At this point, I’ve almost given up.

Sixth grade? Who cares. Next year? Never heard of it. Department of Education? Doesn’t ring a bell.

I mean, I’ve been in a state of anticipation for weeks now, checking the mail every day. Today I just feel jaded, frustrated and annoyed. I really have no expectations anymore.

Yesterday I heard they mailed the letters. Do I believe it? Not really. I’ve heard so many rumors about those letters. Those damn letters. Do they really exist?

Of course, they’ve got to mail them eventually. I guess. You’d think they’d have to tell the parents where their kids are going to school next year.

Everyone I talk to is so frustrated.

More thoughts on stoops from a Park Slope parent:

Growing up in the Slope we considered stoops our playground on the days
our parents didn’t take us to the park, and after
school. Especially during big snowstorms, when we
jumped off the top into neighbors pile of snow for
hours.And just about any day after homework was done.
My parents brownstone stoop had L shaped stairs, with
a stone “bench” partially blocking our ground floor
entrance. Many people young and old sat for a rest
through the years, or played outside, and we were
always OK with that. It was our way of life.
It’s a different day and place now, and we’ve moved,
but a real Brooklyn thing, and I really miss our
stoop.

I totally agree that any behavior on anyones stoop
that affects their quality of life, or is in any way
obtrusive to stoop owners in a negative way, is not
OK.

We now have a fence and I agree that inside the fence, sitting on our steps
would be off limits on our new block. No one has
ever done that, yet. We do offer our porch at times to
anyone caught in a sudden storm, as we are in a high
foot traffic park area, and a few houses down from a
bus stop. Nobody has ever said no, and thanked us for
our gesture. It’s our new way of not having a stoop.
On both sides of the fence here, and pun totally
intended

Good news from The Written Nerd, who recently received a PowerUp grant/award for her new business proposal to open a bookstore somewhere in Brooklyn. Looks like she’s thinking about Fort. Green.

Presently, she works in a SoHo bookstore. Someday she hopes to own a bookstore of her own (and it sounds like that’s close to becoming a reality). She loves reading, talking about books, and being where literature hits the streets.

“I think independent bookstores can be a source for culture, community, and social justice,” she writes on her blog.

She lives in I lives in Park Slope. You can reach me here: booknerdnyc at earthlink dot net. Here’s a post from May 24th. I haven’t checked in for a while.

It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood, and perhaps my last chance to blog for a little while, so allow me to lay some updates and anticipations on you.

Brooklyn Bookstore
I received my PowerUp! check for $15,000 in the mail sometime last week, so yesterday I visited my new friend Juan at a great local/national bank about 20 minutes away. As he and I had discussed previously, I opened a small business money market account with the prize money, which will also be the depository for other funds raised. And he gave me the paperwork to fill out for a great big (to me) small business loan application. I’m hoping to get that in by mid-June, at the same time as I’m looking for retail spaces.

In the meantime, I’ve made some other great business friends: the Retail Committee of the fabulous Fort Greene Association. It turns out that the beautiful, developing neighborhood of Fort Greene wants a bookstore almost as bad as I want to create one, so I’ll be working with them on finding a space, building community support, and doing some more fundraising. I’m so grateful to these folks for what they’ve done already, and you can be sure there will be much more to report as we lay our plans.

Vincent Walker, a 44-year-old resident of Park Slope, died last week. A devoted husband, father to two boys, friend of many and a local real estate entrepreneur, news of his death sent waves of shock and grief through the community. Here is an excerpt from a sermon by the Reverend Daniel Meeter of Old First Dutch Reformed Church.

On John 11:1-45, The Raising of Lazarus.

It is a terrible honor and a grievous privilege to preach this funeral sermon for Vincent Walker. This sermon will be in two parts. This first is about Vincent, and the second is about his family and us. Nineteen days ago, at his kitchen table, in the presence of Deborah, he told me a remarkable story, a testimony, actually. I told him he needed eventually to tell it to others as well, so now I must do that for him.

As you know, Vincent was very sick since January, and we still don’t know exactly what his sickness was. Even the tumor on his brain stem left so much unexplained. He was paralyzed on one whole side. He struggled to recuperate, and he finally was able to come home. About a month or so ago he had a sudden total paralysis, but through water and touch and prayer he experienced just as sudden a healing. The doctors can’t explain it, and he was convinced that it was miraculous. I gave him examples from scripture and experience to confirm his conviction, because a miracle is simply a physical event that first, defies our explanation, and second, that leads to wholeness.

