The Times’ has a profile of Rosie Perez, the actress who starred in "Do the Right Thing. She just may be one of Brooklyn’s coolest celebs. She talks about her involvement with Working Playground, an arts education program in Brooklyn. Here, from their website, is how Working Playground describes itself:

By supporting underserved schools and communities Working Playground inspires, enlivens, and enriches students’ educational experiences with the in-depth study of an art form. Through a dynamic range of programs including theater, playwriting, animated video production, documentary and film, instrument building, science cartooning, dance performance and spoken word, Working Playground empowers youth to develop the creative and analytic impulses that will serve them as students, professionals and citizens.

Rosieis also one of the new celebrity members of the board of Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn:

"She is more than willing to vent about the multibillion-dollar Atlantic Yards project that is, she frets, threatening to change her eclectic home borough into, horrors, "a mini-Manhattan." Just call her Citizen Rosie." – NY Times.

Citizen Rosie lives in a Victorian house in Ft. Greene and she has every intention of being at the July 16 rally against the Atlantic Yards project:

"It’s awfully ugly and so out of character for Brooklyn. I’m all for progress and I’m all for development, but I’m not for the betterment of the filthy rich. If that eyesore comes to Brooklyn with the Nets, it’s over, it’s done. But why give in and let Bruce Ratner take over? My nabe was like my private Mayberry."  – Rosie Perez

Tonight at Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park, THE WIZARD OF OZ opens the Movies With a View annual film series.

The movie starts at sundown. According to Brooklyn Record, RICE
provides dinners on site and Transportation Alternatives provides free
bike valet parking.

On Tuesday July 11 at 8:30 p.m. come to Brooklyn Film Works. Movies Alfresco in JJ Byrne Park (Fifth Ave. and 3rd Street). Coney Island: The American Experience. A documentary by Ric Burns. Plus Buster Keaton shorts. The last screening, Little Fugitive, was fantastic. Food concession by Stone Park Cafe (last time: tamales, cup cakes, great lemonade). This series made possible with the financial and in-kind support of Showman Fabricators, Scharf Weissberg, Greg’s Rubbage Removal, and Methodist Hospital.

Looks like the New York Sun wants to improve their coverage of Brooklyn. This summer they’ve got a Harvard student, Leon Neyfakh, walking the Brooklyn beat.

Yesterday (July 5) he had an article in the Sun about the demise of "glossy" Brooklyn Magazines. True, BKLYN Magazine folded a few months ago and it was a glossy. But some of the other mags he mentions ain’t so glossy. Still, he got this quote from the publisher of BKLYN:

"We saw ourselves not only as a Brooklyn magazine, but a vehicle for
high-end advertisers in Manhattan," he said. "But people don’t
understand the value of the market out here."

At its peak, BKLYN was being mailed to 80,000 high-income households,
Mr. McCarthy said, but advertisers were nevertheless reluctant to
advertise.

"We had a publisher visit from a large city in the Midwest who
publishes a city magazine, and he came out and looked at Brooklyn, and
it just blew him away," he said. "But he asked me, ‘Where’s the high
end mall?’ I pointed across the East River and said, ‘It’s over there.’
Advertising really is local."

The Brooklynite, which folded last month  was hardly a glossy. But it was on the verge of being noticed on a larger scale by locals. I wish they could have hung in there a little longer because it was a smart, interesting magazine. Daniel Tremaine, its editor and publisher, said this to Neyfakh:

"Brooklyn deserves a magazine whose editorial interests are as wide as the diverse spectrum of the people who live here: newcomers, natives, and immigrants. That’s what the Brooklynite tried to be."

Also in the graveyard of dead magazines is one I never heard of called NRG. The only surviving magazine is The Brooklyn Rail, which is supported by various grants. It’s a very interesting, specialized mag more along the lines of The New York Review of Books. Quite erudite and not the least bit afraid of being esoteric or unpopular, it’s more of a cultural/intellectual magazine than a Brooklyn-focussed one. Poetry by Jonas Mekas, letters between Hannah Arendt and Karl Jaspers.

