An OTBKB reader, who lives bewtween Bond and Nevins, called the police-who did respond and said they got many reports.
Please send comments to OTBKB or send to Rroll76771@aol.com
PATTI SMITH was one of the first musicians to play at CBGB in the 1970’s.
Last night, she performed there for the last time. It was the club’s final concert before it moves to Las Vegas for its after life as a Las Vegas attraction.
“I’m sentimental,” she told the New York Times and she stood on Bowery and pointed an antique Polaroid toward the club. More story at the New York Times.
Here’s the word from NY1 on today’s Manhattan Bridge commute, first since they closed the lower level for repairs. BIG FUN. DOT is advising alternate routes.
Drivers headed to the Manhattan Bridge this morning are being urged to
take alternate routes, because the lower level of the bridge is closed
for repairs.While traffic ran smoothly for the first day of the closure
yesterday, today is the first time rush hour commuters will have to
deal with the change, which is expected to last for a year.The Department of Transportation is urging drivers to use alternate
routes and roadways, even though the upper level of the bridge will
remain open during construction.The work is part of an overall upgrade that should be complete in time for the bridge’s 100th anniversary in 2009.
Pedestrians and bikers are now sharing access along the bridge’s south walkway. The north walkway is closed.
Meanwhile, the Brooklyn Bridge is going under the microscope starting today.
The State Department of Transportation will begin a three week
inspection of the bridge starting today, with a complete look at the
bridge’s masonry towers.The DOT says this is a routine part of a plan to inspect every bridge on a two-year cycle.
Yesterday, we drove up to Kingston for Dadu and Red Eft’s party to celebrate the 13th and final Lemony Snicket book. Red Eft’s brother, a supernumerary at the Metropolitan Opera, was supposed to come dressed as Count Olaf, but he couldn’t make it.
So we met up with him in Manhattan and picked up the make-up and disguise (prepared by the make-up artistat the opera), so that Dadu could wear it.
We made it to Kingston in record time, just enough time for Dadu to become a perfect Count Olaf.
The enormous dining room of their grand Victorian home was decorated with a festive circle of all the Series of Unfortuante Events (SOUE) books. Lots of friends, most from the local home schooling community, were in attendance
There was a bountiful feast of dishes based on the book, including a menu taken from various volumes: Pasta Puttanesca of
course, Parsley Soda, Aqueous Martinis, Mango/Black Bean Salad, Aunt
Josephine’s Chilled and Chapfallen Cucumber Soup and a
Quaff-the-Bitter-Cup Coconut Cream Cake inspired by Uncle Monty), a
magnet fishing game for Stricken Salmon, and a Dewey Decimal hunt
borrowed from The Penultimate Peril’s Hotel Denouement. All these dishes are mentioned in the books.
Dadu’s daughter was very frightened when she first saw him in diguise. Red Eft had to take her another room until she calmed down. Later, she was positively giddy about Dadu’s new face.
After the party, adult scragglers talked and the kids engaged in "extreme" imaginary play in costumes, while listening to the SOUE soundtrack. Red Eft and Dadu’s nine-year-old son, WM Thing, showed the movies that he makes. You can see some of them at his website.
We ducked out to get OSFO some BIG pumpkins at a farm stand. The drive back to the city was slow but not as bad as we expected.
Big day in the country. Great party. Fabulous autumnal leaves. Too much driving. Worth it to celebrate with friends.
On Thursday, join me at BROOKLYN READING WORKS at the Old Stone House. Fiction. Non-Fiction. Memoir. Poetry. Drama. Curated by me, the series is at the Old stone House, located in JJ Byrne Park on Fifth Avenue between 3rd and 4th Street. 8 p.m. $5.00 includes light refreshments. Books are sold at all readings.
COME SEE OUR BEAUTIFUL NEW POSTER!!!
LEORA SKOLKIN-SMITH will read from her book, “EDGES: O PALESTINE, O ISRAEL” published by “Glad Day Books” a small literary house founded by GRACE PALEY and Robert Nichols. Ms. Paley was the editor of “Edges” . The novel has recently been nominated for a PEN/Faulkner Award. It was also, selected by The Jewish Book Council for a National Tour and will be featured at this year’s Virginia Festival for the Book.
RICHARD GRAYSON reads from his new collection of short stories, "AND TO THINK HE KISSD HIM ON LORIMER STREET AND OTHER STORIES."
