The Domino Sugar sign next to the Williamsburg Bridge may become a New York City landmark if preservationists get their way. This from the New York Times:

Now, the sign may point the way to the borough’s next big historic preservation fight.

Last
month, the Waterfront Preservation Alliance of Greenpoint and
Williamsburg formally asked the city’s Landmarks Preservation
Commission to consider the old sugar factory for landmark status.

A
plan for a project combining market-rate and low-income housing at the
site is being drafted by the partnership that bought the property
shortly after the factory closed in 2004. It consists of the Community
Preservation Corporation, a nonprofit organization, and Isaac Katan, a
private developer.

The preservationists, supported by the
local City Council member, David Yassky, want any development to
conform with the factory, a hulking brick Romanesque Revival structure
that dates to the late 19th century and recalls an era when New York
was the nation’s leading sugar producer.

Mr. Yassky angered
local preservationists last year by helping to override the landmark
designation of a nearby warehouse. The Domino plant, he said, is more
significant. “It’s an icon,” he said. “It’s a landmark in the popular
sense of the word. When I talk to people in Queens or Manhattan about
that part of my district, I say it’s right by the Domino Sugar factory,
and they know where that is.”

Picture from Flickr: flickr.com/photos/mireille/

This fall’s readings at Night and Day, which is really shaping up to be quite the cultural center here in Brooklyn.

SUNDAY OCTOBER 8
LAUNCH PARTY: Hardboiled Brooklyn
Detective fiction in New York’s finest borough.
Featuring: Peter Blauner, Gabriel Cohen, Reed Farrell Coleman

Sunday Oct 15
6 pm
LAUNCH PARTY: Heliotrope issue release
for the Heliotrope launch party, add these names as the readers:
Barbara Elovic, Linda Susan Jackson, Richard Levine, Constance
Norgren, & Jessica Stein

Monday Oct 16
6 pm
Playwrites: BARBARA WIECHMANN & RICHARD FULCO

Monday Oct 23
6 pm
Sackett St Writers’ Workshop
Featuring faculty & students from the Brooklyn writing workshop.

SUNDAY OCTOBER 29
6 PM
Fiction
Edie Meidav, author of CRAWL SPACE
& Emily Barton, author of BROOKLAND

Set in eighteenth-century Brooklyn, Brookland is the story of a determined
and intelligent woman who is consumed by a vision of a bridge: a
gargantuan construction of timber and masonry she devises to cross the
East River in a single, magnificent span. With the help of the local
surveyor, Benjamin Horsfield, and her sisters-the high-spirited,
obstreperous Tem, who works with her in the distillery, and the
silent, uncanny Pearl-she fires the imaginations of the people of
Brooklyn and New York by promising them a bridge that will meet their
most pressing practical needs while being one of the most ambitious
public works ever attempted. Prue’s own life and the life of the
bridge become inextricably bound together as the costs of the bridge,
both financial and human, rise beyond her direst expectations.

Thursday Nov 2
6 pm
FICTION. Hosted by Kristan Ryan of Behler Books

Sunday, Nov 5
6 pm
Sarah Langan & Victor LaValle

Monday, Nov. 13
6 pm
Sackett St Writers’ Workshop
Featuring faculty & students.

Wednesday, Nov. 15
6 pm
Sackett St Writers’ Workshop
Featuring faculty & students.

Thursday, Nov 16
6pm
Book-Launch Party & Reading!
JOHN HIGH
reading from his new novel, Talking God’s Radio Show

Monday, Nov. 27
6 pm
Sackett St Writers’ Workshop
Featuring faculty & students.

Here’s this week’s Smartmom in the Brooklyn Papers

So, it’s okay for mothers to spend billions of dollars a year at
Toys “R” Us, but they’re not allowed to breastfeed on the premises —
it’s offensive, too sexual and not appropriate for children.

No wonder hundreds of breastfeeding women and their supporters
gathered outside of the Times Square Toys “R” Us for a rally last
Thursday in support of Chelsi Meyerson, a breast-feeding mother who was
allegedly harassed by store employees for breastfeeding her 7-month old
son.

Smartmom wanted to go out and join them: she longed to rip off her
shirt, pull down her bra, and nurse right in the middle of Times
Square. “Latch On. Latch On,” she’d scream, her fist held high.

Trouble is: she hasn’t lactated since 1999, when the Oh So Feisty One decided she’d had enough at the age of 2.

