Open Thread Wednesday 5/19/10

By on May 19, 2010 12:05 am in Brooklyn Heights
Flickr photo by wilsonworld

Flickr photo by wilsonworld

What’s on your mind? Comment away!

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  • lrb

    Check out this cool time lapse of NYC… lots of scenes in/around the Heights. http://vimeo.com/11622149

  • CK

    Anyone know the answers to these 2 questions:

    1) Why don’t the restaurants and bars on Atlantic have outdoor seating on the sidewalk?

    2) What are they doing to the building on Clinton Street between Remsen and Montague?

  • Courtney

    I like how the streets in BH are kept clean, but it seems like the street cleaners are a little OCD. Am i the only one that hears/sees way too many of them? One is going by now as i write this and four already have in the last hour. thoughts?

  • harumph

    @Courtney – these cleaners are part of the Doe Fund – with the belief that “work works”…I’m all for them being there and doing their jobs – a great program.

  • Heights

    I think Courtney may be talking about the DOS street cleaners. The mechanical ones.

  • Clark Street Resident

    My wife and I had a great time on Homer’s Walking Tour last Saturday…highly recommend it to all interested in Brooklyn Height’s history. Thank you Homer!

  • FYI

    Every time I walk past Clinton Street and Pierrepont, I notice the same homeless guy with a huge shopping cart sitting on a chair and either staring into St. Ann’s windows from across the street, or staring into the windows at the back of the public library. It is creepy. Has anyone else seen this guy? Should I report him somewhere? While staring isn’t exactly a crime, it’s odd that he sits down in a chair and stares into windows where children are gathered, for hours on end.

  • David on Middagh

    Courtney: are you on a corner, as I am? For a while, I had to endure multiple comings and goings of the cleaning machines, which seemingly had to recover old ground to navigate the one way streets. (Now the routes have changed, or the timing.)

  • John

    FYI this guy also stars at my daughter when we walk by him.
    since most of these guys are pedophiles I’m not surprised.
    word to the wise report all weird behavior to the 84th. pct.

  • Berkeley Grosvenor
  • Wallard

    @John, I think that statistics bear out that most pedophilia is committed either by a family member (one-third of all cases), or someone known and trusted by the family (half of all cases, be it a teacher, clergy, care giver, family friend). 10% would be attributed to “strangers”, such as the guy who “stars” at your daughter and engages in other weird behavior.

  • Bartmann

    Note regarding trees on the Promenade.

    This past weekend I showed a friend the Promenade. He is an arborist and specializes in trees of this area. Along the promenade, at the Pierrepont street exit there is a little stretch of trees. These trees are between the Pierrepont playground and the promenade.

    There are three trees tied together with steel cable around each trunk about 30 feet above the ground. The problem is the way these three trees are tied together; the steel cable goes tightly around each tree trunk. When anything is tied around a tree, cord, chain, or steel cable it will eventually kill the tree.

    The arborist further explained that all the growth of a tree takes place on the outside. Nutrients and water flow up and down a tree at the outermost area of the trees. The inside of the tree has almost no transfer of nutrients. So if you were to look at a cross section of a tree trunk, the innermost (oldest) rings have no transfer of nutrients while the outer rings have the most. So when a steel cable bites into the bark and the outer rings of a tree, it is being choked to death. He said that the solution is to place a bolt THROUGH the tree rather than around it.

    My hunch is that the property these three trees are on belong to the Parks Department. So perhaps if someone has some pull over there they can mention it. Regardless of what happens, it will be interesting to walk by these three trees over the seasons to see how long they last.

    Bartmann

  • Courtney

    I am on a corner but it is more the DOS street cleaning trucks going down henry. It seems excessive and incessant. I just have to imagine there is a more efficient way to do it.

  • Karl Junkersfeld

    Bartmann,

    I just saw the trees in question and there are 4 and they are Cherry Trees. I agree, it will be fun watching them grow up. FWIW, the section across from these trees looking north will be cleared and additional Cherry Trees will be planted to make it symmetrical.

  • ClarknHenry

    Anybody else upset about the new MONDAY flyer distribution (JCPennys — over the past two Mondays), added to the already regular Wednesday distribution? When I think about the amount of paper and plastic this adds to our land fills, to make no mention of the increased voume of litter clogging our streets and sewars, I get furious. This is a BAD business model. I mean what if a dozen others did the same thing? And in the name a free speech? Please… I think the laws need to be changed to require anything left on stoops to be addressed to residents inside the building… even “occupant.” I am thinking about bringing it to the attention of City COuncil and the Community Board. Nobody wants these circulars. The vast majority of them get thrown out. My other idea: to make copies of the “Do not leave unsolcitied advertising materials on this propoerty” signs and post them on every single building in Brooklyn Heights. Any thoughts? It is very difficult to get them to stop delivering. I got so pissed off one Wednesday morning, I dumped her granny cart over right in the middle of Henry street…

  • AEB

    OK, my gripe of the day. The crossing guard at Hicks and Middagh invariably leaves half-empty coffee containers on garbage pail covers, which are in a shed adjacent to my building.