Neyfakh did mention that Daniel Tremain announced the demise of The Brooklynite at last month’s blogfest, which I organized at the Old Stone House.

Mr. Treiman disclosed the end
of the Brooklynite at last weekend’s Brooklyn Blogfest, an event
dedicated to the borough’s blossoming local blogosphere. His
announcement had been reported first on a blog. But according to Mr.
Treiman, who lost thousands of dollars with every issue, it was not
blogs that sank his ship, but Brooklyn itself.

I know Neyfakh was not at the blogfest which was on a Thursday night not on a weekend. But Gary Shapiro, reporter for the Sun’s Knickerbocker column was there. He arrived after it was over, while people were hanging out. He interviewed various bloggers and said he was going to give me a call. Maybe he passed along the Brooklynite announcement to Neyfakh. Maybe Daniel Treiman told him about it. Thanks for mentioning it Neyfakh!

They were just suitcases. But so much more. They caused the police to close up streets in Park Slope for six hours on Monday while they investigated the possibility that there were explosives inside.

Those suitcases belonged to a homeless man who goes by the name Mr. G.. He is a familiar site with his white hair and his shopping cart filled with Key Food bags, bottles and cans. Local legend has it that he became homeless many years ago. Prior to that he lived in a rental apartment on Union Street. Then he lost his job and his life took a downward turn: he became homeless. 

An older woman on that block let him keep his belongings in the basement of her brownstone. She was an old friend, someone who knew him in better days. For years his belongings resided in her  basement. More recently, he brought empty suitcases downstairs.

Chloe, the daughter-in-law of that woman, wanted to clean the basement. She noticed that the suitcases were getting mildewed. She left a note on Monday July 3rd for Mr. G. It was something along the lines of: Please take your suitcases out of here by Friday.

Well, he did. He came by on Monday, sometime before 3 p.m., when no one was looking and put some of the suitcases on the street in front of the house where Chloe and her mother-in-law live. He may not have wanted to leave all of them in front of their house, so he carried them in his shopping cart and threw them out in garbage pails along Seventh Avenue.

On Monday afternoon, Chloe did some errands on Seventh Avenue. When she came back, she told her neighbor, Leah, that the police were closing off traffic on Seventh Avenue. There was a bomb scare.

Leah and Chloe watched their sons, who are playmates, play together. They watched as Union Street was closed off, as was 8th Avenue. There were many police officers on the streets.

Chloe took a walk and caught sight of one of the suitcases and a lamp. Those look like the suitcases Mr. G. removed from my basement, she thought to herself, she told Leah.

So Chloe told the police officer who seemed to be in charge. A little while later, more police and the FBI called on Chloe at her home to verify her story.

This happened sometime after 7:00 p.m. on Monday. After that, the police closed the investigation down.

Leah did see Mr. G. on Monday he was pushing a shopping cart and there was still a suitcase in it. She’s not sure if he knows, even now, what he set in motion.

The Third Street Cafe is in full summer swing. This year it’s hop hop hopping. Maybe it’s the colorful umbrella someone found. Or the brand new Weber we split with the Kravitzes.

Most nights now, we can be found downstairs sitting at the green plastic table in the green plastic chairs drinking wine, chatting up the neighbors, dodging frisbees, disciplining our children as they vroom down the street on bikes, skates, scooters. We even discipline the children from neighboring buildings who seem to love our yard and wreak havoc.

Takes a street to raise a child, I guess. Third Street.

Ravi, the 13-year-old boy who lives downstairs, plays sitar sitting on a beautiful Indian cloth on the stoop. He even burns incense. He and his mother went to Queens and bought him a beautiful brown and gold silk robe and Indian pants.

He looks like an Indian prince. Sitar is fast becoming the soundtrack of this summer.

Other friends make our Third Street Cafe a fun place to be. Fofolle and her boyfriend Jack Twist, so named for his spot-on imitation of the Jake Gyllenhall character in Brokeback Mountain,  joined us at the cafe.

"I can’t quit you, Ennis." Is fast becoming the quote of the summer.

