Read all about it on the Bay Ridge Rover. See loads of great photos, too. Here’s an excerpt.

Residents were shaken from their slumber early Wednesday morning by
powerful fast-moving thunder storms, producing 1-3 inches of rain in
less than 2 hours, sparking tornado warnings for Staten Island and
Brooklyn – and paralyzing Bay Ridge.

In northern Bay Ridge,
Colonial Rd and 3rd avenue were particularly devastated – littered with
massive downed tress that knocked out power, making streets impassable
and snarling traffic all over Bay Ridge.

Power outages and
flooding caused subway service all over the city to be indefinitely
suspended sending commuters above ground in droves, turning every major
traffic artery out of Bay Ridge into a choke point.

No reports yet as to injuries or death.  Property damage was abundant.

Continue reading BAY RIDGE PARALYZED BY STORM: A TORNADO? →

Let’s take a moment to admire Hepcat’s ocean pictures. Here’s what he did: he wrapped his Sony camera in a Ziplock bag and ran through the waves.

From a distance, I thought he was videotaping the waves. But he didn’t want the waves to crash over the camera.

Hepcat loves the late afternoon light at Amagansett Beach. “Around 6 p.m. the sun comes down below any clouds there might be and you get this glowing light that’s very directional but also diffuse.”

Great pix, Hepcat. OTBKB will be running ocean and/or East End shots all week.

Singer, rapper, songwriter, producer and musician, Lauryn Hill has eight grammy awards, four  children with Rohan Marley, the son of Bob Marley, and one heck of a critically acclaimed album under her belt called The Mis-Education of Lauren Hill.

On top of all that, on Monday night she performs free in Brooklyn!

The Martin Luther King Concert Series presents An Evening
with Lauryn Hill,” with special guests. 7:30 pm. Wingate Field,
Winthrop Street between Brooklyn and Kingston avenues. (718) 469-1912.

Let’s not forget that the Martin Luther King Concert Series, the largest free concert series in the Metropolitan area, is produced by Debby Garcia, one of the Park Slope 100. Way to go, Debbie.

Join Volunteers In Prospect Park to help beautify two of the Park’s most elegant and serene features: the Vale of Cashmere and Rose Garden.

Call for location.
10 a.m. – 2 p.m.
(718) 965-8960

The bike-only lane on the northside of the Manhattan Bridge is reopening on Monday according to the city Department of Transportation. The lane has been closed for construction since October 2006.

Diaper Diva lost her iPhone and we weren’t sure if it happened during lunch at Lunch, the great lobster roll eatery on Montauk Highway or if it was lost it at the public pool at Montauk Downs, a state park in Montauk.

First we checked everywhere in the car. We emptied out the beach bags, searched every nook and cranny of the car.

Then we went back in Lunch and searched the booth, the floor under the booth, the restroom; we checked the car again.

“$650.00,” she cried. “I don’t deserve to have an iPhone,” Diaper Diva lambasted herself as she threw everything out of the car onto the park lot asphalt creating a mound of beach accessories: towels, floaties, pails, shovels, bathing suits, a hot pink ice cooler.

Just an hour before Diaper Diva was telling Smartmom how empowered she felt to have an iPhone, how wonderful it is, what a world of possibility it created…

“I am going to kill myself if I lose this iPhone,” she said.

They packed up her car and in two cars headed back to Montauk Downs. Like a team of detectives, they retraced her every step. Starting at the pool. they walked the walk from the pool, to the path to the parking lot, into the parking lot, the parking space…

NOTHING.

Then Smartmom remembered that while leaving the pool area, she’d asked Diaper Diva to hold her William Gibson novel, Pattern Recognition.

“Where’s the book?” Smartmom asked outloud.

“What book?” Diaper Diva said.

“The book I handed you,” Smartmom said.

Turned out the book was missing, too. Smartmom was convinced there was some connection between the missing Gibson book and the iPhone.

