Mindful Walker is a blog dedicated to one woman's experience of architecture, street life, history,
and nature while walking or riding. In it, she intelligently examinies the changes in our cities,
towns, and the environment. Historic
preservation, smart growth, and the life of communities are of special interest to this blogger. She wrote to me last week and I'm so glad she did. Yesterday I ran one of her posts about Coney Island. There's lost more to read over there. Here is an excerpt from her bio.

I’ve been an explorer since my childhood in Wampum, a small town in
Western Pennsylvania, where I was blessed to grow up in a large
Italian-American family of DeMarks and Cinis (my mother’s side). My mom
encouraged my love of history. I grew up as a member of what my cousin
Phyllis calls the rare and endangered species Wampum stoop dweller (known
for spending hours sitting on the stoop of the town bank on Main Street
and observing the street life). I graduated to street crawling and
back-road exploring, after moving to New Jersey and the East Coast 30
years ago.

I’m a long-time journalist who has created MindfulWalker.com
to marry the best of reporting and feature writing with the life,
community, and immediacy of the Internet. A love of history,
architecture, people, and different places has been the connecting
thread of my career, which began in newspapers and moved on to magazine
writing, varied publishing and media projects, and ultimately online.

Some of us are wondering what happened to Gowanus Lounge? A few months back, Bob Guskind, the journalist who runs Gowanus Lounge, took a brief hiatus. But then he came back.

Now his site is missing in action. Gone. No note, No phone call. Nothing.

Needless to say, we're worried, concerned and, okay, curious.

Do you know what happened to Gowanus Lounge?

I never saw the inside of the Brooklyn Writers Space, where quite a few of my friends do their writing. So I thought this was cool. This is from Brooklyn Based today, which features a piece by Jennifer DeMerritt on writing spaces around Brooklyn. She's got nfo and pix on writing spaces in Ditmas Park and Gowanus/Park Slope. Good reading if you're looking for a place to be productive.

Silence is golden at the popular Brooklyn Writers Space,
a 2,000-square-foot facility at 58 Garfield Place in Park Slope that
provides desk carrels, internet access, printers, a roof deck, and the
all-important free coffee for serious writers. Members mute their cell
phones and computers before entering the main work room (as a member,
I’ve been sternly shushed for inadvertent computer beeps) and talk only
in the kitchen or phone room. BWS’s formula of total freedom from noise
and distraction works for many notable Brooklyn writers, and monthly
readings at Union Hall, hosted by BWS’s founder, Scott, Adkins, let you
check out the talent lurking in those quiet cubicles. Full-time
membership costs $310 per quarter.

Journalists who like BWS’s affordable space but can’t work without their phones can try Room 58, located in the Brooklyn Artists Gym
at 168 7th Street in Gowanus. Co-founded by Scott Adkins of BWS and the
Brooklyn Artists Gym, Room 58 provides file storage, research
materials, and fellow members who won’t give you the fisheye when you
need to take that call.

Brooklyn Based has a great list of recession busters. Here are some examples in the Park Slope area:

—The Dweck Center for free music, readings, and cultural events.

–the monthly First Saturday parties at the Brooklyn Museum. Those are awesome free dance parties.

–Bierkraft’s Tasty Tuesdays:
Speaking from experience, these free cheese and beer tastings are
great. Enthusiastic guest speakers, you learn something about what
you’re eating/drinking and it’s totally free.

These two about sushi and donuts came from Fucked in Park Slope:

–Bonus: Yuppie Scumbag Luxuries that FIPS can’t give up (their own Recession-inspired list you must check out too):

Sushi. But you can go to places like Park Slope Seafood and get prepackaged, yummy (but way cheaper) sushi. If you are really Ballin’ it, I recommend the volcano roll at Jpan…it’s
in a friggin’ PANCAKE. Also, it’s not on the menu, so it’s kinda like
one of those super cool bars that doesn’t have a door.

FIPS also mentioned Donuts as a recession-proof eatery.

Casacara, a fun new blog covers real estate, architecture, historic preservation and interior design in Brooklyn and elsewhere. Today she takes us on a trip inside a cool Park Slope parlor floor decorated by Zelda Victoria.

It was masterminded by decorator Linda Spector of Zelda Victoria, the longstanding, beloved fabric and wallcoverings shop on Fifth Avenue and Third Street, now closed.

This is a real service to Brooklynites looking for work. Months ago I saw listings about Ikea and Trader Joe's at McBrooklyn and told a friend about it.

He is now happily working at Trader Joe's.

Thanks McBrooklyn. Hope these listings help someone out there:

McBrooklyn's job listings.

