As some of you have probably noticed, a fruit truck has returned to the corner of President Street and Seventh Avenue in Park Slope. But no Andy.

Well, here’s the scoop. Andy had a stroke a few months ago. He is now recovering and in rehab. I spoke to his nephew who is operating the fruit truck (for Andy, I assume).

He told me that after the stroke, "Andy’s speech was really messed up. That’s why he’s in rehab. Also his sister died and his truck had to be trashed." The truck they are now using is on loan.

The good news is this: Andy expects to be back soon. But only two days a week. The nephew said that a lot of people had inquired about Andy. I’m hoping that all that concern and good wishes got back to Andy. 

BROOKLYN FRAME WORKS is  moving to a new space at 142 Fifth Avenue between Douglas and Baltic. It’s a great framing shop. Good luck to them.

This sounds very interesting:

As part of PortSide NewYork’s ongoing efforts to raise awareness of, and appreciation for, the waterfront and working waterfront in the Port of New York, we are pleased to offer Puccini’s steamy opera Il Tabarro set on our tanker home the Mary Whalen, in a real, working container port.

Actual stevedores and professional opera singers will share the stage, in a story about barge life, adultery and murder, surrounded by views of gantry cranes, containers, the lumber port, passing vessel traffic and a spectacular view of Governor’s Island and the lower Manhattan skyline, making an unforgettable on-site experience.

The opera will be performed by Vertical Player Repertory and hosted by American Stevedoring, the operators of the Red Hook container port in Brooklyn. The tanker is the stage; the audience sits on the pier.

Experience this unprecedented cultural event! A maritime night out at affordable prices!

Four performances:
Fri 9/7
Sun 9/9
Fri 9/14
Sun 9/16

Opera is one hour long without intermission.
Opera ticket is $25.
Opera + Sunset Reception before each performance is $60. (Proceeds benefit PortSide)
Reception 5:00-6:45pm
Opera 7:00-8:00pm

Cash bar before and after each performance.

Tickets on sale now http://www.smarttix.com/show.aspx?showCode=ILT.

This post, from Brooklyn Beat, covers a lot of turf: the end of summer blues, school shopping at Staples, Big Pink, and meeting Uma Thurman.

"Summer days, summer nights are gone..
I know a place where there’s something going on"
–"Summer Days" by Bob Dylan from LOVE AND THEFT

We made our annual pre-first day of school pilgrimage to Staples to
start loading up on school supplies and generally to begin our familial
reality testing as to the fact that those lazy crazy hazy days of
summer are dwindling down to a precious few..

Our older daughter is already back at college and our younger kids got
their school lists in June and this weekend we started to gather
folders, notebooks, pens, graph paper, etc. I think we do this every
year — we like everyone else apparently, try to go the week before
school begins to start to get some supplies (I think it helps the kids
deal with some of their back-to-school anxiety), but so does eveyone
else and the store was quite jammed. I always think of the Staples TV
commercial that my late Dad adored, and I guess I do too, which is the
middle aged guy whooping it up, swinging around the aisles with a
shopping cart, while the holiday tune "It’s the Most Wonderful Time of
the Year" plays in the background. He is followed by his drooping kids,
despairing at the return of Fall and homework..

Since we are an edu-ma-cation centered home, my wife also begins to
enter the mourning mode in mid August. She bought a copy of "How to Get
Along at Work with People You Hate" and a magazine on ideas for
starting home businesses..She is a special education art teacher who
works with special needs kids (primarily autistic and emotionally
disabled).. She loves working with her students, her students do
amazing work and have won numerous arts awards, but like anyone who is
employed in a large organization, the adults often pose the greater
challenges.

Anyway, we were remembering a fantastic summer a few years back. We had
rented a place in Bearsville NY, a lovely little home with the Esopus
running through the backyard. The kids were younger, 4 years through 11
years I guess. I work year round so we spent a few weeks up there and
then went up every other weekend that we could.