They asked all the Lifeguards, the people at the Lost and Found desk, the woman at the entrance; over time every one at the pool knew that an iPhone was missing.

In the midst of this, Smartmom and Hepcat went back to Lunch search the restaurant.

“Did you guys really search the booth before we left?” Diaper Diva asked suspiciously.

Hepcat and Smartmom took a scenic ride down the Old Montauk Highway to Lunch. Again, they searched high and low but to no avail.

The iPhone was still missing. When they got back to Montauk Downs, Hepcat continued to retrace Diaper Diva’s steps in search of the iPhone and “Pattern Recognition” by William Gibson.

Finally, Diaper Diva seemed to be calming down. She was lying in the shallow children’s pool with Ducky and OSFO when she thought to call her message machine back in Brooklyn.

“Someone called,” she screamed out. She searched desperately for a pen to write down the person’s phone number.

Finally, DD reached her Good Samaritan on the phone. Within minutes she and Hepcat were enroute to the Good Samaritan’s house, which was just up the road from the pool.

Good Samaritan found the iPhone on the road. “It must have been thrown from the car at high speed,,” she said. “It’s really scratched up.”

And that’s indeed what happened. Diaper Diva put the iPhone (and maybe the unfound book) on top of the car when Ducky had to use her portable potty in the pool parking lot. When she was through, DD packed up the portable potty and forgot that she’d put the iPhone on the roof of the car.

Zoom. Zoom. Zoom. The iPhone went flying off the car not far from the pool. Our Good Samaritan saw it on the side of the road and took it home. She called Diaper Diva’s home number almost immediately.

After the iPhone was returned and a happy Diaper Diva and the rest were heading back to Sag Harbor, Smartmom got a call from Good Samaritan (she had Smartmom’s number because Diaper Diva used SM’s phone to call her).

“I was a little frazzled when your sister handed me the reward money. I didn’t know what it was. I feel very weird about keeping it. I didn’t return the phone because of a reward or an award. I returned it because it’s the right thing to do,” she told Smartmom, who was impressed with the Good Samaritan’s integrity and struggel with accepting Diaper Diva’s reward money.

“I feel like I should give the money back,” she said.

Things got busy. Dinner for the kids. Dinner for the grown ups. Diaper Diva will call GS in the morning. It’ll be interesting to hear what they have to say.

Diaper Diva is thrilled to have her phone back. Smartmom is happy that Diaper Diva is happy. Hepcat is glad he doesn’t have to retrace any more of DD’s steps. OSFO told DD to save up for another one. Ducky didn’t really know what was going on but she’s certainly glad that things have calmed down…

Just another day on the family vacation.

The incredible thing is the phone continues to work perfectly. It’s unbelievable. It fell off of the roof of a car that was probably going 30 mph and it works like new (except for a few minor scratches). If only she hadn’t taken off the “encase,” its nifty rubber case. Then it would still be perfect.

Unbelievable.

OTBKB guest blogger, Adrienne Onforio, made it into the Daily News with a nice piece by Dennis Hamill. A really nice piece. Here’s a excerpt.

My mother would have loved this book.

She loved to walk, she reveled in history, and she adored Brooklyn and so she would have cherished "Walking Brooklyn: 30 Tours Exploring Historical Legacies, Neighborhood Culture, Side Streets and Waterways," by Adrienne Onofri.

Sometimes it takes an outsider’s eye to give us a fresh take on Brooklyn.

"The book was conceived by the publisher, Wilderness Press, based in Berkeley, Calif.," says Onofri, who was born in Manhattan, reared in Rockland County, and who lives in Astoria, Queens.

"They do mostly outdoor books on the American West, but they decided to start doing books on urban walking tours. They picked Brooklyn, as opposed to all of New York, and I heard about it from a friend of the publisher’s."

Onofri sketched out an overview, a table of contents of her 30 walking tours in Brooklyn, and wrote a few sample chapters and submitted it to Wilderness Press.