But Smartmom was there in spirit, recalling the relief and pleasure of giving her children the most nutritious food imaginable.

Smartmom still misses being a nursing mother, one of the most
meaningful experiences a mother can have. Which isn’t to say that it
was easy, painless, or always enjoyable.

In the days after Teen Spirit’s birth, Smartmom could not figure out
for the life of her how to do it. Hepcat eventually took matters into
his own hands.

“I was raised on a dairy farm,” he said. “I know all about lactation.”

Sure, she felt like one of the cows on Hepcat’s family’s farm, but
it was a miraculous sensation and a wonderful way to bond with her baby
and keep the crying to a minimum. It even helped him sleep; which meant
more sleep for mama.

Of course, it also made Smartmom feel like she’d been transformed
into a gigantic breast with an unending supply of milk and a child who
wanted to do nothing but suck, suck, suck.

Early on, she tried to discreetly cover breast and baby with a
receiving blanket or a shawl, but after a while, all modesty went out
the window and her breasts were exposed for all to see. Sometimes,
she’d even walk down Seventh Avenue breastfeeding, convinced that Teen
Spirit’s head was covering her bulging boob.

By all reports, Chelsi Meyerson was far more discreet during her
nutritional gambit. She says that employees of the Toys “R” Us flagship
store demanded she stop breastfeeding or move to the basement because
they considered it inappropriate around children.

Toys “R” Us, like many retail stores, provide “nursing rooms” and
mothers are sometimes asked to move to those locations for fear of
offending other customers.

Offending other customers? Offending children? Since when is it offensive for a woman to nurse a baby?

According to the World Health Organization, “Breastfeeding is an
unequalled way of providing ideal food for the healthy growth and
development of infants; it is also an integral part of the reproductive
process with important implications for the health of mothers.”

It’s not like it’s some kind of pornographic sideshow (and there are
still a few such things in the vicinity of Toys “R” Us). For Buddha’s
sake, you’re feeding a baby! What could be more natural than breasts?

Breasts are the original multi-taskers. Their primary function is to
nurture the young. But they are also a source of eroticism for women
and men in some, but not all, cultures.

Sure, there were times when Smartmom was breastfeeding in public
when men (and women) looked at her like they were being turned on. If
you’re turned on by breasts, so be it. It’s only human. You can’t
expect people to deaden their sexual desires. But they can act
appropriately in public and differentiate between a sexual act and a
maternal one (even if Freud thinks they’re one and the same).

Sigmund the Great suggested that a child’s first erotic object is
his mother’s breast. So it’s no wonder that the breast persists as an
area of arousal. (He also said the breast is a substitute for a penis,
but that’s a topic for another column.)

Still, this does not mean that nursing mothers and children should
require parental guidance like an R-rated movie. Women should be able
to nurse in full view of the public because there is no better way to
normalize breastfeeding and teach children and others about its health
and emotional benefits.

You can even quote the World Health Organization.

The reverberations of the Toys “R” Us incident echoed through
Brooklyn, of course, so naturally there were legions of posts on Park
Slope Parents (PSP). As usual, a lot of opinions were bandied about.

One even came from a New York Magazine editor who is known to troll
the Web site for story ideas (so don’t be surprised if there’s soon yet
another article about those “crazy,” “neurotic” Park Slope moms.
Admittedly, PSP is a treasure trove for cynical magazine editors
interested in the neurotic mommy zeitgeist.)

Even the features editor, Faye Penn, weighted in on the debate.

“Breasts are always sexy and sexual — and, yes, like our other
sexual organs, multi-functional,” she wrote. “Why do you have to negate
their erotic nature in order to justify nursing? If someone thinks it’s
hot to see you breastfeed in public, what can you really do about that?
Mace him? Lecture him? Throw a pamphlet at him?”

Given what she knows about her Park Slope neighbors, Smartmom’s
guess is that some moms will do all three. But she digresses. Penn
continued:

“What healthy straight guy isn’t turned on by the sight of a new
pair of breasts — even if there is a baby attached to one of them?”

Don’t be fooled (and don’t write Dumb Editor hate mail — it’s not
his fault). Most likely, editor Penn was probably just fanning the
flames. After all, her comment set off a groundswell of more comments —
and more quotes for that possible New York Magazine story that will
probably portray those puritanical milkmaids in Park Slope who refuse
to think of their breasts as sexual.

Well, sometimes a boob is just a boob, Faye. And sometimes it’s the erotic epicenter of the world.