Sunday, Fofolle was selling skirts in front of the Third Street Cafe. It got so hot, I splurged for four six-packs of Corona beer and limes to cool us all off. Spent the day trying to sell skirts, handing out cards, cheering her on. Drinking Corona beer.

That night, my next door neighbor hosted a barbecue for friends and graciously invited everyone in the building to join in. There was so much food: lobster tails, steaks, hot dogs, hamburgers. "We don’t usually have such fancy barbecue," Teen Spirit said.

Food. Much of the weekend was about food. Namely: barbecue.  On the fourth of July, there was another barbecue. The Kravitzes, Mr. Kravitz’s mom and dad, Phized, Ravi and family, Fofolle, Jack Twist: they were all there.

Mr. Kravitz’s father is a master at the barbecue and he mans the grill. Steak, salmon, turkey burgers, corn. More food, more festivity. Jack Twist made sure everyone had enough beer and entertained the kids with puppet shows and rides on his shoulders. He also let them paint his fingernails.

Come summer, we live on the street. There’s no air conditioning at the Third Street Cafe. You have to go back to your apartment every now and again to cool off in frosty air conditioner air. Hot, humid, sweaty, we park ourselves on our chairs…

That’s life at the Third Street Cafe.

A friend sent me this email: the real story behind the Park Slope bomb scare on Monday.

I live on Union which was corded off for several hours because of the bomb scare — a cop said to me they had found multiple suitcases.  The kids (Cole and Timmy) were having a great time playing on the street.

The Moms  and neighbors hanging out on the stoops. —  joking that the suitcases belonged to the homeless man Mr. G  since he walked by with a suitcase similar to the one on the corner — well that was the case.

Cole’s grandmother helps out Mr. G from time to time and lets him store stuff in their basement.  He left a lot of suitcases there that had gotten moldy so Chloe, Cole’s Mom left him a note to get rid of them.  Well he must have  taken them and left them on the street. 

Several hours into the bomb scare Chloe was walking near President and recognized a lamp and suitcase that Mr. G had dumped. Sure enough when she and Timmy and Cole checked the basement many of the suitcases were gone.  She informed a policeman and soon the FBI, detectives and police  had surrounded her house to confirm the story. 

Meanwhile Mr. G had quietly been walking up and down Union during this whole charade. Timmy and Cole are proudly claiming they solved the story. Chloe and I opened a bottle of red wine.  This morning I passed Mr. G shuffling through the garbage collecting bottles.

Apparently he’s lived on Union over 10 years ago, and lost his job. Cole’s grandmother used him as a handyman and helps him out sometimes.  I wonder if he knows he paralyzed Park Slope for several hours.

NOTE: OTBKB changed the names in this story at my friend’s request.

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people
to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another
and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal
station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a
decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should
declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created
equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of
Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted
among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
— That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these
ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to
institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and
organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely
to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate
that Governments long established should not be changed for light and
transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that
mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to
right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably
the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute
Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such
Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such
has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the
necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of
Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a
history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct
object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To
prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

Continue reading WHEN IN THE COURSE OF HUMAN EVENTS →

1. What constitutes a suspicious package? People in my building were joking that there’s all kinds of weird stuff (old trunks, computers, boxes, furniture) on the streets of Park Slope that in the garbage, on the street abandoned after a stoop sale. How does the NYPD define it?

2. Why was there no coverage of this incident yesterday afternoon. The incident began at 3 p.m. and I was checking on-line all afternoon. NY1, NY Daily News, etc.

Reader Zorki writes: "The NYPD is probably supressing news coverage out of embarrassment.
Nothing on NY1, NYTIMEs.com and the Brooklyn news channel (number 12
something) – and this in the land that celebrates its freedom today. So
I came to Only… thinking there must be something about that bomb
threat on the blog. Still, it’s a good thing people are becoming more vigilant about packages etc. like in London."

Reader Mig had this to say: Even Prospect Park West was blocked off when we walked by. Police only
said that "suspicious packages" had been found. They weren’t evacuating
homes, just not allowing people back to their block, a somewhat curious
mixed message."