Berkeley Place’s annual block party celebrated a five-year-old neighbor who recently recovered from childhood leukemia. A big banner: Congratulation Aidan, signed by all the kids on the block, hung between two trees in front of Aidan’s brownstone. There was also a pizza and cake celebration in his honor.
Dan McMann, a local teenage circus sensation, who walks on stilts, juggles, and rides a unicycle, thrilled the kids with his entertaining antics.
A woman who travels with a traveling reptile zoo introduced the kids to an alligator, a lizard and a host of other fascinating reptiles.
Back by popular demand, Hepcat and his photography-studio-in-a-box—a back drop, a strobe, and a digital camera—took group and individual portraits. Many subjects from last year’s shoot came back for a brand new picture. Picture of OSFO and Teen Spirit from last year. My how they’ve grown. New pictures will be posted in the days to come.
Perfect weather made for an idyllic day on this particulary beautiful leafy brownstone street.
Here’s this week’s SMARTMOM from the Brooklyn Papers:
When Smartmom’s
Friends with Brownstone ask if the Oh So Feisty One would be willing to
water their plants or feed their pets while they’re away, she almost
always says “yes.”
“OSFO loves
taking care of pets,” Smartmom tells the FWBs. Or “OSFO is saving up
for a new Build-a-Bear, so she’ll be more than happy to make a little
change.”
But those aren’t the real reasons why Smartmom is so quick to accept these pet-sitting offers for her daughter.
It’s all about Smartmom and her brownstone envy. Truth is, she just loves to spend time in other people’s brownstones.
Call it
play-acting or a form of delusional behavior. Call it whatever you
want. While OSFO plays with the cat or fills the plastic bowl in a
birdcage with little pellets, Smartmom gets to commune with her inner
brownstone-dweller. She even cooks in the kitchen using her friend’s
All Clad pans or listens to their Glen Gould CDs sitting on one of the
parlor chairs.
Buddha knows
Smartmom would love to have her own brownstone. But having missed the
S.S. Real Estate as it sailed away, vicarious brownstoning is probably
the closest she’ll ever come.
Last weekend,
while OSFO shoveled cat poop into a garbage pail in their friend’s
roomy brownstone, Smartmom sat in the sun-drenched couch of the master
bedroom reading the New Yorker (and the always-scintillating Brooklyn
Papers).
Later, while
OSFO was re-filling the cat’s bowls with water and foul-smelling cat
food, Smartmom admired the colorful tiles on her friend’s shower wall.
“I’d love a bathroom like this,” Smartmom heard herself say aloud to no one.
Last summer,
OSFO and Smartmom took care of two guinea pigs and a pair of Mynah
birds in the lovely home of another brownstone friend. This one had a
fancy Jacuzzi in the bedroom — and you can bet she and OSFO took turns
taking bubble baths in there with the jet stream on high.
Ah, this is the life.
Shoveling cat
poop or rolling up newspaper from the bottom of a urine-stained cage is
small price to pay for this kind of temporary luxury.
Smartmom is the
first to admit that she feels marginalized in her own neighborhood,
where real-estate values have gone through those limestone roofs. It
hurts to have been one of the early settlers in Park Slope yet failed
to stake a land claim.
Back in 1991,
Smartmom, Hepcat and Teen Spirit arrived in Park Slope after being
priced out of Manhattan. She, for one, had to be dragged kicking and
screaming to their first apartment on Fifth Street.
But they needed
the space, and Park Slope was an oasis back then — even if your friends
and relatives treated the East River like The Great Wall of China.
Smartmom didn’t
live up to her name then, failing to buy a building because she and
Hepcat weren’t even sure if they were going to like it here. It was
Brooklyn, after all.
But the red
brick, the brownstone, the dogwood trees, the sense of community all
struck a chord with Smartmom. She fell in love with the scale of the
neighborhood, its architectural integrity, and its beauty.
All these years
later, Smartmom still enjoys walking down Garfield or Berkeley at night
staring longingly — OK, hungrily — into bay windows.
What a nice life
those people must have, she thinks. How lucky those children are to
grow up there; to romp in a leafy, green urban backyard; to eat festive
dinners by candlelight on the back deck.
But OSFO doesn’t see it that way at all.
Her reasons for
enjoying these pet-sitting jobs are very much her own. She likes the
money, of course — and she’s growing quite a savings account at the
fancy new Commerce Bank on Fifth Avenue. Plus, she loves animals and
dreams of opening a pet-care center when she grows up.