Today over at Brooklynometry:

I didn’t know Starlings ate pork chops. I did know, from reading A Natural History of New York City by John Kiernan, that they like eating Japanese Beetles and put a big dent in the insect’s populations once they discovered the abundant larvae available at ground level. I remember seeing those metallic beetles when I was a kid. I don’t think I’ve seen one in a long time! For that matter, when was the last time I saw a telephone booth on a corner? Where is Superman supposed to change these days?

Best Livable Streets Project,  Best New Public Space, Best Pedestrian Project, Best Bicycle Project, Best Incremental Gain, Best Bus Project and more: check out the Streetsies, Streetsblog’s awards for those who contributed to livable streets in NYC and elsewhere.

Here’s some good news for dealers of antiques, architectural salvage, craft, and vinyl. Brownstoner is organizing a Flea Market in Ft. Greene.

Those interested should fill out a preliminary expression of
interest. In no way is this a firm commitment, but it will serve
as a placeholder for you should demand exceed supply of space at the Brooklyn Flea.

I knew that  Brownstoner organized a Salvage Fest in the fall but what I didn’t know is that they’re planning something even bigger for the spring. Sounds very exciting to me (this may be old news but it’s new to me. So be it).

I wonder if Mr. B. could have imagined he’d be in the flea market business one day. Interesting where blogging leads us. I can’t tell one-time event or a flea market that will be open every weekend? I have a feeling that it will be a one-time event (or an annual one).

On the heels of the success of September’s Salvage Fest event,
Brownstoner.com is launching what will be the largest flea market in
Brooklyn next April. The location? A 40,000 square foot schoolyard in
Fort Greene. The Bishop Loughlin school yard is located on Lafayette
Avenue between Clermont and Vanderbilt Avenues, positioning the flea
market just a block from "brunch row" on Dekalb Avenue and only
four subway stops from Downtown Manhattan. Our goal is to create a
destination event that gives people from all over the city yet another
reason to visit Brooklyn. We plan to put together the best assortment
of dealers across a wide range of interests, from antiques to crafts to
vinyl records; we’re also hoping to create a food court of local and
organic offerings.

Brooklyn Voice is a busy blog intended to create a platform for young Bangladeshis; to give them a voice and to give others an opportunity to learn from them and hear what they’re thinking.

Read the editor’s piece about Vox Pop

Mrs. Cleavage says she’s been hating these winter weekends:

    I’ve come to despise a weekend at home. Instead of relaxing a la casa, I get to worry about whether there will be heat or hot water.  Instead of playing with my son, I get to try to figure out how best to keep him off electronic media while I try to put out the brushfires that keep cropping up.

But I’m taking care of some housekeeping chores. Like updating my list of blogs to know about. I’ve gotten really bad about updating that list. But I just did it. YAY.

Check to see if you’re on there.

I put up as many as I could think of. But god knows I’ve forgotten tons. Please email me with your favorite blogs or any that I’ve forgotten. That list is on the far right hand side of my blog underneath the ads. Thanks.

The Love We Make has a lovely story about someone she calls. "The Smiler." He is a man with a  beautiful smile, who is always eager for a sidewalk conversation and/or a pleasant greeting.

He lives on the block she used to live on and where her children live part-time:

I lived on that block for
5 years, a mere fraction of the time The Smiler has, during that time I
must have walked down it thousands of times, through all four seasons,
carrying bundles, pushing a stroller, rushing off to work or to pick up
the kids.

Often I would see him outside his house puttering around, he
would always look up, always with that same friendly smile. He reminded
me of my father in his later years, there was something distinctly
sentimental about his look, something shy but open at the same time,his
energy seemed unrelentingly kind and loving.

I never really knew him. I
almost never stopped to talk, except when my kids were dawdling or
learning how to walk, the pace was much too slow to avoid his welcoming
glance and it seemed futile not to strike up a conversation. We mostly
talked about the kids, he knew my ex’s family for many years and would
always ask about them, eager to hear, as though their lives were a
vital part of his.

Read the rest here. 

Icky in Brooklyn doesn’t like Smartmom or OTBKB much but he does have a great list on his blog. Sort of the anti-Park Slope 100.

It’s called The Windsor Terrace 11, and it’s a great list of Brooklyn bloggers.

Read all about it here. 

Where oh where can he be asks Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn:

Well, it has been three days and he is gone. I am convinced the Wandering Stranger of Schermerhorn Street has moved on. Incredibly, since even before I first posted about his arrival on Thursday, September 20, 2007, he has been seated in just about the same spot, on the block outside the parking garage. His plastic trash bags filled with who knows what (cash ? trash ?) are still there for now, neatly piled, where he last left them, only now there are empty coffee cups and soda bottles stacked on them by passersby. Soon they will be gone.

