This from NY1:

The Crown Princess cruise ship that rolled sharply to its side off the coast of Florida Tuesday arrived in Red Hook Saturday morning.

No passengers were on board. All had disembarked in Florida and found other ways home.

After the terrifying ride, the Coast Guard and the National Transportation Safety Board cleared the Crown Princess to sail.

Dozens of passengers were hurt in the incident, two critically.

The ship is expected to head back out to sea Saturday evening, bound for Grand Turk and Bermuda.

No word on what caused the ship to tilt to its side.

Our favorite houseguests, a family of four who live in upstate New York, are visiting. They moved away from Prospect Heights four-and-a half years ago and whenever they come to visit they stay with us.

Fun as it is to have them, there just isn’t enough room in our apartment to comfortably sleep them. They used to stay in the living room but we recently put up a partial wall in there so Hepcat can have an office. That means: a smaller living room.

Great solution: Remember those guinea pigs we’re taking care of. Their owner said we should just stay at her house. So last night, Hepcat and I went out for dinner with our friends and then walked over to our little brownstone away from home.

What a treat. Guinea pig friend has a  jacuzzi in her bedroom and I made a b-line for it when we got to the house last night.

There’s something about being in a place that is not home, a place where the clutter has nothing to do with you, that is so relaxing. It’s so easy to ignore.

Woke up this morning in someone else’s life. Washed my face at a lovely Kohler sink that is like a ceramic bowl. Sat in the quiet living room that overlooks the garden.

By 8:30 a.m., I felt compelled to return home. Stopped at Cousin John’s for croissants, danish and turnover. Everyone was up: the honored house guests were getting ready to take a walk in the old neighborhood. They like to take their kids to see where they lived when they were younger. My friend was bracing herself for seeing the construction site where the Richard Meier is going to be.

Lots of changes in the last four years in their old neighborhood. They don’t miss Brooklyn much: their new surroundings are quite spacious and pleasant. They certainly don’t miss nthe  noise, the fast speed of life, the garbage. But they do miss the people.

The Piper Theater, under the creative leadership of John McEneny (MS 51 drama czar) will perform Midsummer Night’s Dream and A Winter’s Tale on July 26 and 28 in JJ Byrne Park.

Piper was established in 2001 by
John and Rachel McEneny to develop arts and culture in the City of
Yonkers as a way to foster economic development, tourism, and an
enhanced quality of life.

Now in Season 6:  Piper has been invited to be part of Brooklyn at the Old Stone House in on 5th Avenue. Last week, professional adult actors performed a spirited and delightful production of Much Ado About Nothing.

This week, it’s the kid’s turn to wow the Park Slope audience. It should be inspiring for kids and adults alike.

Piper Theatre at the Old Stone House. Midsummer Night’s Dream
5 pm.  Free.

The Winter’s Tale
7 pm.  Free.

Concession by Stone Park Cafe

Twice a day the turtles, which are actually the size of a large bagel, need our attention: breakfast and dinnertime. We sprinkle various kinds of dry, fishy food into their tank. I don’t really know what it is but it stinks. They get very excited when we come downstairs. But all they want is their food. Then they get back to swimming around and playing together.

I forget their names. I think it’s Spotty and Stripes. Something like that. But it doesn’t really matter. They look alike and don’t answer when you call their names.

But boy do they lead a very active life in their big tank. They’re fast and graceful swimmers. Fun to watch swishing this way and that. And they’re so interesting to look at: they each have a bright red spot on their ears. Hepcat says that they’re called "Red Eared Turtles" but he’s not sure that turtles have ears (all of a sudden he’s a turtle expert).

He just told me that Red Eared Turtles are notorious for spreading Samonella. Great. He’s always such a bringer of good news. We never touch the water but boy will we ever avoid it now.

We must wash our hands after feeding them. We must wash our hands after feeding them.

Those turtles don’t seem to want attention from us. They do, however, follow us. If we’re on one side of the tank, they come to that side. It’s kinda cool.

This weekend we’re back on guinea pig duty. OSFO can barely wait. The guineas enjoy being petted and held. And she loves to pet their soft fur and hold them. When we get there, they’re usually hiding in their "furniture." Cool plastic shapes that look like they were made in the 1960’s. Very mid-century modern.

I forget their names, too. Furry and Softy or something like that.

It feels nice to be needed by those turtles. Twice a day, we pay a  visit, feed them, say good bye. They have a bright florescent light. We can’t decide if we should turn it off at night. When do they sleep. Do they need it to be dark in there?

Questions, questions. We are just learning to take care of turtles.

