From Wikipedia:

The term "nor’easter" comes to American English by way of British
English and the points of the compass and wind or sailing direction.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), the first
recorded use in the English language of the term "nore" ("north") in
association with the points of the compass and wind direction is by
Dekker in 1612 ("How blowes the winde Syr?" "Wynde! is
Nore-Nore-West."), with similar uses occurring in 1688 (". . . Nore and
Nore-West . . .") and in 1718 (". . . Nore-west or Nore-nore-west.").
These recorded uses are predated by use of the term "noreast," first
recorded as used by Davis in 1594 ("Noreast by North raiseth a degree
in sayling 24 leagues."). Thus, the manner of pronouncing from memory
the 32 points of the compass, known in maritime training as "boxing the
compass," is described by Ansted (A Dictionary of Sea Terms,
Brown Son & Ferguson, Glasgow, 1933) with pronunciations "Nor’east
(or west)," "Nor’ Nor’-east (or west)," "Nor’east b’ east (or west),"
and so forth. According to the OED, the first recorded use of the term
"nor’easter" occurs in 1836 in a translation of Aristophanes. The term
"nor’easter" naturally developed from the historical spellings and
pronunciations of the compass points and the direction of wind or
sailing.

As noted in a January 2006 editorial by William Sisson, editor of Soundings
magazine, use of "nor’easter" to describe the storm system is common
along the U.S. East Coast. Yet it has been asserted by some that
"nor’easter" as a contraction for "northeaster" has no basis in
regional New England dialect and is a "fake" word, which is a parochial
view that neglects the little-known etymology and the historical
maritime usage described above.

Common coastal New England pronunciation (both seafaring and not)
for "nor’easter" is “naw-EE-stuh” (like "LOB-stah" for "lobster"). Off
the coast (Vermont), the pronunciation is closer to "noar-eastuh".
According to a handful of 20th-century Maine-based authors, Downeast
mariners historically pronounced the compass point "north northeast" as
"no’nuth-east," and so on. For decades, Edgar Comee, of Brunswick, Maine,
waged a determined battle against use of the term "nor’easter" by the
press, which usage he considered “a pretentious and altogether
lamentable affectation” and “the odious, even loathsome, practice of
landlubbers who would be seen as salty as the sea itself”. His efforts,
which included mailing hundreds of postcards, were profiled, just
before his death at the age of 88, in The New Yorker.^[1]

Despite the efforts of Mr. Comee and others, use of the term continues by the press. According to Boston Globe writer Jan Freeman,
“from 1975 to 1980, journalists used the nor’easter spelling only once
in five mentions of such storms; in the past year (2003), more than 80
percent of northeasters were spelled nor’easter”.^[2]

University of Pennsylvania linguistics professor Mark Liberman has pointed out that while the OED
cites examples dating back to 1837, they represent the contributions of
a handful of non-New England poets and writers. Liberman posits that
"nor’easter" may have originally been a literary affectation, akin to
"e’en" for "even" and "th’only" for "the only", which is an indication
in spelling that two syllables count for only one position in metered
verse, with no implications for actual pronunciation.^[3]

Today is the 60th anniversary of the day Brooklyn Dodger’s player no. 42 walked out onto the field at Ebbets Field and became the first black player in major league baseball. Here is the essay Jackie Robinson wrote in 1951 for Edward R. Murrow’s radio show, “This I Believe.”

“Whatever obstacles I found made me fight all the harder. But it would have been impossible for me to fight at all, except that I was sustained by the personal and deep-rooted belief that my fight had a chance. It had a chance because it took place in a free society. Not once was I forced to face and fight an immovable object. Not once was the situation so cast-iron rigid that I had no chance at all. Free minds and human hearts were at work all around me; and so there was the probability of improvement. I look at my children now, and know that I must still prepare them to meet obstacles and prejudices.

“But I can tell them, too, that they will never face some of these prejudices because other people have gone before them. And to myself I can say that, because progress is unalterable, many of today’s dogmas will have vanished by the time they grow into adults. I can say to my children: There is a chance for you. No guarantee, but a chance.

“And this chance has come to be, because there is nothing static with free people. There is no Middle Ages logic so strong that it can stop the human tide from flowing forward. I do not believe that every person, in every walk of life, can succeed in spite of any handicap. That would be perfection. But I do believe — and with every fiber in me — that what I was able to attain came to be because we put behind us (no matter how slowly) the dogmas of the past: to discover the truth of today; and perhaps find the greatness of tomorrow.

“I believe in the human race. I believe in the warm heart. I believe in man’s integrity. I believe in the goodness of a free society. And I believe that the society can remain good only as long as we are willing to fight for it — and to fight against whatever imperfections may exist.

“My fight was against the barriers that kept Negroes out of baseball. This was the area where I found imperfection, and where I was best able to fight. And I fought because I knew it was not doomed to be a losing fight. It couldn’t be a losing fight-not when it took place in a free society.