The kids had a great
time. We were relaxing but in the process of selling our first home in
Clinton Hill and buying our current place in Flatbush. But in between
the phone calls, faxes and Fed Exes, we enjoyed our summer in the
country. We went to a concert at the old Woodstock site near
Monticello. We saw great outdoor theatre— "Rip van Winkle" featuring
giant puppets. My son and I searched the back roads nearby until we
found Big Pink, where Bob Dylan and the Band recorded the legendary
Basement Tapes in 1967. As a matter of fact, less than mile away, on
Stoll Road, Bob Dylan had had his mythic motorpsycho accident in 1966.
Our next door neighbors, including a volunteer fireman were wonderful
and we went with them to the 4th of July parade in town. We loved that
summer. Wading in the Esopus, visiting the town.

Speaking of puppets, one day that summer, we went to the Woodstock
Library. I had a NYPL card and we were able to get a Woodstock Library
Card and visited often. They always have amazing used book sales at the
library and we have picked up many gems over the years. Everyone was
very friendly. Anyway, we were browsing around the library and a young
guy came in with his daughter. Our kids were in the childrens’ oom
looking at books and playing with kids toys. The young dad, a little
grungy but very friendly, started doing a puppet show for his daughter
and our kids. Mostly kid-talk with puppets. I recognized the dad
immediately. Suddenly, the mom shows up in a granny dress with
heavy-framed glasses. "Ethan, we gotta go". And that’s how our kids met
Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke. My wife and I were polite and cordial but
frankly starstruck. The librarian lady said "Your kids had a very
famous playmate". My son (you might remember him, the 16 year old
autograph hound, who, by the way, this summer completed a film that was
shown last week at the NYC Summer Arts Institute at the Tribeca Film
Institute) still hocks me for not getting an autograph

I just spoke with Tom Simon, the owner of Seventh Avenue Books, who wants everyone to know that there will be "an agressive sale" at the bookstore starting tomorrow, August 24th.

The store, which is located on Seventh Avenue between 3rd and 2nd Streets in Park Slope, will be closing at the end of the month. 

He also told me that the store was never sold but that a vegan restaurant is going in there. Here’s the story from Tom Simon:

After a pleasant six years running 7th Ave. Books in Park Slope, I ‘m
closing shop to spend more time with my kids and work on some projects
I’ve not had time to focus on.

In these six years, we’ve sold over a half million used books,
almost all of which came from folks in Park Slope, and having been a
bookseller for some thirty years, I must say that the quality of these
books was uncommonly high. So many came to us from local authors,
academics, and wildly ecletic readers, making it possible for us to
become what bookstores aspire to be: a collection of books which
reflects and satisfies the community it serves.

It’s kind of funny how over the last few weeks I’ve begun to feel an
odd sort of guilt, as literally hundreds of customers have told me how
much they’ll miss our presence, what a loss it is for them. I feel like
I’ve let down more readers than I ever realized before deciding to move
on. Yet it’s gratifying to know how much pleasure we’ve provided.

Our last day will be August 31. Two weeks ago we began our "moving on"
sale. Despite the huge number of books we’ve since sold, I’m astonished
by how many really fine books customers continue to find and buy. Hat’s
off to the readers of Park Slope.

You might find this interesting. For close to fifteen years, I held executive positions at both Waldenbooks and Barnesandnoble.com.
No doubt I contributed to the demise of many an independent bookseller.
While my closing is not from lack of profit as used books are a
different market from new books, from what I have pieced together, the
four independent Park Slope book stores combined gross sales are only
25% of our local Barnes & Noble’s. Pretty astonishing and to many disheartening. And I helped this happen, not just in Park Slope, but all across the country.

Over the next ten days, I think we’ll give the public one of the finest
book sales held in years. Unsold books, most of which will be fine
selections, will be donated to schools, hospitals, prisons and others.
Somehow, I find this the most gratifying part of our closing.

If you’d like any more info on this bit of news, or on bookselling in general, you can reach me at (917) 929 1653, or tomsimon123@aol.com.

Many thanks for your time.

Best,

Thomas George Simon, Prop.

P.S. I neglected to mention that our custom made book cases are for sale at
very nice prices. more importantly, so is our very large fish tank: I’m
not looking for the cash so much as a good home for it.

Hello Neighbors,

I know there are several meetings going on in the neighborhood tonight (CB6 Land Use, 22 Jackson Place and my Town Hall meeting regarding the Carroll Gardens Down Zoning). I apologize for the inconvenience but we need to kick off the Carroll Gardens Down Zoning Meeting Series now.

