SNOW!

By on March 2, 2009 5:01 pm in Brooklyn Heights, Fun, Kids, Photos

The snow that was so beautiful this morning has just about turned to slush along Montague Street, but plenty of neighborhood kids (and dogs!) came in full force to Hillside Park for sledding and snowboarding this afternoon. By noon, only about three inches fell on the Promenade — which looked lovely — and the city’s sanitation trucks were out clearing the streets as best they could. For those of you at your desks, here’s what the ‘hood looks like now:

BHB/Sarah Portlock

BHB/Sarah Portlock

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  • http://selfabsorbedboomer.blogspot.com Claude Scales

    Funny. Though I’ve walked past it hundreds of times, the sign that says “Hillside Park” has never registered on my consciousness. I’ve always just thought of it as “The Dog Park.”

    BTW, great photos.

  • exclark andwillow

    The last time I rode a sled down “squibb hill” I got 25 stitches in my head and the car entering the BQE got a dent in its chrome bumper!

  • Bklyn Dawg

    We prefer to call it Hillside Dog Park. But kids of all ages have preference sledding on the hill when it snow.

    http://www.hillsidedogs.org

  • nabeguy

    Is that you Miller?

  • BHer

    I was there yesterday with my kids and there were a lot of dogs all over the place. It was dangerous for the kids and for the dogs. It is stated on the website for the park that the dogs need to stay in the small dog area when the park is used by sledders. Dog owners do not know this.

  • joe

    walked past there last night at 6 pm and there were quite a number of people still going strong and yes dogs were running around as well.

  • exclark andwillow

    yes
    In the street, the best way to go down squibb (suicide) hill is in a chain. Lie on your stomach and hook your toes into the sled behind you. The more links to the chain the better. The most sought after position was either first or last. First, because you were in control of the chain. Your duty was to end up with fewer kids on the chain then when you started. Last … you had no control of the whip. You tried to hang on as long as possible. If you were really lucky that last kid would not be the farthest up the hill… got that visual? We would climb back up the hill over and over again until everyone had a chance to be last (if you were brave enough).

  • nabeguy

    OMG, CM, I was talking about your accident with an old friend just yesterday. Scariest thing I ever saw. I hope it put a damper on your need for speed.
    Since the JW’s took over the old Squibb building, the streets and sidewalks are never allowed to collect snow, although I have very fond (and terrifying) memories of trying to get as far as Fulton Street without ending up underneath a parked car.

  • bklyn20

    I believe that the sledders have right to the steep slope at the top of the hill on snowy days– not the entire park. The dogs get the balance of the big run and the small run. If a dog is threatening a sledder, then they can go into the small run, if necessary, if it’s ok with any small dog owners there.

  • Naber

    “When it snows, the main part of Hillside is reserved for sledders. During the few days each year that it snows and sledders use the park, dogs must be kept in the small dog area”.

    This is a quote from the Hillside Dogs Website.

  • nabeguy

    Thanks for the clarification Naber. My daugher was bitten by a dog while sledding on that hill and the owner pretended that it didn’t happen. Given how inferequently it snows in a year, it’s a bit selfish to deny kids the use of the entire hill on those rare days. And parents, tell your kids to be aware of dog droppings, especially at the bottom near the fence line. My kid almost ended up face first in a big pile.

  • Brooklyn Dawg

    Sledders and parents left Hillside Dog Park a mess yesterday.

    When I entered Hillside this morning I saw:

    — One of the picnic tables vertically upended and leaning dangerously against one of the circular benches and a tree. Snowboarders were using this picnic table to do stunts.

    — Trash and litter left at the top of the hill where the sledders and parents congregated.

    — Broken pieces of sharp plastic from discs and toboggans that were abandoned throughout the park.

    –Trash can lids that were brought to the park and left strewn about.

    –A large cylindrical DOT traffic pylon left inside the dog run where snowboarders had previously taken it from the street and used it to gather snow to make ski jumps onto the aforementioned picnic table.

    Perhaps sledders and parents aren’t aware that the NYC Parks Department does not clean dog runs. Nor do elves come in the middle of the night to clean up their mess.

    The dog owners who use Hillside every day of the year volunteer to keep the park clean. We don’t mind sharing the dog run with sledders when it snows. Some of us are also parents who sled with their kids.

    We do mind if the sledders and parents leave a mess that we are then left to clean. Please clean up after yourselves and don’t leave the park in a dangerous condition.

  • Sledder

    You repeatedly referred to “sledders and parents” but if you were there at nightfall yesterday, you’d know that the parents all took their kids home, leaving as the only sledders a bunch of teenagers. Maybe they weren’t solely responsible for the miscellaneous garbage but I suspect little 3-year old Muffy and her mum didn’t up-end the picnic table.

  • Bklyn Dawg

    Sweet denial.

  • exclark andwillow

    nabeguy……give me a little hint !?

  • Daryl Hannah

    Brooklyn Dawg, thanks for looking out for your little doggie oasis. Now how about castigating the dogs and their owners for leaving excrement and urine all over the rest of the neighborhood?

  • Bklyn Dawg

    Nice to see that a Norman Rockwellesque blog posting about how lovely the neighborhood can be when everyone enjoys the snow descends into a kvetch fest.

    Thanks for your comment.

  • nabeguy

    Can’t agree with everything Dawg says, but he does have a point. From what I could see, it was mostly the aforementioned teenagers who were wreaking all the havoc, although I don’t recall any of the “volunteers” making any effort to stop them. In fact, as a parent/sledder, I found myself picking up the garbage can lids they left behind.

  • nabeguy

    exclark, we never really hung around togther in the same circles…I was a P.S. 8 kid who lived on Middagh St. across from the school.

  • John Wentling

    Holy cow ex-clark, talk about a small world – and I thought it was considerably worse than 25 stitches, man oh man, were you lucky, I watched that from the top of the hill as I was getting ready to make my own run. Not for nothing, you ruined everyone’s day. :)

  • exclark andwillow

    my hat fell over my eyes right after i took off. I would have fallen off if I had known I was going over the embankment.

  • John Wentling

    Steve (exclark andwillow)? We all expected you to fall off, more like “okay, he’ll jump off any second now . . . . “, but alas, whoosh you went, thank God it wasn’t worse, and we owe the fencing to you. :)

    What year was that, do you recall?

    Man, this is just too much.

  • exclark andwillow

    1968
    it’s a good thing there weren’t any dogs around back then…I might have wipe out a couple of them!!!!!!!
    nabeguy – did i give you or your brother my bike when i moved? i don’t remember their names.

  • nabeguy

    Not me, but maybe you gave it to Chris or Gus, or perhaps Richard or Robert.