“And in the largest sense, I believe that what I did was done for me — that it was my faith in God that sustained me in my fight. And that what was done for me must and will be done for others.”

The City section has an article about the proposed new "supportive" housing unit pegged for 16th Street and Fifth Avenue for low income and mentally ill patients. The building would have social services on the premises.
The project has been met, no surprise, with some opposition from a small group of neighbors who claim that such housing poses a risk to children and may cause their property values to drop.

Oh come on. I’m sorry. Misinformation and fear can pose a risk to children, too.

According to Michelle de la Uz, executive director of the Fifth Avenue Committee, social services will be offered at the building five days a week, along with additional 24-hour phone support, 24-hour front desk security and a live-in superintendent. An extensive screening for potential tenants will include psychiatric evaluations, reviews of their housing histories and criminal background checks, she added, and they will have to have incomes of under $30,000.
“A handful of people are unfortunately misinformed,” Ms. de la Uz said of the neighborhood opponents. “They have some very legitimate questions and concerns, which we have answered. But a lot of their fears are based on a misunderstanding of who the tenant population will be.”

Smartmom called her friend Charlotte Maier early this morning. Oops. She woke them up. She knew they were up late at the opening night party of Inherit the Wind in which Charlotte plays Mrs. Krebs. But she couldn’t wait to hear how it went. The show opened Thursday night the Lyceum Theater (on Broadway not the Brooklyn Lyceum). How glamorous, how fun: partying down at the Bryant Park Grill with the cast and crew of the show, including Christopher Plummer, who will always be known and loved as Captain Von Trapp in "The Sound of Music."

"So how’d it go?" Smartmom asked Charlotte.

"Great. Joan Rivers was in the audience," she told Smartmom.

"How were the reviews?"

Charlotte groaned. Seems that the Times pretty much panned the show. But Variety gave it a rave and New York Magazine seems to have liked it very much as did Smartmom (Hepcat and OSFO, too).

Okay, so everyone’s excited about Christopher Plummer. But for those in Park Slope, the big news is that Charlotte Maier is in the show and she’s wonderful to watch.

Here’s what New York Magazine had to say:

Christopher Plummer s giving the kind of
performance you’ll one day brag about having seen. As Henry Drummond,
the Clarence Darrow–esque lawyer in Inherit the Wind, he makes
every snap of his suspenders ring true. He walks a little stiffly, with
a stoop, and tosses away some lines. But note the wicked twinkle in his
eye: He’s just playing rope-a-dope. At the climax of this dramatized
version of the Scopes Monkey Trial, when Drummond calls the
Bible-thumping attorney Matthew Harrison Brady to the stand, Plummer
gives his lines an acid bite, and moves with the kind of
can’t-look-away ­charisma that mortals don’t possess. He skips from
aggressive to playful to grave, but never when you expect him to,
making this one of the rare performances you love to watch because
there’s no telling where it might go next. I’ve seen plenty of
first-class acting, and flashes of greatness now and then, but I’ve
never seen anything quite like this.

When
Plummer really gets going, as in the speech where Drummond acknowledges
that progress comes at a price—“You may conquer the air, but the birds
will lose their wonder, and the clouds will smell of gasoline”—he makes
Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee sound like much, much better
playwrights than they were. So, for the most part, does director Doug
Hughes. He’s not usually an auteur type: Getting extraordinary work out
of his actors, like Cherry Jones and Brían F. O’Byrne in Doubt,
or Plummer and Byron Jennings, who’s scarily fierce as the town
preacher here, is usually his forte. But he goes a little conceptual on
this one.

If you want to be technical, you’d say he’s taken a folksy
expressionist approach, using white light and spare staging to replace
the play’s mid-century realism with a Thornton Wilder vibe. If you
don’t want to be technical, you’d say he’s not screwing around. All the
extra stagecraft he’s thrown at the script—a bluegrass band that warms
up the crowd, audience members who sit in what look like two jury boxes
onstage—is designed to cut through its fussy, dated qualities, making
this ninth-grade-English-class favorite feel as direct and pressing as
breaking news.

Smartmom disagrees with what Jeremy McCarter has to say about the direction. She enjoyed the so-called "folksy" approach, especially the bluegrass band.

This from Gersh at the Brooklyn Paper:

"Hillary Clinton cannot be elected president of the United States.
Too many people hate her. And many of the people who support her do so
out of a sense of obligation or desire to re-fight — and this time win
— some old battles that are probably better left unfought (unless Gore
gets into the race, then I say, “Fight away!”).

"The good news, of
course, is that if the Hillary Express is to be derailed, it will
happen in Brooklyn. Just ask the hungry activists behind Brooklyn for
Barack — the suddenly everywhere grassroots effort to defeat Clinton
and put Illinois Sen. Barack Obama on top of the Democratic ticket.