Rest assured that this is one of many meetings on the topic of the CG Down Zoning. I am certain there will be a great turn out. We will be starting to accept public testimony close to 7:00PM which means if you want to go to the CB6 presentation or after you will still have time to let me know how you feel about your issues in Carroll Gardens.

If you would like to reserve a speaking spot before the meeting please email Tom Gray at tagray1@gmail.com or call 848-702-9319 and we will make sure you are heard.

Sincerely,

Bill de Blasio

Good news for runner, bikers, and those who like to enjoy Prospect Park in the evening.

City Officials announced on Monday that starting on Monday, August 27, 2007, East Drive in Prospect Park will no longer be open
to motor vehicles on weekday evenings. The way it is now, drivers can used the  East Drive on weekdays from 7 to 9 a.m. and
from 5 to 7 p.m.. The road is closed on weekends.

City officials said
the road was being closed as part of an effort to expand recreation in
the park. A spokesperson for the TA said the closing should not
unduly affect neighborhood traffic in the surrounding areas.

An eventful weekend it was out here in California.

Artsy Grandma, Teen Spirit, OSFO, and Smartmom went to San Francisco for a few days of glorious San Francisconess.

Hepcat went to Monterey for the Monterey Historics car races.

Underwater Ballerina was evacuated from the island in the Carribbean Island where she works and is on her way back to California due to Hurricane Dean.

Artsy Grandma nearly choked on wasabi in a Japanese restaurant on Polk Street in San Francisco.

There are dangerous fires in Lake Tahoe.

Either my hands got bigger or the Sunday New York Times’ shrunk.

Here’s this week’s Smartmom from the Brooklyn Paper, cited as Newspaper of the Year, by the Suburban Newspaper Association.

So, Smartmom wondered, can Diaper Diva pull off Ducky’s third birthday party?

Yes,
the red-haired beauty with the fairest skin, a contagious laugh, and
the brightest eyes imaginable was turning 3 and Diaper Diva had a
rather ambitious party planned.

And it’s not like she has the 16,
that’s right 16, years of mothering experience under her belt like
Smartmom. She’s a newbie really, a greenhorn when it comes to this
mothering stuff.

Smartmom observed Diaper Diva as she began
planning the fete back in June. In true Diaper Diva fashion, she fussed
over every detail. Should it be indoor or out? Should there be a
children’s entertainer? Should it have a theme?

Is it appropriate to have wine?

All this, while she’s working full time and desperately trying to get Ducky toilet-trained.

Smartmom knew she had a lot on her plate and wondered how it would go.

Still, Smartmom knew to stay out of it.

Well, she did contribute some pearls of wisdom.

Remember: All the balloons should be the same color. They’ll all want red.

But that’s all. Smartmom was delicate with the advice.

Ducky is 3 already and admittedly Diaper Diva has done a pretty good job so far. Just
look at Ducky. She’s so full of spunk and fun; a little bossy sometimes
and very smart; she’s oh so definite about what she wants to do and
what she wants everyone else to do.

And Diaper Diva handles all
of it with aplomb. In fact, Smartmom admires the way Diaper Diva sets
limits for Ducky and the way Ducky actually listens to her. Smartmom,
on the other hand, was never great in the discipline department.

In
other ways, too, Smartmom notices the transformation of Diaper Diva
from a non-parent living in the Slope — who was, truth be told, more
than a little annoyed by the neighborhood’s child-centeredness — to a
full-fledged, leaves-her-Maclaren
stroller-in-the-middle-of-the-sidewalk, Park Slope mama.

At least she doesn’t have a Bugaboo.

It’s
true. Diaper Diva has all the super annoying parts of motherhood down
cold: everything revolves around Ducky now. Diaper Diva is rarely able
to meet for a quick drink. And when Smartmom wants to talk on the
phone, Diaper Diva says, “Gotta go now, bye. Ducky needs me.”

Smartmom
knows that it’s only natural that Diaper Diva’s antenna is tuned to the
“all Ducky, all the time” radio station of life. But this sometimes make Smartmom feel a little left out. Her own children
aren’t the center of DD’s universe anymore. And neither is she.

But that’s OK, that’s the way it’s supposed to be. Right?

