May 2010
1 post
Sharks in the Gowanus Canal →
Without doubt the most noteworthy biological event within the canal’s industrial history was the appearance of a large shark in 1950. Ali showed me a scrapbook about the canal that included a photograph of the shark from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. Fittingly, it is a dismal scene - policemens bullets spray the water near the creature as hundreds of people watch along the bulkheads.”
April 2010
9 posts
Police May or May Not Care About a Film Festival... →
A police raid of an anarchist collective in Bushwick last Tuesday — which cops claim was a mission simply to arrest two members of the commune who skipped court appearances on minor offenses — may actually have been a intelligence mission at the Thames Street compound.
Battle of Sandwich Stores →
ike most Carroll Gardeners, I have from time to time patronized Joe’s Superette and Frank’s Gourmet Deli, two delis that lie within a block of each other on Smith Street. Frank’s is just your conventional deli, with the usual selection of drinks and groceries. Joe’s is known for its sandwiches and peerless homemade prosciutto balls. Little did I think that these two old...
Secret Subway Entrance in BK Heights →
WatchGreat video about Atlantic Yards- a concise summary of positions
“…A Brooklynite is a natural-born hayseed, and can never become a real New...”
– Plunkitt of Tammany Hall
About the New Cyclone- and Miss Cyclone- →
Along for the ride and moral support was Miss Cyclone, otherwise known as Angie Pontani, a burlesque performer whose look falls somewhere between those of Betty Boop and Bettie Page. Rob Lenihan, the author of the blog Luna Park Gazette — who despite a 52-year love of Coney Island had chosen until then to avoid its most famous ride — sat in the second row.
Crime Increases in Brooklyn- even in supposedly... →
March 2010
34 posts
Miss Brooklyn is From Alabama- how long do you... →
Off and Running- Documentary about... →
Gunfight on the Way to Dinner at the Rebbes in... →
Saint John's Orphanage Fire in the Late 19th... →
Dead Horse Bay in the Rockaways →
Children's playground with word "Jail" painted on... →
Children may play cops and robbers all the time, but putting a pretend jail in a public housing playground in a historically black community struck some residents as an insult.
“We started complaining because it was like promoting kids to go to jail,” said Natasha Godley, 37, who has a 6-year-old son.
The prison look, including the offending word, was part of the original design of the...
21 year old girl leaves home- family freaks out-... →
Mischevious Anti-Ratner Sentiment →
Brooklyn Historical Society Creating Basketball... →
One element of the “goodie bag” that guests got to take home was a CD containing samples from Bats, Balls, Nets and Hoops: Stories of Sports in Brooklyn, the latest in a series of educational curriculum kits from the Brooklyn Historical Society (BHS). It was a nice piece of synergy and a sign that the BHS, like the Brooklyn Museum and the Brooklyn Academy of Music, is another elite...
Meet Brooklyn's Poet Laureate →
AFTER Tina Chang puts her 7-month-old son, Roman, to bed, she pads, barefoot, about three feet over to her office, where a desk cohabits with the changing table. She opens the window to take in the sights and sounds of her neighborhood, Park Slope — men arguing on the street, neighbors sipping wine on fire escapes, apartment lights twinkling. She opens a spiral notebook from the 99-cent store and...
Extension of Carroll Gardens Historic District:... →
An effort to preserve the history of Carroll Gardens is being criticized for actually hastening the neighborhood’s gentrification, said opponents of a controversial city initiative to widen the area’s historic district.
“They just want to re-gentrify and force out whatever elements from the past are left,” said lifelong area resident and businessman John Esposito, who helped form Citizens Against...
Crossing the Brooklyn Ferry by Walt Whitman →
Brooklyn House Wrongly Searched for Criminals 50... →
At least 50 times since 2002, New York City police have swooped down on a modest house in Brooklyn in search of bad guys, only to find they have the wrong house and an increasingly frustrated retired couple , the New York Daily News reports.
Old Men Beat the Crap Out Of Each other in Borough... →
An 83-year-old grump who faces seven years in prison for giving a 99-year-old an old-fashioned whipping turned down a no-jail plea deal Monday.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2010/03/16/2010-03-16_83yearold_accused_of_beating_99yearold_with_steering_wheel_lock_its_a_real_oldti.html#ixzz0iMTEwnEt
Carroll Gardens Kiss-Out Combat Gay Bashing →
Last night, two Brooklyn artists, along with some of their hetero and homo friends staged a kiss-out to offer another perspective on the traditional vigil/rally that often accompanies a violent crime. Organizers Todd Shalom and Ryan Tracy placed groups of kissing couples (and some threes) of all genders on corners up and down Court Street in an effort to align themselves with the streets that bore...