Was it healing? Yes. Even though he died so soon thereafter? Yes, because healing is not just physical recuperation, but when you are made whole, morally and spiritually. And that particular experience was the climax of a general process of healing that Vincent had been experiencing through the whole course of his illness. He dared to say to me, in Deborah’s presence, that his illness had been good for him; not that the illness itself was good, but that he had gained from it, and not least in terms of gratitude and spirituality.

In the hospital wards and waiting rooms and even on the sidewalk he had been touched and moved by the prayers and grace of even perfect strangers. And although he had always known of God and believed in God, he now had a whole new level of experience with God. And he felt that his sudden physical healing was the climax of that.

A reading by Elizabeth Royte is definitely something to make time for. That’s because she’s Park Slope’s super smart, award-winning author of Garbageland and now Bottlemania: How Water Went On Sale and Why We Bought It.

She did a fantastic reading at Brooklyn Reading Works when Garbageland first came out reading excerpts with interesting introductions and asides.  It makes for a fascinating hour or so—and a very educational and informational one.

I just got this nice email from her. She wants to spread the word. I like the way she sends a mass email by specifying why you are receiving it. That’s probably something I should do.

Dear Friend Who Lives in Brooklyn,

I will be reading from/talking about my new book, Bottlemania: How Water
Went On Sale and Why We Bought It, on June 13, 7:30 pm, at the Community
Bookstore (143 Seventh Avenue – near Carroll Street). Hope you can make
it, and feel free to share this notice with anyone in the world.

All best,
Elizabeth

Read all about it:  www.bottlemania.net

Gawker goes gaga for Blognigger and there are already 33 comments about it—plus quite a few on Blognigger’s site.

They posted it with a very weird stock photo of a black man at a computer. I guess they’re saying he’s blognigger or something.

Today’s post is really intense; it’s about MTV’s decision to shoot Real World in downtown Brooklyn. Here’s an excerpt from today’s post on Gawker:

We stumbled onto the words of an angry, succinct blogger who calls himself Blognigger; he’s black and a software engineer and lives in Park Slope. He’s at the forefront of several wars: he’s black in America, and in a mostly-white neighborhood, which he will soon have to leave: “I make $106,000 a year, and I’m a pauper in Park Slope. No, literally – we have to leave. I have two kids and my rent has just been raised to $3500 a month. I’ve lived here since 1999 (when 5th avenue was still a total shithole), and now I’m going to have to uproot my family and move out of brooklyn… I can’t afford to live here anymore without my wife doing online surveys and shit to supplement our income.”

But what are his thoughts on the Real World decamping to downtown Brooklyn for their upcoming season?

“I absolutely can’t believe that they’re going to put these United Colors of Benetton kids into a high-rise in the middle of downtown brooklyn. Talk about some post-apocalyptic shit. I grew up BLACK in New York, and even I didn’t set foot in Downtown Brooklyn until I was 30…”

Now they got some camera-ready glossy-ass Real Dolls™ living in a rotating health club above where the old Church’s fried chicken used to be.

…it’s times like this I wish I was a real black guy, a thick darkskinned brotha from east flatbush with a big-ass ‘fro pick, instead of my little software engineering over-educated ass, so that I could summon a crew of like-minded ignorant black gentlemen with nothing to live for such that we could go and beat the FUCK out of these little survivor wanabees and take a dump in their hottub.”

I caught the tail-end of a concert by Park Slope’s Accordion Angels, a new accordion quartet, that plays vintage americana, old and new Europeans and what they call, “striking originals.”

They were playing in the Gardens of Union on Union Street near Fourth Avenue, a perfect spot for a Sunday afternoon concert. The show was part of the Local Produce Festival.

I heard their last song, a really classic piece of Americana, very slow, very soothing. I can’t remember the name of it now. I liked they way they sustained its almost other-worldly melodic calm. Amazing how soothing four accordians can be.

After the show, the group talked about changing their name. Apparently some in the group like the current name and others are lobbying for a name change.

The group will be at the Red Hook Waterfront Arts Festival on Friday June 6th at 7 pm at Valentino Park and Pier, Coffey and Ferris Street.

On Saturday June 14, they will be at Le Petit Versailles at 346 Houston Street at Avenue C. 7 p.m.

I just got word from my fellow blogger, Brooklyn Beat of Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn that he got tickets to see Dylan on August 12th.

I got tickets, too. It felt necessary, important, essential even though I’ve seen Dylan many times and his recent performances can be iffy.

I saw him with the Band in the 1970’s at Madison Square Garden,  saw him during his Gospel phase, I saw him at Radio City with GE Smith, I saw him with Tom Petty, I saw him with Joni Mitchell.

I also once saw him in Park Slope. He was standing on the corner of Lincoln Place and Eighth Avenue with an older photographer. There was a tiny crowd of people standing around him.