Just because some people on PSP are offended by the idea that
someone would be turned on by a milky breast is no reason to generalize
about Park Slope mothers.

And it doesn’t mean magazines need to blow this up like a life-sized
erotic doll. No more Amy Sohn–style mommy rants turning Park Slope
mothers into unpleasant stereotypes, please.

Let them nurse in peace. And let Park Slope mothers be the
individuals they really are without judgment from New York Magazine’s
cliche-making editors.

Chocolate Chip Chamber Music, the brainchild of local music dynamo, Helen Richman, has its season premiere on Saturday September 30th with KIND OF TWO:  THE ANDREW RATHBUN JAZZ QUARTET.

JAZZ for kids at OLD FIRST REFORMED CHURCH ON SEPTEMBER 30, 2006. Shows at 10 a.m. and 11 a.m.

TIckets are just five dollars and available at the door for this engaging and interactive mini-concert for the very young (toddler to six-year-olds, even older).

OLD FIRST REFORMED CHURCH
Upper Hall
126 Seventh Avenue (corner of Carroll Street aka Jackie Connor’s Corner)
Park Slope
For more info: www.chocolatechipmusic.org

photo by cathzilla at Flickr

The City Planning Commission voted unanimously Wednesday on recommendations to decrease the size of the project. Ratner says he’s on board. What does this mean? This from NY 1.

Developer Bruce Ratner says he’s on board with a scaled-down plan for his Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn.

The project has sparked many protests in the past but Wednesday’s vote went off with little fan fare. That does not mean everyone is happy with the plan.

"Because it is located at the intersection of three of the borough’s major commercial thoroughfares, a level of density is appropriate," said City Planning Commission Chair Amanda Burden. "It will bring vitality, investment, energy and excitement to this great borough."

"The adverse impacts of this proposed project outweigh all of the social benefits. They include traffic mitigation. They include the displacement of a significant number of poor people and people of color," said Brooklyn City Councilmember Letitia James. "It will result in instant gentrification."

The panel has recommended that developer Bruce Ratner reduce the size of three towers, eliminate an estimated 382 apartments and add an acre of open space.

However, the proposed building known as "Miss Brooklyn" would not be scaled down, making it the tallest building in the borough.

Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz says even with the changes, it will be impossible to make everyone happy.

"There are some groups that under any circumstance will never support this, either because they’re against eminent domain, which will be very modestly used in this project, extremely modestly," he said. "There are those that are against major developments and they are not going to be swayed."

Critics say even a scaled down project is too big and, ultimately, the City Planning’s recommendations won’t matter because the project still needs approval from the state Public Authorities Control board, which includes Governor George Pataki, State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and State Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno.

"City Planning has no say in this project. It’s a recommendation," said Daniel Goldstein of Develop-Don’t Destroy Brooklyn. "I think that it’s a sad day yesterday for city planning and urban planners in general, because what we have is a massive plan with no urban planning going on, just recommendations."

A spokesperson for Forest City Ratner says the company will work with the planning department to ensure the success of the project.

There’s a new restaurant called FARM where St. Marks Bistro used to be. It has a great big bold black sign with RED letters. I like the look. Anyone know what farm is? It’s off of Sixth Avenue near Flatbush.

Also: Prospect Perk, my sometime coffee hang, is about to change ownership. Always seemed like a nice place. Wonder what the new owners have in mind. Any news?

I enjoyed last night’s PBS broadcast of SKETCHES OF FRANK GEHRY, a documentary by Hollywood director, Sydney Pollack. While the documentary is mostly about Gehry’s architectural process, I saw it as an interesting conversation between two middle aged friends  with tremendous drive, ambition and personal demons, who are also hugely successful in their chosen artistic professions.

It even includes a fascinating interview with Gehry’s psychiatrist, who speaks frankly about some of Gehry’s personal and artistic struggles. He says that he’s been credited with making Frank Gehry a great architect (by FG, by whom?). He, of course, denies this. He does admit to helping Gehry unleash his creative freedom (note: his genius, his huge ego). Other architects have come to him because of that but he turns them away.

The interviews conducted by Gehry’s friend Oscar winner Sydney Pollack are personal and frank, — a fascinating conversation between good friends. Pollack drives in Gehry’s car and they talk about his childhood, his influences, marriage, working with clients, being a professional artist and the compromise that entails.

