Postcard from the Slope

NEW STEVE BUSCEMI MOVIE

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The film is called Interview and it is based on a film by Theo Van Gogh, who was murdered by an Islamic extremist in Holland in 2004.

In the film Buscemi plays a political journalist who is asked to write a fluffy profile of a movie star played by Sienna Miller.

Steve Buscemi co-wrote and directed this film, which had a staged reading at Issue Project Room a couple of years ago.

“Interview,” opens today at the Landmark
Sunshine, 143 East Houston Street and Lincoln Plaza
Cinemas, Broadway, at 62nd Street.

Civics and Urban Life

AU CONTRAIRE: GUEST BLOGGER PETER LOFFREDO

Super BRAVO! to Judith Warner on this one today. Some excerpts follow from her Domestic Disturbances column in today’s NY Times called: "Visiting Day."

By the way, as a psychotherapist and parent, I have been screaming about the over-involvement of parents in their kids’ lives, especially in places like Park Slope, and lazy and unrealistic collusion of local schools in the problem by insisting in excessive parental involvement in school activities (not to mention homework!). Here’s Judith:

  "I’ve had it with a culture that willfully refuses to face up to the fact that almost 80 percent of mothers with children beyond pre-school age – and, of course, a much greater percentage of fathers – work. This refusal to face facts, coupled with the ideology of “parental involvement” as a panacea for all social ills, has created a situation in which not only guilt-ridden parents, but children are needlessly suffering.

"It doesn’t need to be this way. It only takes a quick look across the Atlantic to see that many other countries have done what’s necessary to grow up and embrace the 21st century. They provide kids with a longer school year, a longer school day and subsidized summer activities.

"We need to push back against the trend toward excessive and inappropriate parental involvement that weighs so heavily upon families in certain [middle class] communities. We should start by requesting – ever so politely – that school events requiring parental participation be scheduled in the evening. Or on weekends. And not too often at that.

"Let’s get parents out of their school-aged kids’ 9-to-3 lives. It’s a cost-free solution to one of the major sources of family angst today. And, more globally, let’s grow up as a culture and face reality – so that our kids can grow up less stressfully."

     Yes!
Peter Loffredo

Civics and Urban Life

JUST WHAT CONEY ISLAND NEEDS: A FUEL TANKER RUNS AGROUND

This from NY1:

A tanker carrying nearly half a million
barrels of low sulphur fuel oil and aground in the Ambrose Channel
about two miles off Coney Island Thursday morning.

The Coast Guard says the ship is not leaking and no one has been hurt.

Officials say "The White Sea" has deployed a boom to contain any
oil that leaks out. The Coast Guard says something went wrong with the
steering and the 800 foot long tanker got stuck in the channel’s sandy
bottom.

The boat was moved to the side where tug boats are now working to free it.

            
            
       
   
 
 

   

GUEST BLOGGER

EXPLORING BROOKLYN BY BUS: THE B-24, THE BROOKLYN BOOMERANG

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More from Richard Grayson, who knows Brooklyn like no other.

One of the weirdest bus routes in Brooklyn stops around the corner from me.  It’s the B24, officially the Greenpoint/Kingsland Avenue route, and it’s the only bus line that connects two adjoining Brooklyn neighborhoods with an incredibly roundabout route through Queens over an interstate highway.  It’s a pretty short ride from its beginning in Williamsburg to its end in Greenpoint, about 35 minutes – and today I discovered that I can actually walk it faster because the bus route resembles a boomerang.

When I got on at the Williamsburg Bridge Plaza bus station on Broadway, I asked the driver if anyone in their right mind actually takes this bus from here to Manhattan Avenue.
He smiled and said, “Yeah, you can get there much more directly if you just transfer for the B43, but some people do prefer the scenic route.”

“Okay,” I said.  “I just didn’t want you to think I was crazy.”

I needn’t have worried, because that role was taken by one of the other passengers who got on at the first stop: a group of about fifteen middle-aged whites and Hispanics, with one young Hasidic man.  We had barely gone up the few blocks of Rodney Street, along one side of the highway where Moses parted Williamsburg when a male voice shouted out: “FUCK DISNEY!”