    This means that I–and others–attempting to throw away garbage in those cans must first deal with her garbage.

    Posted notices have an effect for a few days, but she reverts to her carelessness. An irony is that she’s being responsible for kids, but refuses to take responsibility for her garbage.

    Any suggestions?

  • nabeguy

    AEB, buy her a nice recyclable coffee thermos…she probably won’t leave that lying around.

  • AEB

    Ah, but, nabe–that would mean she’d have to fill the thermos, undoubtedly from a cup of coffee, leaving that cup empty and….

    …but thanks, anyway. My thought is to electrify the garbage shed. I DO have rubber gloves somewhere….

  • weird

    @ John: Followed your advice. Just reported AEB to the 84th precinct. Electrifying the garbage shed? Thats a weird thought. To be honest I reported a couple of others who post to this blog.

  • David on Middagh

    @weird: And I just reported you. Because who does that?

  • AEB

    Oh, weir, I joke, I joke….

    …but you knew that.

    Yes?

  • Hicks St guy

    John, how do you know most homeless are pedophiles? Hope you plan on moving out soon, don’t need the likes of people who think like you around. poverty=perversion, eh?

  • David on Middagh

    AEB – Regarding the crossing guard who leaves coffee cups. This will work: let everyone save each cup as encountered and then, respectfully, return it to her. “I wanted to return this to you. This is yours, right? Oh, no, I don’t feel comfortable throwing away others’ property. Nice day today!” The habit might not break immediately, but after several such encounters, she will become self-conscious at the very moment of leaving the cup on the bin.

    Your money back if this doesn’t work.

  • AEB

    Thank you, David, for an EXCELLENT suggestion.

    Here’s the barn I keep going round and round, though: I have a finite number of brain cells that are becoming more finite as time passes. I keep weighing the investment of more of same in solving this particular problem against not.

    Also, there’s the adrenalin issue. Every time I encounter yet another cup, said substance courses through my veins. I feel ANGER. But I don’t like that feeling when it occurs in relation to a relatively small matter. The FEELING becomes the problem.

    In other words, perhaps I should just…let it be. I know this may sound like “recanting,” specially as I posted the dilemma to begin with, but….

    Anyway, thanks again for your suggestion. Maybe the best answer is to wait until school’s out, which should be soon, no?

  • David on Middagh

    Waiting until school’s out is an excellent tactic. It’s how I’m handling the soft-serve-truck-parked-under-my-apartment issue.

  • AEB

    Oh, hell: today I removed the cup from the top of the bin and placed it next to the guard’s raincoat, which she had draped over an adjacent rail.

    To be continued…or not!

  • On Atlantic

    Does anyone have info on the pony ride vendor who was at Saturday’s Willowtown Fair?
    also amen to Hicks St guy’s response to what John and EVERYBODY knows about homeless people.

  • Bartmann

    FYI and John,

    It is strange when a homeless person chooses our beloved Brooklyn Heights as a home. You think to yourself “your homeless, you can live anywhere. How about Manhattan where you can get more money panhandling. Or perhaps save for a one-way bus ticket to Miami where you don’t have to worry about winter.”

    Speaking of homeless people here is an update on the homeless person in the stairwell at the Court Street R station. I haven’t seen him since the warm weather arrived, which has been a nice reprieve for those of us who like to breathe.

    But this morning I smelled a foul, organic stench rising from the stairwell. I knew something was amiss. So I slowed down my pace peeking around every corner to make sure I didn’t come upon something dangerous. Well there in the stairwell was the homeless man bathing his genitals with a stinky, dirty towel. He was facing the stairs and was standing in a way so that anyone walking up or down would see him and have to turn sideways to pass him. He was partially tumescent because of the way his meat was flopping around with aplomb as he wiped the area down. He had a defiant look as he eyed me during his ablutions.

    Nothing could have prepared me for the sight and stench that assaulted me as I slithered past him and down the stairs.

    Bartmann

  • Coodie

    I loved the idea of lying on that pristine grass in the park –until I did and noticed I was crawling with little red mite looking things!!!

    Wtf is that about????

  • AEB

    Gosh–no detail too small! Thanks, Bartman….

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