Read more here.

Here’s an urgent message from our Pal Pete from Full Permission Living.

URGENT! Check out today’s "Domestic Dusturbances" column by Judith Warner, called: "Helicopter Parenting Turns Deadly" (http://warner.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/29/helicopter-parenting-turns-deadly/).

Here’s a quote from this very tough article: “People now feel like having a good relationship with your child means you’re involved in every aspect of your child’s life,” says Rosalind Wiseman, author of “Queen Bees & Wannabes” and “Queen Bee Moms & Kingpin Dads,” who travels the country speaking with and counseling parents, teachers and teens.

“Nothing is off-limits” now between parents and their kids, she says. “There’s no privacy and there’s no critical thinking," she writes.

This is very painful reading, and yes, these are extreme cases of the harmful effects of parental over-involvement, but please don’t excuse yourself, good parents, from using these cases to examine where on the continuum of this kind of vicarious dysfunction you fall. These over-the-top examples are only the most grotesque manifestations of a wide-spread parenting pandemic.

A whole generation of children are suffering because of it, and the worst is yet to come when these kids grow up and try to have real adult relationships in the coming decades. While there’s still time, I urge you to do the work necessary to get your own lives and let your kids grow up.

I’m surprised he didn’t have a marching band or something.

Ever hospitable, Self-Absorbed Boomer, has been waiting patiently for his 10,000th visitor. Well, the day has arrived and SAB wants to reward this good person with something very special.

SAB is run by the multi-faceted Claude Scales. The sub-head of his blog reads: Take back this pudding. It has no theme." (Attributed to Winston Churchill). "[A] delightfully named blog" (Sewell Chan, New York Times). Taxing your attention span for over two years.

From what I can discern, SAB blogger, Claude Scales, is a lit professor lawyer with a passion for sports cars, great music, baseball, college football, literature, ships, the sea, trains, astronomy, paleontology and Brooklyn. He also writes for the Brooklyn Heights Blog. All around, he’s a delightful blogger. 

Visitor number 10,000 is from Bexley, Kent, England.
You visited my blog at about 9:30 p.m. your time on 26 November. Your ISP is NTL Internet, your OS is Windows XP, and you browse with Internet Explorer 7.0. To claim your prize (a CD of vintage American R&B), please send me your snail-mail address either by comment to this post, or by e-mail (use the link on my blog profile). Congratulations!

Target? The Daily News? Anyone out there with money want to make Prospect Park all pretty for the holiday season.

What fun it was last year when all the entrances to the park were festooned with attractive LED lighting. What a lift. The LED display was such a pleasure to behold last year.

Gowanus Lounge writes today that (and I quote) "the LED display that lit up all the park entrances last year won’t be going up.
We checked on them yesterday and were told that an announcement about
Grand Army Plaza will be forthcoming from the Mayor’s office, and that
a lighting ceremony is scheduled for December 3rd."

Our friend over at GL goes on to report that it has something to do
with budgetary concerns. Understandably we’re all a little
disappointed. Last year, it was so tastefully done, not gawdy or
glitzy at all. Festive and fun are the words I would use.

LED lights, will, thankfully, grace Grand Army Plaza. But last year’s
was special because it included all corners of the park and that felt
very, well, inclusive and connecting.

So come on. Any corporate sponsor out there want to help? Call the Mayor’s office and write a big check.

Here’s some good advice from Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn’s, Brooklyn Beat.

The chill is in the air. The 2007 Beaujolais Nouveau is in the
stores. The holiday lights are going up all over Brooklyn. The 80+ foot
fir tree is up in Rockefeller Center, waiting to be lit. There are strikes on both coasts, and two in New York City. The Democrats are arm-wrassling in Vegas, hopefully avoiding an implosion, and Karl Rove is in NYC to sign a book deal. Gridlock is here with a vengeance. It must be holiday time in New York City.

Starting a week from today, Friday, the end-of-the-year holiday hubub
will be in full gear, as the Christmas shoppers, already out in force,
will commence in earnest, approaching commercial escape
velocity/meltdown a few short weeks after that.

But for now, let’s
enjoy the gentle build up to America’s mellowest civil holiday, Thanksgiving.
We have until then to stock up on the wine and turkey (or tofurkey or
turducken, depending upon your proclivities), pies and potatoes, and
then mark some gentle time with our loved ones, culminating in the
benevolence of the "Miracle on 34th Street" and the Thanksgiving Day Parade next week.