DON’T MISS: THE DESIGN COLLECTIVE’S BROOKLYN DESIGNER MARKET

10 AM to 6 PM:  At the Old Stone House (J.J. Byrne Park, 5th Ave.
between 3rd St. and 4th St., 718-768-3195), Park Slope’s first, indie
designer market will be showcasing Brooklyn’s hot, new, design stars
with a sale. The indoor, air-conditioned, market offers apparel,
handbags, jewelry, children’s clothing, accessories, and paper and
lifestyle goods.

The Kravitzes went to the Red Hook Pool a few weeks ago and then went to the soccer field where they enjoyed excellent Mexican cuisine sold on food trucks. I see today that Gowanus Lounge has a guide to these delicious dining options.

Sure, there are dining options on Van Brunt Street in Red Hook. But for a real Red Hook treat, take thee to the Red Hook soccer fields. Maybe you’ve heard about the little gathering at the soccer fields at Clinton and Bay streets every weekend? Perhaps you’ve wandered past or driven by and wondered what all those little tents were about?

Well,
every weekend dozens of vendors set up these tents and they constitute
a virtual culinary tour of Central America. It may be New York City’s
most incredible and authentic street food experience, and one that you
probably won’t find replicated elsewhere. (We say "may be" and
"probably" only because we don’t know what other treats may lurk
somewhere else in Brooklyn or Queens or the Bronx about which we don’t
know.) Some of the weekend restaurants at the soccer fields have been
doing business in the same spot for years.

Ran into a friend on the F-train this morning. We talked all the way to 59th Street (we both changed trains at Jay Street Boro Hall). She’s a journalist and we talked about her work, my work. It was a great way to pass the time. She told me two things I was glad to hear about. One: Park Slope new mom Amy Sohn, formerly New York Magazine’s sex columnist, ranted on her blog about Park Slope Stay-At-Home-Moms (SAHM). Needless to say, I was dying to read it.  My friend, who was a SAHM for eight years, said it was mean, mean, mean. Two: She also told me about her friend’s blog, Mr. Nice Guy. He’s a Stay-At-Home-Dad who is also a journalist. It’s a great blog and he’s part of a group called The Blogfathers.

What I didn’t know is that Mr. Nice Guy, on his blog, took Amy Sohn to task for her anti-SAHM rant. And boy, the sparks did fly. Here are some excerpt from Sohn’s piece and Mr. Nice Guy’s response.

AMY SOHN: Here in my neighborhood, Park
Slope, I am constantly encountering insane stay at home moms (SAHMs).
And I have come to the all too un-PC conclusion that stay-at-home
motherhood, despite the way our culture lionizes it, is bad for the
child and bad for the mom. And bad for society. It’s just plain bad.

MR. NICE GUY: hmm,
yes. our culture lionizes stay-at-home moms. simply adores them. gives
them health insurance and writes songs about them. and the moms i met
in the nine months i was a stay-at-home dad? totally insane. we’re
talking feces-throwing multiple personality-having batshit bananas.
clearly this is the beginning of a well-reasoned and researched,
articulate treatise on parenthood.

AMY SOHN: Most
of the SAHMs I know are really miserable. The working moms I know hate
their jobs and hate working but they’re not miserable in the kind of
extreme and neurotic, soul crippling, Zoloft inducing Yellow
Wallpaper-type way the SAHMs are.

MR. NICE GUY: let’s
stop here a moment and marvel. the moms i know–and boy do i know me
some moms–tend not to have crushed souls or zoloft-stocked medicine
cabinets. they, in fact, tend to be smart, rational, funny people who
are candid about the trade-offs of stay-at-home parenting. oh, also,
they actually like parenting. talk about crazy!

AMY SOHN: When
you spend all day with a baby you go a little crazy and I don’t think
the SAHMs realize how crazy they are. All these college-educated smart
women who once had opinions about things and read the newspaper now can
only talk about poop and pancakes with kale and Veggie Bootie and
natural Cheerios versus regular ones.

MR. NICE GUY: first of all, what’s
wrong with talking about poop? poop is funny. second of all, kale
pancakes? ca-ca-crazy! i’m starting to rethink my affinity for some of
these moms and start to hating on them too!

Read more at Mr. Nice Guy

 

Brooklyn Film Works went ahead as planned on Tuesday night despite reports of a 40% chance of showers after 8 p.m.

In the scorching hot weather, our teenage tech crew worked quickly and got everything set up.

Raising the screen is always an adventure. It takes about six strong people to lift it off the ground and position it against Greg’s Rubbish Removal truck. Dan, who is one of the teens, likes to secure the screen from the top of the truck.