Would you believe, I asked him for an autograph and he obliged.

So, you see, I just had to get tickets. They were pricey but I felt possessed, driven, like I had to get tickets.

I think it was the Brooklyn angle. I mean, to hear Bob in Prospect Park—that sounds cool. I am also on a bit of a Dylan jag. We just watched both parts of No Direction Home and most of I’m Not There, which, surprisingly, I didn’t love: I wanted to and I loved parts of it. But overall, didn’t love it though I think I should rewatch it.

About the tickets: I may not be able to use them. But if Teen Spirit doesn’t want them I may offer them to OTBKB readers. I thought it was cool that Brooklyn Paper and later Brooklyn Vegan gave away the code.

Earlier this year, I think it was in an email to another blogger, I was
speculating on the hypothesis that wouldn’t it be so cool for Bob Dylan
to perform at the Brooklyn Academy of Music? I mean, he plays Sequim
Island, Albany, Dubuque, Lewiston, and all points in between on his
Endless Tour, so why not Brooklyn, USA ? Shortly afterward, BAM
announced that Paul Simon was appearing as a performer in residence, so
I thought, well that’s great, pretty close, (and it turned out Paul
still gives a great show) I guess we will have to be satisfied with
Bob’s usual appearances at his usual venues in Manhattan, NJ and on
Long Island, when he plays the City. Well surprise, surprise.

I
was getting ready to get my kids out of the house to school and myself
to work this morning when I heard on the NY1 morning wallpaper that Mr.
Dylan was appearing at the Prospect Park Bandshell for Celebrate
Brooklyn’s 30th anniversary of concerts. Dang, I thought, another great
event missed. I even missed out on an attempt to get Dylan tix in
Albany last year. On my way in, I thought, darn, what are the odds that
there would still be any tickets left ?

Well, never say never.
Bright and early, after dropping the kids off, and driving downtown
listening to Blind Willie McTell and stuff from Modern Times, with that
vague sense of impending disappointment, this intrepid blogger decided
to mosey on down to planet Dylan.

Sure enough, we made it in just under
the wire. And it is an outdoor show, without primo seats, and it may be
hot, or rainy, and Boomer uncomfortable, but come August 12, when Bob
Dylan and his current hot touring band hit the stage, the show will go
on and Mr and Mrs Brooklyn Beat will happily be in attendance…more to
come.

Illustration of Bob Dylan by the etchasketchist.

 

This post from Park Slope Parents was written by a woman who likes to sit on people’s stoops. Although she has never been stopped, she wonders whether there is some kind of unwritten rule about whether it is appropriate to do so. You know me, I just love this kind of thing.

A couple of weekends ago my 4 year old daughter and I were walking
around the neighborhood running errands. We were a good 10 blocks
from home and she was tired, so we found a nice sunny stoop somewhere
in South Slope between 6th and 7th Aves and sat ourselves down to
rest for a few minutes and contemplate life. Since then, whenever we
go out for a stroll or to run errands, she asks me if we can stop and
sit at a stoop for a few minutes. We live in a stoopless apartment,
but it occurred to me that we may be committing a social faux pas to
park ourselves on somebody else’s property.

Of course, I understand that there is no black and white here and
while some folks might be fine with some polite neighborhood people
borrowing their stoop for a few minutes, others might feel
differently about it. That said, I’m thinking there is probably a
general unwritten rule about this — absolutely not, it’s totally
uncool to use a stranger’s stoop, or why not? it’s nice to share the
wealth and allow someone to tie their shoes or otherwise take a very
brief load off. So which is it? If we’re violating some common
neighborhood rule, I’ve got some explaining to do to my daughter on
our next jaunt.

What do you think?

The question came up today on OTBKB’s fave list-serve, Park Slope Parents. Is it OK to park one’s derriere on a stranger’s stoop? One commenter said she thinks of stoops as public domain.

Someone else said if the building doesn’t have a gate between the sidewalk and the stoop: go for it!

But this commenter, who lives in a first floor apartment in a building with a stoop, begs to differ. In true Slope fashion, the commenter apologizes for her less than “all for one and one for all” viewpoint.

I hate to be a stick in the mud about this, but I actually think a stoop is
not a public domain and that it is wrong to park your self there. I live on
the first floor of a building with a very inviting stoop, and my apartment
overlooks the stoop. While I am sure you and your daughter only want to
enjoy the lovely weather and rest a bit, when people sit and talk on my
stoop, for me its like they are right there in my kitchen. Sometimes they
can talk quite loudly. Some people sit and smoke, eat or drink, and then
leave behind their garbage. One time a guy actually set up his portable
stereo! I try and nicely redirect people–the park is only one block away.
I’m sorry to say, I think stoop sitting is a bit of an intrusion.