I just read on Design Sponge, that Rena Tom, a Park Slope shopkeeper and blogger is opening a San Francisco branch of her lovely Seventh Avenue shop, Rare Device. From the sounds of it, she’s moving to San Francisco but will be heading back east to Brooklyn frequently to check on her shop.

Grace Bonney of Design Sponge writes:

I just wanted to post a public farewell to the lovely Rena Tom who’s headed west tomorrow to open up shop in San Francisco. i’m going to miss having her right up the block from me but look forward to her new shop in SF and the reopening of her Park Slope shop which will now be a combo between Rare Device and Erin Weckerle’s gorgeous Sodafine."

I too which to send my  best wishes to Rena. I always had the sense that Rena left her heart in  San Francisco (we talked about Northern California one day in her shop). I discovered her on the blog, One Good Bumblebee, back in 2005 and was delighted when she morphed from jewelry blogger to Park Slope storeowner.

Rena’s shop, Rare Device, on Seventh Avenue near 16th Street, is simply gorgeous as is her taste in jewelry, bags, clothing, home accessories, and books.

Her website, where she sells Rare Device merchandise is also totally teriffic. Rena came to the first Brooklyn Blogfest. I think of her as a blogging pioneer, as she was an early user of blog technology to sell her jewelry. I think she may have been a software designer in a former career.

Rena is cool.

I came into her shop just days after she opened and said: "Hi, I’m OTBKB." She was happy to see me and very friendly.

Good luck to Rena in San Francisco. I for one can’t wait to visit the new Rare Device/Sodafine combo shop. And I will certainly check out the new SF shop when I’m in San Francisco at the end of the month.

Ride the Prospect Park Merry-Go-Round for free. And you can thank Astoria Federal Savings for that little gift to the children of Brooklyn.

Brooklyn, NY – The best family fun ride in the heart of Brooklyn just got better: Prospect Park’s 1912 Carousel is free for kids under the age of 12 every Thursday in August, courtesy of Astoria Federal Savings.

Restored in 1990 by the Prospect Park Alliance, the Carousel has 51 hand carved horses, as well as a giraffe, lion, deer and two dragon-pulled chariots. The Carousel’s melodic Wurlitzer organ with 141 pipes and 16 bells was recently dedicated in honor of philanthropists Peter and Isabel Malkin.

The Carousel is open Thursdays through Sundays, from 12 – 6 p.m. (5 p.m. after Labor Day). Rides cost only $1.50. Books of 6 tickets are available for $8. Children under 3-years-old must be accompanied by a parent or guardian. The Carousel is wheelchair accessible.

The Carousel is also a popular place to hold birthday parties, complete with food and party favors in a scenic, kid-friendly setting. Please call the Rental & Event Planning Office at (718) 287-6215 for more information.

The Carousel is located in the Park’s Children’s Corner, just inside the Willink entrance to the Park, at Ocean and Flatbush Avenues and Empire Boulevard. The nearest subways are the Q, S, or B Train to Prospect Park station.

WNYC is asking people to count the number of SUVs versus regular cars on their block. I’m game just as soon as I get back to Brooklyn (actually, the count ends today at 1 p.m.). Let’s see how many SUVs there are in green Park Slope? It’s going to be a scary number.

We want you to go outside and count the number of SUVs on your block, as well as the number of regular cars. This is our experiment in “crowdsourcing,” where we employ you, the listener, in an act of journalism. We’re trying to find out just how much gas-guzzling SUV use there is throughout the New York area, with all the talk of environmental sustainability in the city. We’re giving you until next Thursday to do the counting, but please, just count the cars once. Most trucks and minivans are not SUVs, so we’re trusting your judgment. Also, please count the cars on both sides of the block (i.e. the section of your street between intersecting roads).

If you want to take photos, feel free to upload to Flickr and tag the photos blsuv. Post your results in the comment section below and we’ll analyze the results next week.

Wired Magazine writer Jeff Howe explains the idea on the air.