A nice sized crowd gathered to watch Duck Amuck and Moonstruck. About ten minutes into Moonstruck, we noticed lightening in the distance. Ever optimisitc, we hoped that the storm wouldn’t start until after the movie. Then the wind started and there was the rumble of distant thunder.

About one hour into the movie (Cher and Nicholas Cage were at the Metropolitan Opera together) Kim Maier announced that we were going to have to turn off the movie. The audience got off the lawn in the nick of time. Our tech team quickly moved the equipment indoors just before the big rain came.

A large group of us were standing under the projection cabana. Someone said, "Why are we out here, why aren’t we in the house?" Then someone said, "Why don’t we carry this cabana to the house." So everyone grabbed pole and the entire group moved across the lawn underneath the cabana, which was like a gigantic umbrella. It was funny.

During the lightening storm, a large group of us waited inside the house before taking the screen down.  "We don’t want to be handling tall aluminum poles during a lightening storm," Hepcat said. The kids were getting tired. Finally, in the hard rain, the group of us went out to the truck and carried the 12 x 15 ft frame away from the truck and let it drop onto the lawn. Then the screen, which has about 80 webs and gromits, needed to be untied from the frame.

We all got soaking wet. But it was kinda fun in a way. OSFO said she’d rather be boiling hot than soaking wet." We walked back home in the rain vowing to watch the rest of Moonstruck someday soon.

The Empire State Development Corporation signed off on the plan to turn the Atlantic Yards into a stadium and high rise development. It now goes before the public for review.

It’s gonna cost $4.2 billion, which is nearly $700 million more than last predicted due to rising construction costs.

From the city and state: $100 million for infrastructure improvements. On top of that, the state will kick in $637 million in tax-exempt bonds to help the developer move forward with construction, which will create a new home for the New Jersey Nets.

The state think the investment is worthwhile saying that Ratner’s project would create $1.4 billion in tax revenue above the public contribution.

The plan calls not just for an 18,000-seat arena, but for 16 buildings that would be used for housing, offices and stores.

In order to do this, developers have proposed seizing buildings through eminent domain.

For More: Gowanus Lounge

The Park Slope Food Coop rarely ever closes. But on Tuesday it was closed due to a power outage.

Monday evening, the lights in the Coop started flickering. Then they went out. The cause: a fire below street level caused by the heat conditions. There were 100 people in the Coop but noone could take their food because the cash registers weren’t  working. There were shopping carts full of food all over the place.

On Tuesday there was a sign on the door that said: Coop Closed. Some staff members came to work to give perishables to City Harvest and CHIPS and to do what work they could without electricity: no air conditioning, no computers. The Coop reopened at 4 p.m

Today at the Coop, everything seemed back to normal but it was more crowded than usual for a Wednesday mid-day.

The New York Sun seemed to think the Coop’s power outage was noteworthy. They put it on the front page of Wednesday’s newspaper.

The Crown Princess, a cruise ship based in Red Hook, Brooklyn, experienced some massive difficulties in the high seas yesterday. This from the NY Times.

In an instant, passengers aboard The Crown Princess cruise ship went
from sunbathing to clutching whatever they could as the massive ship
rolled heavily to its side, throwing everything not nailed down against
the deck and walls.

”Another 20 degrees and I would have been in
the water,” said Alfred Caproni, of North Adams, Mass., who was on his
balcony on the ninth deck. ”All the water from the pools was coming
right over the edge. It was like Niagara Falls. There were dozens of
people with bleeding noses.”

The Crown Princess was 11 1/2 miles
southeast of Port Canaveral en route to New York late Tuesday afternoon
when its crew reported problems with the steering equipment and the
113,000-ton ship listed hard to one side, Coast Guard Petty Officer
James Judge said.

It slowly came back up, leaving a scene of
terrified passengers scattered across its decks, halls and casino, then
headed for the port.

It’s 1,400 pages long and the Environment Impact Statement for the Atlantic Yards Development Project is in and it sounds BAD. Some of the findings: a new school would be needed to handle all the
children. The buildings will block views of the Williamsburg Bank building. Dozens of crowded intersections would be choked with more
traffic. Brownstone neighborhoods would find themselves in shadow. The
city’s sewer and water systems would face new challenges. Need a parking space on one of the game days: Forget it.

All in all: not a pretty picture. And the costs are astronomical.  Read more at

The New York Times

No Land Grab

Gowanus Lounge

The fact of the matter is this: it was a sweltering hot day on a Sunday in the middle of July. That 2000 people felt passionately enough to come out and protest Ratner’s Atlantic Yards project is a big deal.