Gehry takes him in buildings, inside his design office. At one point Gehry says that his biggest disappointment is not being a painter. But he admits that he would never dare to paint a painting. Too hard, he says.

The film shows how, beginning with Gehry’s own original sketches for each major project, Gehry and company turn these drawings into finished
buildings of titanium and glass, concrete and steel, wood and stone.

Gehry works very closely with his design assistants, who quickly transform his sketches into three-dimensional models. He works in various scales, he says, so as not to become too enamored of the model itself.

He says: "We
constantly go back and forth between the models and the drawings,
because (pointing to the drawings) if this doesn’t work, that doesn’t
work!"

These models are scanned into an  unbelievably sophisticated computer and rendered into working drawings. These computer programs have made it possible for Gehry to render and build the strange and eccentric shapes he imagines. This would never have been possible without these CAD programs. Gehry himself is completely computer illiterate.

Various clients are interviewed, who describe the process by which Gehry’s buildings are developed: the give and take, the back and forth. Clearly, Gehry is a very smart guy, with a big ego, who is constantly listening, revising, and enhancing his vision.

A rule-breaking architect, he strongly disagrees with the notion that architecture should fit in and not be noticed, Gehry’s work stands out, sometimes glaringly, often beautifully, in contrast to the cityscape around it.

Gehry’s approach is sculptural with a strong understanding of shape, contour, materials and light. 

The film made me think that it will be exciting to have Gehry building in Brooklyn. It is too bad that the Atlantic Yards site is so controversial. If it had been connected with the BAM development zone it probably would have been a no-brainer. His Barry Diller building went up on the west side highway with almost no hoopla as far as I know.

I’m willing to bet that Gehry sees all the public opposition as just a lot of noise — just part of the usual chaos and insanity that goes into any architectural project in NYC. I don’t get the sense that he thinks a lot about the social impact of his work. He obviously thinks about what it means to be in and outside of one of his buildings — the  experience of the light, the shadows, the shapes, the flow.

But I’m not sure if he really cares about city planning and urban issues.

And he did admit to sometimes being embarassed by the scale and
audacity of his work. "Who let me do that?" he says at one point.

The issues of urban flow and city planning really belong to the developer after all. The idea of planting sixteen high rise apartments in the Atlantic Yards belongs to Ratner not Gehry. Gehry might be a very interesting architect to do it but he’s not going to be the one who will speak to  the issues that concern Brooklynites.

If the stadium works for Brooklyn the way it works in Bilbao – seamlessly contradicting and merging with its surroundings in a mesmerizing way – that would be wonderful. The matter of too many apartments, too little urban flow, and too little infrastructure need to be addressed so that quality of life is insured.

SKETCHES OF FRANK GEHRY is worth seeing. Even just to see Gehry’s shrink talk about his client in such an open way.

Why are so many old Honda Civics being stolen. As a former owner of a Honda Civic, I am  curious. This person on Daily Slope is looking for theories. Anyone got a theory?

Hepcat, you who know everything car-related, care to weigh in?   

My dented 17-yr-old Honda Civic was stolen Thursday night from
Garfield Place (bet 8th & PPW). It had only 82000 miles and ran
great, so I’m mourning its loss this weekend.

I just read the Police column from this week’s Brooklyn Paper and see
that 8 other Hondas, most of them 2000 or earlier – two 1991s – have
been stolen in the past week alone. My loss was too new to have been
listed in this item.

I don’t know that much about car thefts to figure out what’s going on.
Does anyone have a theory? For parts? For export to a third-world
country? Teenagers joyriding?

Last year on this day there was a murder and suicide in the Delores Beauty Shop on 11th Street in Park Slope. Here’s my story from a year ago:

Another crime of passion in Brooklyn.

In a tiny beauty shop on 11th Street between Fifth and Fourth
Avenue, a man killed his ex-wife (or girlfriend) and then killed
himself.

It was a crime of jealousy and revenge: he was angry because she was dating another man.

The woman, one of the owners of Delores’ Beauty Shop, was rushed to
Methodist Hospital. But she died enroute. The man died immediately.

The shootings occurred at 11 a.m. Soon after, the street was closed
off as a crime scene. Police and news helicpopters were seen flying
over Park Slope.

The beauty shop is right next door to the tiny Cafe Regular, a favorite local spot.  `

At 4:30 when I came by on my way to see my therapist, the block was
closed to traffic. A big crowd of onlookers stood in the rain. But I
wasn’t sure what was going on. A commercial, maybe a movie. Then I
realized that there was a crime scene  on my therapist’s block.

