Thousands of the city’s taxi drivers were expected to go on strike at 5 a.m. this morning, causing the city to implement a plan increasing taxi cab fares and encouraging group ridership.
Members of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance have planned a 48-hour strike against the Taxi and Limousine Commission’s plan to place GPS tracking systems and credit card machines in their 13,000 cabs.
The city and the TLC say the technology will help passengers, but drivers are worried it will be used to monitor their whereabouts.
“Enough is enough,” said one cab driver. “We can’t take any more pressure. We don’t want any GPS.”
As part of the contingency plan, the city is encouraging group rides to and from LaGuardia and JFK airports, where people may be most affected by the strike. The city has also implemented new flat fares to those locations.
The following taxi fare changes were scheduled to go into effect at 12:01 a.m. unless the city deems the plan unnecessary:
Throughout the five boroughs, drivers will be required to pick up any additional passengers who are hailing them. All passengers will be subjected to the same zone charges.
Passengers will be charged $10 per person to take a cab within one zone. Passengers will be charged an additional $5 per each zone travelled through.
The zones are as follows:
Zone A – Manhattan – South of 23rd Street
Zone B – Manhattan – 23rd Street to 60th Street
Zone C – Manhattan – 60th Street to 96th Street
Zone D – Manhattan – North of 96th Street
Zone E – Brooklyn
Zone F – Bronx
Zone G – Queens
Zone H – Staten IslandFlat rate and zone charges include bridge and tunnel tolls.
These modified fares only apply to adults. Children under 12 years old traveling with adults are free.
SAD GREEN THUMB IN NORTH SLOPE
An OTBKB reader wrote in to share this unpleasant news:
I returned home from a week’s vacation only to find that one of our potted shrubs outside our apartment building had been stolen. A 3 foot bush in a fairly large terracotta planter. Poof, gone. Nothing left but its own small dirt potprint. This petty theft has me feeling so down and morose. I mean, it takes a lot of effort to steal a 100 lb potted shrub!
A friend tells me that this kind of plant caper happens all the time…Have you heard anything about this? Can you enlighten me and also alert people to keep an eye out for a bargain-priced 3 foot burning bush in a glazed black terracotta pot.
OPEN CALL FOR ACTORS IN SPIKE LEE FILM
Petra over at Bed Stuy blog has the word. There’s an open call for actors to play soldiers in 1940s film Casting (NON-UNION OPEN CALL)
Winsome Sinclair & Associates will be casting FEATURED extra roles
for SPIKE LEE’s new feature length film, Miracle at St. Anna.
There will be an open call for talent held on Friday SEPTEMBER 7 2007 at 75 South Elliot Place, ground floor, Fort Greene, 11am to 6pm.
NO WORDS_DAILY PIX BY HUGH CRAWFORD
BLUEGRASS JAM EVERY SATURDAY NIGHT AT SUNNY’S
A woman I wave at on 3rd Street had a small stoop sale yesterday. She was putting out LPs like Fiddler on the Roof, Frank Sinatra and some others.
She told me that she’d been to a bluegrass jam the night before at Sunny’s bar in Red Hook. I asked her if she was a musician and she said no but that she does sing along. Sounds like fun and it’s every Saturday night, I guess.
Here’s the blurb from Sunny’s website:
Saturday Night Jam, the sign in the window says Bluegrass, well maybe Bluegrass isn’t quite right, accoustic is more like it. The Jam cover a whole lot more. Put a bunch of guitars, fiddles, a bass, throw in an accordion or two and some more strings (they now have a piano). You are bound to get some interesting and good music
BLOG OF THE DAY: BIG SKY BROOKLYN
I love his photographs and his stories about how and where he got them. On August 8th he captured the ornamental frenzy of some Brooklyn stoops.
And earlier this week: Zen and the art of the laundromat.
YUGOSLAVIAN CINEMA FROM THE 1960’s AT BAM
I’ve never seen WR Mysteries of the Organism but it sounds like one of those films every cineaste needs to see.
Amos Vogel writes: One of the subversive masterpieces of the 1970s: a
hilarious, highly erotic political comedy which quite seriously
proposes sex as the ideological imperative for revolution.”—Amos Vogel.