"The
other night, I attended one of the group’s first gatherings at Soda,
the Vanderbilt Avenue bar, where I found myself impressed by the
budding Obamanics — and not just because they had their information
meeting during Happy Hour (which was a nice touch).

"Full
disclosure: I don’t often find myself impressed when it comes to
political activists. Either they’re too naïve (“C’mon, everyone! If we
can create a movement, we can beat the machine!”) or too stridently
partisan (“President Bush must be impeached for replacing the White
House coffee with Folgers Instant." read more Gersh at the Brooklyn Paper.

The next Brooklyn for Barack meeting will be on Thursday, April 26 at a location to be announced (check www.brooklynforbarack.org
for information). A fundraiser, “Art for Obama,” will be April 19 at
the Brooklyn Artists Gym (168 Seventh St. at Third Avenue). Visit www.artforobama.com for information. And of course, the citywide “Obamathon” is May 12.

Gowanus Lounge reports that Bank of America is going into the D’Agostino space. They’re opening a ginormous full service bank. The Gothic Cabinet Shop is also closing to make way for this banking behometh.

Bank of America has not exactly ingratiated itself to the community with its messy ATM storefronts on Seventh Avenue and Union Street and on the block between 9th and 10th Streets. They don’t clean up often enough and there are usually mountains of receipts on the floor.

D’Agostino, which has been in the neighborhood for more than 16 years is going out April 28th. Even then it was considered the most expensive grocery option compared to the Food Coop and Key Food. I’m wondering if Fresh Direct really cut into their business, not to mention the Fairway in Red Hook.

It’s usually pretty empty in there except in the early evening, when there’s a rush to pick up supper.

Seems awfully sudden. No doubt their lease was up and the rent probably went sky high. So high only a bank can afford to be there, I guess.

Quite a few of the employees have been there for many years. I’m thinking of one woman in particular who has always been exceedingly nice and very helpful. I will be sorry to see them go. I won’t, however, miss overspending there. That’s never been a great feeling.

Carroll Gardens/Cobble Hill – Brooklyn Indie Market (www.brooklynindiemarket.com) is a collective of Brooklyn based emerging designers and is bursting onto the shopping scene of the chic and fashionable neighborhood of Cobble Hill, Brooklyn. Starting Saturday May 5th 11 am to 7 pm, over 20 of the areas rising design talent in fashion, accessories, bath and beauty, petgear, home-goods, paper goods and more will converge under the tents and kiosks on the corner of Smith and Union Street, just next to the Carroll Street station F train stop and Carroll Park.

Brooklyn Indie Market will begin offering the wares of unique fashion and product designs to
shoppers eager for fresh fashions every Saturday and Sunday throughout the year starting May 5th.

As founding partner, Kathy Malone has said, ”We are thrilled to have a regular marketplace. I am very proud of the talent, strength and mutual support of our online community, now everyone has the opportunity to meet us and vice versa!”

Johanna of Daisyhead and partner says, “Kathy and I have been talking about this spot since the day we met. This is my neighborhood; it’s full of craftspeople and those who support them. We’re excited to be doing this for our designer friends and the community!”

Kicking off the rotating roster of maverick designers are:

• Items of Anymore- Indian, hand-carved print block children’s wear and paper goods www.itemsofanymore.com
• Bon Bon Oiseau- Romantic, poetic, narrative jewelry www.bobonoiseau.com
• Reiter8-Unique totes from reclaimed sailboats www.reiter8.com
• Gowanus Nursery (our plant partner) –Specializing in unusual annuals, perennials, & shrubs www.gowanusnursery.com

For more info on the market, directions, and offerings, visit this website: www.brooklynindiemarket.com or call 347-407-1187, take the F train to the Carroll station stop.

I was pleased to see an article in the new issue of the Park Slope Reader about Brooklyn bloggers. The new issue is just beginning to be distributed around the Slope. I got mine at Ozzie’s on Lincoln Place.

More about the article later.

This from NY 1:

Students from Edward R. Murrow High School’s chess team get set to defend their fourth straight national title.

After winning the city and state championships, the team left for Kansas City Wednesday to compete in the national tournament.

The Brooklyn students practiced their strategies while waiting for their flight at the airport.

“We study openings, tactics, end games,” said their coach, Eliot Weiss. “All type of strategies, a lot of practice, a lot of practice on the internet, a lot of practice at the board.”

“I’m still getting nervous,” said Leo Tikstein, the father of one of the players. “There are other very good teams at the championships. The team from Arizona is very strong the team. The team from North Carolina is very strong.”

The students were the subject of a new book called “The Kings of New York”, which was released last month.

Saturday is the last day to visit the exhibit Robert Moses and the Modern City at the Wallach Gallery, which opened on January 30.

When
Saturday, April 14th, 2007 1:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Where
Miriam & Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery
Schermerhorn Hall, 8th Floor
Columbia University
Manhattan

Streetsblog has the goods.