10:25 a.m. Tuesday: The Daily News Reports: "Cops are investigating whether a slew of
unattended bags found around Brooklyn yesterday afternoon was a hoax,
police sources said.

About 3 p.m., police started spotting suspicious briefcases, luggage
and duffel bags in Park Slope. A grid search of the area turned up bags
on Eighth Ave. and Carroll St. as well as spots on Union St.,
Montgomery Place and Berkeley Place. About nine bags had been found as
of last night. "The more we’re investigating them, the more we are
seeing them," a police source said.

The bags were all empty or, in at least one case, contained another
empty bag inside of it, sources said. So far, none of the bags
contained anything hazardous."

7:00 p.m. Monday

Standing in front Haggen Dazs on Seventh Avenue and President, I could see that Seventh Avenue from President to Berkeley was closed off. There was a rumor that more suitcases were found on Seventh Avenue or Union Street.

The bomb squad checked out the suitcases on Eighth Avenue and found nothing. They started open the streets but then more suitcases were found.

The whole thing was probably a hoax. Still, the police treated it very seriously and people on Carroll Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenue were not allowed on their street or into their buildings.

Anyone know more.  Not much in the way of news coverae at the moment.

6:30 p.m. Monday

A suspicious suitcase was found on Eighth Avenue near Carroll
Street. The police have closed off many streets between Seventh and
Eighth Avenues. Dozens of police are in the neighborhood. Helicopters
flying overhead. Traffic has been congested on Seventh Avenue for
hours.

It’s the 4th of July: Independence Day and Louis Armstrong’s birthday.

Don’t miss the 24-hour Louis Armstrong marathon on WKCR, Columbia University’s legendary radio station, all day on 89.9 FM.

Check out Dope on the Slope’s WKCR discoveries on his blog, including their Wikipedia entry.

There was a fire in an apartment above Olive Vine Restaurant on Seventh Avenue between Lincoln and St. John’s Place.

Does anyone have more details?  There was a fire two years ago that, I think, started in Olive Vine and spread to Zuzu’s Petals, and a large Korean Market.

This fire, I believe, was in the apartment above the restaurant.

It’s the 4th of July and that means the Nathan’s Coney Island hot dog eating contest. Gross. New York 1 has this report:

No one puts fear into the hearts of hot dogs like Tekeru Kobayashi, who has owned the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest for the past half decade.

“Tekeru Kobayashi came over in 2001, doubled the record, and since them no one has been close," said International Federation of Competitive Eating Chairman George Shea.

But Shea says this could be the year someone steps up and finishes more franks in 12 minutes than the champ. Top challengers include “The Black Widow” Sonja Thomas; Joey Chestnut an up-and-comer who has topped the 50 weiner plateau; Long Islander Ed "Cookie” Jarvis; and No. 7 train conductor Eric "Badlands" Booker, who is confident heading into the big competition.

That Pavilion condo story – may just be a rumor. Curbed has something about it today.

A mural called Recycled Bouquet is gracing the Carroll Street wall of Key Food on Seventh Avenue. It’s really an amazing thing. Created by second graders at te nearby Berkeley Carroll School they worked with artist  Fred Bendheim and their teacher, Judi Barrett.

Eggo, Cheerios, Oreos, Special K, Corn Chex, Apple Jacks, Honey Toasted Oat Cereal, Honey Crunch, Honey
Bunches of Oats), raisin and lots more.

.

Continue reading MURAL FOR KEY FOOD →

Interesting things in store for the Gowanus area. Like the roll up bridge (pictured left) that is in London. This from Brooklyn Papers.com

The Gowanus canal would be transformed from a fetid, sewage-ridden
corpse of water — and the neighborhood around it bloom with a mixture
of parks, housing and light industry — under a just-released plan by a
coalition of local groups.

“It’s exciting for anyone who lives near the canal to finally see
something happen,” said Michael Ingui, chairman of the Gowanus Canal
Community Development Corporation, which has been spearheading the
effort.

