Open Thread Wednesday

By on February 10, 2021 8:38 am in open thread

What’s on your mind? Comment away!

Share this Story:

  • Heightsguy77

    What’s the best way to learn about crime in BK Heights? There are apps that I see that show crime and then I don’t see anything about the crime in the news/internet. I don’t really trust the apps, so I’m looking for something more credible. But my partner did see something on an app about an attempted rape on Joralemon a month or so back, with witness statements. When I looked for any evidence, I couldn’t find anything. Thx.

  • Cranberry Beret

    The sidewalk on the north side of Harry Chapin Playground is an icy hellscape. (The path that connects the dead-end portion of Middagh Street to Columbia Heights.) Very treacherous, solid sheet of ice the whole width across.

    The Parks Dept employees did a super job of clearing a walkable lane on the Promenade during and after the recent storms. I wish their managers would send them to Chapin, too.

  • Jorale-man

    Any signs of sanitation trucks this morning? The mounds of trash and recycling seem to keep growing in our winter wonderland. Not such a good look.

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

    Good point. Back in the day, the intrepid Heather Quinlan, now married and living in the Jersey ‘burbs, would weekly visit the 84th Precinct, where she would be welcomed and allowed to examine the crime blotter. She would make note of anything happening in or near Brooklyn Heights, much of which seemed to be thefts from lockers at Planet Fitness, and put it on her weekly “84th Precinct Police Blotter”. All of us who write for BHB now have day jobs or other responsibilities that keep us from doing this. If anyone would like to volunteer to be BHB’s crime reporter, please let me know. The pay is lousy, i.e. non-existent, but it could be fun and you can put it on your resume.

    Here’s an example of Heather’s work: http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/73509

  • Cranberry Beret

    Trash was picked up in the North Heights today per normal (last week too).
    The recycling pick-ups this week and last seem to have been thrown way off schedule by the storms.

  • http://www.yotamzohar.com StudioBrooklyn

    Well, there’s the Citizen app, which runs the gamut from useful crowdsourced reporting on relevant issues that might warrant a first responder, to pearl-clutching class warriors punching downward at the less fortunate on prejudice alone.

    I wish we had something like that for white collar crimes, people exploiting tax loopholes (Presidential!), and so on. I wonder if Brooklyn Heights would be giving off a lot of signals?

  • Jorale-man

    Good to know. It’s probably more the South Heights that’s seeing the lack of services the past week or so. Some of the trash piles on Clinton near Remsen are taller than most pedestrians!

  • KBells40

    I agree, that stretch is dangerous, as is usually the portion down the hill alongside the dog park, too (I haven’t been over that way since the big snow for that very reason, to my dog’s disappointment, just commenting from past experience) – I’ll log a request too.

  • Mary Kim

    Here’s a website that shows where reported crimes happened. Click on the stat for crime type and the map will show the locations.

    https://compstat.nypdonline.org/2e5c3f4b-85c1-4635-83c6-22b27fe7c75c/view/89

  • CassieVonMontague

    Of the 6 (and a half) census tracts that make up the neighborhood, three of them lost housing since 2010. One tract, bounded by Hicks, Henry, Joralemon and Pineapple, seems to have lost the most housing in Brooklyn, losing 3 to 6 units per acre.

    The middle section of Brooklyn Heights between Pineapple and Joralemon appears to be Ultra-gentrifying. It is losing housing units as apartments are combined and brownstones are converted back to single family.

    https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/planning/download/pdf/planning-level/housing-economy/info-brief-net-change-housing-units-2010-2020.pdf

  • CassieVonMontague

    An article about the recent trend of buying another apartment in your building, with an example of a bidding war among neighbors in “an Art Deco Brooklyn Heights co-op.”

    https://www.curbed.com/2021/02/nyc-real-estate-covid-offices-studios.html

  • Albert

    They never picked up garbage, nor did they on Monday.

    Last recycling pick up was 1/27.
    Last garbage pick up 2/5

    Now with holidays is next pick up 2/17 or will they come by before that?

  • AEB

    An amusing and enlightening tour of our nabe:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1k3AoRHuX0

  • Karl Junkersfeld

    Thanks for posting AEB.
    Tom is very informative with minor factual errors but who cares. His presentation was excellent and very entertaining. Always amazes me how some can extemporize so seamlessly, a talent I never had and covet. His brilliant sense of humor made me think of our beloved late leader, Homer Fink, who had a similar improvisational facility. Again thanks for posting.

  • Andrew Porter

    The Brooklyn Paper used to have a report based on various precincts, including the 84th, which covers BH. Can’t remember seeing it lately, though.

  • Andrew Porter

    I harvested a new batch of Ancient photos of BH, ran them through “Preview” on my Mac, and here’s the first: corner of Cranberry and Hicks Street on June 6, 1928, with a now view via Google. Bet that kid isn’t around any more.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/47cbf8c23a15a35e4afd10685a55c8b7feed94eb4ae22a4f8e761281645d6511.jpg

  • Andrew Porter
  • Banet

    We had paper recycling and trash picked up here along Hicks between Joralemon and Remsen today. Not the other recycling though.

  • Jorale-man

    We shall see. It seems like a snowstorm shouldn’t be this disruptive when it comes to basic services.

  • Cranberry Beret

    Agree. 311 isn’t even taking complaints about late pick-up right now.
    Our metal recycling was picked up yesterday and our paper recycling very early this morning. No sign of the normal trash pick-up yet.

  • aeshtron

    “I do count my blessings, but then I end up counting those of others who have more and better blessings, and that pisses me off.”

    One of my favorite New Yorker Cartoons. Created by Bob Mankoff

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/32c063d84eb1e4433a159ed0b22bd01896520d4ceb9dc4e150820af889451bf8.jpg

  • Andrew Porter

    There was an article in The New York Times about legitimate US companies with N95 masks for sale. The link for one such is here (I bought a box of them and they’ve already shipped):

    shop@demetech.us

  • Joe Dam

    Hi – anyone completed the new local law 152 for gas pipe inspections? Just wondering about the cost to comply to this new law. At least the proposal that houses with 4 or more stories be required to install sprinklers was withdrawn.

  • Banet

    Alas, they use the same trucks and staff for both plowing and trash pickup. Which is smart and makes fiscal sense. Not to mention how much slower pick up is when they have to climb over mounds of snow to get to the trash.

  • Love Laner

    Really interesting infographic! I was surprised to see that the majority of the map seems to show increases in housing. But it would seem my perspective was skewed by the trend in Brooklyn Heights. And even here there are sections with growth (although I’m curious how much of that is former Jehovah property).

    I wonder how this fits with the idea that increased housing stock could also increase affordability. Because this graph shows a 6% increase in housing stock and I believe the population of the city has only grown about 3.5% in this same period, but housing prices have only gone up. (Is the wrong kind of housing being built?)

  • Jorale-man

    I see the dilemma, and it probably gets into a lot of staffing and overtime issues. But I’ve also been to other cities where snow removal and trash pickup aren’t quite at such cross-purposes.

    Part of the problem too is we have this antiquated method of leaving individual trash bags on sidewalks instead of having centralized containers where everyone on a block or two drops their garbage (and I know there are some rumblings of introducing this in NYC’s business improvement districts). Hence the snow mound/loose bag issue…

  • Red Leader

    We ordered a box as well.

  • Tim & Micki
  • Andrew Porter

    “404 Not Found”

  • MaggieO

    yes. i completed it for work at several different sites. plumbers charged $750/site