I ran into a friend today who said he just couldn’t get himself over to the rally.  I was also unable to attend. But Hepcat did go over and took pictures. I’m sure a lot people felt the way my friend did. They may oppose the plan but that doesn’t translate into showing up at a demonstration.

Some people don’t like being part of demos. They don’t like chanting or singing "We Shall Not Be Moved." Some don’t believe demonstrations do anything. Some feel helpless; that the Ratner project is a fait accompli.

Hey, I was a kid in the sixties and I went to many anti-war rallies and later pro-choice demos in Washington. I get teary singing, "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?"

But not everyone is comfortable with that, not everyone can identify with the activist mentality.

Apparently DDDB was expecting many thousands more people. But I have to say, the scheduling of the demo on a Sunday in the summer may not have been the best idea.

It’s New York. In July. People can barely drag themselves out of their air-conditioned apartments. And many more were away for the weekend or at the beach.

Apathy?  Maybe. People will come out for an anti-war protest. But an anti-development rally might be a harder thing to get passionate about.

And yet, many of us are passionate about this community, the architecture, the scale, the history, and the quality of life. All of these things are worth being passionate about.

And we certainly don’t think a for-profit developer should be allowed to determine the future of Brooklyn. What about traffic? What about scale? Quality of life? The historical architecture in downtown and brownstone Brooklyn? What about affordable housing?

Developers shouldn’t have the power to do this. It’s disgusting and yet it is the way things have always gotten done in New York CIty.

I am proud that so many Brooklynites are rising up to say: ‘We’re sick and tired and we can’t take it anymore.’ Stop destroying our city for your profits! Let’s have parks not condos. Let’s think about the future of our borough and shape it in a meaningful and livable way.

There are other ways people can register their opposition to the Ratner plan. They can give money in support of DDDB. They can go to No Land Grab and find out how to write to politicians, etc.

There are ways other than demonstrations that people can be counted as part of the cause.
In this age of inclusivity, there must be many points of entry for people to get involved in something they believe in. Even from afar.

No Land Grab blogger, Lumi Rolley, appeared at the rally in full colonial garb and on horseback (left). Her sash said: "One if by land grab."

Lumi attended the Brooklyn Blog Fest with her blogging partner-in-crime, Amy. It was great to meet them. Their spirited and activist blog is a major player on the Ratner opposition front, which provides daily  information and news that most of the media neglects.

Photo and info found on Atlantic Yards Report

Early Saturday morning, Fonda Sera, owner of Zuzu’s Petals, was standing on a ladder attaching long, flowing puple ribbons to the lamp post on Seventh Avenue and Carroll Street. As I walked by, a Zuzu’s employee said, "Come back at 11 for the dedication."

An hour later, Council Members David Yasky and Bill DeBlasio, Bernard Graham, members of the NYPD, FDNY, shopkeepers, and many familiar Park Slope faces gathered to witness the unveiling and dedication of Jackie Connor’s Corner, a street sign in honor of a very special resident, which was covered with white paper until the moment it was dramatically pulled down with a string.

Jackie Connor, who died in the spring, was sometimes called the Mayor of Seventh Avenue. She used to sit on the steps of Old First Church or push a shopping cart up and down the avenue. Some thought she was a street person but she was really organizing, agitating, fighting for the rights of the little guy, the streets, and the community of Park Slope.

Civic minded doesn’t even begin to describe Connor, who cared deeply about this neighborhood, which was where she was born and raised. Everyone knew her and she knew everybody; she kept the police abreast of what was going on on Seventh Avenue by cell phone. And she had her pet peeves like flyers on lamp posts, which she waged a one-woman campaign to remove.

Two years ago, Connor was on the street in front of Zuzu’s Petals minutes after  fire that ravaged that store, Olive Vine and a Korean market early one morning. Fonda will never forget Connor’s unswerving support during what was a devestating time for her and her business.

Connor lived with with her husband in a Park Slope apartment and raised her family here. Her daughter is a reporter for the New York Daily News. She was at the ceremony on Saturday with her newborn baby.

After the ceremony, the event quickly became a photo op for the politicians posing together and with members of the community. You can’t blame them for trying to take the credit for getting the approvals necessary to make this street sign a reality so soon after her death. But the real credit goes to her family and friends who were eager to memorialize Connor in a meaningful way.

But talk about immortality. In the years to come, people will walk by that street sign and wonder who Jackie Connor was. Maybe there should be a plaque that tells the story of her life. Then people will know the person behind the name on the northwest corner of Carroll Street.