So it’s Monday and we hope to get The Letter from the Department of Education. Where or where will my child be going to middle school next year. It’s June and we still don’t know.

Please oh please, I hope the letter comes today.

Brooklyn Film Works will be on Wednesdays not Thursdays as I reported last week. And I’ve got the schedule for real.

Kim Maier, who runs the Old Stone House, tells me that the Piper Theater Production of A Midsummer’s Nights Dream in JJ Byrne Park will have a “fantastic Coney Island theme.”

Now that sounds incredible.

Brooklyn Film Works. Movies Al Fresco in JJ Byrne Park. Fifth Avenue and Third Street. Wednesdays in July.

July 2 – 1776

July 9 – Reelworks Film Festival

July 16 – The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

July 23 – The Mouse that Roared

July 30 – The Candidate with Robert Redford

pix of Brooklyn Film Works in 2006 showing The Little Fugitive by Hugh Crawford

The Gowanus Canal Conservancy threw a great party on Carroll Street on Sunday. The first annual Gowanus Goes Green Festival included music from The Defibulators, natural food, workshops, kids activities, and green businesses and not-for-profits exhibiting their goods and services, including The Spa, a green wellness center in Bay Ridge, Movers Not Shakers, residential and commercial moving with environmentally sustainable practices, Theo, makers of organic chocolate bars, V-Spot, which served delicious empanadas, and Engage Green, makers of bags, and shoes from recycled materials.

On display were the plans for Sponge Park. Proposed by the Gowanus Canal Conservancy, it is a landscaped esplanade that runs the length of the canal that looks beautiful in the renderings. It would also reduce the problem of contaminated water flowing into the canal (hence the sponge).

I really enjoyed myself at GGG. The best part was riding the Carroll Street Bridge. What a blast!

Even better was just hanging out in the Yard, a tree-filled waterfront park on the banks of the Gowanus Canal, drinking beer, listening to music and enjoying the day.

The DeFibulators are a 6-piece country-swing band with great harmonies, an upright bass, a washboard player, a fiddler, and more. On their MySpace page they describe themselves as Hee Haw on Mescaline.

They were at the Gowanus Go Green Festival today and they put me in a great mood and I fell in love with their sound. The New York Times had this to say:

No yee-haws or any other hoots or yawps were held back a few nights earlier at a show by the Defibulators at the Rodeo Bar on Third Avenue, which styles itself a honky-tonk oasis in Manhattan, with Lone Star beer, peanuts by the basket and free country and rockabilly every night. The Defibulators, from Brooklyn, are quintessential Rodeo Bar. Like a hoedown band from a Warner Brothers cartoon, they played raucous and slightly surreal “whackabilly,” as they describe it, and featured two washboard percussionists, one in crimson long johns, the other in a Viking helme

Check ’em out. They play all over the place.

Look at these gorgeous flip flops.
Handmade by Lenora Mendoza, the award-winning artist from Venezuela, who runs Engage Green, makers of products crafted from recyled and sustainabe materials and production processes that prevent unnecessary harm to the planet. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Art Museum of the Americas in Washington, DC. She lives and works in Brooklyn.
I bought these at the Gowanus Goes Green Festival on Sunday on Carroll Street. Lenora told me that she isn’t making them anymore; they take too long to make.
I paid $28. for them and I thought that was a fair price for a wearable work of art. Actually, I don’t know whether I’ll wear them or hang them on a wall.
The flowers are made out of fabric and buttons. I’m not sure what the sole is made of but probably one of the recycled materials she uses.

Would you believe?

A friend needs a place to stay while he and his family wait for their closing date on a new condo. He called around to some local hotels. The  Holiday Inn on Union Street gave him a rate of $359/per night (on the website it said $457). I was astounded and so was he.

The Marriott wanted $499./ night. Even more astounding.

He did find a good rate at the Comfort Inn on Butler between Third and Nevins ($189. a night). Have any OTBKB readers stayed there?

I’m wondering if these rates are high because it’s June: graduations, weddings, tourist season?

Anyone know? 

That’s right. The Brooklyn Paper reports that Bob Dylan will be playing in Prospect Park on August 12th. That’s a Tuesday night and tickets are on sale at Ticketmaster.

I don’t know if this is Celebrate Brooklyn or what. This is not part of Celebrate Brooklyn; but it is at the bandshell.