There are going to be quite a few other movies, too. Here’s the blurb about the Yugoslavian festival at the BAM Cinematek.
Yugoslavian Black Wave
was one of the most anarchic and politically subversive of all 1960s
cinema movements, frequently running afoul of official Yugoslavian
government policy. Combining artistic, sexual, and ideological freedom
often with a sense of humor, the Black Wave reinvented existing notions
and standards of cinematic realism—mud, blood, tears, bleakness,
destruction of illusions—that for a brief moment produced some of the
most liberating cinema the world has ever seen. When re-introduced to
audiences, Karpo Godina and Zelimir Zilnik, among others, will
certainly join the beloved Dušan Makajevev with the status of great
masters.
THOUSANDS OF TAXI DRIVERS THREATEN TO STRIKE
A group that represents cab drivers is calling a strike this week over the city’s plan to make taxis more high-tech.
The New York Taxi Workers Alliance, which claims thousands of
members, is set to announce a two-day strike beginning 5 a.m.
Wednesday.
The drivers are protesting new technology approved by the Taxi and
Limousine Commission, including a GPS tracking system and a television
monitor in the backseat. A credit card reader will also be installed –
which would charge drivers a 5 percent fee for transactions.
Drivers NY1 spoke with appear to be split on the idea of a strike.
"Very few people use the credit card in response to the cash or
credit option. Most people do the cash anyway,” said one driver. “It’s
miniscule, the 5 percent.”
“I’m going on strike because I’m just aggravated with Taxi and
Limousine Commission about this GPS,” said another. “We don’t need that
and it’s not fair."
The TLC says the technology is fair and part of deal made in 2004 when drivers got a 26-percent fare increase.
The city is downplaying the strike threat, and another drivers’
group, the Federation of Taxi Drivers, says its members will remain
behind the wheel.
BRIT IN BROOKLYN GOT UP EARLY TODAY…
…for the pre-dawn festival on West Indian Carnival Day.
Check out his site for great pictures of J’Ouvert just outside the Brooklyn Public Library.
Says Brit in Brooklyn: “J’Ouvert, or jour ouvert in French meaning daybreak, began in Trinidad in 1937. Today J’Ouvert is also celebrated in New York as a predawn festival on Carnival day.”
THE LITTLE GARDEN THAT COULD IN EAST NEW YORK
Eat, Drink, Memory writes about the treasures in her garden, including the rasberries. She also ventured out of Brooklyn and now knows where to get the best cookies, ices, and mozzarella in Corona, Queens.
What a gal. There are pictures and links, too.
ON PUBLIC SPACE AND COMMUNAL LIVES
A nice note from Catherine at the Community Bookstore.
Weeeellll . . . guess summer’s kind of getting to be over, so time
to get back to the . . . no no no — NOT the bloody grindstone, but . .
. the fun business of steering this old ship? Eh, well, whatever. And
there’s plenty of Indian Summer left, anyhow.Those
of you who saw the City Section piece on the closing of Liberty House
on the Upper West Side (started by Abbie Hoffman and the like to help
finance the civil rights movement in Mississippi) may have been struck,
as I was, by what one patron said: "It was really sad, because it is
one of the last places that had really expressed the values of the old
West Side, which have literally disappeared store by store."
(italics mine).Is it just me, or is it rising to the collective
conscious that "stores" not only define the character of a
neighborhood, but in some weird way serve as the public space in which
people play out a big chunk of the communal part of their lives?Or,
another funny anecdote which occurred to me . . . some years ago,
certain stores were asked to put yellow stickers in their windows,
which would indicate to children that if they were in trouble, they
could go into such a store and expect to receive help. We had one.What strikes me as funny, now, is the idea that you’d need a sticker —
this place is more often than not positively heaving under a mass of
children, all of whom don’t seem to have a doubt in their mind but that
the place is theirs — part of their home . . . as, indeed, it is.And
a last sweet one — today there was a woman wandering around in here,
taking it all in . . . "This place is amazing!"
she said — sort of barked it at me, as if maybe I didn’t know. Then
she wandered around some more, and as if she couldn’t take it in
anymore, she came back and said again "It’s amazing . . . " and
then with a wail "I wish Manhattan had places like this." Huh.