A stylish and tasteful antique furniture store has arrived on Fifth Avenue. Specializing in mid-century Swedish furniture, as well as a hand-picked selection of other periods, Posey Baker, also features large figurative paintings and abstracts. The new store is located at 167 Fifth Avenue near St. John’s in the space that used to be what I called the Frida Kahlo store.

Talk about a change of atmosphere. The Frida Kahlo Store was all about deep reds, Frida’s intense, somber image, Mexican pottery, and Day of the Dead objects d’art.

Posey Baker, named for the owner’s grandmother, is a whole ‘nother ballgame. On display in the shop are light woods, beautiful colors and patterns, polka dot pillows, appealing letter press stationary, and crystal wine glasses. Karin McNair, the shop’s owner, even has some kitchy American glass swans that somehow manage to look very elegant in her shop.

Worth a visit, the prices are reasonable (not cheap, mind you). But McNair  obviously has a great eye and will be bringing in an ever-changing selection of interesting antique furniture.

The look: Mid-century Swedish with other periods mixed in. Some whimsy. Lots of color. Very appealing.  And don’t buy that chair I want to buy. Oh go ahead, I don’t think we have room for it.

Hot weather can ne dangerous for the city’s elderly. Symptoms of heat exhaustion to be aware of include: nausea, dizziness, weakness, muscle cramps and clammy skin.

New Yorkers who experience any of those symptoms are advised to call a doctor immediately. Heat exhaustion can lead to heat stroke.

New Yorkers without air conditioning are advised to keep their apartments well-ventilated or head to a mall or to the movies for some air conditioning.

Some other tips to keep in mind:

# Avoid the sun and strenuous activity outdoors

# Drink plenty of fluids

# Avoid caffeine and alcohol

# Wear lightweight and loose fitting clothes that cover as much skin as possible in the sun

# Wear sunscreen, SPF 15 or higher

# Never leave children, pets or the elderly in a parked car during peak heat hours

# Check on your elderly neighbors

At 5 p.m. Tuesday night, the weather channel was issuing warnings about  "severe thunder storms in our area." Kim Maier, Executive Director of the Old Stone House and I were trying to decide whether or not to cancel the outdoor movie. The sky began to clear around 5:30 and we said, ‘what the hey, let’s take a set up and see approach.’ If it started to pour at 7 p.m., we’d just pack up and try not to get hit by lightening.

By 6 p.m. Greg’s Rubbage Removal truck was already in place, the sky was clear and the humidity high. The Piper Theater troupe was rehearsing Much Ado About Nothing for their opening night Friday on the stage. We waited until they were done to hoist the screen up.

Our tech crew, 3 cool teens and a gaggle of friends, put up the cabana that houses the projector and carried all the equipment out to the lawn. Putting together the screen’s frame is like a giant puzzle. Ingeniously designed by Bob Usdin of Showman Fabricators, the aluminum pipes are well-labeled and must be attached with key clamps.

The screen itself is attached to the frame with webs and gromits. Over eighty ties were tied by a fleet of female friends of Teen Spirit, as well as the tech crew and OSFO. Meanwhile Projectionist Bill Lyons lifted up the 82 lb projector, set the sound levels, and cued up the movies.

The set up went fairly quickly and when the theater troupe was done it was time to raise high the screen.

It was so gratifying site to see people coming to the JJ Byrne lawn at 8:30 with lawn chairs and picnic baskets. One man came all the way from the Bronx because he read about the show in the New York Sun and he likes New York history and to go to new places around the city.

Fatty Arbuckle and Buster Keaton in a silent short called "Coney Island’ with music by: The Alloy Orchestra. The documentary about Coney Island, made in 1991, was fascinating.

Watching a movie with neighbors and friends sitting underneath the Brooklyn sky on a steamy Summer night. Lovely.  Next week: Moonstruck with Cher. Short: Duck Amuck, one of the best cartoons ever made starring Daffy Duck. 8:30 p.m. July 18. JJ Byrne Park. 3rd Street and 5th Avenue. Park Slope.

Gowanus Lounge, like OTBKB, gets their daily news up before 9 a.m. and this morning I was interested to read that Martin Scorsece is shooting a new film with Leonardo DiCaprio in the Carroll Gardens/Gowanus area. Gowanus got the story from NewYorkology.  Here’s an excerpt from GW:

As a big fan of Ferdinando’s Focacceria at 151 Union Street in Carroll Gardens/Red Hook, Gowanus Lounge was amused to learn from newyorkology that Leonardo DiCaprio has been onsite shooting Martin Scorsese‘s The Departed.
If you haven’t been to Ferdinando’s, you should go, because this little
Sicilian place is the real deal…

Reporter Leon Neyfakh wrote a nice article in the New York Sun about tonight’s screening of CONEY ISLAND: AN AMERICAN EXPERIENCE in JJ Byrne Park at 8:30 p.m.