And she doesn’t seem to have a bit of brownstone envy. In fact, she hates it when Smartmom wanders around the house.
“This place is too big,” she says. “I don’t like to be on a floor without you.”
Last weekend,
while Smartmom fantasized about having a bedroom big enough for more
than a bed and a dresser, OSFO was impatient to go home.
“Don’t you want to stay here any longer?” Smartmom asked.
“Not really,” OSFO said. “I want to go home.”
Home really is
where the heart is. Similarly, Teen Spirit made his parents promise
that they’ll never, EVER move out of the apartment on Third Street. And
while OSFO sometimes says she’d like a bigger bedroom, she’d hate to
live in a building where her best friend didn’t live on the first floor.
Even if her kids
have good values, Smartmom is still besieged by crippling bouts of
brownstone envy. Luckily, the occasional pet-sitting gig is like a
soothing ointment on the pain in her butt called “the grass is greener”
syndrome.
One quick dose, and she’s back to life on Third Street.
THE SHOW: Teens for Phillippines
Set-up started at 4 p.m. just as the Harvest Festival in JJ Byrne Park was packing it up. As the bands brought their instruments upstairs, there was still a fenced in area for ponies, a llama, a goat, as well as a group of bunnies in a big cage in the green outside the house. Apparently, more than one hundred kids took pony rides during the day.
After the set up, there was a sound check with Tomas, the uncle of a RATR band member, who did sound and ran a tight show. Food and soda tables were set up, as was an information table and slide show about the Manila street kids the concert was benefiting.
At 6 p.m., the crowd began to pour in: more than 140 people showed up eventually. Plenty of friends of the bands, parents, grandparents, siblings, even two teachers from Winston Prep, there to support their student in the band, RATR.
First up: Zachary Fine and Aman Modak, on sitar and tablas. The 13-year-olds dressed in beautiful Indian robes performed a stunning, improvised raga that lasted for 20-minutes or so and thoroughly impressed the crowd.
Artful music.
Next up was RATR, a really fine band that describes itself this way: "David Pollack outa Manhatten writes the songs Donker from 125th gives
it soul and Tim from The Slope in Brooklyn gives it Heart. We all come
together to kickass on occassion."
The crowd loved ’em.
Somewhere There’s a Fix was up next up and talk about kick ass. They screamed, they wailed, the singer even took off his shirt. They were also really goooood. Here’s their My Space blurb: "Forming in 2005 and including current/former members of Calibre, Cool
& Unusual Punishment, and Butcher The Bridesmaid, Somewhere There’s
A Fix is made up of a bunch of awesome dudes playing music that’s
pretty melodic, yet tastefully brutal and in no way generic.
Tastefully brutal.
Cool and Unusual Punishment, the band that organized the show, played a great set, one of their best. Their tight musical sound, entertaining stage presence, and awesome songwriting abilities, make for a great trio that’s developing a very unique sound. To describe themselves the band put it like this: "While we all share the influence of bands such as Queen, Bright Eyes, and Arcade Fire we also have a wide range individually."
Heart throb.
Tetsuwan Fireball, who play under the influence of Television, Gang of Four, The Pixies, The White Stripes, and The Pillows, capped the show with power and panache.
Rock out.
A good night for a good cause. The audience was well-behaved, polite, and very supportive of this great effort by local teens to support teens in a place very far from Brooklyn.
I once saw Bob Dylan in Park Slope. It was on Eighth Avenue at Lincoln Place, right across from the Montauk Club. He was with a photographer and it was June 12, 2001—I remember because it was my son’s birthday—and we were on our way to the subway for an evening in Manhattan.
A small, polite crowd was standing on the corner, talking to Bob. As he walked away, I asked for his autograph and he obliged. He wrote his name on my Mastercard envelope (it was all I had with me).
It’s framed and on the bookshelf in the living room. Did I mention I said to him: "You’re my idol."
I can’t help it. I am such a Dylan fan and this show at the Morgan Library sounds good to me. I am so there.