Fiercely
protective, loving, nurturing, and serious about her mothering, Diaper
Diva travels with Dora the Explorer Band Aids, a pocketbook full of
first-aid supplies, and sugar-free lollipops for potty-training
incentives (Ducky is fully trained now).

And you don’t even want to know what’s in Diaper Diva’s well-stocked red Skip Hop diaper bag
.
Smartmom arrived
early (but not too early) for Ducky’s Dora the Explorer party. There
was a life-sized blow up Dora, of course and Diaper Diva hired a
sweet-natured performer named Peter Davis, who sang melodic originals
like “Playing in the Playground” and “Red-Headed Girl” (special for
Ducky) and classics like “Wheels on the Bus” and the “If You’re Happy
and You Know It” with a humorous twist.

When Diaper Diva asked him to sing, “The Circle Game,” the 40-something Davis asked her to sing along.

“I don’t sing,” she said. “My sister does. I was the painter.”

Smartmom
was impressed. Diaper Diva had in one sentence clearly delineated their
separate identities as children. Being a twin, you have to pick your
turf in order to distinguish yourself.

Even in their late 40s,
they’re still trying to win that turf war and are still competitive
with each other, super critical, and not just a little judgmental.

In a helpful way.

Smartmom
was moved that her sister wanted her to sing. She used to think her
sister resented the singing because it brought Smartmom so much
attention.

Few know of Smartmom’s former identity as a
20-something songwriter who, in her dreams, was a cross between Joni
Mitchell and Billie Holiday. (Dumb Editor note: In her dreams, indeed!)

A road not taken. But hey, she got to sing at Ducky’s third birthday party at her sister’s urging.

Tabloid Mom, who kept telling Davis that he reminded her of Kenny Loggins, added her lovely voice to the mix.

Too
bad Tabloid Dad missed the concert, but he was off working on the
Geraldo show. But the Kravitzes were there, as were many friends old
and new, including Diaper Diva’s next-door neighbor, hipster friends
from Williamsburg, and all of Ducky’s pals from her Prospect Park West
apartment building.

In addition to the ’70s sing-a-thon, there
was Pin the Tail on the Donkey, a mask-making activity, a Dora piñata,
and tiny cupcakes and, of course, the big photo op when Ducky blew out
her candles.

When all was said and done, Smartmom had to admit
that Diaper Diva had really aced the 3-year-old-party-test, an
important rite of passage of motherhood.

Sure, there was hard
candy (choking risk for 3-year-olds) in the pinata. But hey, the kids
had fun (and no Heimlich Maneuver was required). The parents had fun.
Even the children’s entertainer had fun.

And Smartmom and her twin are learning to be separate and supportive of one another.

Way to go, Diaper Diva, who is already planning Ducky Day number four. Smartmom wonders if she’ll be able to top this one. She is new at this and all…

Here’s a post by Richard Grayson about Bonnie a Clyde, which played at the McCarren Pool’s Summerscreen series.

"I am sorry to say that ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ does not impress me as a contribution to the thinking of our times or as wholesome entertainment."

So wrote New York Times movie critic Bosley Crowther on September 3, 1967, in a mystified response to the many letters attacking his negative review of the movie.

Crowther’s long reign as Times film reviewer would end that November.  He never seemed to understand the sea change in American movies.

I first saw Bonnie and Clyde 40 years ago during its original run at the long-gone Brook Theater by Flatbush and Flatlands Avenues.  On Tuesday evening, I got to see it on a big screen again as the penultimate film in the McCarren Pool’s Summerscreen series.

As usual, most of the audience sat in folding chairs or blankets on the south half of the drained pool. With the recently landmarking and the Bloomberg administration’s plans for the pool uncertain, 2007 could be the last summer for movies and concerts.
Everyone entering gets a sticker with a number.  We’re supposed to look for our "twin," someone wearing the same number, and if we find them, we both might win something.  Wearing a number with the logo of Volkswagen (sponsor of the event along with The L Magazine and others) feels creepy to me, but several audience members are quite aggressive in trying to locate their "twin."

Blankets are placed a lot closer together than they would be at the beach, but no one seems to mind.  I sit next to some film students at the School of Visual Arts, where I teach literature and writing, and one of them asks me if I had to be taken to see the movie by a parent, since I was only 16 in 1967 and it’s rated R.