Please post 1) your neighborhood, 2) your block (street and cross street) 3) the number of SUVs parked 4) the total number of cars parked

NOTE: While we ordinarily encourage comments of any kind, we would like to keep this page limited to the findings about SUVs. We will take other comments when we discuss this next week. Thanks!

An OTBKB reader just wrote in with a question:

Just wondering if you knew anything about a plan/campaign to have restaurants in Park Slope be air conditioning free last night.

My fiance and I tried to go to dinner, but every restaurant we walked into was sweltering with the doors and windows open. Among those we tried, Brooklyn Burger Bar, Park Slope Ale House, Belleville, Rachel’s Taqueria.

We sat down at the bar at Brooklyn Burger Bar before realizing how hot it was, and when we apologized to the bartender and told her it was to warm for her, she turned to the hostess and said with some obvious frustration, “We lost another customer.” Any idea?

Well Brownstoner has the word on the latest incarnation of what was the Park Slope brothel, which was in operation until a few years ago.

It’s a big hunk of house and it recently sold for five million. The developer is converting it into condos or market-rate rentals.

The building on Lincoln Place is pictured in all of its glory on Brownstoner.

Someone by the name Wildlife Helper left a comment about the Guineafowl in Prospect Park, which I found interesting.

[Guinea fowl are] NOT indigenous to the Park and probably dumped/abandoned like the ducklings I encountered recently. People get these animals as ‘pets’ and then grow tired of them. “who knew” is right! Not me…

See info here:

They have many predators to these guinea fowl: dogs, raccoons, oppossums, more. According to a wildlife rehabilitator I asked, they are like regular domestic chickens.

Should be brought to a sanctuary. If you see again, please email me: giveducksachanc (at) gmail dot com.

Thanks

An OTBKB reader sent this in.

Walking the dogs this a.m., I came across a male Guineafowl in the shrubbery at the north end of the long meadow to the left of the Endale Arch if you are going toward the Grand Army exit.

I have never known guineafowl to be an indigenous species in the park. Who knew?

This outdoor movie stuff is getting to be quite the fad in New York City and Brooklyn Film Works is still an undiscovered gem.

Did you see the piece in the Friday Times’ about outdoor movies all over town. They even listed Brooklyn Film Works.

What fun it is to watch movies under the stars. Not that you can see too many stars in Brooklyn. But it’s still idyllic.

Especially now that Hepcat, OSFO, and I don’t have to help put up the screen and lean it against the Greg’s Express truck and break it down after the movie and put everything away. A great team is taking care of it this year and we’re IMPRESSED. Thanks to all.

We’re just too old for all that heavy lifting.

So this year we’re enjoying the fruit of last year’s labors. “I’m No Angel” and “What’s Up Doc” were hysterically funny and fun to watch.

“Duck Soup, showing this Tuesday, is one of the GREAT GREATS. It’s at 8:30 p.m. in JJ Byrne Park on Fifth Avenue at 3rd Street. You can buy popcorn, drinks, chips, and hot dogs. Or bring a picnic.

This is the final show of the summer. Can’t wait until next year.

 At approximately 3 p.m. on Saturday afternoon, a silver Dodge sedan with Pennsylvania plates went barreling down Seventh Avenue near Third Street and hit the scaffolding on the building on the north-east corner of 2nd Street.

 It then continued underneath the scaffolding past two trees in front of Met Foods before going back onto the street and veering back onto the sidewalk where it flattened a parking meter and ended up in front of Maggie Moo’s with a tree in its fender.

 The driver, apparently, was asleep at the wheel. He is resting at Methodist Hospital according to the owners of Met Foods. Miraculously no one was hurt, including the man who sits on a milk crate in front of the store collecting money.

Met Food’s awning was destroyed as were all the fruits on display outside.

Info for this article: Diaper Diva was walking by and saw the aftermath of the accident. She iPhoned Hepcat, who went over and took pictures. We both spoke with the owners of Met Foods. We pieced it all together looking at Hepcat’s photos.