Bob Dylan’s American Journey, 1956–1966, the first
comprehensive exhibition devoted to Bob Dylan’s early career, is on
view at The Morgan Library & Museum from September 29, 2006,
through January 6, 2007. The exhibition examines the critical ten-year
period that coincides with Dylan’s transformation from folk troubadour
to rock innovator during a momentous, turbulent period of American
history. Bob Dylan’s American Journey, 1956–1966, is organized by Experience Music Project, Seattle, Washington.The
exhibition includes original typed and handwritten lyrics, rarely seen
photographs, concert and television footage, posters and handbills of
Dylan’s early performances in New York, and other artifacts. Several
Dylan manuscripts and typescripts of lyrics from a selection of more
than ninety songs given to The Morgan Library & Museum in the late
1990s by collector George Hecksher will also be on view. These include
such well-known songs as "Blowin’ in the Wind," "It’s Alright, Ma,"
"Masters of War," "Ballad in Plain D," and "Gates of Eden."Bob Dylan’s American Journey
traces Dylan’s personal and artistic development, beginning in postwar
Hibbing, Minnesota, the industrial town where Robert Zimmerman (b.
1941) grew up as a store owner’s son inspired by early rock and roll.
The exhibition follows Dylan to his debut on the national stage of the
Greenwich Village folk scene—one of history’s most fascinating
intersections of art, politics, and lifestyle—through to his massive
fame as one of the first true rock stars and the man who "electrified"
contemporary songwriting. This ten-year span encompasses the release of
some of Dylan’s seminal albums, including The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, and Blonde on Blonde.
Tonight’s the night.
What: Benefit concert for street kids in Manila
Where: The Old Stone House on Fifth Avenue between 3rd and 4th Streets
When: 6-9 p.m.
Who: Cool and Unusual Punishment, Tetsuwan Fireball, Somewhere’s There’s a Fix, RAPR, and Zach Fine and Aman on sitar and tabla.
Cost: $5 dollars for kids. $10 dollars for adults. Feel free to donate more.
Twenty-eight year old Michael Sandy, who police say was assaulted by
three men in a hate crime last week, died Friday afternoon after being
removed from life support.Sandy had been in a coma since being beaten on Sunday in Brooklyn.
He was removed from life support at the request of his family.Nineteen-year-old John Fox, Gary Timmins, 16, and Ilya Shurov, 20,
were charged with robbery in the first and second degrees and assault
in the first degree, all as hate crimes.There is no word yet whether police will upgrade those charges now that Sandy has died.
Investigators say the men used the Internet to lure Sandy to an
isolated parking lot near Sheepshead Bay with the promise of a sexual
encounter.But when he got there, police say the men attacked him.
The confrontation eventually spilled onto the Belt Parkway, where Sandy was struck by a car.
Kiwi Razor
Serene Rose
Blue ____
Okay it sounds like beat poetry or a mis-guided attempted a a haiku but it’s the latest rag trade real estate news on Seventh Avenue.
Serene Rose and Razor of Fifth Avenue are adding a new shop called, Blue ____(I forget the second word – duh). The women’s and men’s clothing shop will be in the space vacated by Lion in the Sun on 4th Street just east of Seventh Avenue.
Kiwi is moving from its spot on Seventh Avenue between Union and Berkeley Place to where Soundtrack used to be on Seventh Avenue between Carroll and President.
More real estate rumors: Chock Full of Nuts may be taking over the space vacated by Cinematique on Seventh Avenue between Union and President Streets.
It is the heavenly coffee. And I grew up with a CFON on Broadway between 86th and 87th Streets. We spent a lot of time there eating raisin date nut bread and cream cheese sandwiches and butterscotch brownies.
Ah, that really brings back memories. That place really was chock full of nuts. It won’t be the same without all the weird Broadway types circa 1960’s and ’70’s, who used to nurse a cup of Joe for hours on end. When they weren’ there they were sitting on the benches on the Broadway median.
Wow: dueling coffee corporations on Seventh Avenue. CFON, DD and S. Is there room for all of them?
Today on Until Monday, a newish Brooklyn blog, there’s a post about Brooklyn Reading Works. One of the editors of the blog interviewed me online and the results are there.
Until Monday is a beautiful new blog on the Brooklyn Blog block: it’s the fancy new house with the gorgeous paint job. I plan to stop there every day on my way to the blog.
Welcome to the neighborhood Until Monday and thanks for the call out!!! And here’s what’s going on next week at BRW next week:
OCTOBER 19, 2006 at 8 p.m.