HILLARY AND OBAMA GRAND MARSHALS AT WEST INDIAN PARADE
Look who’s a grand marshal for the 40th annual West Indian American Day Parade. The parade is tomorrow.
The Grand Marshals for 2007 are:
Ms. Debra D. Carey – CEO, SUNY Downstate Medical Center
Ms. Joyce Quamina, former member, WIADCA
Ms. Jeanne Sadik-Kahn, Commissioner, NYC Dept of Transportation
Mr. Raymond W. Kelly, Commissioner-NY Police Department
Mr. Adrian Benepe, Commissioner, NY Parks & Recreation
Mr. John J. Doherty, Commissioner, NY Dept of Sanitation
Invited to be Honorary Grand Marshals are:
Hon. Eliot Spitzer, Governor, NY State
Hon. Michael R. Bloomberg, Mayor, NY City
Hon. Hillary Rodham Clinton, US Senator
Hon. Charles B. Rangel, US Congressman
Hon. Barack Obama, US Senator
Hon. William Thompson, NYC Comptroller
NO WORDS_DAILY PIX BY HUGH CRAWFORD
VEGAN RESTAURANT DEAL DOESN’T GO THROUGH: BOOKSTORE OPEN ANOTHER FEW DAYS
I got a call on Thursday from Tom Simon, owner of Seventh Avenue Books. Apparently the Vegan restaurant deal did not go through and his landlord told him that the bookstore can stay open through the weekend.
This is great news for bargain used book buyers. According to Tom, there’s an “astonishing” number of excellent books still in the store. “Customers keep bring good stuff to the register.”
Even better: every book in the store is $2 dollars. He is also selling the bookcases. He wants everyone to know that there is a HUGE FISH TANK in the store and he’d like to GIVE IT AWAY to the person or school that can take it away.
That’s right. A huge mansion for your fish. FREE. Just ask Tom Simon at Seventh Avenue Books. The store will stay open through Monday.
So no deal for the Vegan restaurant on Seventh Avenue and the bookstore, located on Seventh Avenue near 3rd Street, gets to stay open a few more days.
ISRAELI PEACE ACTIVIST AND KNESSET MEMBER TO SPEAK AT BETH ELOHIM
Congregation Beth Elohim, a Reform Jewish Synagogue in Park Slope, Brooklyn, will present a discussion with Yossi Beilin–leader of the Israeli Meretz Party, Member of the Knesset and initiator of the Geneva Initiative, on Wednesday, September 19th at 8 pm. The talk is part of the Jewish learning series at the synagogue.
Beilin will speak on prospects for peace in the Middle East. This event is sponsored by Congregation Beth Elohim in collaboration with Americans for Peace Now, Meretz USA, and Brit Tzedek v’Shalom, and is free of charge.
Congregation Beth Elohim is located at the corner of Garfield Place and Eighth Avenue in Park Slope, Brooklyn. For directions or to find out more information, please visit our website, www.congregationbethelohim.org.
NEW LINKS AND WILD CARROTS ON DOPE ON THE SLOPE
I didn’t know Queen’s Anne’s Lace was wild carrot. DOTS has a pix of one as part of his continuing series on the Weeds of Brooklyn. He’s also got some new links to great Brooklyn blogs.
He took this pix near the Vanderbilt yards. Queen Anne’s Lace, the wild carrot, is one of the most familiar weeds in North America. An ancestor of the domestic carrot, this plant is a native of Europe which was introduced to this country by early European settlers.
BROOKLYN MERCANTILE COMES TO PARK SLOPE
There’s a new store on Fifth Avenue next door to Cocotte, the delightful and popular French restaurant, near 4th Street. It’s called Brooklyn Mercantile. OSFO and I looked in the front window the other night and it looked to me like it might be something along the lines of Cog and Pearl, beautiful items made from found, antique or recycled materials.