No, I went by myself, I say; the MPAA rating system wasn’t implemented till later in 1968, probably because of movies like Bonnie and Clyde.
There’s a vibrant pre-movie performance by Woodpecker!, a local bluegrass/punk/acoustic band who played the kind of music Flatt and Scruggs might be doing today if they were 25 and lived in Brooklyn.

As darkness descends, kitschy 1950s movie promos repeatedly tell us to head for the snack counter for delicious refreshments.

The film itself seems as fresh as ever, though probably not quite so startling 40 years after its debut.  The crowd is quiet, with little talking, some picnicking, a bit of cigarette smoking, some chugging from oversized cans of beer.  But basically everyone seems spellbound.

The biggest laugh among this mostly hipster crowd comes in the scene when Bonnie and Clyde’s young accomplice C.W. Moss is upbraided by his father for getting a tattoo on his chest and defiling his body.  The old man seems more upset by this than he is by his son’s life of crime – pretty amusing in a crowd whose body art, if put on canvases, would take up a couple of floors of the Whitney.

The last Summerscreen movie of the summer is next week: Prince in Purple Rain.  Anyone who knows what’s the password can get in free

WHEN:  Thursday, August 16, 1 PM

WHERE:  City
Hall Park ,
East side of park, Park Row and Lafayette Streets, facing the
Brooklyn Bridge

WHAT:  READING
OF WAR AT HOME,
A NEWLY-RELEASED REPORT BY MOVEON.ORG.
(PART OF OVER 100 SUCH EVENTS NATIONALLY)

FOR THE FIRST TIME, THE EFFECTS OF THE HALF-TRILLION-DOLLAR COST OF THE IRAQ
WAR TO EACH NEW YORK CITY
CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT WILL BE DETAILED.

PHOTO OPP: 1) GIANT CHECK DISPLAYING LOCAL
COST OF WAR.
         
            
2)  Speakers include an Iraqi schoolteacher, and Kevin Powell,
best-selling author of Who’s Gonna
Take The Weight? Manhood, Race, and Power in America, and Someday We’ll All Be Free, on the
2004 presidential election.

BACKGROUND:  On Thursday, August 16, members of MoveOn.org will release a
new report, "War at Home,” compiled
by Moveon.org from the National Priorities project, highlighting the
enormous cost of the Iraq War to residents in every
New York City congressional district since
the war began.  Over 100 Moveon councils nationally will release the
report on the same day.  There are separate reports for each Congressional
district, detailing the economic effects and deprivations of the war on that
area.

Since the Iraq
war began, Congress has spent almost a half-trillion dollars on an unwinnable
civil war. New York City ’s
contribution to this has been almost 41 billion dollars. This has taken funds
away from other national and international priorities, but also local
priorities in each district, which will be detailed.

Each local representative will be named, and the cost to his/her district.
After the event, local MoveOn members will deliver the report to local
representatives at his/her office in each of the five boroughs. ###

All the way in California, I heard the news. Andy the Fruit Truck Guy is coming back. An OTBKB reader sent me an email. THANKS.

at least that’s what "mike," who was
selling fruit from a large white truck, and a sign on the truck said at
the corner of 7th and president today.. 

The city reduced car hours in Central Park but made no change to the car hours in Propsect Park. What gives and what does Markowitz have to do with it.

The Daily
News reports that Brooklyn transportation activists like Park Slope
Neighbors and Streetsblog are up in arms. Here’s an excerpt from the
Daily News story. Read more here.

Advocates charge the city’s policies involving cars in the two parks
were already unfair to Brooklyn and that the latest changes made the
discrepancy worse.

Markowitz spokeswoman Laura Sinagra said the borough president was
never given a formal proposal to sign off on but that his long-standing
position remains unchanged.

"Our historical position has been that further limiting hours would
result in unacceptable traffic backup," Markowitz said in a statement.
"The current hours are appropriate to the needs of the many in our
borough who must rely on these roads to get to work and school."

The flareup is the latest round in the ongoing battle among some
neighborhood and transportation groups to ban cars altogether in both
parks.

