Open Thread Wednesday

By on August 10, 2022 8:58 am in open thread

What’s on your mind? Comment away!

Photo by Martha Foley

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  • CassieVonMontague

    Debate tonight at 7 for the NY-10 Democratic candidates. Watch on NY1 or listen on WNYC

  • Andrew Porter

    Empty Promenade, Claude, a sure sign of NY’s “Summer Festival of Heat and Humidity,” to paraphrase former Mayor John Lindsay.

    Meanwhile, here’s a then—Sep. 23, 1928—and now photo of the corner of Willoughby and Jay Streets (click to enlarge):
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e8c08a92101854c8e381f6719443b05f9add4cefbde14f47903b224b2d483d31.jpg

  • Banet

    Folks, as detailed in another post, there are hundreds of books available for free outside of Saint Ann’s. Most are in French, but some are not.

    (Does anyone know of a good way to donate well-loved but still usable french novellas and short stories?)

    Regardless, go by the Clinton side of Saint Ann’s (Clinton, just off of Pierrepont) and see if there are any books you want to bring home.

  • Jorale-man

    Pandemic update for 11201:
    Dates: August 1-August 7
    7-day percent positive: 10.14%
    People tested (reported to date): 897
    New people positive (reported to date): 91
    https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page#maps

    BH is nowhere near as bad as some parts of Queens and Staten Island (where as many as 1 in 4 people have Covid), but it still is very high. Those who play Russian roulette and forgo masking indoors are bound to contract the virus and pass it on to others.

  • Pierrepont

    Last 8PM sunset of the year is tonight (Wednesday). Next time sunset falls after 8PM will be next May, so enjoy it while it is here.

  • gtfkd

    What a public service you’re doing here.

  • http://www.ambiguousandrew.com Gregory Lopez

    Greetings from Bay Ridge! The Democratic primary for State Senator is coming up, and I’ve had pretty negative experiences with our incumbent State Senator who is now running on Brooklyn Heights’ ballot, which is part of the newly-formed SD-26.

    You can find out more at: https://www.ambiguousandrew.com/

    Please give it a read if you care about having state representatives who are consistent about bodily autonomy and keeping conservative religious reasoning out of their legislative choices.

  • Banet

    Gregory, thanks for posting. I already voted via absentee ballot but I think what you posted is well reported and both reasoned and measured.

    I encourage all the other readers of this blog to take five minutes to read what’s behind the link Gregory posted.

  • http://www.ambiguousandrew.com Gregory Lopez

    Thank you for the kind words, and I appreciate you encouraging others to read about my experience.

  • Moni

    That corner was also once a cozy little restaurant called the Willow Rest where I met my late husband in 1966.

  • Moni

    I don’t understand why supermarkets and the like are not still requiring masks.

  • HgtsShpr

    Agreed. I’d also like to see the mandate on the subways actually enforced. My wife and I are overdue for several medical appointments because we’re not comfortable taking public transportation.

  • Kit

    Love the old photo of the promenade . . . totally unobstructed view of the bridge and parts NE.

  • Effective Presenter

    We had lived on Montague Terrace for 20 years, steps from the Promenade, an extentions of our living room. I made a point to never take the Promenade for granted, nearly every day after work I took a walk from Remsen Street to the Promenade around the Flagpole and home.

    Our longer walk from Remsen Street, down the Promenade, through the fruit streets, to the Brooklyn Bridge foot path, over the Bridge to City hall and back to Montague Terrace, crash on the sofa we burned many calories on that brisk walk, heard every language, accent, tourists enjoying our Brooklyn Heights Promenade, Brooklyn Bridge, etc.

    We loved the Promenade for nearly 20 years

  • Jorale-man

    If you need to get to the East Side of Manhattan, the ferries are a good option, I find. The outdoor rooftop is generally safe (albeit requires a climb up some stairs) and it gets you to several points along the East River. Of course, once you dock, you’ll still have to find a way to your doctor’s office.