After we turned on Metropolitan Avenue, the same voice shouted out: “FUCK THE DEMOCRATS!”
I couldn’t discern who it was and braced for the next shout, wondering who else would be singled out for opprobrium.  But it never came.  Whoever it was – and I thought the Hasidic man was staring at me as if he assumed I was the theme park-hating Republican – for the rest of the ride this person remained as quiet as a mouse (presumably not Mickey).

Metropolitan Avenue between the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and Graham Avenue is my current stamping grounds, so I pretty much ignore the sights I see every day: my 24-hour laundromat, the Korean grocery where I shop when I’m too lazy to walk to the supermarket, the Brick Theater Company (I enjoyed some of the productions in its recent Pretentious Festival – no, that’s not a criticism, that was its name).  We pass a car on whose back window is written with whatever that white stuff is: RIP GRANDMOM 1917-07/10/07.  A lot of people get on and off by the Graham Avenue L station.  Presumably some of them are transferring to the B43 bus for the shorter, non-scenic route to the hub of the Greenpoint shopping district.  Of course there’s plenty of shopping right on Graham here, in the heart of gentrifying Italian Williamsburg.  (On Sunday I kept walking back and forth between the hipster-filled concert at the McCarren Pool and the Giglio Festival closer to my house; the crowds at each event were quite different, but after awhile Jerry Vale and the Octopus Project began to sound rather alike to me.)

A few blocks east of Graham (also called Via Vespucci over here) on Metropolitan Avenue we make a slight turn onto a short stretch of Maspeth Avenue, for two blocks that probably win the prize in the highly competitive category of Brooklyn’s Ugliest Collection of New Luxury Condo Buildings.  One of the monstrosities under construction appears to be complete but so structurally unsound that outside girders have recently been erected to hold the building together and keep it from falling down.  I knew we couldn’t get that lucky anyway.

The Hasidic man, realizing we’re not going down Metropolitan Avenue to Jamaica, gets off at the next stop.  The bus driver explains that at the bridge he should have gotten on the Q54 and tells him where to transfer.  “Lots of people make that mistake,” the driver says.

We turn on Kingsland Avenue, alternatively named for a few blocks Grandparents Avenue.  Huh?  We pass the hulk of the long-abandoned Greenpoint Hospital and the Cooper Park Projects.
There’s a great documentary by Christine Noschese called Metropolitan Avenue originally shown two decades ago on PBS’s P.O.V. series that shows the decline of this part of

Williamsburg/Greenpoint – the Northside – as budget cuts and racial tensions exacerbated ongoing decay.  It’s hard for newcomers to trendy “East Williamsburg” to imagine that this neighborhood appeared to be dying not all that long ago. Noschese’s film shows how the area’s working class women of different ethnic backgrounds – Italian, Polish, African Americans from the Cooper Park Projects and others – joined forces to lead the fight to save this community.
On the film you can briefly spot Agnes Grappone, who stands with her daughter and son-in-law Phil and Diana Mule when, in a roll call of neighborhood groups, they call out “Conselyea Street Block Association.”  Agnes was the grandmother of my lifelong friend Nina Mule, and I am now living in what was Agnes’s house, in the apartment where I visited her in the 1970s.

Not that many years ago I was with Agnes at the Long Island nursing home as she lay dying a few months short of age 100.  My dear landlady and friend, her daughter Diana or “Dee,” passed away rather suddenly at 84 last month, and we’re all still bereft.  A beloved local elementary school teacher, Dee had over 350 mourners at her funeral at the church she attended all her life, and condolence cards are still coming in as I collect the mail every day.   She was born in the house I now live in, and every time I open the front door I still expect to smell her delicious Italian cooking.  An extraordinarily generous person, she will also be missed by the various charities and environmental, civil rights, civil liberties, feminist and liberal groups which still send her an average of two dozen letters a day.

Kingsland Avenue runs north to Greenpoint proper, but the B24 turns right at Meeker Avenue, the street running alongside the elevated Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, at this area’s only suburban-style fast-food joint, a freestanding McDonald’s with a parking lot.
And in a few blocks we enter onto the BQE, one of the few examples of a non-express city bus going on a highway, in this case officially I-278, but basically just the short hop over the Kosciuszko Bridge to Queens, with Newtown Creek below us.