LEORA SKOLKIN-SMITH will read from her book, “EDGES: O PALESTINE, O ISRAEL” published by “Glad Day Books” a small literary house founded
by GRACE PALEY and Robert Nichols. Ms. Paley was the editor of “Edges”
. The novel has recently been nominated for a PEN/Faulkner Award. It
was also, selected by The Jewish Book Council for a National Tour and
will be featured at this year’s Virginia Festival for the Book.
RICHARD GRAYSON reads from his new collection of short stories, "AND TO THINK HE KISSD HIM ON LORIMER STREET AND OTHER STORIES."
Yesterday Pastor Daniel Meeter, of Old First Reformed Church, told me about this inter-faith anti-Iraq war event. He was there and he said it was incredible. Clergy from churches all over Brooklyn, including Meeter and Rabbi Bachman from Park Slope’s Congregation Beth Elohim joined in talk and prayer against this war. Here’s the coverage from New York 1:
It was billed as the first interfaith anti-Iraq war prayer rally in
Brooklyn. At an altar decorated with an image of Jesus, RabbiAlan
Andy Bachman spoke to activists who were Jews, Baptists, Catholics and
Muslims among other faiths. Imam Farrakhan did the same, as did Father
Anthony Ozele at Brown Memorial Baptist Church Wednesday night."So, our friends, our purpose tonight is not only to identify the
wrong that has been done in Iraq but also to identify the wrong that
has been done in America,” said Reverend Clinton Miller, of Brown
Memorial Baptist Church. “And more specifically, in the place that we
now call Brooklyn."One by one, the names of the 14 Brooklynites killed in Iraq were read aloud.
"This war must end so that we may be filled with righteousness,"
said the reverend of The Church of the Open Door, Mark Taylor.The religious leaders criticized the policies of the Bush administration.
"One has to wonder if we will continue as a nation to engage in
this schoolyard bully type of diplomacy,” added Reverend Karim Camara,
of the First Baptist Church of Crown Heights. “Or, can we show the
world that strength can also be displayed in sitting down at the table
with those you disagree with."Religious leaders here charge funding for the war has taken away
from domestic programs like housing and education. And they say this
event is just the first in a borough-wide campaign.“It is the task of religious communities to keep calling America to
its ideals,” said Reverend Daniel Meeter from the Old First Reformed
Church. “It is political ideals, its idealistic vision of human rights,
its civil rights, its vision of welcoming immigrants, and the poor and
the lowly of the earth, its vision of justice and equality.”A collection of money was taken at the service with proceeds going to www.anysoldier.com,
which provides care packages for those in the military, and to Black
Veterans for Social Justice, a local group which helps provide benefits
and other services for those who have fought for America.
Come to the show. Saturday. Tell your kids. Come along with them: rock concerts are a great opportunity for parent/child bonding.
Great bands: Zach Fine and Aman on sitar and tabla, Cool and Unusual, Tetsuwan Fireball, Somewhere’s There’s a Fix and RAPR.
For a good cause: Homeless kids in Manila
Nice location: The Old Stone House. Fifth Avenue between 3rd and 4th Streets. Go here for
directions: theoldstonehouse.org
For Tickets and donations:
Hey, did ya hear? E and M are coming down to the Slope. For the weekend, that is. They used to live on Third Street. But then their PARENTS moved the family to a small town in Massachusets (okay it’s a really cool town) but they took them away from Third Street.
Teen Spirit was devastated when E left. He was in a real funk for months afterward about it. That about four years ago. He doesn’t say: "I’m going down to E’s" anymore.
E doesn’t live here anymore.
E came to visit last year. He’s a big, teenager now. He shaves. He was very polite and sweet, as always. It was great to see him.
Now M is coming. M IS COMING. I am so psyched. She was like ten years old when she left. She’s a teenager now. She was always such a cool kid.
E and M are coming to visit. Did ya hear?
They’re coming down for TEENS FOR THE PHILLIPINES at the Old Stone House. Teen Bands for a good cause. Saturday October 14 from 6-9 p.m. Fifth Avenue between 3rd and 4th Streets.
My friend Shawn Dulaney is one of many DUMBO artists whose studio will be open to visitors this weekend during the DUMBO: Art Under the Bridge Festival
Go here for more information and map
Next weekend, it’s the Gowanus Artists Studio Tour. More on that next week.