Blogger Aaron Naparstek has all the information you need to understand why CB6 approved the DOT plan to narrow 9th Street, including Frequently Asked Questions about the DOT plan, an updated version of DOT’s plan, Ninth Street corridor crash statistcs, sketches showing curret and proposed conditions and a post about Vanderbilt Avenue, which was the model for DOT’s 9th Street proposal.

From Brooklyn Vegan by way of Gowanus Lounge (Thanks), a partial Celebrate Brooklyn schedule — woo woo: RICHARD THOMPSON? Omigod, omigod. Joan Osborne (of "What If God Was One of Us" fame — I hope she does it) Ralph Stanley — country legend, Ani DiFranco — indie legend, Ravi Coltrane — jazz legend — see for YOURSELF. Did I mention the Neville Brothers? Woo woo.

Thu 06/14 – The Neville Brothers (opening night)
Sat 06/16 – Joan Osborne
Thu 06/21 – Richard Thompson
Fri 06/22 – Ralph Stanley
Tue 06/26 – Manu Chao
Tue 06/27 – Manu Chao
Fri 06/29 – Ravi Coltrane, Groove Collective
Sat 06/30 – The Stills, Sam Roberts Band, Malajube
Thu 07/05 – Isaac Delgado
Wed 07/18 – Ani Difranco
Thu 07/19 – Morley, Blackmail with Alloy Orchestra
Fri 07/20 – Catherine Russell & Bobby "Blue" Bland
Thu 08/09 – The Hold Steady, The Big Sleep, The Teenage Prayers
Sat 08/11 – African Festival w/ Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars

Brooklyn Community Board 6 Meeting on 9th Street Ped Safety and Bike Lanes, Park Slope One-Ways, Grand Army Plaza and Red Hook Bike Lanes.When

Wednesday, April 11th, 2007   6:30 pm   

Where

John Jay High School, Auditorium
237 Seventh Av. (bet. 4th & 5th Sts.)
Brooklyn

Streetsblog has a plan with pictures. Check it out.

Streetsblog has a sketch of DOT’s plan for 9th Street in Park Slope, Brooklyn. We think it’s a great plan deserving of support. The new configuration narrows a notoriously dangerous four lane road down to two travel lanes and adds a median with left-turn bays and a pair of bike lanes with three-foot buffers.

The plan is a response to community activism that started after a sedan careened through the front door of Dizzy’s Diner on Eighth Avenue and
9th Street in the summer of 2004.  Miraculously, no one was hurt. But the event galvanized
neighborhood residents to begin a process that generated more than 1,200
signatures urging the City’s Department of Transportation to address
long-standing pedestrian-safety and reckless-driving problems on 9th Street.

This proposed "road diet" is modeled on a successful plan that DOT implemented on Vanderbilt Avenue in Prospect Heights in 2005.

This from New York 1:

The Queen Mary 2 arrived at Brooklyn’s Cruise Terminal, Pier 12 in Red Hook, Tuesday morning after completing its maiden world cruise.

The 80-day cruise began in Ft. Lauderdale on January 10th. The world’s largest ocean liner will now be based in the city for the next year and a half.

The liner is more than 1,100 feet long and more than 236 feet high and weighs approximately 150,000 tons. It has a maximum capacity of more than 3,000 and a crew of more than 1,200.

Reported this morning on Gownaus Lounge, Park Slope Neighbors, a local neighborhood group,  has decided to endorse the DOT plan to add bike and turning lanes onto 9th Street, despite opposition from 9th Street residents.

The group’s main initiatives thus far have been campaigns to encourage Whole Foods to shrink their parking lot, implement a transportation plan and go green. Members of PSN helped convince Commerce Bank to drop drive-thru plans on their Fifth Avenue bank. The group is also active in the  fight for greater public input into the Atlantic Yards.

Park Slope Neighbors sent a letter about the 9th Street plan to City Council member Bill DiBlasio and Community Board 6: "We see this
plan as a thoughtful response to community concerns. In the summer of
2004 a sedan went through the front door of Dizzy’s restaurant on 8th
Avenue and 9th Street. That began a public process during which area
residents collected more than 1,200 signatures urging DOT to address
the long-standing pedestrian safety and reckless driving problems on
9th Street.

The CB6 meeting about the matter is on Wednesday.

On Thursday, March 29, the transportation committee of Community Board
6 voted in favor of the Department of Transportation’s redesign plan
for 9th Street in Park Slope. Park Slope Neighbors believes that this
plan provides significant safety, quality of life and environmental
benefits for all of the users of the 9th Street. As such, we urge you
to support this plan and hope that you will let the full Community
Board know of our support.