But what a view of the Manhattan skyline.  In the foreground Long Island City’s odd lone skyscraper, the 58-story Citi Tower looking directly across to its corporate sister on Lexington Avenue, the iconic Citi Center.

For me, this thrilling panoramic view of Oz-like Manhattan from south to north beats any other in the city.  This is indeed the scenic route, about the only place you can have clear views of the Williamsburg, Queensborough and Triborough Bridges in one spot.  On the south side of the expressway is a flatter but still interesting vista of extreme eastern Brooklyn and western Queens.

We get off the highway just over the bridge and go down 48th Street, filled with brick two-families.  I always enjoy the signs at the corner of 48th Street and 48th Avenue, and then not long after, at the corner of 47th Street and 47th Avenue.  This is Sunnyside.  I usually get off, as most people do, just before we make the left turn onto Greenpoint Avenue, a block away from Queens Boulevard and the 7 train’s 47th Street/Bliss Street station.

Signs warn pedestrians trying to cross the Boulevard of Death to be careful or they’ll reach heavenly bliss before they make it to Flushing or Times Square.  A secret: the B-24 to here and then two stops on the 7 train to Woodside can actually be the fastest way from Williamsburg to the Long Island Rail Road, swifter than a subway ride to Penn Station or Flatbush Avenue.

There’s a Starbucks here I sometimes dawdle at, as well as some cool South American and Central American restaurants and bakeries.  Sunnyside is a terrific neighborhood worth exploring, although when I was younger I came here only for boxing matches at Sunnyside Gardens and a 1977 blind date with a guy I met through a personals ad in Aquarian Weekly.  He was nice but, like another guy I’d dated a few years before, seemed offended that I was a teetotaler and made a futile attempt to “teach” me to drink.  Both of these guys later turned out to be alcoholics although one became a Jesuit and the other a Franciscan.

Across Greenpoint Avenue we go, past many stores with Spanish signs.  A Colombian diner offering a $5.95 midday buffet featuring sopa, carne, arroz, pasta ensalada y bebida seems to be doing a booming business.

The Greenpoint Avenue Bridge (everyone calls it that rather than the J.J. Byrne Memorial Bridge), built in 1987, is basically a low bascule containing a four-lane city street between Hunters Point and Greenpoint – yes, it’s Kingsland Avenue again, and then through the same Greenpoint north-south streets we saw the other way when we went east.  To the right looms a zoom-in view of the Manhattan skyline we saw before: more intimate, but a little scarier somehow, like midtown is a monster that could crush us in this corner of little Brooklyn.

As we make our way to Manhattan Avenue, there are mammoth factories on either side of the street.  I feel like I’m in Pittsburgh or Youngstown circa 1956 before the term “Rust Belt” was coined.  I don’t think there’s any stretch of Brooklyn that feels so industrial.

And then we’re at the end, at Manhattan Avenue’s bustling strip of bargain stores, chains from Starbucks (the only one in the world with a marquee, it was the old Chopin movie theater) to Radio Shack, and endless Polish signs, products and people.  I love this street.  Last week I got 6 pair of socks here for $3.

The trip’s taken a little longer than half an hour.  I make it back home, two stops on the G train, in about five minutes.  Later in the day I walk from the Williamsburg Bridge Plaza, the start of the bus route, to its terminus near Manhattan and Greenpoint Avenues.  I basically walk straight alongside the BQE and then up Manhattan Avenue and I’m there about ten minutes faster than I got there with the B24, but then again, it certainly isn’t the scenic route.

Civics and Urban Life

MR. BERGER, ONE OF THE GREATEST ENGLISH TEACHERS EVER

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I love this. Just love it. Longtime Brooklynite, Richard Grayson, a born and bred, Brooklyn boy puts something on my blog. It gets read by his 8th grade English and homeroom teacher from Meyer Levin Junior High School, Mr. Berger. He writes into OTBKB and Grayson reads it. VOILA: This from Richard Grayson, author of "I Break for Delmore Schwartz" "And To Think He Kissed Him On Lorimar Street," and more.