Painting by Shawn Dulaney
This is the DOT press release:
The New York City Department of Transportation (DOT) announced that beginning Sunday, October 15, the lower roadway of the Manhattan Bridge will be closed for the next year. During these twelve months all three lanes of the lower roadway will undergo a complete rehabilitation.
While the upper level of the Manhattan Bridge will remain open, DOT recommends that motorists use an alternate route to cross the East River during this closure. During the rehabilitation there will be no access to the lower roadway from either end of the bridge. All traffic will be directed to the upper roadways where two lanes will be maintained in both directions at all times. Pedestrians and bicyclists will share access along the Manhattan Bridge’s South walkway since the North bikeway will be closed. New York City Transit service on the bridge will not be affected. To help distribute traffic amongst the other East River crossings, the North Outer Roadway on the Williamsburg Bridge will be open to truck traffic.
What a brouhaha. Brooklyn Papers put that rather lewd pix of Maggie G. from the film "Secretary" on the cover of last week’s paper and boy did they take the heat for it.
People around here went CRAZY. And the Papers got a whole bunch of letters from angry readers, who said that the BP went too far. They even heard from a former editor of the paper who said she’d never do something like that on her watch.
All week I heard from people who were P.O.ed about it. Most said they thought it was downright unneighborly, unfriendly and a cheap shot. A man, a parent at PS 321, said to me today: "Do you write for that paper that put that cheap shot of Maggie Gyllenhaal on the cover. I couldn’t believe it. Not very neighborly I’d say."
For all the people who were flabbergasted, there were probably some who enjoyed the picture. I found it interesting myself because I’ve never seen the movie.
It’s based on a brilliant short story by one of my favorite writers, Mary Gaitskill, about a secretary and her boss, a demanding lawyer, and the sexual, sadomasochistic relationship that ensues. It’s from a short story collection called "Bad Behavior," works of short fiction that are as bold and provoking as that picture of Maggie.
On Monday October 16th I have tickets to see Mary Gaitskill at the 92nd Street Y, where she’ll be reading and discussing her acclaimed new novel, Veronica. Maybe I should bring a copy of the Brooklyn Papers.
Anyway, I’ve wanted to see the movie and when I saw the picture instead of going bonkers I said to myself, "Oh that must be a still from that movie she made called "Secretary."
I also noticed that by Tuesday morning there were NO copies left at Key Food. Now Key Food receives something like 3000 papers every Friday. So I thought that either that was one popular issue of the Brooklyn Papers or someone decided to get rid of them.
I think the latter may be the case.
Well, Brooklyn Papers published a very nice apology today and the whole thing should just evaporate. Be gone. Shoo. Shoo. Bye Bye Brouhaha.
Somehow I doubt that.
Today is the official release date of the 13th and last book of the Lemony Snicket book, THE END. Here’s an excerpt from the back cover of the new book.
Our friends, Red Eft and Dadu, are having a party on Sunday. Red Eft’s brother, a supernumerary at the Metropolitan Opera, was going to come in make up and costume as Count Olaf but he had to decline. We’re hoping someone else will dress up as the Count.
Dear Reader,
You are presumably looking at the back of this book, or the end of the
end. The end of the end is the best place to begin the end, because if
you read the end from the beginning of the beginning of the end to the
end of the end of the end, you will arrive at the end of the end of
your rope.
This book is the last in A Series of Unfortunate Events, and even if
you braved the previous twelve volumes, you probably can’t stand such
unpleasantries as a fearsome storm, a suspicious beverage, a herd of
wild sheep, an enormous bird cage, and a truly haunting secret about
the Baudelaire parents.
It has been my solemn occupation to complete the history of the
Baudelaire orphans, and at last I am finished. You likely have some
other occupation, so if I were you I would drop this book at once, so
the end does not finish you.
With all due respect,
This may be a rumor but let me the first to rumor it: Peek-a-Boo Kids on Seventh Avenue, the nice children’s shop with the fantabulous selection of high-end European shoes and Stride Rites, may be vacating their shop on Seventh Avenue between Union and Berkeley Place. And here’s the really juicy, "there goes the neighborhood" part:
Dunkin Donuts (and maybe Baskin Robins because they seem to be joined at the hip these days) is coming in.
First I’d like to thank my friend who is really OTBKB’s unpaid, all-about-the-Slope reporter. She’s constantly tipping OTBKB off to great stuff. Thanks, Friend (you know who you are and I don’t want to reveal your identity so that people will continue to tip you off).