The shop, which seems to sell objects for the home, bags, jewelry, quilts, and other items, looks stylish and very attractive. Can’t wait to actually go in.
Brooklyn Mercantile is not replacing another shop. I believe it was a residential storefront prior to it’s new life as a Fifth Avenue shop.
Savvy, savvy Brooklyn Mercantile: I just found their website. So here’s the blurb and info:
Brooklyn Mercantile is located in the heart of Park Slope, Brooklyn.
A specialty home shop featuring home furnishings, vintage collectibles, fabric by the yard, beautiful ribbons, handmade papers and lots of ideas to spark the imagination.
Brooklyn Mercantile
335 5th Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11215
718-788-1233
Hours: Tuesday-Sunday – 11am-7pm
AN OTBKB READER’S QUESTION
A reader had this question. I know of at least 2 people who have done this. It has enabled these elderly to stay in an apartment they know and love.
I have been reading your work and blog for a long time and thought you might be just the person to ask since you seem to know a lot of “random” things (I say that in the best sense of the word).
I heard once about a tradition in France whereby younger people buy the homes or land of people that are older and have no children. the idea is that the younger purchasers allow the elder owner to stay in the home on the property and are cared for until they die. The older person is cared for and the younger person gets the property at less than market rate – a win/ win situation.
I think this is an amazing concept as there are many people who are open enough that they would care for someone that is alone but not well off enough that they can afford to buy a market rate home. So, I think this idea in NYC would be terrific.Brooklyn seems like the perfect borough to start it and I wondered if a) you had ever heard of anything like this and b) if you would know how one would go about finding elderly home owners.
Yes, as I re-read this, it sounds a tad creepy (why would one not want to care for an elderly apartment dweller) but this is what 18 years in NYC has done to me (made me real estate obsessed!)
But truthfully, if we don’t find some way to maintain a little economic diversity in NY, we are going to lose (we have lost much anyway already) what made NY so unique. Anyway, I thought I would contact you and see if you had any ideas. If this is too off the wall, please just delete.
NO SALES TAX ON CLOTHING AND SHOES REGARDLESS OF THE PRICE
Good news for clothing and shoe shoppers. This from New York 1:
Shoppers no longer have to pay city sales tax on clothing or shoes – regardless of the price – after new legislation went into effect Saturday.
Shoppers had been paying city and state taxes on items that cost $110 or more.
A tax-relief measure proposed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and approved by the state in June, dumped the city’s 4-percent portion.
But even though New Yorkers will save on the city tax, the state tax of 4.375 percent stays in effect
.
40TH ANNUAL WEST INDIAN PARADE SET FOR LABOR DAY
The 40th annual West Indian American Day Carnival and Parade will be stepping down Eastern Parkway this Labor Day.
Musicians from the Pan Tonic Steel Orchestra are practicing their drumming ahead of Monday’s festivities.
Organizers say it’s the city’s biggest parade, with over 3 million participants each year.
Vendors line the three-mile long parade route selling crafts, books, clothing, art, jewelry, and much more.The event features live music, elaborately designed costumes and floats, and plenty of Caribbean food.
The parade begins at 11 a.m. at the corner of Rochester and Eastern Parkway.
It winds up around 6 p.m. near Grand Army Plaza.
There will also be live performers in front of the viewing stage at the Brooklyn Library.