The Gowanus Canal Comprehensive Community Plan calls for the revival
of the malodorous canal — which is the final resting place of tens of
thousands of gallons of raw sewage during big rainstorms.

“That’s the biggest problem,” said Thomas Chardavoyne, the executive director of the GCCDC.

Read more at Brooklyn Papers

Great News from the Brooklyn Record. The NYC Landmarks commission has decided to landmark that incredible building on Third and Third.

Let’s have a party. Finally some good news in this age of knocking things down so that condos may rise. See below news about the Pavilion.

Says the Brooklyn Record:

The building was one of the first
concrete structures in the nation. Built between 1872 and 1873, it was
designed by William Field and Son to serve as the main office of the
Coignet Stone Company and was meant to highlight Coignet (artificial)
stone, which was really a type of concrete invented by Francois Coignet
in the mid-19th century.

Today I heard from someone in the know about the Pavilion condos project. It seems that the contract was signed on June  12th. The deal is done. Does anyone have access to the plans?

I find the whole thing sickening. So that a few may pay millions for park view condos, many will suffer the loss of what was an old style movie palace and a key destination to many in this community.

The Pavilion has definitely added to the quality of life in the Park Slope/Windsor/Kensington area.  I am wondering (perhaps too optimistically) if One Liberty Properties is planning to keep a movie theater of some kind  on the first floor of the condo building.

I am so sick of this. I guess that site was worth too much to someone to just be a movie theater. Just a movie theater.  The following is the depressing email I got this morning.

A contract was signed with One Liberty Properties on June 12 so I’m not sure what there is to do now.  Thanks for putting it out there — people are starting to react now that the word is out.

Here’s some info from answers.com about One Liberty Properties, the new owner of our beloved Prospect ParkPavilion. Not that we love the owners/managers of the Pavilion who have allowed many of the theaters in the theater to go to pot with broken seats and general disrepair (now we know why). We just love to be able to see movies nearby.

One Liberty Properties, Inc.
(NYSE:OLP)

Sector: Services

Industry: Real Estate Operations

Website: http://www.1liberty.com

One Liberty Properties, Inc. (One Liberty Properties) is a
self-administered and self-managed real estate investment trust (REIT).
The Company acquires, owns and manages a geographically diversified
portfolio of retail, industrial, office, movie theater, health and
fitness, and other properties in the United States, of which, a
substantial portion are under long-term leases. Substantially all of
One Liberty Properties’ leases are net leases. As of January 31, 2005,
the Company owned 46 properties, participated in six joint ventures
that owned a total of 14 properties and held a 50% tenancy in common
interest in one property. These properties are located in 23 states and
have an aggregate space of approximately 5.4 million square feet,
including all space for properties in which One Liberty Properties has
joint venture participation, its tenancy in common interest, and five
properties that the Company acquired in one transaction in January
2005.

BRIEF: For the nine months ended 30 September 2005, One Liberty
Properties, Inc.’s revenues increased 33% to $20.9M. Net income from
continuing operations totaled $16.9M, up from $5.6M. Revenues reflect
higher rental income from newly acquired properties. Net income
benefited from lower real estate expenses and gain on sale of air
rights. One Liberty Properties, Inc., acquires, owns, manages and
leases improved commercial real estate properties.

 

The Guardian Unlimited ran on story on Jonathan Lethem’s letter to Frank Gehry. I didn’t know Gehry was "embroiled in a long-running battle" on the Hove seafront in the south of England.

Frank Gehry is fighting a war on both sides of the Atlantic. The Pritzker prize-winning septuagenarian architect is already embroiled in a long-running battle to build a pair of tower blocks on Hove seafront, described by Gehry as "Victorian women in wind-blown dresses". Now it seems that he has some even more formidable opponents than the genteel residents of Brighton and Hove: angry Brooklynites.