He did, however, get a couple of things wrong: Brooklyn Reading Works is a reading series for the public not a book club. And the subject matter is not Brooklyn-related. We have Brooklyn writers, Manhattan writers, writers from all over. Go to the BRW web/blog to see next year’s schedule. 

But other than that, Neyfakh wrote great story about a great event. Tonight. Be there. Fifth Avenue between 3rd and 4th Streets. Here’s the story:

The era of old-time Coney Island nostalgia may be all but over in light of developer Joseph Sitt’s $1 billion renovation plans, but tonight an open-air film screening in Park Slope’s JJ Byrne Park will give Brooklyn residents a chance to revisit the amusement park’s storied past.

"Coney Island used to be totally nostalgia — faded glory," says Louise Crawford, who organized tonight’s screening of Ric Burns’s documentary titled, "Coney Island: The American Experience" as part of her outdoor Brooklyn Film Series. "It was rusty and dirty. It just didn’t have its former luster. What I feel now is that it’s a real and living place. People have sort of rediscovered it."

In light of that resurgence — marked most recently by the relighting of the long-dormant Parachute Jump by Brooklyn president, Marty Markowitz — Mr. Burns’s film may serve as a welcome history lesson as it traces the park’s development since the turn of the 20th century.

This is the second Coney Island-related film Ms. Crawford has shown in her series, which had its inaugural screening last Tuesday with 1953’s "Little Fugitive." That film, shot in black- and-white on the streets of Brooklyn and Coney Island, follows a young runaway as he rides the rollercoasters, plays with animals, and eats the hot dogs that made the place such a glorious national attraction in its heyday.

The screening of "Little Fugitive" was a collaborative effort, Ms. Crawford says, made possible by a fleet of Brooklyn locals who helped secure and set up the state-of-the-art projector, the 12-by-15 foot screen, the garbage truck that supports it, and the lawn upon which the guests spread their blankets and watched the movie.

"Nobody had ever heard of the film, but they were game. It’s this big movie in the park — our park!" Ms. Crawford says, estimating last Tuesday’s turnout at about 100.

Ms. Crawford hopes tonight’s screening, which will begin after sundown, will attract locals curious to "learn the stories behind the Cyclone, the Wonder Wheel, and the Parachute Jump."

Ms. Crawford’s fixation on Coney Island, which until recently was considered by some to be a rusty dump past its prime, is appropriate enough considering the location of the screenings. JJ Byrne Park, Ms. Crawford says, has enjoyed a renaissance of its own in the past two years.

The park, she says, situated on Fifth Avenue between Third and Fourth streets in Park Slope, has benefited from the gentrification of the surrounding area.

"Before, Fifth Avenue wasn’t happening. It’s gone through this major transition. As Park Slope’s star has risen, so has Fifth Avenue’s."

JJ Byrne, she says, has traditionally been "a really poor cousin of Prospect Park." In the past two years, the dust that used to cover the park’s main area was replaced with a lawn, and a dog run was built off to the side.

Now, Ms. Crawford says, there are activities being hosted there "pretty much three to five nights per week, whether it’s theater, readings, music, or stuff for kids."

The recent blossoming, she says, is owed in large part to the Old Stone House, a museum dedicated to the Battle of Brooklyn that has, in the past two years, started regularly opening its doors for community events.

The director of the Old Stone House,
Kim Maier, came up with the idea for the Brooklyn Film Series Works. Ms. Crawford
says. The concept grew out of the Brooklyn Reading Series Works, a book club   reading series curated
by Ms. Crawford (note: and supported by the Brooklyn Arts Council).

It has to be one of the great New York Post front page headlines: NYPD JEW.
I just love it. And it’s true. The NYPD recruited the first Hasidic cop. And he’s from Brooklyn. And he’s a Talmudic scholar. Here’s an excerpt from the Post’s front page story.

Joel Witriol, a 24-year-old Talmud scholar from Brooklyn, starts his training at the department’s Police Academy today. "I realized there were so many things you could do [as a cop] – everything from community service to fighting narcotics," Witriol said, coming off the heels of a stint with the department’s auxiliary police force. "There are a hundred things, and every day is different."

Witriol has a degree from United Talmudical Seminary in Monroe, where he studied "religious stuff, mostly."

He’s also held part-time jobs doing everything from driving a delivery truck to working for a furniture company.

But the Brooklyn native wanted something more – and believes he found it five years ago when, while volunteering for an ambulance company, he heard about the police auxiliary. "I decided to go and check it out," Witriol said. "I went for training and passed."