NO WORDS_DAILY PIX BY HUGH CRAWFORD
POOP CULTURE IN POOP SLOPE
I don’t think I’ll be at this reading but here’s the email I received from the author this morning:
Hi Louise,
I’m the author of the book Poop Culture: How America is Shaped by its
Grossest National Product, published by Feral House. I’m also a Park
Slope resident (kinda — does below 4th Ave count these days?). I
thought you’d like to know that I’m doing a reading/lecture at the
Park Slope Barnes and Noble next Wednesday at 7:30 PM.Poop Culture is a funny book, of course. Given the subject, how could
it not be? But it’s also a heavily researched analysis of something that
rarely receives serious consideration. Poop Culture’s main focus is the
true origin of the flush toilet: invented not for sanitary reasons, as
conventional wisdom holds, but rather as a tool to help rich Victorians
separate themselves from the upwardly-mobile masses during the
Industrial Revolution. From that basis, Poop Culture explores how the
ideology of waste disposal affects us today in our psychology,
sociology, art, economics, the environment, and more.I’ll be touching on many of those issues on during my reading. Chances
are I’ll even touch on the sewage issues in the Gowanus during storms
and the reported potential for the Atlantic Yards to overwhelm the
area’s sewage capacity. It’ll be a fun and fascinating (and rated PG)
event.For more information, check out www.PoopTheBook.com. You can find
links to the review of my book in Publisher’s Weekly and the op-ed I
published a few months ago in The New York Times.Yours,
Dave Praeger
Poop Culture
www.poopthebook.com
SMARTMOM: NEW DOLL MAKES HER FEEL HISTORIC
Here’s this week’s Smartmom from the award-winning Brooklyn Paper:
American Girl, the enormously popular maker of enormously expensive dolls and accessories, is introducing two new dolls to their historical roster. But the crazy thing is this: these new dolls grew up in the 1970s.
Hey, that’s not historical. That’s Smartmom’s childhood. Just a few years ago.
Talk about feeling old. When American Girl makes a ’70s-era doll, you know your childhood is officially the olden days.
This reminds Smartmom about the time a second-grade friend asked her mother if she had any pilgrim clothing left over from when she was a kid.
Smartmom felt really bad for that girl’s mom. She wasn’t that old and her kid sure had a weird sense of time.
Kids have a funny way of conceiving of history. Ten years seems like an eternity. Your parent’s childhood is, like, forever ago.
The truth is, it was forever ago and to kids like Teen Spirit, it’s more than a little interesting to hear Hepcat’s stories about New York City during the heyday of the Ramones, Talking Heads, and Pylon at the Mudd Club and CBGB.
On the other hand, he barely lowers the volume on his iPod earphones when Smartmom reminisces about the Be-In in Central Park and the Tall Ships during the bicentennial.
Truth be told, family pictures from those days do look old fashioned or, more to the point, like something out of “That ’70’s Show.” The hairdos (and don’ts!). Smartmom’s mother’s mini skirts. Her father’s black turtleneck and beard.
In pictures of Hepcat from high school, he looks like a cross between Bottocelli’s Venus and Jesus Christ. And Teen Spirit loves to go through his dad’s closet to find cool duds like Hepcat’s hand-painted denim jackets and hand-embroidered shirts.
But Smartmom isn’t old, she’s just full of history. So she’s starting to wonder when she’ll wake up from this dream — the dream that she’s 50 years old.
How did she get to that old-sounding age, anyway?
Everyone knows that Smartmom is really 10. It’s 1968 and she’s at an anti-war demonstration, where Peter, Paul, and Mary are singing, “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?”
OK, she’s 12 and she’s having a bake sale for George McGovern at her progressive private school.
Alright, she’ll admit it, it’s August 1974 and she’s just back from her American Youth Hostel cycling trip and Richard Nixon is about to resign on the evening news.
Or maybe it’s 1975 and she’s just lost her virginity and her parents are splitting up…
This age thing just isn’t fair. When Smartmom looks in the mirror, she sees what she wants to see. She’s still as fit as she was when she was one of the top runners on the Walden High School Girl’s Track Team.
Zoom.
But the other day at a California mall, a little girl asked her if she was OSFO’s grandmother. Smartmom didn’t take it too hard. The girl was standing with her own grandmother who looked no more than 45. But still.
Does Smartmom really look like someone’s grandmother?
Maybe not. But she sure is wise. She can practically guarantee that OSFO is going to want Julie or Ivy, the two new 1970s-era dolls to add to her already huge, messy haired collection of American Girl, which includes, Felicity, a feisty girl living in colonial Williamsburg; Kit, the Depression-era doll, who hangs out with young hobos and even gets a chance to ride the rails; and OSFO’s fave, Molly, the World War II-era doll, whose doctor dad is overseas while her mom works for the war effort stateside.
OSFO has learned quite a bit about American history with these girls.
But does she really need a doll to teach her about the birth of feminism, Studio 54 and “Ford to NYC: Drop Dead”?