The latest images of Gehry’s Brooklyn project, a $3.5bn forest of skyscrapers, were unveiled to the press last month. The New York-based novelist Jonathan Lethem, in an open letter to Gehry published in online magazine Slate, described the development as "a nightmare for Brooklyn" that would cause "irreparable damage" to the quality of life in the district. "To my unschooled eye," wrote the man whose 2005 novel The Fortress of Solitude was in many ways a paean to Brooklyn, "these buildings have emerged pre-botched by compromise, swollen with expediency and profit-seeking".

Teen Spirit, OSFO and I went to the 6:45 show of Superman Returns. It’s a great movie – all two and a half hours of it. I took a brief doze in the first hour (because I was exhausted from last night).  Other than that, it held my attention throughout.

The only trouble was, the movie theater was full of so many noisy kids. A kid behind us talked throughout the movie, "I’m scared dad, I’m scared." or "Is Superman going to die?" He also cried noisily at one point and kicked my seat.

But that wasn’t all. Many in the theater brought babies and children too young for the movie who talked or cried throughout. There was also a lot of hissing and loud verbal reactions to what was going on on the screen. It didn’t enhance the viewing experience at all.

The whole thing was very distracting and detracted from the viewing experience.

Curious and cool thing: Marlon Brando is credited with being in the
film. I think it was his voice. But still. When was it recorded? Turns out it was from audio outtakes from another Superman movie that he was in. And, Eva Marie Saint is in the movie, too. She and Brando were both in "On the Waterfront" many, many years ago.

I found the film, one of the most expensive ever made, to unexpectedly beautiful, even exquisite in places. And oddly spiritual. Suffice it to say, it’s pretty silly overall. But it’s fun and a great way to stay cool for two and a half hours.

Directed by the the director of "The Usual Suspects" it is full some great bits, characters, scenic artistry, and special effects that are very smooth and interesting looking, especially the Fortress of Solitude. The city of Metropolis is a great blend of Manhattan and an imagined city.

But Kevin Spacey takes the cake. He makes a fantastic villian and I loved the film the most when he was on the screen.

Good summer fun in air conditioned splendor. Superman Returns.  The following films are on my wish list:

The Devil Wears Prada
Prairie Home Companion
I’m Your Man, the doc about Leonard Cohen.

I have been hearing whispers of this on Seventh Avenue. Does anyone know more about the Pavilion being turned into condos?

Someone sent me this email last week. I couldn’t agree with her more about the neighborhood needing a movie theater.

Have you heard that plans are being considered to sell the Pavilion,  the only movie theater in Park Slope, to a developer who would turn it into a condo building with a large underground parking garage? 

We need a movie theater in this neighborhood — a place for teenagers to walk to locally, for families, and for local businesses to keep people in the neighborhood on nights out instead of heading to Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill, or Manhattan.

I’m not sure what needs to be done to keep it a theater. I heard that in Bayridge something similiar happened and the local realtors helped find a buyer who would  continue to keep it as a movie theater.  I can’t believe that in Park Slope there is not someone who wants to run a movie theater and/or restaurant since there is space inside for a restaurant (the former "Living Room" restaurant has been closed and is now just a large concession stand for the theater).

Here’s a story from the BBC.com from 2003 about Gehry’s Hove project. It is being fought by conservatives who say that the land should not be built on.  A story today in The Guardian said that the battle is on-going.  The tall buildings look a lot like the Brooklyn bride. They look quite nice on the water like that.

World-famous architect Frank Gehry, who has created eye-catching landmarks in Bilbao, Seattle and Las Vegas, has set his sights on Sussex.

This is what tourists would see from the end of the Palace Pier

He may have designed the iconoclastic Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao and the equally daring Experience Music Project in Seattle, but his English debut is by no means certain.

Gehry’s vision of a new development for the seafront at genteel Hove will first have to overcome a rival bid and then the opposition of the local Conservative group, which is against any housing on the site.

About 400 local residents have also signed a petition.

Brighton and Hove Council is expected to make a decision next month on which is its preferred option, but the proposal will still need to go through the normal planning application process.

The council came up with the idea of a competition when they decided it was high time they redeveloped the 70-year-old King Alfred Leisure Centre in Hove.