I was determined to get to my appointment so I walked under the
police line and walked toward Fourth Avenue. Then I was stopped by a
group of four policemen with the words "Crime Scene" monogrammed on
their blue uniforms.

I told them that I had an appointment on the block. They looked at
me like I was crazy.

"This is a crime scene. Get off the block. Didn’t
you notice the police tape?" One of the cops rolled her eyes.

They advised me to walk down 10th Street to Fourth Avenue and come
around the other way. I arrived a little late for my appointment. My
therapist had heard about the shooting from an earlier client. He
hadn’t had a chance to go outside.

When the session was over, I was able to walk up to Fifth Avenue
from his building. Locals standing under umbrellas crowded across the
street from the beauty salon were waiting for the body to come out.
There were news cameras and a sprinkling of reporters with notepads and
press passes. A man asked me if the woman killed was named Delores.
"She used to cut my hair." A reporter asked if she was from the
Dominican Republic and he nodded yes, looking sad. 

There were rumors that the woman’s boyfriend had been murdered, as well. "That depends what side of the block you’re on."

Another woman heard that the woman’s boyfriend had also been sent to
Methodist. "My friend works there and that’s what she told me."

One of the reporters had the police report. He held it in his hand and said there was just one man killed, a suicide.

Crime scene policemen worked for hours marking up the small beauty
shop with chalk and police tape and taking photographs. I saw a
policeman wearing blue rubber gloves. I left before the body was
removed from the beauty shop.

Later my daughter said that she and her classmates had noticed the news and police helicopters flying above them in the school playground. They stared up
at the sky, she said. "It hurt my eyes."

-posted September 26, 2005

My twin nieces left for college this week and my heart goes out to my sister-in-law (SIL) who will face the empty nest when her older daughter, who just graduated from college, starts a new job and moves away.

Hard to believe the twins are in college already. I remember the day a routine sonogram revealed that my SIL was having twins "Either your baby is two-headed or you’re having twins," the doctor is said to have said.

I remember the day they were born and many days after that we spent together on the farm in California. They’re such cool people: good natured, smart, funny and fun to be around. I am very proud of them and very impressed with their decision to go into engineering. I can’t wait to see the adults they become.

The girls have always been great friends with Teen Spirit — from the moment they attached a black and white mobile to his portable crib (when he was three months and they were three). Email and instant messaging have sealed that bi-coastal friendship and I expect them to all be close forever. I hope so.

Being a twin myself, I have always felt a special kinship with my twin nieces. I am fascinated by their relationship and the ways they are—and are not similar. I always find it so annoying to be confused for my twin so I made a special effort to tell them apart. Sadly, even I made mistakes from time to time.

Although identical, my twin nieces are very different people and they have chosen to go to different colleges. This is the first time they’ve even been in a separate school (and they have often been in the same class). This is the first time they’ve ever been separated except for a few days here and there. This will be a big change for both of them and probably something of a challenge. I am so curious as to how they are doing.

My sister and I always went to different schools from second grade on up. We always had different friends and never even considered going to the same college. But I visited her college frequently and got to know the campus and her friends. It’s like attending two colleges at once when you have a twin (I hope my twin nieces enjoy that aspect of being a twin).

As for my SIL, she has a lot to be proud of. Three highly motivated girls – two in college, one on her way to an interesting career. But it must feel strange to have them out of the house — kind of lonely and sad. She sent out an email yesterday to fill the family in:

E has been having a very busy first week of orientation. She’s been touring the campus, meeting her department, bowling, kayaking, hot tubing, maybe even a little karaoke and belly dancing??? She’s made lots of new friends and found out that there will be one other girl besides her in the Materials Engineering class of 2010. After fifteen years of uniforms we’re curious what she will decide to wear…. probably t-shirt, jeans, and flip flops, the new uniform….

We just dropped off A off yesterday so she has had less time to acclimate to college life. Luckily she went second off to college as she had more stuff and there wouldn’t have been room for E in the van. (A had a micro-fridge, and a bicycle, plus everything E took. The school —a campus of the University of California—has an extra 900 freshmen this year that they guaranteed housing to so lots of rooms came with an extra roommate.

In the meantime, the recent college grad is at home waiting to hear about a new job that will take her far from home. Much excitement in that household: nerves, tears, chaos, change.

Lots of change.