Brooklyn Vegan had this to say: Tickets go on presale Monday morning June 2nd at 10am for an August 12th Bob Dylan show at the Prospect Park Bandshell in Park Slope, Brooklyn, NY! The password is “Tilden” All tour dates below…..

Bob Dylan – 2008 Tour Dates
SUN 6/1 Helsinki, Finland Hartwall Arena
TUE 6/3 St. Petersburg, Russia The New Arena
WED 6/4 Tallinn, Estonia Saku Arena
THUR 6/5 Vilnius, Lithuania Siemens Arena
SAT 6/7 Warsaw, Poland Stodola
MON 6/9 Ostrava, Czech Republic Cez Arena
TUE 6/10 Vienna, Austria Stadthalle
WED 6/11 Salzburg, Austria Salzburg Arena
FRI 6/13 Varazdin, Croatia Radar Festival
SUN 6/15 Trento, Italy Giardino Palazzo delle Albere
MON 6/16 Bergamo, Italy Lazzaretto
WED 6/18 Aosta, Italy Chatillon
THUR 6/19 Grenoble, France Palais des Sports
FRI 6/20 Toulouse, France Zenith
SUN 6/22 Andorra la Vella, Andorra Campo de Futbol Municipal
MON 6/23 Zaragoza, Spain Feria de Muestras
TUE 6/24 Pamplona, Spain Plaza de Toros
FRI 6/27 Vigo, Spain Recinto Ferial
SAT 6/28 Avila, Spain Parque Natural de Gredos
TUE 7/1 Cuenca, Spain Complejo Deportivo La Fuensanta
WED 7/2 Alicante, Spain Centro de Tecnificacion
FRI 7/4 Lorca, Spain Plaza de Toros
SAT 7/5 Jaen, Spain Recinto Ferial Prolongacion
SUN 7/6 Madrid, Spain Rock in Rio
TUE 7/8 Jerez, Spain Estadio Municipal Chapin
THUR 7/10 Merida, Spain Plaza de Toros
FRI 7/11 Lisbon, Portugal Optimus Live
TUE 8/12 Brooklyn, NY PROSPECT PARK BANDSHELL

We waited with bated breath for the arrival of the mail on Saturday hoping the letter from the Department of Education would be in there with word about which middle school the Oh So Feisty One would be going to.

Even OSFO was impatient. “Is the mail here yet,” she asked all morning.

Finally, I went down at 2 or so and checked the mail.

Two Netflix and some junk mail. That was it. I haven’t heard from one person who got the letter. Or should I say The Letter.

Dang. Monday’s the day. I hope. On Monday maybe we’ll get The Letter.

I got this email from a filmmaker who is making a film about the Missed Connections section of Craigslist.

I was wondering if you could help a local Brooklyn filmmaker in my creation of a short documentary on the Missed Connections section of Craigslist.  If you felt comfortable posting the below on your blog it would be tremendously helpful! 

MISSED CONNECTIONS DOCUMENTARY

I am a local Brooklyn filmmaker at work on a documentary about the Missed Connections section of Craigslist and I am looking for your story! I earn my living producing television for others, namely PBS, this Missed Connections project is one of my independent endeavors, an art project of sorts that is financed by myself.  I’ve already interviewed a number of folks with some great stories.  The final piece will consist of the short interviews about the moments of ‘missed connection’ and animation that illustrates these fleeting encounters.  I am looking to speak via email, and then perhaps on the phone, with those of you that have posted on Missed Connections, have been posted about, and especially those of you that have ‘connected’ on Missed Connections (be it with the one you intended or another).

Interested individuals can email me with a little bit about their Missed Connections experience at mcdocumentary@gmail.com

I got this email from a friend. She sent this excerpt from a newsletter from Lenell’s, a small, independently-owned wine & spirit shop in Red Hook. The “store gossip” section recounts how hard it is for such a business to deal with a sleazy landlord. It describes a true Brooklyn moment of community support.

Lenell’s is a truly incredible store. Everything in there is unusual and carefully selected. We bought a bottle of nepalese rum today! They are the kind of small local business that really need our support. The owner told us today she might need to move to Bed-Stuy which would mean closing up for 6 months in order to reapply for a license

If you haven’t been by the store this past week, we have been in utter f’ing hell. Saturday night a leak that has been going on in the building for several months finally broke through into the store. When the water started coming down, it was a Red Hook moment at its finest. Several Red Hook folks banded together and helped us move half the store to the other side. We covered half the store in plastic best we could, called it a day, and went down to Bait & Tackle and had a beer. I was touched so deeply by the outpouring of Red Hook folks who helped us out. This is why I want to stay in this neighborhood. The support was overwhelming. As a neighbor hugged me and said, “LeNell, you are family!”, I broke down and cried.