My old eighth grade English and homeroom teacher from Meyer Levin JHS! 

Having just taught "Twelfth Night" last week to college students who
said it was too hard for them to read, I told them, "Well, we read it
in Mr. Berger’s class in eighth grade back in 1964 when I was twelve."

I remember once seeing you outside the classroom for the first time.
On Saturday morning my father took us to get haircuts at George’s
Barbershop and Beauty Salon (men in front, women in back) on Church and
Troy Avenues. And while George was cutting my hair, you — wearing not
a shirt and tie but a sweatshirt, jeans and sneakers like me — sat
down in the next chair with Jack, who I recall asked you if you thought
"Catcher in the Rye" was too dirty for his son in high school to read.
You said no, of course.

It was a wonder in those days to see our
sainted teachers outside the school in normal clothing, as we assumed
you just disappeared into the blackboard after 3 pm and reappeared at
8:30 am the next day. After my haircut, I met Billy and Eugene
Lefkowitz, also from 8SPE, at Buddy’s Fairyland arcade and fast food
place a few blocks from my house at the intersection of Flatbush,
Fillmore and Utica. I excited told them, "I saw Mr. Berger getting a
haircut! Like a regular person does!" We had burgers and fries, played
skeeball, and when I refused to go on the roller coaster, Billy said I
was a neurotic scaredycat. He threw up twice walking the seven blocks
to my house.

Mr. Berger was one of the greatest English teachers I ever had.  Certainly a lot better one than I’ve ever been.

Postcard from the Slope

IT’S OFFICIAL: TRADER JOE’S COMING TO ATLANTIC AND COURT STREET

Our friends at Gowanus Lounge tells us that his friends at Racked have the goods on the annoucement by Trader Joe’s of their first ever Brooklyn store (their second in New York City).

Hep and I are big Trader Joe’s afficianados out in California. We eat nothing but bean chips, ginger granola, and other TJ specialties when we stay at Hep’s mom’s place in Northern California. We always stop there on our way to the farm from the airport.

Great as this is, I don’t think our friends at Sahadi have a thing to worry about. Brooklyn is getting big enough for everybody, it seems.

Civics and Urban Life

GUEST BLOGGER: GILLY YOUNER

Since the Supreme Blogger is out of town, doing the opposite of
hibernating (summering?-simmering, cooking up those succulent scoops
she ladles into the ethernet) at the Oracle’s cave on Blog Island, I
jumped at the chance to put up a post or two…then I jumped back.

What
on earth was I thinking? This blogging business takes: 1. time, 2. the
ability to sit and type your thoughts fluently on the glowing screen,
3. a lot of gathered information, or heartfelt musings, or just plain
something to say to the next unsuspecting straggler into the blog…

The next thought was "What the heck, it’s going to be buried shortly in
the long scroll of daily info, people can skip boring bits and find the
exciting headlines that Hepcat will strategically place next to
his on-the-mark photos"

The first thing that reminded me why this OTBKB blog is so vital, is
that some of our favorite things about Park Slope are changing, as they
are wont to do, and LC, AKA Smartmom, is usually one of the first
people to pick up on the significance of these ongoing transformations
and events, and bring them to our notice.

Walking down Ninth Street from
an early morning workout at the Y, I saw that the nearly-secret
discount clothing store Scene, has finally finished it’s going out of
business sale…

I for one will miss the colorful skirts and funky
window displays on headless mannequinns… and that the Paris bakery is
still having its show-down with the overly cranky city HD.

Thank
goodness it’s still possible to pop into Perch for a little bit of
heaven on earth–the awesome Veggie Reuben…for avocado and sauerkraut
fans everywhere.

Originally I was thinking to describe how when my boyfriend/husband and
I moved (back, for me) to Brooklyn from Manhattan 19 years ago, we felt
like we had arrived in adult summer camp: walking down Seventh Avenue
in shorts and sandals in the summer, stopping in at Soundtracks to hear
Thom or Carlos play the latest records then cds…and seeing everyone
out strolling, eating, biking, doing whatever it is Slopers do in the
summer.