Park Slope Neighbors supports DOT’s plan for 9th Street because it provides the following benefits to the neighborhood:

1. It significantly improves pedestrian safety along one of the most dangerous “side streets” in all of Park Slope.

2. It provides proven, effective traffic-calming on a street with a notorious speeding and reckless driving problem.

3. It enhances cyclist safety and convenience along one of our area’s key bike routes.

As
I am sure you are aware, DOT’s plan is causing a certain amount of
anxiety among some 9th Street residents. While we agree that DOT needs
to do a much better job of bringing community stakeholders into the
planning process, we believe that some of this concern has been
generated by misinformation and misunderstanding…

This plan is
not being dropped on the community from out of nowhere. We see this
plan as a thoughtful response to community concerns. In the summer of
2004 a sedan went through the front door of Dizzy’s restaurant on 8th
Avenue and 9th Street. That began a public process during which area
residents collected more than 1,200 signatures urging DOT to address
the long-standing pedestrian safety and reckless driving problems on
9th Street. Rather than ignoring the request or installing some street
signs and calling it a day, DOT put thought and creativity into the
issues raised by the neighborhood and came up with a thorough, detailed
plan that will significantly improve pedestrian safety, calm traffic
and provide much needed facilities for bicycling.

In case you didn’t see this last week in the papers or the blogs, Here
is City Council Member David Yassky and Assembly Member Hakeem Jeffries’ proposed Traffic Mitigation Plan. Much of this was presented to the
Empire State Development Corporation in August.

ATLANTIC YARDS TRAFFIC MITIGATION PLAN

Improve Traffic Flow on Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues

• Traffic at the intersection of Flatbush Avenue and Atlantic
Avenue should be completely reconfigured to improve traffic flow in the
area. This could be achieved by:

1) Constructing a below grade traffic tunnel on Fifth or Sixth
Avenues running from Flatbush to north of Atlantic Avenue. This tunnel
would become the primary means for north and southbound traffic to
cross Atlantic Avenue.

2) Creating a Park Avenue style overpass.

3) Building a traffic circle at the intersection of Flatbush, Atlantic and Fourth Avenue similar to the Grand Army Plaza rotary.

• Design the arena so that all loading and unloading of trucks takes place off-street. 

• Implement a bus rapid transit program on Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues, to dramatically speed up bus traffic on both roads.

• Reduce toll at Brooklyn Battery Tunnel to divert traffic away
from downtown Brooklyn and Atlantic Yards vicinity where commuters take
advantage of the free bridges. 2002 data for inbound and outbound
traffic to Manhattan per day is as follows:
1) Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel traffic to Manhattan was 32,219, outbound was 23,960.

2) Brooklyn Bridge traffic to Manhattan was 61,210, outbound was 59,935.

3) Manhattan Bridge traffic to Manhattan was 30,924, outbound was 35,196.

These results seem to indicate that drivers take the Brooklyn
Bridge instead of the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. Cutting the toll through
the tunnel could alleviate this trend, according to traffic engineer
Carolyn Konhiem.

Encourage Mass Transit, Bike and Pedestrian Friendly Options

• Require the arena operator to include an LIRR, MTA or ferry ticket with each ticket to an arena event.

• Require the Nets to provide free ferry service from an
appropriate location in New Jersey to a new terminal at Atlantic Avenue
to accommodate fans from New Jersey. Free shuttle bus service should be
available from the ferry terminal to the arena.

• All New York City Transit #5 trains should go to Brooklyn during
game days to increase transit ridership. Currently it only goes to
Brooklyn during rush hour.

• Set parking cost at a premium to discourage people from driving to the arena for arena events. 

• A large bike parking facility should be built into the arena
site. Local residents could use the facility free of charge daily and
on game days the facility would accommodate cyclists attending games.
The plan currently calls for 400 bike parking spaces in the arena, but
no details on the plan are provided. There needs to be an assurance
that this will actually be built, and the lanes should be a combination
of short-term and long-term parking facilities.

• The 400 bike parking spaces planned for the arena will be
unusable because no one will be able to get to them due to the lack of
bicycle infrastructure in the area. For example, bike lanes on Bergen
and Dean need to be protected from ‘displaced traffic due to
project-related changes’ (wording from the EIS), and new public lanes
must be created.

• In project area, readjust traffic lights to give more time for pedestrians to cross the street in all directions.

Protect Neighborhood Access to Parking

• Implement a residential parking permit program in the neighborhoods surrounding the arena.

• Environmentally friendly shuttle buses should be used to link off
site parking with the arena. Currently, all off site parking planned is
within a half mile radius of the arena. The parking available in this
radius will not be sufficient on game day.

Community Advisory Task Force

• A community advisory task force should be created to oversee
and have input on every stage of the Atlantic Yards Project
development. The group should meet regularly and should represent a
sampling of residents from all of the affected areas in community
boards 2, 6 and 8.

Information about the film is available at the Brooklyn Matters website.