Small tomatoes are growing in OSFO’s garden, which is just a large plastic terra cotta colored window box in the front yard. She planted them about two months ago and we finally have a harvest. A baby sitter, who works in this building, donated roots of thyme leaves, as well. The flower pots are filled with healthy looking flowers that brighten up the yard.

OSFO doesn’t like tomatoes. But Hepcat and Diaper Diva said that the tomatoes were delicious.

Brooklyn’s Hellgate Harmonie, which recently delighted audiences with their production of the opera, Cosi Fan Tutti at the Brooklyn Lyceum, will be playing 18th and 19th century middle European wind music at a cafe in the East Village called Imagine starting at 1pm today.

Imagine is located at 112 First Avenue, between 6th and 7th Streets. We’ll be in the backyard garden. We
can’t resist gardens.

Stop by for brunch, frozen margeritas, coffee.

Peace!

Terrible things happened to a friend of mine on July 27th for three years running. It was many years ago when we were both teens. But I still think of her every year on that day. No matter where we are. She’s always in my thoughts on that day.

This year she is in the south of France, one of her favorite places to be. You can bet that she’s taking it easy. After the third incident all those years ago, she vowed never to even move on July 27th; I’m sure she doesn’t take it that far any more. But I’ll bet she doesn’t fly on airplanes or do anything risky. I just have a feeling. The day has that kind of power over her. And me, too.

The first incident occurred on a hosteling trip in Camden, Maine. The group was hiking when the group-leader fell off a mountain to his death. That’s all I know. The teenagers had to find their way out of the park to get help. I remember she told me about it a few weeks after it happened and I was stunned that something so dramatic, so real could have happened to her. And it seemed unspeakably sad.

The second incident came a year later. She was also on a hosteling trip. A friend of hers fell into a glacier lake in Rocky Mountain National Park. He couldn’t get out for more than an hour and nearly died. Fortunately, he was saved and lived to tell the tale.

The third incident occurred in a national park in Washington State. Again she was on a hosteling trip. This time the group was poncho sliding down an icy pass. My friend went flying into a tree and broke both of her legs. She had to be helicoptered out of the park (strapped to the outside of the helicopter) to a hospital in Port Angeles where she was wrapped in body cast; she couldn’t leave the hospital for three months. Eventually, she was able to fly back to New York having missed three months of eleventh grade.

The year after that, we were together on July 27th, which felt sort of exciting and scary, too. We didn’t do anything on that day and joked that we were just going to sit very still. Afterall, the day was cursed. We were in a summer arts program in North Carolina feeling far away from home and family and spent the day in a local park having a picnic, swimming, taking it very easy.

When I was a teenager, I really looked up to this friend (and still do) for her sense of adventure, her fearlessness, her drive. Some people might say that going on hosteling trips three years in a row was pushing it a bit. Strange to say, I think I actually envied her these disasters: they seemed so dramatic even if they were tragic. Isn’t that what teenagers live for: drama, the real stuff.

I imagined losing someone I’d only known for a few weeks but had grown quite attached to and even called by a cute nickname. I pictured her trying to save her friend who nearly died in that icy Colorado lake. And her stories about the park ranger who visited her at the Port Angeles hospital…It was all so…grown up and, dare I say it, exciting. My life paled in comparison.

Ah, the strange logic of a teenage girl. But that’s how I thought about things then. And I still take it easy on July 27th, try to anyway. I wouldn’t want my life to take a dramatic turn. Not now anyway.

Kim Maier, Director of the Old Stone House, tells me that “Hamlet is really, really good — well beyond student
production if you get a chance to see it’s on Saturday at 8 pm.”

Kim, I’ll be there. But look: They’re doing Shakespeare all day.

This Shakespeare thing at the Old Stone House is INCREDIBLE!!!. John P. McEneny, who’s one of the Park Slope 100, is the drama teacher extraordinarie at MS 51 and the founder of the Piper Theater a professional, a repertory theater troupe, whose homebase isnow JJ Byrne Park/the Old Stone House.