It was all we could do not to look for the camp counselor to
see if we could get candy from the canteen.

Now our son is doing the camping-enjoying the awesome Berkeley Carroll
summer camp run for the 25th year by the amazing Marlene Clary–how
does she keep this thing getting better year after year???

And Kim
Maier, at the Old Stone House in J.J. Byrne Park, hosting plays, films,
concerts, speeches, blogfests… how did we get so lucky, to have so
many fantastic people contributing so much to one little
neighborhood-OTBKB’s top 100 must have been so hard to put
together-where do you set the limit for the list?

O.K. time to jump back to the real world….Louise, your blogging shoes are way, way big, or as Webster’s now has it–ginormous!

Love, Gilly Youner

Postcard from the Slope

EDWARD HOPPER NEVER HAD IT SO GOOD

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Neither did Virginia Woolf. This room of my own on this island where I am is just PERFECT. I never want to leave. I already told Hepcat that. "I’ll send your things," he said.

I want to move here. The light is beautiful from the first light of dawn to the late afternoon glow. Twilight. Sunset.

And then the fog moves into making for dramatic, foggy nights. Something out of "Wuthering Heights." 

Who could ask for anything more than this room? I could LIVE here. Simple antique furniture. A table for a desk. A fan. Beautiful art on the walls. A deliciously comfortable bed.

Out my window: the ocean in one direction, a garden in another. Down below: two ponds and tall beach grass, reeds.

What more could I need? I rented a Raleigh 7-speed. I’ve got my trusty computer. There’s wireless on the island. A good Internet connection. An outdoor shower. Adirondack chairs. A hammock. A kayak. Many beaches just biking distance away.

A restaurant that serves amazing tuna and monk fish. Eating alone, I sit at the bar and don’t feel funny at all.

Even a movie theater (a huge mob of teens and tweens are lined up for the 9:45 Harry Potter screening).

I am in HEAVEN. Remember that Talking Heads song. "Heaven is a place where nothing, nothing ever happens.

I highly recommend going away by yourself. You can indulge all your idiosyncrasies. You don’t have to ask nobody what to do. You can do whatever you want. Eat whatever you want. Spend the whole day writing if you want. Take a bike ride, go for a run, meditate, read a book.

The Emperor’s Children is very good.

Go to sleep whenever.

Which isn’t to say that I don’t miss OSFO, Teen Spirit, and Hepcat a lot. I do I do. I’m just saying.
I’m just saying.

Civics and Urban Life

LAST YEAR ON OTBKB: JACKIE CONNOR CORNER DEDICATED

Last year, Jackie Connor’s Corner was dedicated early one Saturday morning in July.

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.

Civics and Urban Life

AMY RIGBY’S GRANDE BOUFFE

Rocker and ex-patriot Amy Rigby writes about the longest meal she’s ever had. In France. Of course. Where she’s living. And eating. Here’s an excerpt from her blog, The Little Fugitive.

It’s the middle of the night and I can’t sleep.  Why?  Maybe because yesterday I had the longest meal of my life.

For
months we’ve been hearing about the neighbors’ annual get-together that
is held the first Sunday of July. It takes place in the barn directly
across the road and from what we understood it involved drinks, lunch,
and then some more food later in the day.

At about 10:30 AM I
was opening the shutters, and as I leaned out the window about ten
people greeted me from in front of the barn. They were already
gathering! Shit. This was going to be a little overwhelming. I mean,
since we got here everyone has been very nice. But they’ve all known
each other for years. Having lived in cities all my adult life, the
concept of neighbors is kind of alien to me.

Read the rest here.

Postcard from the Slope

STARRETT CITY DOES IT AGAIN

This from New York 1:

The federal government blocked a second attempt to purchase Brooklyn’s Starrett City housing complex Monday.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development denied Clipper Equity’s request to buy Starrett City for a second time.

Clipper Equity submitted its proposal back in March, but on Monday,
HUD stated in a letter that it does not believe the buyer has the
financial capacity to keep the complex affordable.

Clipper Equity was looking to buy Starrett City for $1.3 billion.

It’s currently the largest affordable housing project in the country.