April 9 7:00 pm – First Presbyterian Church 124 Henry Street, Bklyn

April 12 7:30 pm – Brooklyn Free School, First Free Methodist Church, 120 16th Street, Bklyn. RSVP: contact@brooklynfreeschool.org

April 18 7:30 pm
– Old First Church, 126 7th Avenue at Carroll Street, Bklyn, Panel
Discussion (sponsored by Old First Reformed Church Fourth Mission
Committee and Park Slope Neighbors)

April 27 6:30 pm
– The Judson Hall Memorial Church 55 Washington Square South (Thompson
St entrance downstairs) NYC (sponsored by the NYC Sierra Club)

April 30 7:00 pm
– Hunter College Thomas Hunter Building-105 Lexington Ave bet 68th and
69th streets, NYC (Sponsored by the Hunter College Social Action Club)

May 12 7:30 pm – Park Slope Food Coop, 782 Union Street, Bklyn

A Daily News reporter reads the story in OTBKB and never once mentions that that’s where they sourced the story or that Hugh Crawford is a blogger.

When Park Slope resident Hugh Crawford complained to a city work crew that their jackhammer was too loud, he expected to get blown off.
He didn’t think one of the hardhats would chase him down the Brooklyn street with a shovel.
But according to Crawford, that’s exactly what happened, and now the Department of Environmental Protection is investigating.
"They sort of had an extreme ‘Mind your own business’ reaction. And a guy started waving a shovel at my head," Crawford said.
The run-in happened Tuesday while a DEP crew was replacing a sewer on Sixth Ave. near Third St., using a jackhammer without a required muffler.
Crawford, a 51-year-old software engineer and photographer who lives half a block away, approached to tell them they should have noise-reducing equipment.
The workers told him to buzz off and call 311. So Crawford did – on the spot.
"When I took my phone out, the guy started chasing me down the street," said Crawford. "I wasn’t sure how sincere they were, but I really didn’t want to find out. Anytime a shovel is above head level, I take it pretty seriously."
He filed a noise complaint with 311, but opted not to press charges with the police.
DEP spokeswoman Anne Canty confirmed the agency had received a noise complaint and had a crew in the area Tuesday. But she knew nothing of a threatened physical altercation.
"DEP takes allegations of this nature very seriously; we will be investigating and interviewing all of the crew members involved," she said.

Got this email from Catherine at Community Bookstore in my inbox today:

absolutely wonderful things are happening with the store, and I’m
very excited to tell you all about it, but I’m going to send out a
proper newsletter soon, and don’t want to take up space here going into
details — there ARE things you can do now (buy gift certificates and
shop local!), and going forward, there will be more — because it’s
beginning to look like things might get rather exciting around here,
soon.  (Tip!: if you buy a gift certificate and donate it to a
non-profit for them to use, you can tax-deduct it!)

 

One Way Avenues Stupidity Update:  ANOTHER MEETING APRIL 11th (wed)!

Okay
— I know the word in the neighborhhood is that the terrific turnout at
the Community Board 6 meeting effectively squashed the one-way plan,
but THAT meeting was, I think, just the opportunity for DOT to present
the plan — the actual VOTE on it happens on Wednesday, April 11th
(this I’m sure of).  Pressure at the April 11th meeting is important
too!  Don’t let the effort you’ve already made (those of you who have)
go to waste!  The

Community Board meeting is at:

 

John Jay High School
237 7th Avenue
(4th & 5th Streets)
Auditorium
6:30 PM

 

My sources say:

"You
probably thought we were in the clear, but it ain’t over until CB6
votes.  The pressure at the last meeting was phenomenal.  Power to the
people.  If we let up now, however, CB6 might pass a wishy-washy
resolution that would not safeguard our neighborhood from DOT’s plans.
So spread the word and see you next Wednesday!"

Steve Reich’s Different Trains on Tuesday, April 10th.

Just
a reminder that the Music Listening Group is meeting this Tuesday at
7:30 pm.  The recording is available to listen to in the store NOW, and
Sue Bernstein’s left some photocopies of pertinent information up
front, if you want to think about some aspects of the music, beforehand.

 

In
my usual bumbling way, I’m bearing the (probably totally erroneously-
based, but oh well) following in mind, in listening beforehand (which
I’m actually doing, for once) . . .

 

As
Reich is credited (at least by my liner notes) (and this came as a
surprise to me) with figuring out "how to restore, after a long period
of experimentation, the primal pleasures of stable harmony and a steady
pulse"  (his own experimentation? musico-historically ?) — I’m
listening trying to hear two things:  The harmony and the phenomena of repetition.

 

I’m also hoping to troll around for a good definition/descript ion of minimalism before the meeting.  Sigh.

 

Related
things to listen to (that influenced Reich):  Bach’s "Brandenburg
Concerto No. 5," Stravinsky’s "Rite of Spring" (!ha!), any John
Coltrane, Terry Riley’s "In C."