I told Daniel Meeter, Pastor of Old First Church, a reader of OTBKB, and, like me, a person who actually likes Dunkin Donuts coffee ("I don’t drink Starbucks," he said) He thinks we should meet with them and suggest that they give the place a slightly slopey feel. Maybe they’d like our opinion as to how to fit into the neighborhood.
It worked with Commerce Bank to an extent. Praise the lord and Aaron Naparstak that there’s no drive thru bank there.
But all of this is putting the cart before the horse. Here’s the rumor: Peek-a-Boo is out. Dunkin Donuts is coming in (on the same block as a Bank of America, no less).
The rent must be going sky high.
The neighborhoods is going to the donuts.
Yesterday, Bush dismissed the findings of researchers from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and the Al
Mustansiriya University in Baghdad derived from a
door-to-door survey, conducted by doctors, of 1,849 households in Iraq.
In a speech a few months ago, Bush said he thought the Iraqi death toll was 30,000.
Johns Hopkins and Al Mustansiriya researchers took the number of deaths reported by household residents, they
extrapolated to a nationwide figure saying that the war has resulted in the deaths of nearly 655,000 Iraqis as of July.
The researchers, reflecting the inherent uncertainties in such
extrapolations, said they were 95 percent certain that the real number
lay somewhere between 392,979 and 942,636 deaths.
Footprints: Portraits of a Brooklyn Neighborhood. Artists respond to the Atlantic Yards controversy. The show opens today at Grand Space in Prospect Heights. 778 Bergen St. (top buzzer), between Washington Ave. and Grand Ave. (on the corner of Grand). The building is a 3-story warehouse, painted yellow on the front, with fun drawings of flowers, birds, and fishes at street level.
In the midst of the stormy debate over the "Atlantic Yards" and Brooklyn’s future, the Footprints group, a group of local artists, has joined together to move beyond the sound bites and take a closer look at the neighborhood in question, its community, and issues surrounding redevelopment. Their work will be exhibited at Grand Space from October 7 thru November 3, W-F 5-8 pm, S-S 11am – 4pm, with an opening reception on Thursday, October 12, from 6 to 9pm.
Literature from the "Axis of Evil", gathers short stories and poems
from three countries that once received that label from President Bush
— Iraq, North Korea and Iran. Additional material in the collection
comes from Syria, Cuba, Sudan and Libya.
On Thursday’s Morning Edition on NPR, Steve Inskeep spoke with Azar Nafisi, an Iranian-born writer and author of Reading Lolita in Tehran. She says that writing can offer insights into a country that aren’t part of the official government line.
"The
governments might be considered quote unquote the enemy, but definitely
not the people," Nafisi says. "These stories and poems offer an
alternate view, which is very different from the politicized and
polarized view of these nations."
She says that Iranian writers, for example, use a subtle approach to criticize their own government.
"Because
subtlety is in fact a way of resistance — the brutal obviousness of an
authoritarian state. [Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] is very
obvious… but these writers are subtle because they are trying to also
shape the mind of the readers" with nuance and playfulness.
There’s also a CD of lullabies from the AOE. Producer Erik Hilstadt recorded lullabies sung by women from countries deemed
U.S. enemies. "Lullabies lead us to the deepest and most fundamental
way of communication between human beings," he says in the CD’s liner
notes.
Police arrest one man in connection with the disgusting bias crime attack in Brooklyn. Here’s the story from New York 1.
Three more people are being questioned and one person is under
arrest in connection with an attack in Brooklyn Sunday night that ended
with the victim hospitalized in critical condition after he was beaten
then hit by a car on the Belt Parkway.Police said 19-year-old John Fox of Brooklyn has been charged with
one count of assault and two counts of robbery as a hate crime in
direct connection to the Sunday night attack.Sources say that Fox, a sophomore at SUNY Maritime, met 28-year-old
Michael Sandy online and led him into the trap that left the Long
Island man brain dead in Brookdale Hospital.Fox’s father said his son never did anything like this before.
"He has a black roomate," said Fox. "They are friends. Ugh, he’s not a racist. He’s a good kid."
Investigators say the victim went to Plum Beach Sunday night and
was beaten by as many as four white men. Sandy met Fox and drove to a
parking lot where the other men were waiting. As the victim broke free
of his attackers, he was hit by a car on the Belt Parkway, suffering
serious injuries to his body and to his head.