Piper with the Old Stone House runs a Shakespeare program, a dramatic summer program for kids in JJ Byrne Park.

The performances are all FREE. John P. McEneny, directed the student prodcution of “Hamlet.” He is a legend in these parts.

July 28
Piper Theatre Students at OSH
Shakespeare Extravaganza!
Twelfth Night: 2:00 pm
Romeo & Juliet: 4:00 pm
Macbeth: 6:00 pm
Hamlet: 8:00 pm
Free.

An OTBKB reader wrote in today about the Opera Guy of Park Slope. I’ve heard about him and think I saw him once on Eighth Avenue. There used to be (maybe still is) an Opera Guy who stood on the sidewalk near Carnegie Hall and sang all day. And I’m not talking about Moon Dog, who dressed as a Viking and stood on the corner of 6th Avenue and 53rd Street — a truly great New York street fixture for years. Apparently, he was an experimental music composer.

Have you ever heard some strange man singing Opera while roaming the streets of Park Slope at night? I live on 8th Ave & 3rd St. I hear him walk by at night every few weeks. He BELTS out and the best part is…his voice BLOWS. He just walked by and was a singing like crazy.

A few months back, I had to go to work early and I actually walked to the F train behind him him. He was singing all the way there and then settled down when he got on the platform. I couldn’t help but follow him into the subway car to see what kind of crazy stuff he would do. It was in the winter and he had on two jackets and a sweater. He took all of them off before sitting down and while he was doing so, the train took off. He fell back a few steps and belted out a few notes in fear. It was AWESOME.

Please tell me that other people have seen this guy. He is a walking Saturday Night Live skit!

Whoever’s idea it was to turn the groundbreakingly weird and wonderful 1970’s documentary Grey Gardens by Albert and David Mayseles and others into a musical is a genuis.

It works. The show is amazing and weird and strange. And it’s closing on Sunday. So if you are motivated: get thee to the Walter Kerr Theater to see it.

I saw it last night and am very happy that I did. Hepcat’s aunt and uncle were in town from California and they had tickets so I decided to join them.

Sometimes it takes visitors to force you to do something fun in New York.

Now I can’t wait to watch the documentary again. They were selling it with another video for $50. at the theater. I was very tempted.

Grey Gardens won three 2007 Tony Awards. It was recently announced that July 29 would mark the end of the show.

This statment by the lead producer of Grey Gardens, Kelly Gonda, president of East of Doheny, spells out the reasons their reasons fro closing:

“Grey Gardens is a great work of art that will have a long life beyond this Broadway run. Everyone in the Grey Gardens family is proud that we were able to bring this unique show to Broadway – the first-ever musical to be made from a documentary. We are honored and thrilled to have received rapturous reviews, ecstatic audiences and award recognition. We’re happy the show was preserved with a new cast album and filmed as the subject of a soon-to-be released documentary by the legendary original filmmaker, Albert Maysles himself.

“We always knew that Grey Gardens faced an uphill challenge during the summer months. And so we made the difficult decision to end our run on July 29 with our incomparable original cast. Still basking from the glow of our Tony Award wins and the recent surge in attendance, the show is able to go out on top.

“This production of Grey Gardens is a tribute to the Beales themselves, and we’re especially proud of having helped make their dream come true. At long last these two incredible, indomitable women have been celebrated as the performers they always wanted to be. And while we’re all sad to see this beautiful production close, we’ll look forward to keeping their dream alive with future productions and the new documentary. Finally, I must say that it was a real pleasure, both personally and professionally, to work with everyone involved with the Broadway production of Grey Gardens, including the creative team, the cast, the crew and everyone else responsible for the welcome we enjoyed at The Walter Kerr.”

Here’s a tip from an OTBKB reader, who lives in Windsor Terrace.