In Brooklyn, members of Community Board 14, which includes Midwood
and Flatbush, have vehemently opposed banning cars from the park for
congestion reasons.

McBrooklyn reports that Senator Barack Obama will be at the Brooklyn Mariott on Wednesday. I won’t be in town. Can someone send a detailed report to OTBKB?

Senator Barack Obama
will be at the New York Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge on Wednesday,
August 22, 2007 from 5:30pm – 7:00pm for a special event hosted by
Brooklyn for Barack together with Obama for America.

Take pix of Red Hook. From August 12-15. Learn more at the What’s the Hook website.

What’s the Hook?, a community based photography project designed to document one week in
the life of Red Hook, Brooklyn, one of New York City’s most unique and
rapidly changing neighborhoods. Open to locals and visitors alike,
"What’s The Hook" encourages photographers of all backgrounds to submit
digital images captured during the week of August 12th – 18th. This
week has been selected as it begins with Red
Hook Old Timer’s Day, an annual event at Red Hook Housing that has been
going on for more than 30 years.

The images produced during August 12th – 18th will be accessible on a
dedicated website soon after the photographs have been submitted, and
representative photos will be printed and displayed in a wide variety
of Red Hook venues during the Fall and Winter of 2007 – 2008.

What’s The Hook? encourages submissions from photographers of all
ages, backgrounds, and experience levels.

What’s The Hook? hopes to feature images from every possible time
of day, angle of vantage, and facet of life that exists in Red Hook.
             

From her weather tower in Coney Island here’s today’s weather by Rose at 9 a.m.

It’s 68 degrees right now. It’s going as high as the 80’s. Sunny and nice. It was cool last night. I went to church and it was cold.

Sunday it’s going to be nice and sunny. Monday the weather is going back up. And there may be some thunderstorms.

It’s kind of like one of those day-in-the-life books but it taking place over a few days. And in Red Hook the week of Old Timer’s Day. Red Hook may be one of the most photogenic places around. So start shooting…

What’s The Hook? is a community based photography project designed to
document one week in the life of Red Hook, Brooklyn, one of New York
City’s most unique and rapidly changing neighborhoods. Open to locals
and visitors alike, "What’s The Hook" encourages photographers of all
backgrounds to submit digital images captured during the week of August
12th – 18th. This week has been selected as it begins with Red
Hook Old Timer’s Day, an annual event at Red Hook Housing that has been
going on for more than 30 years.

The images produced during August 12th – 18th will be accessible on a
dedicated website soon after the photographs have been submitted, and
representative photos will be printed and displayed in a wide variety
of Red Hook venues during the Fall and Winter of 2007 – 2008.

What’s The Hook? encourages submissions from photographers of all
ages, backgrounds, and experience levels.

What’s The Hook? hopes to feature images from every possible time
of day, angle of vantage, and facet of life that exists in Red Hook.
             

Luckily the Kravitz’s have cable. I watch Mad Men with them on Thursday nights. They even have TIVO, which means we skip over the ads on this show about advertising.

Set in 1960 New York, this AMC series is about the personal and professional lives of Madison Avenue advertising execs.

At the agency it’s a man’s world—sexist and competitive; the drinking starts early and there are three-martini lunches and late nights at the St. Regis with clients, escorts, and more drinks. The show portrays the women but they’re mostly relegated to being secretaries and wives.

But the times they are a changing and the women are starting to wake up and are coming into their own at the dawn of the age of birth control pill and divorce.

Life in the suburbs isn’t what it seems and every one is unhappy for one reason or another. The suburban scenes are stylized and not altogether convincing vignettes of the sterile (and somewhat catty) world of housewives and children. They may be chirpy but secretly they’re suffering; one is in therapy and lies on an natty Eames couch.

The scenes in the agency are fascinating; it’s the beginning of an exciting and creative time in advertising, starting with the groundbreaking Volkswagon “Lemon” ad.

Watching with the Kravitz’s is fun. My father, who hates the show, was a copy writer in 1960 (and for many years after) and Mrs. Kravitz worked in advertising and Mr. Kravitz still does.

It’s all in the details. Great, spot-on authentic set design, references to all kinds of cultural icons and news. Can’t wait for next week’s show. The characters, especially John Hamm, playing Don Draper, are growing on me.