Brooklyn Papers

VETERAN SHOOTER IN PEERLESS SHOW: FROM THE BROOKLYN PAPER

Got this email from my wonderful editor, Gersh Kuntzman, at the Brooklyn Paper

For those of you who have been wondering, the Brooklyn Paper took a Fouth of July break. But now, they’re  back to work, busily editing the next edition of the Brooklyn Paper, copies of which will hit the Key Food (and the sidewalk outside of your home) on Friday July 13th or Saturday the 14th.

Our own irascible shutterbug, Tom Callan, who has been shooting Brooklyn for the better part of three decades, has opened up his files for a retrospective of his work opening next Friday in Red Hook.

Some of our favorite Callan shots — many of which first appeared in The Brooklyn Paper — will be on display, lining the walls of the equally irascible Sunny’s Bar on Conover Street.

More than one toast will be raised to Callan at the opening party at 8 pm.

SMALL TYPE: “Photographs by Tom Callan,” Sunny’s Bar (253 Conover St., at Reed Street in Red Hook), July 20, 8 pm. Call (718) 625-8211 for information.

Civics and Urban Life

I LOVE NEW YORK GETS NEW WEBSITE

This from the New York Times’

Back in 1977, the year Microsoft registered its name as a trademark and a state-of-the-art Apple
II had a full four kilobytes of memory, the “I Love New York” campaign
began with television commercials that featured its catchy, singable
theme.

Now “I Love New York” has finally moved into the
digital world. And the Empire State Development Corporation, the state
authority that oversees the campaign, hopes the online push will get
people to really love New York this summer.

The “I Love New York” Web site (www.iloveny.com) was retooled in the spring. Now the corporation has added a page (www.iloveny.com/getoutoftown)
aimed at last-minute vacationers from downstate New York and from
Toronto who do not want to deal with the troubles of flying this
summer. The new page lets them find vacation packages that they can
drive to. (Not all the destinations on the page are upstate. Long
Island and Westchester County are also among the choices for
destinations.)

      

Civics and Urban Life

PIPER THEATER’S MACBETH IN JJ BYRNE PARK TONIGHT

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2007_macbethpostcard
Piper Theatre Productions’ home base is currently The Old Stone House in Park Slope Brooklyn and they are presenting Macbeth on the following nights.

  • Macbeth
    Directed by John P. McEneny, one of the Park Slope 100.

    • Wednesday, July 11th @ 8:00pm
    • Friday, July 13th @ 8:00pm
    • Saturday, July 14 @ 8:00pm
    • Wednesday, July 18 @ 8:00pm
    • Friday, July 20 @ 8:00pm
    • Saturday, July 21 @ 8:00pm

Please Note: Performances are free and open to the public, but donations are appreciated.

BLURB FROM PIPER THEATER: It
is our hope to provide even more cultural opportunities to the Brooklyn
and Park Slope neighborhoods by offering free and accessible theatre to
the community. With the enthusiastic support of the Old Stone House,
the community of Park Slope, and our local businesses, we are still
struggling to continue to provide accessible and dynamic drama.

Piper
works hard to develop emerging artists and produce artistic works for
the entire community. In addition, through mentoring and collaboration
with adults, we help young people to become creative, hardworking
members of society.

To provide a quality production with
dedicated professionals and amateurs we need to raise funds to make
sure the productions are dynamic, successful, safe, and challenging or
all participants.

To find out more, or to make a donation, please click to find out how you can help us build community through drama.

Civics and Urban Life

TONIGHT: EATING SUSTAINABLY

Anne Pope is not only a blogger but an event planner and a community builder. The three go hand in hand. YAY Anne. Tonight: A discussion about eating sustanably.


When:
Wednesday July 11th, 8pm

Where:
Vox Pop Cafe/Bookstore
1022 Cortelyou Road
Brooklyn, NY 11218
Q train to Cortelyou Road

For Event #4 Sustainable Flatbush is teaming up with the Green Edge Collaborative,
a Brooklyn-based organization dedicated to community education about
the impact of individual consumption choices on society and the
environment. Green Edge’s previous events have included Eco-Eatery
tours of local restaurants and Supper Club potluck-style gatherings
with an emphasis on local organic ingredients

Read more at Sustanable Flatbush.