The way neighborhood people banded together in our time of crisis was amazing. What was not so amazing was the landlord’s response. He actually stood in front of the store and laughed while we moved inventory. Neighbors and customers helped me stay calm. I was speechless! The superintendent of the building came in and apologized, saying that he’s been trying to get the leak fixed for months and the landlord is ignoring the problem. The landlord doesn’t live in the neighborhood and actually thinks he’s going to open a business in my space. (Hmmmmm….he works for Baluchi’s, does this mean he thinks he’s gonna open a restaurant? Who really knows.) I think he has no idea how he just pissed off many people by standing in front of the store sneering while we were in crisis. We are so eager to be out of this building that is sadly not cared for! This past week in addition to the flood, the gas was turned off due to landlord not paying his bill. Thank the heavens we don’t live in this building. The residential tenants have been in even more distress. So please pardon the mess and plastic sheeting and bear with us.

I’ve been really honest with y’all about the store situation. Our lease is officially up this month. I know it will take months for a formal eviction should it come to that. Sad to say that the space that we had a draft lease for fell through this week. It was for the vacant lot across the street next to the Good Fork. This lot is co-owned by Jimmy Buscariello and Greg O’Connell (who owns quite a bit of Red Hook including the Fairway building). We had architectural drawings, had agreed on basic lease points, and I’ve been thinking all along that we were just finalizing details. The space included the store on the first floor and the bar on the second. After discussing this project for nearly a year now, I get a visit from Greg recently telling me that he has just realized constructions costs will be more than he wants to pay. He won’t entertain thoughts of my partnering in building out the space. Just flat out pulled out at the last moment…which happens to be a few days before the end of my current lease. I’m in shock. I really thought this deal was practically done when Greg had me pay an attorney to draft a lease. Rarely is LeNell speechless. I am.

The other space we thought was workable in Red Hook, turns out to be a dud, as well. The owner has been telling everyone that we are moving into the space. Months ago I asked him for lease points and told him that I could not agree to anything less than a 10 year lease. Today out of nowhere, he tells me that he only wants to sign a five year lease. I won’t do it. It’s just not good business sense at this point. I refuse to keep working to pay someone else’s mortgage while I barely pay myself and have no hope for me and my hardworking staff to get ahead.

So folks, I just don’t know the future. I had really hoped to announce that we had a lease signed for this lot across the street and was so eager to break the news to you. I’m really just in shock. Storefronts in Red Hook sit vacant, vacant lots side idle, landlords daydream, and proven businesses like mine get put through hell. A boss of mine told me years ago, “If you can survive in New York, you can survive anywhere.” Well, I think I’ve proved myself long enough. Maybe it’s time to head back South. Own a real home, eat real bar b que, and have a life. LeNell is broken.

When you come in and I’m dazed, bitchy beyond normal, on the phone like a lunatic, please don’t take it personally. Everything I’ve worked so hard for is hanging in the gallows.

LeNell’s Ltd: a Wine and Spirit Boutique
416 Van Brunt Street Brooklyn, New York 11231
www.lenells.com
toll free 1 877 NO SNOBS
phone 718 360 0838
fax 718 874 2733

There’s the Gowanus Goes Green, an all-day festival on the banks of the Canal today from 11-6 at The Yard on Carroll Street between Bond and Nevins Streets including the Carroll Street Bridge.

Local Produce Events in the Community Gardens sponsored by Spoke the Hub.

–St. Marks/Warren Street (between 4th and 5th Avenues)
11:00-11:50am Tai Chi & Chinese Music Workshop with Kwok Kay & Alice Choey
12:00-12:30pm Mark Lamb Dance Performance

–Garden of Union (at 4th Avenue)
12:30pm Accordion Angels / New Music
1:00pm BaTuBa Collective Percussion / African Drumming
1:30-2:20pm Yoga & Movement Meditation Workshop with Mina Hamilton

–President Street (at 5th Avenue)
2:00pm Mad Jazz Hatters/ New Music
2:30pm Slackjaw / Nouveau Bluegrass

Circus Sundays in Red Hook at the Waterfront Museum at Pier 44.

I don’t know anything about these people but does sound like a fun experience for the right teen.

I’m producing a pilot about health for teenagers, and we are looking
for teenage extras (diverse ethnicity and sizes!). This is a nice
opportunity for outgoing teenagers (13-16) to get some professional
experience on a set:

http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/tfr/703420718.html

If any of your kids are interested, they should indicate where they
go to school, we’re trying to reach out to our community!!