He plays the hard-working creative director with a roving eye. His wife is on the verge of a nervous breakdown and he’s breaking many single girl’s hearts.

Flash flood warnings for tomorrow have been issued by the National Weather Service. The storms are not expected to be as severe as Wednesday’s short, heavy rain which brought the New York Subway system to its knees.

Thunderstorms are being predicted for Thursday night and Friday morning. They’re talking over an inch of rain. The MTA says it’s ready with additional personnel and, hopefully, additional expertise.

"We will be strategically placing pumps throughout the system at potentially flood-prone locations, strategically placing management and customer personnel at key stations throughout the system to help our customers navigate in case of service disruptions… The authority put hundreds of buses from New York City Transit, Long Island Bus and its express and suburban bus fleets on reserve in case they are needed to move stranded subway passengers on Friday. The authority also “rechecked drains to ensure they are free of debris from yesterday’s event,” said Elliot G. Sander, the chief executive of the M.T.A., said Thursday afternoon at a news conference. 

Discover "hidden Brooklyn" in a  nice, well-researched article by Mandy Stadtmiller, which includes food, shopping, spas and more in the New York Post.

YOU likely won’t find a place in America more storied, more
chronicled, more waxed about than Brooklyn, from Walt Whitman to
Jonathan Safran Foer, from egg creams to di Fara’s, from
trolley-dodgers to hipster doofuses. And the beauty part is, in spite
of all the lore and legend, there’s still more hidden Brooklyn out
there to discover.

As part of our weeklong series dedicated to New York’s
unheralded finds, we talked to foodies, bloggers and various experts in
all things Brooklyn to find the next legendary sights and sites. For
instance, if not di Fara’s, where? (Joe & Joe Pizza, says Brooklyn
novelist Gabriel Cohen.) Get started now with our list of
under-the-radar bars, restaurants, boutiques and other assorted Kings
County oddities. And check out nypost.com for yesterday’s hidden
Manhattan picks.

The storm lasted maybe an hour but it was very intense and thunder and lightening woke many Brooklynites. It managed to unleash a tornado that touched Staten Island, but whipped through
southwestern Brooklyn at breakneck speed with winds going 135 miles an hour.

This all happened before the morning rush hour and managed to paralyze the transit system, flooding tracks, tunnels, and major thoroughfares.

In Park Slope, there was gushing water everywhere. Met Food on Seventh Avenue near 2nd Street was filled with water, as was their basement. The storm wreaked havoc all over the Slope. Water filled  the Grand Army Plaza train station making it look, one friend told me, "like there had been a mudslide."

All day, readers sent pictures from Bay Ridge which looked like a major disaster area with fallen trees, wrecked cars, broken windows and damaged  buidlings. Ditmas Park also had many fallen trees and building damage.

By 9 am it was a bright sunny day and if you weren’t reading a blog or listening to the news you might not have known that there had been a serious storm.

OTBKB readers who left early for the subway were shocked to find that the trains weren’t running. Many people just gave up and stayed home. Others waited hours for trains. One reader did get a train out of Grand Army Plaza, after waiting an hour, but it only went to Atlantic Avenue, where she waited for a R train and then gave up.

It’s across the street from Naidres (near 12th Street) and my friend and tipster, Creative Times, says that there is a strong pink theme (and she has a thing for the color pink).

The interior is already incredible even
though it is not finished, and it is all kosher. It deserves a photo. Creative Times will cover it, too when I get back but I see no reason why we can’t both do a bit. The owner is nice, creative, etc. and deseres lots of coverage.

That’s a first for Park Slope. Kosher chocolate. After a quick google I see that Chocolate Girl doesn’t have a web site but, what do you know,  Brooklyn Paper did an article about the shop on July 21:

The new chocolate maker in town wants Park Slope’s picky foodies to
know that “kosher” and “gourmet” needn’t be as incompatible as oil and
water.

“Quality can be kosher, too,” said Tziporah Avigayil
Jaeger, 26, proprietor of Chocolate Girl, a chocolate shop that will
open on Seventh Avenue on Wednesday.

“It’s gourmet chocolate, and
it just happens to be kosher,” said Jaeger, who lives in Midwood. “I
only use top-quality ingredients.”