So, if your schedule permits, let’s all enjoy this weekend, which is the calm before the calm before the storm.

–Brooklyn Beat

Ed Levine on NY Eats has this spectacular shout-out for Trois Pommes, Park Slope’s newish Park Slope bakery. Kudos to Emily!

I’d like to give a special shout-out to the person who is the hands-down choice for New York Rookie Pie Baker of the Year.

Emily Isaac of Trois Pommes Patisserie makes an apple pie and a cranberry apple streusel pie that are crazy good, that are so fine they guarantee Ms. Isaac entry into the Pie Baker’s Hall of Fame on the first ballot. Her pumpkin pie is also quite good, but it has too much allspice in it for me. Her Key Lime pie may not be very Thanksgivingy, but it is awesome nonetheless. Emily understands that a great pie starts with a light, flaky, golden brown crust, which holds a not-too-sweet, not-too-mushy filling.

Trois Pommes:
260 Fifth Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11215
Phone: (718) 230-3119

JVNY says the South Slope is becoming condo city. The subtitle of Jeremiahs blog is: The Book of Lamentations: a bitterly nostalgic look at a city in the process of going extinct.

Here’s an excerpt. Read more here.

Park Slope’s South Slope, for example, is rapidly becoming condo-ized. Over the past year, at astonishing speed, sleepy little blocks long made up of working-class, aluminum-sided townhouses, brick and tar-paper tenements have been systematically leveled and rebuilt to look like the rest of the former city.

Gowanus Lounge will be discussing Coney Island on the Brian Lehrer Show.

In case you haven’t had your fill of Gowanus Lounge today, you can check out today on the Brian Lehrer Show. We’ll be on at 11:40AM, although the segment could be on at 11:40AM. We’ll be talking about one of our favorite topics: Coney Island redevelopment. The segment is called “Is the Future of Coney Island Set?” Listen in at 93.9 FM or 820 AM

Okay so I misspelled his name and pissed off some people for putting up a request for tickets. It doesn’t sound like I missed much from what I’m reading in blogland. Here’s an excerpt from Brooklyn Skeptic’s characteristically skeptical take on Steven’s multi-media extravaganza:

Basically, it was like some child was born who had only ever been
exposed to the twee-est of the twee and the indie-est of the indie and
(obviously) learned how to use a super 8 and learned that Brooklyn is
cool and vomited up some stuff. And got a crush on a pretty,
long-haired girl who hula hoops.

McBrooklyn remembers Norman Mailer, who died last week at the age of 84. He had a house in Brooklyn Heights. Here’s an excerpt:

"Recommended to McBrooklyn the Mu Shu Chicken at Fortune House on Henry Street. Excellent!"

THANK YOU DEEP IN THE HEART OF BROOKLYN FOR COMPILING THIS LIST.

Here are some of the grades released for a number of Brooklyn schools. For further information on the grading process and what it represents, and to locate progress reports for other schools, visit: the link at http://schools.nyc.gov/ . Then enter the school name or number; when you arrive at the school location, select "Statistics" & then "Progress Reports. The complexity of the grading system, mixing standardized test scores, school environment factors and surveys of opinions will no doubt receive reactions of schadenfreude and disbelief from parents and school staff. How this will impact upon the kids remains to be seen: How does it feel to be an "A" student at a "D" school? Or vice versa ? It appears high school reports have not yet been released. Special education schools likewise also appear not yet to have been rated. Here are a selection of scores for some Brooklyn area schools. No doubt this will play out further among politicians, parents and educationists in the weeks ahead…

An extremely incomplete list of schools and their grades this first time out:

Brownstone Brooklyn

PS 321: B
PS 020: B
JHS 51: B
MS 443: A
PS 008: C
PS 154: D
PS 261: C
PS 10: C
JHS 088: A

PS 29: B
PS 9: B
Posted by: bklynred | Nov 6, 2007 7:35:04 PM
Hi PS 9 in prospect heights is a B

Red Hook
PS 27: C

Flatbush:
PS 99: B
PS 217: B

Greenpoint/Williamsburgh:
PS 110: B
PS 84: D
PS 132: A
PS 250: B

Bed Stuy:
PS 21: B
PS 25: B
PS 81: A
PS 005: F

Gowanus Lounge was “stopped dead in his tracks” when he noticed NOW OPEN signs on the Hotel Le Bleu.

Luckily he lived to tell the tale and was able to inform all Brooklyn bloggies and then some that the Hotel Le Bleu, the pricey new hotel on Fourth Avenue right next to Staples, is NOW OPEN.