The idea was for the council to donate the land and a private developer would stump up the money and subsidise the development by building abound 400 flats with unrivalled sea views.

Most of the flats would be for the luxury end of the market but 40% would be earmarked for key workers like nurses and teachers, or people on the housing waiting list.

Several of the world’s top architects submitted bids for the project and the shortlist was whittled down to two, with Lord Rogers (formerly Richard Rogers) the latest to be rejected.

Now it is a straight fight.

In the red corner is Gehry’s bizarre vision – a collection of four tower blocks of varying height clustered around a swimming pool complex and "winter garden".

Each tower has giant glass panels, like wings, and each looks as if it has been melted with a giant blowtorch.

In the blue corner is the design put forward by Wilkinson Eyre, who are best known for their remarkable Millennium Bridge in Gateshead.

Their Hove proposal is far more low-key but no less bold – four interconnected buildings resting on the beach almost like jagged bits of glass.

–BBC.com (2003)

Today was the last day of school (stay tuned for my Smartmom column this Friday on this topic).

OSFO was very sad when she found out that she won’t be in the same class as her best friend Emmy.

She looked terribly disappointed after school. The two are still planning to walk to school together unassisted by parents next fall.  (We parents will be hovering in the background most likely).

I tried to convince OSFO that she would still see a lot of Emmy and that she’d make new friends in the class next year.

As I write this I see that I didn’t really let her have her feelings. I kept trying to fix it, comfort her, or make her see it my way. I should have just listened and sympathized.

It was on her mind until early evening. She was happy to hear that two of her friends will be in the class with her. But she still worried. What if they’re not? What if it’s a mistake?  Are they really in the new class with me?

When your children worry you just want to make it better like putting a Bandaid on a boo boo. Kiss it and make the pain go away. But that’s not always possible. She needs to feel this stress, this worry, this pain. It won’t go away (poof) just because I want it to.

I hope she feels better tomorrow. But if she doesn’t it’s okay. She feels strongly about the kids she was friends with this year. She doesn’t want to leave them. And she has to. I will let her mourn this loss and then move on.

She’ll be fine in the long run but this is a big deal right now.

Dope on the Slope made a podcast of the First Annual Brooklyn Blogfest. It’s a great way to get a sense of what the event was like.

After much maladroit mixing, I finally managed to cobble together a brief podcast featuring some "interviews" with a small sample of the presenters at last Thursday’s Brooklyn Blogfest.  Like nearly everything else I’m interested in, I jumped into this with both feet and absolutely no idea what I was doing. I conducted entire interviews without hitting the record button, distorted the levels,  and had a devil of a time with my plosives (apparently it’s hereditary). Still, I think some of the spirit of the event manages to seep through my incompetence.

My apologies to anyone I didn’t get around to interviewing, and to anyone whose most brilliant observations didn’t make it into the mix.

A sensible person would give up after such a dismal debut performance. But I can’t quit while I’m behind.

Look for an upcoming show devoted to photoblogging, and, as special treat, a new series of classic poetry and literature readings featuring the incomparable Daisy Parker.  I’m going to call it "Trope on the Slope."

Here’s a link to download the podcast:

Brooklyn Blogfest 2006

From NY1:
Doctors are treating two construction workers who were pulled to safety
after being trapped under construction debris in Park Slope.

There’s no word yet on their conditions or specifics on their injuries.

The workers were buried under rubble at a construction site on 11th Street and 3rd Avenue at around 11 a.m.

Dozens of firefighters responded to the scene, freeing the workers,
securing them to stretchers and hauling them to waiting ambulances.

Con Edison was also on the scene with an industrial vacuum that was
reportedly used to suck dirt out of the trench to help free the
workers.

There’s no word on exactly what the men were doing at the site nor what caused the collapse.

Yes, says me, they’re our kind of celebs. Smart, interesting, in good movies, a little bit indie a little bit Hollywood. Edgy. They’ll fit right into the celeb community in Park Slope. They’ll be very comfortable here. No one will bother them. We’re very protective of our celebs.