Gowanus Lounge was at the Civic Council meeting last night and has a report. Anyone else at that meeting, please write in. I’d love to know more. I’m away at the moment.

A group of Ninth Street residents turned out in force to strongly oppose a Department of Transportation proposal that would add turning lanes and bike lanes to Ninth Street, and in the end the PSCC voted 14-3, with one abstention, to object to the plan.

The primary objections voiced by residents were that a bike lane would interfere with double parking and the ability to pick up and drop off children, for instance. There were also concerns that narrowing the street from two lanes to one lane would cause traffic congestion and that bicyclists would be deposited at the Ninth Street entrance to Prospect Park, which is for pedestrians. There were also a number of complaints that the city’s Department of Transportation had not involved residents in preparing its plan.

“It’s not a plan that was done looking at community needs,” said PSCC Trustee and Ninth Street resident Bob Levine, who led the charge against the bike lane proposal. “Yes, we need bike lanes, but DOT didn’t talk to the neighborhood.” Mr. Levine suggested placing new bike lanes on 15th Street, which he argued is more amenable.

This from NY1:

Power was restored to the Cobble Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn Friday evening after a manhole fire earlier in the day sent smoke onto the street and into a supermarket.

Fire officials say the explosion happened around 11 a.m. Friday morning in front of Key Food grocery store on Atlantic Avenue. The blast caused the store to lose power, forcing it to close.

Lights also went out at the intersection of Atlantic Avenue and Clinton Street.

A store employee says it was a scary scene.

“We were standing here, next thing you know it was just a big cloud of black smoke just coming from out of nowhere, from underneath there – the manhole,” said Janay Packer. “And then for like give or take a good half an hour, it just exploded. There were like ten fire trucks out here. It was just crazy.”

The fire may have been sparked by a transformer. No one was hurt.

For those who don’t know about Gordon Matta-Clark (1943-1978), check out his retrospective at the Whitney Musuem. I heard about him years ago when I saw a film called 14 Americans (by Michael Blackwood) about 14 New York artists in the early 1980’s. That film shows footage of Matta-Clark slicing a New Jersey house in half.

An early site-specific artist and the co-owner of Food, a SoHo restaurant managed and staffed by artists, Matta was an artist with an adventurous and experimental spirit. A photographer,
filmmaker, conceptual artist and restaurateur, Gordon Matta-Clark sliced buildings in half, bought tiny parcels of land around the five boroughs grew mushrooms in a gallery basement and more.

From Wikipedia: In the early 1970’s as part of the Anarchitecture group, Matta-Clark
was interested in the idea of entropy, metamorphic gaps, and
leftover/ambiguous space. Fake Estates was a project engaged with the
issue of land ownership and the myth of the American dream – that
everyone could become "landed gentry" by owning property. Matta-Clark
"buys" into this dream by purchasing 15 leftover and unwanted
properties in Manhattan for $25-$75 a plot. Ironically, these "estates"
were unusable or unaccessible for development, and so his ability to
capitalize on the land, and thus his ownership of them, existed
virtually only on paper.

The Whitney retrospective shows, what Michael Kimmelman of the New York Times calls: “that messianic, carefree ethos that arose when New
York was a crumbling capital with mean streets, cheap rents and bad air
and when art wasn’t worth much either, so nothing was impossible."

Through  June 3 at the Whitney Museum of American Art, 945 Madison Avenue, at 75th Street; (212) 570-3676. Screening and talk, 7 p.m. Screenings continue throughout the month.

Carroll Gardens is finally getting a green market. Woo.
It is set to begin on  July 8. The nabe already has Carroll Gardens CSA. where you can sign up for a share of a farm’s crop. They’ve got a CSA in Ft. Greene, too.
Anyone know where the green market is going to be in CG?

Check out Racked, the new retail blog developed by Curbed.

Carroll Gardens: Opening this very day is Go Fish!, a vintage furniture store and boutique on Sackett Street in Carroll Gardens. On the shelves: mid-century modern furniture as well as jewelry, housewares, clothing and shoes. Their website is a work in progress, but they do have a MySpace presence whose interests include “estate sales, rock and roll, deviled eggs and the perfect dresser.” (187 Sackett Street between Henry and Hicks, Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn; 347-721-3401). [Racked Inbox]

This from New York 1:

The Brooklyn jail is not only
set to re-open, it may be expanding after sitting empty on the corner
of Atlantic Avenue for four years.

Despite community protests, the Department of Correction has said
for some time that it plans to reopen the Brooklyn House of Detention
to ease some of the burden on Rikers Island.

But now NY1 has learned that the city also wants to expand the jail
so it can hold as many as 1,500 inmates – almost twice the current
capacity.

Advocates of the plan say the Brooklyn location will make it easier
to transport inmates to their court appearances, but critics say the
jail wasn’t a good neighbor before it closed in 2003.