She’s got two parents who can teach her everything she needs to know about the time of their youth.
And those parents are at least as much fun as an 18-inch plastic doll, with an expressionless face, who doesn’t even know how to talk.
Now, if OSFO was just willing to listen!
SUBTLE MATTER AT PLUTO IN PROSPECT HEIGHTS
pluto (the lower case is correct) is the name of a new gallery located on the outskirts of Prospect Heights a short walk from the Brooklyn Museum.
pluto exhibits the work of emerging Brooklyn artists. pluto also promotes the curation of shows by established artists.
In addition to the traditional gallery experience, pluto makes use of internet, video, and events to showcase and distribute artists. Hours are Saturdays and Sundays from 1-5PM.
Their latest exhibition, Subtle Matter, will go from September 15th November 4, 2007
Opening reception: Saturday, September 15, 6-9PM
pluto Opening soon: pluto proudly presents Subtle Matter an exhibition featuring Kevin Auzenne and John Milton Ensor Parker, two Brooklyn-based artists who have known and influenced one another for the past 15 years.
Taken from the Buddhist concept of the links between mind and body, subtle matter is said to exist in the spaces between what is seen and what is not seen; mediating between what we see and hear and what we feel and experience as awareness. The abstractions of both artists seek to utilize this delicate gap between physical depiction and emotional response through the steady development of painterly laws and systems linked to the real, observable world.
pluto
730 Classon Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11238
(646) 894-7777
www.plutonyc.com
NO WORDS_DAILY PIX BY HUGH CRAWFORD
NO WORDS_DAILY PIX BY HUGH CRAWFORD
TWO STARS FOR FRANNY’S IN THE TIMES’
And I’ve never even been there. Reviewer Frank Bruni goes hog wild for the place. Franny’s is located at: 295 Flatbush Avenue (Prospect Place) in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn; (718) 230-0221.
So was Franny’s essentially a glorified pizza parlor? For those outside Brooklyn, did it really warrant a water crossing?
To the first question the answer is no; to the second, an emphatic yes.
Other
restaurants have honorable pies, admirable lettuces or noteworthy
salumi. But take it from a cranky Franny’s doubter, now a besotted
Franny’s believer: not many do all three with as much joy and
distinction as Franny’s.Besides which, Franny’s does more. In
June it reinstated pasta dishes on its menu. A few had been there in
the beginning but were quickly jettisoned, because Franny’s chef,
Andrew Feinberg, didn’t think he’d mastered them.Now his kitchen
has new equipment, while he has new confidence. So it’s pasta once
again, and the rigatoncini with peppery pork sausage and sweet
cipollini onions will have you hoping it’s pasta forever.
WEATHER BY ROSE
From her Coney Island weather tower, here is the weather report from Rose.
"Sunny. High in the 80’s. 75 degrees now. There may be thunderstorms later in the evening. Hot and humid all day."
COME TO A BOOK PARTY FOR WALKING BROOKLYN AT BOOKCOURT
Meet OTBKB guest Blogger, Adrienne Onofri at a party celebrating her new book, Walking Brooklyn. The New York Times called it "a charming and practical guide."
Walk on over. The festivities are at BookCourt on Thursday, Sept. 6 from 7-10 pm. It’s a nice walk from Park Slope: BookCourt 163 Court Street in Cobble Hill (between Dean and Pacific Streets).
NEWS ABOUT ANDY THE FRUIT TRUCK GUY
As some of you have probably noticed, a fruit truck has returned to the corner of President Street and Seventh Avenue in Park Slope. But no Andy.
Well, here’s the scoop. Andy had a stroke a few months ago. He is now recovering and in rehab. I spoke to his nephew who is operating the fruit truck (for Andy, I assume).
He told me that after the stroke, "Andy’s speech was really messed up. That’s why he’s in rehab. Also his sister died and his truck had to be trashed." The truck they are now using is on loan.
The good news is this: Andy expects to be back soon. But only two days a week. The nephew said that a lot of people had inquired about Andy. I’m hoping that all that concern and good wishes got back to Andy.