All day Saturday and Sunday May 31 and June 1, Spoke the Hub sponsors the Local Produce Festival. Elise Long, one of the Park Slope 100 and founder of Spoke the Hub is the force behind this annual festival. Check it out.

Saturday, May 31

EVENTS ALONG UNION STREET BETWEEN 5TH AND 6TH AVENUES, PARK SLOPE

Workshops Under the BigTop Tent
10:00am Creative Dance & Yoga For the Whole Family with Heidi Kinney
11:00am Brazilian Dance with Ellen Baxt
1:30-2:00pm Monte Allen/Brooklyn Kenshikai Karate Demonstration
2:00-2:30pm Modern Dance Warm-Up with Mark Lamb
4:00pm Freestyle Repertory Theater / Improv Workshop for the Whole Family
4:30pm African Drumming for the Whole Family / BaTuBa Collective Percussion
5:00pm African Dance for the Whole Family / Charles Moore Dance Theater
5:30pm Basic Salsa Workshop / Salsa Salsa Dance Studio

Street Fun & Games on the Midway
10:00am-Noon Frisbees on the Midway
10:30-11:15am Sing, Dance & Make Believe for ages 3-4 with Sarah Pope
Noon-1:00 Fun & Street Games for the Whole Family with Lori Jorgensen
1:00-1:30pm Lesbian & Gay Big Apple Corps Marching Band
1:30-2:00pm MaracatuNY / Brazilian Percussion
4:00-6:00pm Board Games on the Midway

Music at the Bus Stop
12noon Connection Works Ensemble / New Music
12:45pm Connection Works Ensemble Jam Session, open to all, including student musicians
1:30pm Douglass Street Music Collective
2:30pm Mani Chamber Music Group
3:30pm Music & Dance Improvisation with Connection Works Ensemble, Douglass Street Music Collective, Propel-her Dance, and YOU!
4pm Douglass Street Music Collective

Performances Under the BigTop Tent

2:30pm Young Artists Perform!
PS 321 Dance Students
Spoke the Hub Dance Students
Spoke the Hub Drama Students
Gowanus Wildcats Drill Team
Charles Moore Dance Theater Youth Ensemble
Berkeley Carroll School Dancers
David & Sarah Gratz / Young Musicians
Brooklyn Jazz Lab
Salsa Salsa Dance Studio Youth Group

6:00pm Professional Artists Performance
Salsa Salsa Dance Studio Duo
Charles Moore Dance Theater
Parents Who Dance / Modern Dance
RedWall Dance Theatre
David Bindman / Saxophone Solo
Sarah Council Dance Projects / Modern Dance
Lily Skove / Modern Dance
Freestyle Repertory Theater / Improv

Dance Under the Stars!
7:00pm Basic Swing Dance Lesson with Laurie Shayler
7:30pm Dance Party Under the Stars for the Whole Family
with Art Lillard and His Heavenly Big Band

Sunday, June 1

EVENTS IN THE COMMUNITY GARDENS

St. Marks/Warren Street (between 4th and 5th Avenues)
11:00-11:50am Tai Chi & Chinese Music Workshop with Kwok Kay & Alice Choey
12:00-12:30pm Mark Lamb Dance Performance

Garden of Union (at 4th Avenue)
12:30pm Accordion Angels / New Music
1:00pm BaTuBa Collective Percussion / African Drumming
1:30-2:20pm Yoga & Movement Meditation Workshop with Mina Hamilton

President Street (at 5th Avenue)
2:00pm Mad Jazz Hatters/ New Music
2:30pm Slackjaw / Nouveau Bluegrass

Hop on over to Grand Army Plaze. The strawberries—flowers, asparagus, fish, bread, tomatoes, and the rest—are sublime.

Parents are hoping that the NYC Department of Education really did mail out the middle school letters on Friday May 30, as they told school officials they would.

After months of waiting the middle school letters could be in your mailbox as early as today. Woo Hoo. Imagine knowing where your fifth grader will be going to school next year. Around here we’ve tried to put 6th grade out of our minds.

Sixth grade? What’s that?

The fifth graders at PS 321 are in senior mode. Next week they’ve got field day and a big trip to a historical site upstate. They’ll even be getting their fifth grade t-shirt with every kid’s signature on it. Soon they’ll be getting their yearbook.

It’s the end of elementary school and they know it. But they still don’t know what they’re doing next year.

I heard that a friend’s son received an acceptance letter from NEST (New Explorations in Science and Technology) a middle school on the Lower East Side.

I know that some schools do their own admissions and manage to avoid the big computer at the DOE. NEST must be one of them. Did you ever think that getting into middle school would be like getting into college?

The Brooklyn Paper reports that the Red Hook Ikea has added hundreds of parking spaces.