There’s a new health food store just opened in South Slope, right across the street from the new wine bar, Vine Rouge, which you wrote about. The store is called Balance Life and it fills a HUGE void. News is spreading entirely by word of mouth and business is good. The reason may be this little book on the counter where customers scribble requests. The owners actually follow through on them! It’s amazing.

Popular items: kambucha, scoop-your-own granola, specialty breads and pastas (gluten-free, yeast-free), organic vegetables, fine chocolates and ice creams, fruit chips (banana, apple). They also sell environmentally friendly cleaning and beauty products. And they are locally owned, by a really nice couple.

the info is:
Balance Life
624 5th Avenue
Brooklyn NY 11215
718-768-1091

That’s right. The Brooklyn Nester has selected the great Marge Simpson as “Nester of the Week.” Check it out. And while you’re out it, check out the movietimes for The Simpsons at the Pavillion.

Yes, I love the Simpsons. Everything Teen Spirit knows about western civilization (and he knows a lot) he learned from the Simpsons.

Alright. I’ll just post the movie-times here:

THE SIMPSONS MOVIE (PG-13) at the Park Slope Pavillion.
Friday 11:00 AM 1:35 3:35 5:35 7:40 10:00
Saturday 11:00 AM 1:35 3:35 5:35 7:40 10:00
Sunday 11:00 AM 1:35 3:35 5:35 7:40 10:00

The Landmark Commission gave landmark status to the SUNSET PLAY CENTER and SUNSET PLAY CENTER BATH HOUSE much to the relief of many of those in Sunset Park I’m sure.

Information about SPC and SPCBH found by me on the Historic Council Districts Newstand, a blog dedicated to New York City’s preservation community. It’s an interesting blog.

This includes a bath house, swimming pool, diving pool, wading pool, bleachers, filter house, perimeter walls and fencing enclosing these structures, linking pathways, street level fieldstone retaining walls, and the southernmost portion of the paved allee aligned with Sixth Avenue, Seventh Avenue between 41st Street and 44th Street, Brooklyn.

SUNSET PLAY CENTER BATH HOUSE, first floor interior consisting of the domed entry foyer, and the fixtures and interior components of this space, including but not limited to, wall surfaces, floor surfaces, ceiling surfaces, doors, railings, ticket booth, chimney stack, signage, hanging lamps and clock,

It’s on Seventh Avenue between 41st Street and 44th Street in Brooklyn.

Park Slope’s John Schaefer spends most of the year as the host of WNYC radio’s music talk show “Soundcheck,” which features live performances and interviews with a variety of guests. Since 1982, Schaefer has also hosted and produced the popular new music radio program “New Sounds,” hailed as “The #1 radio show for the Global Village” by Billboard magazine. He is also a horse racing fanatic and spends part of his summer in Saratoga. As he said on WNYC this morning: “I work all year, I have a family, I have a house to renovate and a soccer team to coach. So I don’t get to say it often. But today, I have to see a man about a horse.” His reflections on horseracing are included in a recent anthology about horseracing called “Bloodlines: A Horse Racing Anthology”

Here’s the blurb from what sounds like an interesting collection:

A From provocative peeks into the lives of jockeys, trainers, owners, and breeders, to the down and dirty doings of bookies and gamblers, here is a literary tribute to a favorite national pastime. Editors Maggie Estep (Diary of an Emotional Idiot; Flamethrower) and Jason Starr (Twisted City; Lights Out) have brought together original fiction and nonfiction from some of our most beloved writers. Lee Child heads off the collection with a thrilling story about a hit man hired to knock off a horse mid-race. Laura Lippman contributes a vivid tale about a young man who makes money selling parking places at the Preakness and the intriguing woman he meets. Here is Bill Barich on the misfortunes of an Irish gambler, Joe R. Lansdale on one man’s ambition to win a mule race in east Texas, Laura Hillenbrand on the Kentucky Derby, and James Surowiecki on the wisdom of horse-racing crowds. Jonathan Ames adds his unique theory of horse love, Meghan O’Rourke shares her touching recollections of going to Saratoga as a child, and Jane Smiley tells of her experiences raising thoroughbreds. This standout collection on horse-racing featuring twenty authors, from national bestsellers to Pulitzer Prize winners, is as page-turning as it is diverse.