Growing up in Williamsburg, Witriol admitted that he had the same cops-and-robbers ideas about policing as many youngsters. "I thought it was only about arresting people," he said

In this week’s New York Magazine, Park Slope new mom Amy Sohn asks,  "Will Fairway Kill the Park Slope Food Coop?"

Kudos to Sohn, who used to have a sex column in New York but post-bebe seems to be switching to other topics, for coming up with a new way of describing Park Slopers that doesn’t use the words crunchy, lefty, or Birkenstock-clad. Instead her lede goes: "The scruffy, Michael Pollan–reading culture of Park Slope is probably
best embodied by the Food Co-op, the 13,000-member DIY grocery store
founded in 1973."

Okay. So, we’re scruffy. And she coulda said Elizabeth Royte-reading culture…to be more specific.  Still, later in the piece, jazz musician and former Coop member, Roy Nathanson refers to himself as an "old lefty." 

Yeesh.  You just can’t lose those cliches. Hippie era. Old lefty.

Nonetheless, her story was informative and on the mark. Are Food Coopers defecting to Fairway? Park Slopers want to know.

Sohn reports that the Food Coop dropped 300 members last month. Could Fairway be partly responsible for this?

Yes and no. The first-wave of Fairway defectors will be those who have a love/hate relationship with the Coop; those who are fed up with the workshifts; and those who have cars.

But they must have cars.

However, I don’t think people are leaving for Diet Coke and Twinkies as the article suggests. I do, however, agree that parking spaces will be a big pull for car people. The fact that Fairway has parking is very appealing and gives Brooklynites that fleeting feeling that they’re living in suburbia. 

A couple I know, recent Coop defectors, are now happily shopping at Fairway. They did say that they’re spending a lot more money there. They told me that the  prices are higher and you buy more because everything looks so good.

Spouses who have to work their spouse’s shifts, because of the rule that all adult members of the household must work,  will also be early defectors. Sadly, this is mostly women who work for their husbands. Those who join without mentioning their husbands are called Coop Widows. Over six hours a month is a big commitment.

Also, those who can only shop during Coop rush hour will probably choose Fairway to avoid long checkout lines. Again, if they have cars.

That said, many Coop members, myself included, enjoy the sense of community, the wackiness, and the great food at the Coop. It’s a shopping environment without junk food where there are warning signs about genetically altered foods.

Shopping there makes me feel like I am being more conscious about sustainable agriculture and healthy eating. I am constantly learning about new products and new things to eat.  I feel adventurous and willing to give new things a try. Like Vegan Hunan dumplings.

I also admire the way the Coop works; the system is quite an amazing thing. The fact that it works at all day in and day out is itself a miracle.

There’s lots to complain about. But Dag, Key Food and all the others have big, big problems, too. I guess I’m just really hooked on the Coop: the idea of it, the fact that it isn’t just Park Slopers but people from all over Brooklyn. As one member said the other day, "If people are willing to work here, it must be pretty good."

Finally, the PSFC has gotten too big; there are so many members that there aren’t enough for jobs for people to do. This could be addressed by reducing the number of work hours required. But it hasn’t been. About a year ago, when Whole Foods was said to be coming to the neighborhood, someone said that the Coop wasn’t dealing with the overabundance of members because they expected, yes expected, to lose members when Whole Foods and Fairway came in.

So maybe this is the shake-out that will result in shorter lines — a  win-win for loyal members.

The gas explosion that caused an Upper East Side town house to explode and collapse, was, most likely, caused by its owner who was attempting suicide.

What some people will do for real estate in New York.   Read all about it in the New York Times.

Dope on the Slope says there’s an exhibition of paintings of birds at Ozzie’s on Seventh Avenue and Lincoln. I haven’t seen them but I take his word for it. He says it’s a good place to stop on your way to batwatching in Prospect Park. Check out Dope’s posts about bats in Prospect Park.

Cousin John’s has an ever-changing exhibit of artwork by locals. Today I noticed that the work of a fashion illustrator was hanging on the walls. Pretty cool stuff.

At The Cocoa Bar, there are black and white photographs of Manhattan streets that are kind of interesting, too.

Art and coffee. There must be a connection.

Back in the mid-1980’s when I lived on the Northside of Williamsburg, I happened upon the Giglio Festival on Havemayer Street. I didn’t know what I was seeing but I could tell it was a tradition that had gone on for many years. There were so many mysterious and interesting things about Williamsburg and Greenpoint back then.  I used to spend hours just walking, thinking how exotic that neighborhood was. Most people spoke Polish, Italian, Spanish. I felt like a stranger in a strange land. And I loved it. It was very visual — the domed church, the aluminum siding, the low industrial buildings, McCarren Park, the bright lights on the baseball field.