"There’s a reason why counties have county jails located next to
courthouses. That’s where they should be in the civic center of the
community," said DOC Commissioner Martin Horn.

The Brooklyn jail is actually connected to the nearby court through a tunnel.

Its expansion, in conjunction with a controversial proposal to
build a new jail in the Bronx, is actually part of the city’s plan to
reduce jail capacity because the new jails would clear the way for the
demolition of thousands more cells in rundown Riker’s Island.

"Riker’s island is the wrong place for the City of New York to put
all of its jail beds," said Horn. "It’s connected to the mainland by a
single bridge; it complicates justice by making it very hard to get
inmates back and forth to court everyday."

The shuttered jail is located at Boerum Place and Atlantic Avenue
in Boerum Hill, which is experiencing a housing and commercial boom and
is next to the downtown area that officials want to make into a 24-hour
community.

But the decision is certainly a controversial one as many in this
community say they don’t want a bigger jail in their backyard.

"I think it’s a bad idea with so many young families and children
moving into the neighborhood. Bad idea," said one area resident.

"I think it’s going to be bad, ’cause there’s a lot of children who
live in this neighborhood. A lot of kids around here. It’s going to
really bad, I know that," added another area resident.

But some community groups have been working with the city for over
a year to hammer out some middle ground, including 250,000 square feet
of proposed retail space on the ground floor and an underground garage
as part of the expansion plan.

But they say memories of city cars parked on the sidewalks and
other issues when the jail was last open are still fresh in their
minds.

"It was not kept as clean as it should be. This is a residential
neighborhood there are apartments and condos," said Sue Wolf of the
Boerum Hill Association. "If the commissioner is a good neighbor, I
think it should be fine. If he’s not then we’ll have problems."

But since the Correction Department has the right to reopen the
facility with or without the community’s approval, many are striking a
diplomatic tone.

"I think we have an opportunity to make this a win/win," said
Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz. "I think it can work for
the Department of Correction and even more important it can work for
the residents of Downtown Brooklyn and even all of Brooklyn."

The expansion of the jail is expected to take around five years,
but the Department of Correction says it could open within 48 hours
notice if the space is needed.

Thanks to all the OTBKB readers who reached out to the desperate housewife desperately seeking a kitty.

MiMa Kat found her kitty and it’s not such a kitty. It’s a one-year-old Bengali named, well, they haven’t selected a name yet.

Zanzibar. Dayenu. Raja. Those are three of the names they are considering. If you have any suggestions (or preferences) just send ’em in.

MiMa Kat and Groovy Grandpa are madly in love with their new Bengali. He is huge, regal, friendly, and GORGEOUS They can’t get over him. Or their luck for finding such a great cat.

They found their kitty at a shelter in Long Island. It was not one of OTBKB reader’s tips (and there were so many) but they are very grateful for everyone’s help.

And he, this yet-to-be-named Bengali has a lovely new home in Brooklyn Heights and Upstate New York. So far he’s loving the city life. Fingers crossed that’s he’s comfy on the farm.

MiMa Kat wanted me to extend her sincere appreciation for all of your help. It was really an amazing out-pouring of community energy and cat power. OTBKB will gather together all the information and post a post — that way the whole OTBKB community can learn what we learned about finding a cat in this city.

Thanks so much to you all.

A store called The Bodhi Tree is finally going into the vacant storefront on Sixth Avenue and 7th Street (396 Sixth Avenue). Pix by R. Guskind (Gowanus Lounge).

That’s a storefront I know very well. At one time, it was a nice, clean bodega that had candy and ice cream. For years, we used to stop there on our way to Teen Spirit’s Karate class at the Center for Non-Violent Education, which used to be above Save on Fifth. He used to get skiddles. Always Skiddles.

The Center for Non-Violent Education has moved to 327 Seventh Street (near Fifth Avenue) but they still offer incredible self-defense classes for kids and adults.

Two years ago, that storefront became an occupatinal therapy gym for the Rivendell School, which until last year was located on 7th between Sixth and Seventh Avenues. Teen Spirit attended The Children’s House from 1994-1997 (it later became Rivendell).

The Children’s House is/was an incredible Montessori School, which was founded by Gretchen Courage. It was sold to the Rivendell folks about ten years ago. It is still a wonderful school from what I hear and is newly located on Carroll Street near Fourth Avenue.

They used to rent from the church on 7th Street — for years and years. But recently they bought their own building.

I was excited to see that the storefront on 7th Street is becoming The Bodhi Tree, a store for items from Tibet. So far, a beautiful awning with a lovely illustration of the Bodhi tree.

Sometime during the sixth century BC a solitary, wandering ascetic named Buddhat sat
to meditate beneath a shady tree (the Bodhi tree) promising not to rise until he had
attained the ultimate knowledge of spiritual enlightenment. Thus began
Buddhism, one of the world’s great religions and pilgrimage traditions.