Ikea has added hundreds of parking spaces to its Red Hook store in advance of the hotly anticipated opening on Wednesday, June 18, which is expected to draw a cavalcade of shoppers that will continue for months.

The Scandinavian home-furnishings giant’s first New York City store will use the neighboring site of the former Revere Sugar refinery to handle any parking overflow from its own 1,400-car lot at least until Labor Day.

Company officials didn’t disclose how many vehicles can be packed onto the dirt lot, but it is large enough to hold several hundred.

By enlarging its car capacity, Ikea has revived concern in Red Hook that the heretofore remote corner of Brooklyn will be overrun by drivers, because mass transit is not an appealing option if you’re hauling home a futon (or boxes and boxes of Swedish meatballs).

Seventh Avenue between Second and Third Streets is 2 for 4.

That’s right, two of the four vacant storefronts on that stretch of Seventh Avenue are now rented. The Second Street Cafe and Park Slope Books storefronts are still available. But the storefront, which housed Seventh Avenue Books, is becoming a store for “children’s exclusives.”

I don’t know if that’s toys or clothing.

It’s going into the building owned by Mark Ravitz Art and Design. It’s the building with the cyclops/octopus/sun drips. There were once dripping cows on that building.

Barrio, the groovy, new nouveau Mexican restaurant with the super-duper Margaritas, is in the spot vacated by Tempo Presto and Mojo/Carvel before that.

So, do I hear any interest in the Second Street Cafe?

The owners, I believe, are trying to sell the recently renovated restaurant. Interestingly, one of the owners used to work at Restaurant Florent, the legendary 24-hour diner-style restaurant on Manhattan’s Gansevoort Street. That restaurant, which was a harbinger of the uber-gentrification of the meat-packing neighborhood on the far Westside, is going out of business on June 29th.

Does anyone remember Evelyn’s Goat Cheese Salad? It was a specialty at Florent and also on the menu at Second Street Cafe.

Brooklyn Paper reports that a stretch of Prospect Park will be restored thanks to an enormous donation.

A famed philanthropist donated $10 million last week to restore a 26-acre stretch of Prospect Park to its original glory, but even with the generous contribution, funding for the expansive project is only halfway secured.

Shelby White, widow of the Wall Street investor Leon Levy and head of the Leon Levy Foundation, donated the money to the planned Lakeside Center — a $75-million project that would demolish the run-down, but popular, Wollman skating rink and replace it with a multipurpose recreation and education venue with new rinks, plus restore the area back to Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux’s original 19th-century design.

White — a Brooklyn native — decided to donate to Prospect Park because she spent so much time there as a child, “horseback riding [and] rowing with my junior high school boyfriend from Walt Whitman JHS.”

“And, sorry, Mike,” she joked with Mayor Bloomberg during a May 22 press conference to announce the donation, “I smoked my first cigarette in this park.”

Old First Church on Seventh Avenue at Carroll Street is running a food drive, in the hopes of donating 200 or more bags of non-perishable groceries to help replenish Brooklyn’s empty food banks.

Here’s the grocery list: Rice, pasta, dried beans, canned veggies, fruit, applesauce and tuna, shelf-stable milk and infant forumal, canned and packaged soup, whole-grained cereals, 100% fruit juice (no glass please).

Please fill a grocery bag and bring to the church office by June 15th. Office hours are Mon-Thurs, 9am-5pm OR Snday 9am-2pm.

Help Old First Church meet its goal of 200 bags of groceries to replenish Brooklyn’s empty food banks.

Politicians are weighing in on today’s crane collapse. The death toll so far is 4. Those who died were construction workers working on the crane. There are numerous serious injuries of workers and pedestrians.

Mayor Mike Bloomberg: "What has happened is unacceptable and intolerable. Having said that, we do not know at the moment what happened or why."

Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum told the New York Times:  "It’s clear we need to be far more strict and crack down on any unsafe
construction sites, and its clear we need more inspectors, still. When
a violation is issued, disciplinary action must follow. Just two days
ago the city decided that inspectors will no longer be present every
time a construction crane is being erected or made taller, an emergency
provision put in place following the last major accident. This move by
the D.O.B., tightening restrictions following a catastrophe, and then
relaxing them as soon as the smoke clears, was likely premature."

Councilmember Bill de Blasio sent out a press release: "This is inexcusable. Every time the Department of Buildings tells us they have taken steps to improve safety, another horrific accident occurs. This has to stop. The Department of Buildings is clearly not up to the job. We need a moratorium. We need a reinspection at every site in New York City." He called for a ban on usage of cranes until every one is reinspected.