Pure chocolate is essentially
parve, or non-dairy, Jaeger pointed out. It’s the additives, like milk
and flour, which can render some chocolate un-kosher.

To avoid
unholy ingredients, Jaeger imports her chocolate from a kosher company
in Belgium. She tempers and reworks the sweet confection here in
Brooklyn, where she has separate kitchens for dairy and non-dairy, and
she has the treats certified again by Rabbi Avner Katz.

 

The Daily Green has a photo of a tree that fell on a car during this morning’s storm in Bay Ridge.

The photo was taken by JGNY www.flickr.com/photos/jgny/ who has a really great Flickr site with amazing pix of the storm and other Brooklyn pix, too.

"The F-train is indeed running," Hepcat, who called at 11:21 a.m. on Wednesday, told me. He called from the train as it made its way on the outdoor elevated tracks from the Fourth Avenue station to the Smith and Ninth Street station.

"It’s very crowded," he said.

Hepcat is on his way to the F: He has a meeting in SoHo. Will there be a train? He says that he will call when he gets there to inform OTBKB readers. Will he call?

My upstair’s neighbor is saying that the best bet is the D-train. That’s what the MTA site said (it was updated at around 10 a.m.).

It’s 11 a.m. and Diaper Diva has to get to work and is trying to figure out what to do. Please advise.

An OTBKB reader wrote in with this news. She took these pictures with her cell phone.

Hi, I was standing outside Stone Park and suddenly heard what I thought was a car crash. I ran over to see what it was and the whole top of a building had falling on the sidewalk. Luckily nobody was hurt.

It’s actually the building right next to the building that the ladder is going up to. See that black molding. On the building where the firefighter is?

That’s what fell off the building next to it. Really scary. If someone had the misfortune of walking there at the moment they would have been killed.

The Martin Luther King Jr. Concert Series, celebrating its 25th anniversary season with a line-up of gospel, classic soul, contemporary, Caribbean
and R&B artists really had a BIG SHOW on Monday night.

The notorious no-show, Lauryn Hill stunned the crowd of 15,000 at Wingate Park in Brooklyn with her two-hour set, which included many favorties from the Mis-Education of Lauryn Hill and even two Robert Flack songs. An OTBKB reader had this to say.

Forget the fact that she was scheduled at 7:30 and didn’t come on till a
little after 10, which was expected, but she sounded like she smoked a
pack of camel unfiltered and drank a half a fifth. I saw Lauryn in
1997, pre-Miseducation and she was phenomenal; thats what I expected
last night.

Don’t get me wrong there were flares of genius (her version
of Nina Simone’s Sinnerman, and Zion), but other than that she was all
over, introducing this kind of Afro Jazz Funk that was reminiscent of Phish or the Grateful Dead.

I am still more forgiving then the rest of
the audience who began to leave after the first song. I still love her
for her work on Mis-education and hope she can remain sane enough to
make good music post Rohan [Marley] and being a self-indulgent diva.

But Veteran rock critic, John Parales had a very different impression of the show. He  filed this report with the New York Times:

Although
her voice had a hoarse, raspy edge, possibly from the strain of
touring, she did not spare herself. She used the rasp for emphasis like
a classic soul singer or a preacher, as one more way to telegraph
emotion. Often Ms. Hill seized a line of a song as an incantation:
repeating it, rephrasing it, pushing it lower and higher, switching
from ache to defiance or leaping away to scat-sing a barrage of
syllables. She was fervent and insistent, but she also eased off to
croon two ballads associated with Roberta Flack — “Killing Me Softly
With His Song” (her hit with the Fugees) and “The First Time Ever I Saw
Your Face” — and a Shirelles-style version of “Will You Still Love Me
Tomorrow?”

In many of the songs Ms. Hill inserted lines, sung and
declaimed, about refusing to compromise. She has spoken in interviews
about her distaste for the music business and its marketing niches. But
she is a hugely gifted musician with larger social ideals, and the kind
of performance she gave on Monday night needed no compromises at all.

Horrible rain. The sun is peeping out now. But it’s supposed to start up later.

Trains not running because of the water. The trains are flooded out. 2,3, not running. No trains running out of Grand Central. The F isn’t running. Sun is peeping out now. But I don’t know…