Civics and Urban Life

GOWANUS LOUNGE HAS THE GOODS ON THE NEW PARK SLOPE BIKE LANE

On our way out of Brooklyn on Saturday, Hepcat and I noticed that the new 9th Street bike lane is painted on the asphalt between 5th and 6th Avenues.

GL says: Not to worry, folks. You can still double park. And he’s got the pictures to show it.

We post these photos to show two things. One is that the installation
of the bike lane markings and the new traffic patterns narrowing the
flow of traffic from two lanes to one is making quick progress (see
below). The other is to show that the bike lanes are not an impediment
to double parking. Yesterday morning, we counted four double parked
vehicles (three cars and one van) in the bike lanes between Seventh
Avenue and Prospect Park West. Plus one truck that was driving in the
lane.

READ MORE AND SEE THE PIX AT Gowanus Lounge.

Civics and Urban Life

PIZZA PLUS BENEFIT: JULY 13 AT SOUTHPAW

A friend writes:

A benefit for Pizza Plus staff and un-insured residents  of the building at 359 7th Ave will be held on Friday July 13th at Southpaw, 125 5th Ave, Park Slope.   

Entertainment includes: Captain Greech and the Shrimp Shack Shooters, The Teenage Prayers and Sam Champion (members of this band lived in the Pizza Plus building, I believe).

Admission is $10.    Doors. open at 7:30.

I am a neighbor and  a friend and just want to spread the word..    Work on the interior of Pizza Plus has started and Roz is looking forward to re-opening!

Civics and Urban Life

THE LADY EVE: TONIGHT AT BROOKLYN FILM WORKS MOVIES AL FRESCO IN JJ BYRNE PARK

Last summer, Reporter
Leon Neyfakh of the New York Sun wrote a nice article in the New York Sun about Brooklyn Film Works, movies al fresco in JJ Byrne Park. The second year of Brooklyn Film Works begins tomorrow night (July 11) with The Lady Eve  directed by Preston Sturges. The film will be introduced by Ty Burr author of The Best Old Movies for Families. 8:30 p.m. Free.

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).

Civics and Urban Life

SHE’S FAMOUS (CONTINUED)

By Guest Blogger Diaper Diva

I met my husband in the personals of Timeout magazine.
I can’t remember what his ad said exactly. I know that he mentioned that he was an architect which I found appealing. We met the following day for lunch and married one year later.

We  took the subway to Park Slope three days after getting engaged to  look for an apartment.
I had spent a lot of time in Park Slope, but it never looked more  beautiful to me than the day we found our Co-Op; we knew we had found the home we had both longed for. We married the following October.

Living in Park Slope near my twin has been  both wonderful and unnerving.
We hadn’t lived in the same borough for a long time, and I had forgotten how often we can be mistaken for one another.
Since she has lived here far longer, it was usually me who was mistaken for her.
At one point I thought of  wearing  a button that said, "I’m not my sister".

I found myself becoming irritated by the constant confusion. I began to really hate when people said that we looked exactly alike, and stared at us as if they had seen a UFO
Well, not exactly, I  would try to explain.

And it’s not like I don’t want to look like my sister,  after all we are identical twins, but if you really look: We are quite  different.

I’ve always hated being confused with my twin. When we were growing up, some of  our relatives referred to us as "the twins",  and didn’t seem particularly interested in distinquishing  between us.
So living in the same borough has brought back some of my earlier disdain for not being recognized for who I am.

To Be Continued…

Civics and Urban Life

ANYONE KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO ANDY THE FRUIT TRUCK GUY?

1 Comment

A new reader of OTBKB sent me an email wondering where oh where Andy is. Does anyone know?  Do tell.

Any knowledge about Andy’s whereabouts this season?
We miss his produce, his friendly greetings, and the general mien of having our
very own Slope "fruit guy."  Is he o.k. or just vegged out?
 
Geraldine
Prospect Heights
 
P.S. First time on this site– after seeing the
piece in this morning’s Times!

Serving Park Slope and Beyond