Park Slopers Freak Out Over "Boy's Hat" Labeling... →
few weeks ago, a member of the Park Slope Parents e-mail forum who’d encountered a stray piece of winterwear in the neighborhood posted a notice to the group titled “Found: boy’s hat.” Typically, discussions of parenting issues on the 3,500-member list are characterized by the kind of earnest decorum one would expect from people who give their children names like “Atticus,” with threads following...
Brooklyn Democrat Advocates the Ban of Salt from... →
“If State Assemblyman Felix Ortiz has his way, the only salt added to your meal will come from the chef’s tears.”
Local government, organization reach out new... →
Don’t let the name fool you. The Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council (RBSCC) has its hands in a lot of different places, from economic development and streetscape improvements, providing seniors with hot meals during the holidays, and youth services, to developing new low-income housing throughout North Brooklyn, and of course, volunteering off the clock on local political campaigns.
But...
Workshop on How to Trace the History of Your... →
Jonathan Lethem Gives a Tour of Brooklyn to a Brit →
Oppossums Attack Cobble Hill →
Move over rabid raccoons, there’s a new four-legged fiend terrorizing Brooklynites! After we mentioned a opossum sighting in Cobble Hill yesterday, Courier-Life has found out that opossums have been attacking the borough’s gardens, dogs, and teenage girls!
Community Board 11 member Marnee Elias-Pavia’s 13-year-old daughter nearly ran into oncoming traffic after spotting the...
Gowanus Q &A →
he Gowanus Canal seems to be left over from Brooklyn’s industrial past. So, why spend billions trying to clean it up and restore it to a usable waterway? Why not drain it, cover it, and move on? Wouldn’t that be far cheaper?
— Posted by peters
Even if it were advisable from an environmental or engineering standpoint to contain hazardous releases at a water-based site by this method, such an...
WatchBrooklyn Force- The gentrification of Brooklyn as seen through the eyes of Star Wars fans.
Bushwick Hipster Trailer Park →
For a “membership fee” of $590/month, happy campers may rent one-person campers (currently parked in a dreary warehouse, but to relocate to a grassy knoll beside a nut roasting factory this spring) and will get electricity, wifi, furnishings, and access to a darkroom, wood shop, recording studio, ceramics studio, and a thousand other perks that would actually be pretty fun if you...
Gowanus Canal Designated Superfund Site →
In a rare defeat for Mayor Bloomberg and his powerful pals in Big Development, the Environmental Protection Agency has seen obvious sense and designated the long-putrid Gowanus Canal a Superfund Site. They thus rejected Bloomberg’s hastily and cynically constructed plan to clean up the canal, which was nothing but a chimera designed to preserve the ravenous and selfish interests of the...
Joe Durso- Handball- Painter on a Planet of Blind... →
“Did you see that?” Durso asks, laughing. “Was it godlike? Olympian? Tell me the truth. It’s like I’m a gyroscope! Spin me around and I never fall. Albert Einstein couldn’t compute the physics of these shots. Nobody wants any part of me. It’s pure pain.”
“I’m like Jackson Pollock, submerged in my own creation,” Durso boasts...
Man Shot Protecting Religious Medallion from... →
Zahir Watts, 21, told his family he was on a downtown D train in Manhattan at 4 a.m. when the mugger “showed him that he had a weapon and told him, ‘Don’t make this hard,’” Watts’ stepfather said.
The mugger tried to rip the chain, which featured a silver-colored medallion of Jesus, from Watts’ neck - setting off a vicious struggle for control of the...
Head of Brooklyn Library Quits Over Firing... →
It wasn’t supposed to end this way.
Mack-Harvin took the post with great fanfare and a fabulous back story - the African-American daughter of a sharecropper who loved books and rose to her dream job.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/brooklyn/2010/03/09/2010-03-09_scandal_as_library_boss_is_up_in_the_air_li_quits_brooklyn_job_suddenly_li_embar.html#ixzz0hi2UYaT6
Lana's Barbershop- Carroll Gardens →
t can’t be denied that Lana has a soft spot for the old Italians who once came and sat down in her chair. Unfortunately that generation is just about gone. “I’ll never forget this one man,” she begins. “He said to me ‘I’ll always come to you, so don’t worry - If I’m not here, it means I’m not alive.’” Lana leans back in...