Thanks GL. I wonder if the bar is open.

Look here: Sustainable Flatbush is about to enter an exciting new phase of its development. And they want as many people as possible to get involved.

WHAT: Sustainable Flatbush Town Hall Meeting
WHEN: Monday, November 12th at 7pm
WHERE: 462 Marlborough Road (between Ditmas and Dorchester)

Longtime Flatbush resident Mark Levy has come onboard, bringing his
history of commitment to the neighborhood and experience as a
community organizer and environmental educator. He has also kindly
offered to host this meeting at his home. Thanks Mark!

We will form committees geared toward specific activities and service
projects, establish leadership roles, and set some new goals for
2008. To give you an idea of what’s in store, here are some of the
proposed committees:

• RECYCLING/WASTE REDUCTION
Focusing on recycling education and promotion, as well as other
methods of reducing waste in our homes and businesses, from
composting to blocking unwanted fliers.

• SUSTAINABLE GARDENING
Sharing knowledge and resources on sustainable approaches to all
forms of urban gardening, from yard landscaping to street tree pits
to organic farming. We will also be actively involved in the new
neighborhood community garden.

• TRANSPORTATION/LIVABLE STREETS
Working with Transportation Alternatives and other Livable Streets
advocates, we will bring a local perspective to the citywide
discussion of such issues as traffic calming, congestion pricing,
public transportation improvements, and infrastructure for
pedestrians and cyclists.

• ENERGY EFFICIENCY/ALTERNATIVE ENERGY AND FUELS
Let’s talk about how to save money by using less energy in our homes
and businesses, and how to incorporate alternative energy sources
such as biofuels and solar power into the landscape.

• LOCAL BUSINESS OUTREACH
Helping neighborhood businesses to adopt sustainability practices
that improve their “Triple Bottom Line”: People, Planet, and Profit.

• LOCAL SCHOOLS OUTREACH
Implementing environmental education and practices in our local
schools.

On Brooklyn Skeptic read about O’Connor’s, an old time Fifth Avenue Bar (39 Fifth Avenue).

When I first moved to New York, I was a misguided Manhattanite with little knowledge of the great borough of Brooklyn. Manhattan was brand new to me, with thousands of bars and restaurants at my disposal. Why on earth would I want to leave and try out Brooklyn?

At the time, I was also reading a biography called Elliott Smith and the Big Nothing, which, despite being mainly set in Portland and Los Angeles, described a small portion of Smith’s life in which he lived in Park Slope. Although he played the odd show at clubs in Manhattan, he apparently spent most of his time in bars in Brooklyn, and wrote his most critically acclaimed album, XO, while sitting in O’Connor’s.

For another year, that is.

Still, GL writes eloquently of the day last September when he bid farewell to Astroland. Here’s an excerpt. Read the rest at GL.

“When we left Astroland on September 9 after a long, long day of shooting photos, we turned around and literally said, “Goodbye” before we walked to the F Train feeling very empty. While we’re not happy that we will get to have that feeling all over again next September, for now, we’re glad to know there will be fireworks on Friday night, that we can go up in the Astrotower again and that we can wander around that outdated, little state fair-like midway again for another summer season. In its simplicity, Astroland reminds of us of something that is fast disappearing in a world of megabucks development and corporate blandness. It is real and it is genuine and it brings us back to a time when a carnival set up in a church parking lot and nobody knew what a latte was, let alone Starbucks.”

Kensington Blog has a personal post about how a relative, a friend, or a total stranger can do  something that will save your life.

For me it was a hand that grabbed my foot when I was about two years
old. I guess the view of East 4th street from our roof looked inviting.
It was the hand of a young mother (my mom) that pulled me back inside
our apartment just moments before I would become another dot on a NYC
chart. For my cousin Pete, another son of Kensington and East 4th, it
was the voice of a stranger screaming at him to run faster just before
a piece of an airliner killed the person directly behind him on a sunny
day in September 2001. It may have also been the“Brooklyn” in my
cousins blood too that saved his life. When the loud speakers blared
the instructions that “everything is OK and there is no need to
evacuate at the present time”. My attorney cousin just said “bullshit”
and left only to meet up with falling jet parts on the street below.
Buy hey, he was back to work the next day up in Westchester, you got to
love that Empire Blue Cross.They probably helped him forget 9/11 by
making him work on 9/12.

READ MORE AT KENSINGTON BLOG.

Do you know anything about the amazing sounding Czech-American Marionette Theater that’s performing Hamlet?   Read about it at Gowanus Lounge.

It’s the first I’ve heard about it. That’s why blogs are great.