rampant problem in NYC.

According to the NY Times, they have issued a  joint statement on bedbug control.  “It was not, however, a declaration of war nor a plan of action. It was an acknowledgment that the problem is big, a reminder that federal agencies mostly give advice, plus some advice: try a mix of vacuuming, crevice-sealing, heat and chemicals to kill the things. It also noted, twice, that bedbug research “has been very limited over the past several decades. Ask any expert why the bugs disappeared for 40 years, why they came roaring back in the late 1990s, even why they do not spread disease, and you hear one answer: “Good question.””

In the statement, however, they attribute the rise in bedbugs to a variety of issues including:

–increased resistance of bed bugs to available pesticides

–greater international and domestic travel,

–lack of knowledge regarding control of bed bugs due to their prolonged absence

–continuing decline or elimination of effective vector/pest control programs at state and local public health agencies.

Read on for the actual statement…

Continue reading Everyone is Talking ’bout Bedbugs →

Since 2003, Rev. Tom Martinez has served at Brooklyn’s All Souls Bethlehem Church. He is an  active participant and organizer of the annual Children of Abraham Peace Walk.

A reporter interviewing me on Staten Island in front of a building whose ownership is disputed (the Catholic Church sold it to a local Muslim community then reneged on the sale) asked me if I had anything else to say to the people who oppose the mosque.  I don’t remember exactly what I said.  Of course a month later I thought of the perfect thing to say:

“Well, yes, there is one last thing I’d like to add.  I encourage everyone who’s opposed to the creation of new mosques or community centers to ask yourself, ‘How many Muslims do I know?’  If the answer is zero, then I’d encourage you to make an effort to actually get to know someone who’s part of a local Muslim community.  Tell them you’ve decided not to pass judgment until you meet and speak with someone from their community.  You might be surprised by how warmly you will be received and the impact the experience will have on your perceptions.”

I was at another press conference just yesterday, this one was just a few blocks away from my church here in Brooklyn. My friend Mo Razvi, the Executive Director of a local Pakistani organization called COPO had asked me to stop by.

Mo was thrust into the limelight in wake of 9/11.  Family members whose loved ones were picked up for questioning came to him for legal assistance.  At the time he was a trusted businessman on Coney Island Avenue, one of the most demographically diverse neighborhoods in the continental US and home to a large community of Pakistani-Americans.

In addition to serving as a liaison between ordinary citizens and various law enforcement agencies (he proved so helpful in these matters he was eventually asked to complete a training course offered by the FBI), he also documented over 800 hate crimes carried out against Muslims in his neighborhood and throughout Brooklyn.

Continue reading Tom Martinez: How Many Muslims Do You Know? →

The Brooklyn Eagle reports that as part of a $508 million repair project, all Manhattan-bound lanes of the Brooklyn Bridge will be closed at night beginning August 23, —from 11PM until 6AM in the morning—continuing until 2014. 2014? Is that a misprint. That’s an awfully long time.

To make matters worse: there will also be 24 weekends when the Manhattan-bound lanes will be closed all weekend.

The New York City Department of Transportation (DOT) warns motorists to “avoid the need to enter Manhattan on closure weekends.”

For pedestrians and bikers there’s good news: the center walkway will remain open.

The lanes to Manhattan closure will run from 11 p.m. until 6 a.m. Monday through Friday. Weekend closures begin at midnight and end at 7 a.m. on Saturday and 9 a.m. Sunday — except for those weekends when the Manhattan-bound lanes will be closed both day and night.

Continue reading Going to Manhattan at Night: Don’t Take the Brooklyn Bridge →

Councilman Lew Fidler’s $60,000+ side job: Sheepshead Bites

61st Precinct offering free etching: Gerritsen Beach

Strange neighbors: NY Shitty

Band most likely to start a cult: Free Williamsburg

Myrtle-Wyckoff hub gets bus upgrade: Bushwick BK

A bumper crop of Brooklyn peaches: Pardon Me for Asking

Slope needs doggie daycare?: Effed in Park Slope

Jacobs vs. Adolphe for Assembly: Ditmas Park Blog

A plaza for Kensington?: Kensington Prospect

Andy Levin’s Coney Island: NY Times

My sister, who is just back from Welfleet, heard from a reliable source today that there may be bed bugs at the Pavilion. With my Google finger I see that there’s been much reporting on this since I went away in July.