  • Mike Suko

    And I loved your post! You’re lucky to have been able to take that (longer) walk – if you did enough of them, your reward may be an extra year or 2 of LIFE. I haven’t walked the BB foot path since the bikes were – all of them? – weeded out. The optimist in me hopes that – I guess I’m thinking post-9 AM when foot traffic probably is substantial, esp. in the summer – that shift has restored “across and back” to pleasant & salutary.

  • Banet

    Not an old photo – the hotel and condos are there – just very small in the distance and from that point, not obstructing the bridge.

    But indeed, the photo is old enough that the monstrosity in Manhattan that has ruined the view hasn’t been built yet.

  • AEB

    I understand and appreciate that people feel different degrees of vulnerability when it comes to Covid, some quite a lot. But–when will those avoiding the subway to great personal inconvenience decide that it’s reasonably safe to use it again? Six months? Never?

    Covid, and its mutations will always be with us. Get your shots, mask up, and proceed with a normal city life. That includes taking the subway. Or climb to the outdoor rooftop of ferries in January!

  • Red Leader

    The increased police presence in the park is disturbing. Has there honestly been an increase in crime? I just don’t see it.

  • Jorale-man

    Fair points. We’ll see where the infection levels go in the months ahead. Given how extremely transmissible the BA.5 variant is, and how crowded the average subway car is, I’ll be mostly avoiding the trains for now. Yes, N95s do work, but they’re most effective when everyone else is also masked. But then again, I’m not a big risk-taker to begin with.

  • HgtsShpr

    At this point, given that herd immunity is out the window and my fellow Americans have decided it’s over… I’m waiting for Big Pharma to come to my rescue, ironically enough. I think better vaccines and treatements are still on the way, hopefully in the next 1-2 years. Until then, I can’t comfortably ride the trains with mask levels as they are. My wife and I are both immunocompromised, and already dealing with long COVID from when we did have it. I’m not willing to further impede our quality of life, or risk worse, just because the masses have decided it’s over and the risk to people like us doesn’t matter to them.

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

    The photo was taken by my wife a few days ago. The monstrosity in Manhattan, AKA the Cheese Grater, is obscured by foliage.

  • gc

    A friend of mine, who is a park regular, made the exact opposite comment. She is generally in the park during the AM. Maybe that’s the difference?

  • gc

    The CDC no longer seems able/interested in providing an accurate case count for Covid. So we are left with positivity rates (over 10%) and deaths (hovering around 500 per day). Both numbers seem very high when taken in context with my perception of most people’s current level of complacency. If I’m not mistaken the current death rate is something like 7 times the average death rate for the flu. It seems to me that there is still a lot to worry about where Covid is concerned. Each person will have to make their own decisions but to dismiss it lightly seems short sighted.

  • Jorale-man

    I think you’re right about the prospect for better vaccines and treatments. I have older, immunocompromised parents whom I visit regularly. I do multiple antigen tests each time, but even so, I can’t afford to show up at their home with Covid in tow.

  • Mike Suko

    I assume you mean BBP. (Were you responding to someone else’s comment – I don’t see one, but it sounds like you may have benn.)

    There was a very “ugly” – and highly visual -incident earlier this summer. Add to that some crazy heat – not infrequently, such weather leads to violence – so an increase police presence makes total sense to me.

    I think it’s now clear to even those who were optimistic about Adams replacing diBlasio that you can’t “talk crime down,” and since that’s most of Adams’ game plan – given the nature of his voters and now almost all of what you might call his supporters, anything like “aggresive” policing as it was done by Giuliani or Bloomberg is probably off the table.

    (I have very mixed feelings about “profiling,” because there has to be at least SOME moral argument that if most crime in NYC is “black on black,” intelligent allocation of funds and personnel cannot be “color blind.”)

  • Effective Presenter

    Mr. Suko,

    Thank you for your gracious words.

    We agree the long walk down the Promenade over the Brooklyn Bridge to City Hall and back had been tremendous exercise.

    We hope all of those walks extend life a few more years.

    Walking is GREAT exercise and so easy at the front door no need for a health club, etc, you just put one foot in front of the other and go.

    No better neighborhood for walking than Brooklyn Heights.

    Kevin