This is way before it became a groovy place to live. When I lived there, Bedford Avenue had a bodega on North 6th (still there) a Salavation Army, Polish butchers, Polish bars, and a place to get pastry.

Gowanus Lounge took pictures of the annual "Dance of the Giglio" at the Giglio Feast on Havemeyer Street
on Williamsburg’s Northside took place on Sunday. He writes:

The Giglio Feast, now
in its 113th year, is sponsored by Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church and
parish priest Fr. Tom Conti called the Giglio Dance, in which dozens of
men hoist the three-ton, five-story statue and carry it up and down
Havemeyer Street–also turning it and lifting it up and down–"as
Brooklyn as it gets." Fr. Conti, the Bishop of Brooklyn and a brass
band rode on the platform as it was carried down Havemeyer through a
huge crowd.

One of those great New York things. I must have seen it more than 20 years ago, when it was just 93 years old.  How time flies.

You know that pizza place across from MS 51 on Fifth Avenue between 4th and 5th Streets?  Well, the pizza biz is out of biz and a hot dog stand is going in.

I’m guessing gourmet hot dogs. A friend asked the owner, who is also grip in the film business, if it was gonna be like Schnack, Red Hook and Union Street’s groovy hot dog place. The guy apparently said, the hot dogs will be much highter quality than Schnack.

Okay. Bring on the new hot dog place.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PARK SLOPE PARENTS! Believe it or not, the parenting list-serve is four years old.

"Over the past 4 years, our Park Slope Parents community has grown
tremendously to include more than 4,500 families, two Yahoo Groups and a website. We’ve discussed strollers, schools, breastfeeding, parking, babysitters, restaurants, religion, discipline, values and so much more (not to mention swinging and lost blue hats!)." 

To help celebrate PSP’s 4th BIRTHDAY, PSP is asking members to donate to support the website.

“With success comes growing pains: Given limited website resources, some of the valuable information on the website is increasingly being exchanged "off-line" between individuals. Some topics are frequently repeated ("What holiday bonus is appropriate for a nanny?" "Can I take a car seat on a plane?") because the website isn’t constantly updated.

PSP is confident that member donations will help them revamp the website without instituting  advertising on the website.  Monies are needed for software, design, and implementation, project management, editors and programmers.

"We are recommending $40-less than one latte or video rental each month for a year. We appreciate anything you can give and hope those who are able will give more. "

PSP is hoping to build a NEW IMPROVED website with:
–Continuously updated content such as Preschool/Daycare and Summer
Camp information

–Better navigation and organization

–Calendars

–Better search functionality on the site as well as the ability to
search all the former yahoo messages without trying to navigate the Yahoo
site and search.

Click here to make a contribution

The Parachute Jump on the boardwalk in Coney Island, a city landmark, will be lit up as of Friday night. Engineers successfully tested the new lights Wednesday night.

The Parachute Jump, which is 277-foot tall, will be lit throughout the year with six different color themes just like the Empire State Building and Brooklyn Borough Hall.

On Friday night, there will be an official lighting ceremony. Afterwards: A fireworks show.

I knew of Ralph Ginzburg and Eros Magazine because I went to elementary school with his son. My sixth grade class wrote a letter to the editor of the New York Times in support of him.  He died yesterday. This is from his obituary in today’s New York Times.  No surprise, Ginzburg was born in Brooklyn.

Ralph Ginzburg, a taboo-busting editor and publisher who helped set off
the sexual revolution in the 1960’s with Eros magazine and was
imprisoned for sending it through the United States mail in a case
decided by the Supreme Court, died on July 6 in the Riverdale section
of the Bronx. He was 76.

Ralph Ginzburg wore handcuffs outside the federal building in
Lewisburg, Pa., in 1972 as he was being taken to federal prison.

The cause was multiple myeloma, a cancer of the bones, said Shoshana Ginzburg, his wife and collaborator of 49 years.

First published in 1962, Eros was a stunningly designed hardcover
"magbook" devoted to eroticism. While Playboy and other men’s magazines
of the time catered mostly to male fantasies, Eros (named for the Greek
god of love and desire) covered a wide swath of sexuality in history,
politics, art and literature. Mr. Ginzburg valued good writing, and his
contributors included Nat Hentoff, Arthur Herzog and Albert Ellis. – New York Times Obit

Continue reading RALPH GINZBURG, EDITOR OF EROS DIES →