Well, it’s news to me even if it’s been reported on Gothamist and Brownstoner. I found this today on the Bed Bug Registry. It was posted on August 21, 2010.

“I tried to escape the heat two times this week. I went to the Pavilion Movie Theater. On both occasions, hours later, I had bed bug bites on my legs. I think that theater must be infested!”

Brought to you from the Feldman Family weather tower in Park Slope.

Tonight on the Gowanus:  an  evening of sleepy sonic somethings, and delicious finger-licking treats. It happens at 383 President Street across the street from the former BKLYN Yard (Gowanus)
. Doors open at 6PM. The event costs $18 at the door.

What to expect? Dreamy pop with textured guitar effects and sweet vocals, the two musicians of Asobi Seksu easily hypnotize.

Golden Triangle open with their “loud and spooky, reverb-drenched distorto girl group pop, mixing male/female vocals with gnarly surf guitar jangle,” says someone named Ken.

Greenpoint Food Market vendors will be there, selling their home-made specialties. Read on for more details about the delicious sounding food…

Continue reading Dreamy Pop with Textured Guitar and Food Vendors Outdoors →

On Tuesday, August 24th at 11am the bust of JFK at Grand Army Plaza will be rededicated and the public is invited to join local pols at the event.

Artist Neil Estern’s original bust of President John F. Kennedy was unveiled at Grand Army Plaza on May 31, 1965. It remained in place until 2002 when the Department of Parks & Recreation and the Prospect Park Alliance began a major restoration of the Plaza. The installation of a new, granite pedestal for the monument offered Mr. Estern an opportunity to resculpt his bust of the 35th President.  The new, larger and more detailed sculpture was recast in bronze at the Beacon Fine Art Foundry in Beacon, NY…

Continue reading Rededication of JFK statue at Grand Army Plaza →

I’m rarely in Brooklyn during Battle Week, the annual commemoration of the Battle of Brooklyn. So I’m excited that I might get a chance to see the Revolutionary War reenactors do their stuff.

The Old Stone House, site of the first battle of the Revolutionary War, is the epicenter of all the Battle Week activities which begin on Saturday, August 21, 11 am – 3:30 pm
 with a Battle of Brooklyn Van Tour with NYC Urban
Park Rangers. Reservations necessary as the seating is limited.

Meet at the Old Stone House, 336 Third Street @ the center of
Washington Park/JJ Byrne Playground
Reservations Necessary: 718-768-3195/info@theoldstonehouse.org For more Battle Week activities (and there are plenty) keep reading…

Continue reading Get Your Revolutionary War On With Brooklyn Battle Week →

Gosh. We’ve been away off and on for weeks. Out in California on the farm the Internet wasn’t working and that was a blessing of sorts. There’s so much going on, so much to post about. How will I ever catch up?

Start typing…

The very talented Heather Johnston of Sogood.TV, a wonderful cooking blog, has been selected as one of 15 finalists for the YouTube challenge with the Food Network. If she wins she gets a chance to audition with major casting agents of the Food Network. The finalist with the most votes wins and you can help…

Continue reading Park Slope Food Blogger in Food Network Challenge →

Now I’ve Heard Everything and I were set to have breakfast at 9 this morning at Grand Canyon but when we got there the gates were closed.

Closed? What no breakfast at the only local diner we’ve got?

So NIHE and I schlepped up to Purity and guess what: it was closed, too. A sign on the door said that there was no air conditioning but there was also a notice from the Health Department, which gave it an unsatisfactory grade. They are temporarily closed to put their house in order, no doubt.

According to McBrooklyn, “The Purity Diner on 7th Ave. in Park Slope was inspected July 27, when it received 22 violation points. It hasn’t received an official grade, but if it performs the same on its re-do, it will get a B.”

So where did we go?

Continue reading Breakfast at La Bagel →