Also includes pieces by Ken Bruen, Steven Crist, Maggie Estep, William Nack, Scott Phillips, John Schaefer, Jerry Stahl, Jason Starr, Charlie Stella, Wallace Stroby, and Daniel Woodrell.

Judging from these photos by Fourth Street resident, Nathanial Harpaz (he’s only 9-years-old), my hunch is that there was something terribly wrong with that woman who was fast asleep on the ledge of a Fourth Street brownstone dressed in a wedding gown.

I am guessing serious mental problems. What do you think or know?

Thank you Wiki for this quick education in a film I saw when it came out and LOVED AND LAUGHED OUT LOUD OVER.

Such a 1970’s feeling is in the air these days that this choice by Brooklyn Film Works is PERFECT. You won’t want to miss a night of American cinema under the stars in JJ Byrne Park. Come one, come all at 8:30. Willie’s Dawgs will be there, too. The movie’s start at dusk. What could be a more perfect Brooklyn night.

From Wikipedia: What’s Up, Doc? is a screwball comedy from 1972, directed by Peter Bogdanovich and starring Barbra Streisand, Ryan O’Neal, and Madeline Kahn (in her first full-length film role). It was intended to pay homage to comparable motion pictures of the 1930s, such as Bringing Up Baby,[1] as well as the Bugs Bunny cartoons—which, like this film, were made by Warner Bros. Pictures.
The film was a huge hit in theaters, and became the third-highest grossing film of 1972. The film won the Writers Guild of America 1973 “Best Comedy Written Directly for the Screen” award for writers Buck Henry, David Newman and Robert Benton. It was placed number 61 on the list of 100 greatest comedies published by the American Film Institute.

Hugh Crawford took hundreds of portraits on Friday night, when he set up his portable camera studio in front of Community Bookstore during their overwhelmingly wonderful Harry Potter release party.

These photos will be available for viewing very soon. Prints can be ordered directly from Hugh’s website when they are ready.

He will also display some of the portraits in the window of the Community Bookstore (date to be determined). OTBKB will keep you posted.

You can email hugh crawford at hugh(at)hughcrawford(dot com).

Beth Harpaz, OTBKB reader and author of The Girls in the Van: A Reporter’s Diary on the Campaign Trail and Finding Annie Farrell: A Family Memoir wrote to say that she has photos (which may be the ones on Gowanus Lounge and will soon be here) and that she’s just very interested to see if anyone knows anything about the bride and her motivation for doing what she did. Was it a stunt, a performance piece, an act of madness? WHAT? DO TELL!!! The residents of Fourth Street and the rest of the city want to know.

It’s very Mrs. Havisham, isn’t it? Oh so Dickensianish. Here’s the note to me from Beth.

Hey there.

So there was this crazy thing on fourth street last weekend, a bride fast asleep in the crawl space above someone’s front door, she looked like sleeping beauty or snow white.

The cops came, a ton of ’em, and eventually carried her down – she appeared totally out of it – we all thought
maybe it was a scam but they cuffed her and took her away.

Dying to know what it was all about. A couple of friends told me to send my photos to you but I thought if I sent them to Gersh [Kuntzman, editor of the Brooklyn Paper] he’d have a reporter call the cops. In the end, he didn’t run the photos in the paper, just on the web site, and the story was just a rehash of the email i sent him – seemed like the cops were never called.

Anyway the photos are amazing, i have a whole bunch of ’em. you can see a couple of them on the brooklyn paper web site but I’m happy to email the rest if you are interested – really i’m just dying to know what happened –

What was she doing there?

A friend is certain that if you put a note on your blog about it, someone will spill the beans