According to Brooklyn Record, Maggie Gyllenhaal and fiance Peter Sarsgaard are looking to move to Park Slope. They’ve even got the address AND the listing. Leave it to Mr. Brownstoner.

A little rain didn’t rain on the Coney Island Mermaid Parade. Mermaids and Mermen love the water. Don Wiss, a photographer who lives in Park Slope, sent me a link to his pictures. I think the parade must be getting bigger and bigger every year. Check them out and experience the parade – vicariously.

I’ve just put my pictures from the weekend’s parade at:http://donwiss.com/pictures/Mermaid-2006/

I hope you can announce this page in your blog.

Thanks, Don.

It’s a typical morning after a wedding around here. Hepcat is going through his pictures from last night and I’m blogging about the event.

This one was special. Not only did the bride and groom pull off a seemingly effortless, stylish, heartfelt event, but they did something else, too:

They brought together three intersecting families, who danced, drank, and celebrated. Together.

As a child of divorce myself, I was impresssed that the bride, the bride’s daughter, the groom, the groom’s two daughter, the bride’s ex-husband and wife, the groom’s ex-wife and husband were all there celebrating the coming together of this wonderful couple.

There was something very graceful about it. As graceful as an impromptu hora at a non-Jewish wedding, two dozen dancers moving from one room to another without coming apart (see above).

A lesson that divorce can be graceful and amicable. Eventually.

I was moved to be at this hopeful event – to see the three sisters together (two are his, one is hers). They are all one now. To see the radiant bride in her Narcisco Rodriguez dress (there’s a story but not for here), and the groom, whose utterly cool restaurant we were in (Painters in Bellport), looking happy and full of love.

This wasn’t one of those discreet second weddings at City Hall with the bride wearing a wool suit. NO, the bride was unspeakably sexy in her tight fitting white dress (see above). This wedding was a true CELEBRATION of the unexpected journeys we take in life.

It was a storybook wedding in the real sense of the word. The Story, the book of love, life, family, and marriage in all of its many permutations.

The real story. And I loved it.  Congrats to the happy couple and their families.

More news on that guy from Baltimore who wanted to know what street Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing was shot.  He writes:

By the way, if you’re interested, my band, Private Eleanor, is playing at Pete’s Candy Store at
709 Lorimer in Williamsburg tonight.  We’re an indie rock/folk band, similar to Wilco and Neil Young.

So that’s why he was going to be in Brooklyn tonight. If anyone goes, say hi from OTBKB.

Dope on the Slope and I exchanged emails over the last couple of days. Dope is putting together a directory of Brookyn Bloggers so if you were at the Brooklyn BlogFest but didn’t speak please leave a comment here so you can be included in the directory. He wants this to be a comprehensive list of Brooklyn bloggers so tell him about blogs he doesn’t know about, too.

I am also wondering if we should set up some kind of informal Brooklyn Blog
Association that would
–provide a directory of Brooklyn Bloggers
–spread the word about Brooklyn blogging
–provide info useful to bloggers about technology and other matters
–Help people set up blogs
–Provide outreach
–increase readership

I will definitely do another Brookyn Blogfest next year. I think we’ll do it in May – June may be too
steamy. I may also do a couple of smaller events before then. If anyone thinks this association is a good idea let me know. Dope on the Slope had this to say.   

We probably should start some sort of unstructured association designed
to promote blogging in general and connect people with each other. I’ve
heard a lot of talk about the relative homogeneity of the group from an
education, economic and ethnic standpoint. This is easily explained by
the fact that bloggers are a self-selecting audience – you have to like
reading and writing, you have to have internet access, and you must
have rudimentary computer skills. I was really inspired by Hugh’s
upbeat idea of connecting neighborhoods, but it may be awhile before we
see a demographic breakdown in the blogosphere that matches that of the
street. On the other hand, from a gender standpoint there seemed to be
a pretty good balance. I think the goal for next year’s event would be
to make sure we extended the reach…

Dope had a lot more to say and I’m sure he’s gonna be writing about it on his blog so stay tuned.