Open Thread Wednesday 4/13/11

By on April 13, 2011 12:50 am in Brooklyn Heights

What’s on your mind? Comment away!
BHB Photo Club pic by fkuffel via Flickr

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  • Eddy de Lectron

    AEB, Please, look at a map read a dictionary and try to figure it out on your own… If you still find it comforting to hold onto false beliefs, so be it.

    Or try this equation: No golf course no mall = no suburb :)

  • T.K. Small

    Poetic license…

  • mlo

    I agree with sky. Our neighborhood may be charming -but not all of its residents are. I find it difficult to beleive that a one of you haven’t encountered the sheer lack of regard for others that seems to be the norm whether walking about, grocery shopping or buying a cup of coffee.
    I have found that maintaining my own pleasant attitude and sporting a big smile can be an instant mood lifter and is often quite contageous. Try it – really

    @Eddy- I agree this neighborhood is no longer a suburb. Have you shopped in Trader Joes or tried walking on any street on a pleasant day- its like walking down Broadway. There isn’t a space that isn’t being built on. They’re building on top of buildings for petes sake- and soon we can look forward to loosing our waterfront views welcoming thousands more people and further compromising all that did once make BH a wonderful place to live. Its all a bit overboard in my opinion.

  • harumph

    @ABC grocery story is great – you are what being a good neighbor is all about

  • AEB

    Eddy (and I’m coming to enjoy posting with your name at the top, so perhaps I’ll continue to do so, no matter what I post), perhaps one should make a distinction between suburbia as a geographical fact and as a state having to do with what makes a place FEEL urban or not.

    You know,”urban” involves things like bustle/street life; places to go, day and night; great stores and restaurants, a plurality of people-types; diverse cultural options, including theater (though the Clark Street arcade is in its way vaut le voyage); like that.

    So, although BH is certainly a Garden Spot and in all ways picture-pretty, to me, as a north Heights resident who seldom slips past Montague to the south, or slips past it to Cobble Hill, which has acres more happening in it than BH, it’s a miss that’s as good as a mile.

    PS, we DO, however, have helicopters overhead in the early AM. I’m not sure that confers urbanity, however.

  • Topham Beauclerk

    Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
    Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.

  • Peter

    Thought I would share my quick review of “Seasons,” where I dined last weekend:

    FOOD: B … good overall, went with the tuna-salmon parfait appetizer, and the braised beef ribs main course. Tasty, smallish but satisfying plates, nothing overly exciting but overall I was pleased. Had a decently-priced bottle of Cab for under $40 that hit the mark.

    SERVICE: D+ … the waiter (a middle-aged, balding man) was a nice guy and his heart was in the right place, but he must have come over 10 times (no lie) to see how things were, and lingered each time with small talk. Dude, go away, things are fine. Also, many desserts were not available that night, which we did not know until after we ordered (and obviously did not receive).

    OVERALL: B- … Warm-enough atmosphere, with good food and service that needs improvement (I think there were only 2 waiters working that night). Good addition to the hood, much better than Bread and Butter.

  • Tony

    @Peter: the “is everything OK here?” visit from waiters is a major irritant. Who started this idiotic trend? Note how the finest restaurants never do that. You have great patience to put up with 10; if I got more than one, I’d snap.

  • nabeguy

    demonter, that site (Brooklyn Geneaology Info) happens to be on eof my favorites. Go to the home page and give it a spin, expecially the Stile’s Histroy of Brooklyn.

  • Mariel

    Regarding leashes on kids, this is what I was told once in Cadman Plaza restaurant [on Henry St before their lease ran out]. The Blankfields would shop in our store at 50 Henry [ Norman’s,open from summer 1971 to December 2002 ], and I would also see them and chat while they were having a meal. Mrs. Blankfield told me that when her son was little he was into everything and always moving, and she attached him to a tree in the yard with a long leash sometimes when she couldn’t keep full attention on him. That son is the musician Peter Wolf, and looking at his earlier videos with him moving and dancing, I think of him, little, dancing like crazy around a tree.

  • gc

    Went down to the Promenade to enjoy the beautiful day. Instead I was greeted by the constant roar of helicopter traffic. Betwen 12:10 and 12:30 I counted 26 takeoffs or landings in 20 minutes.
    That’s more than 1 every minute!!

    Weren’t these same helicopters thrown out of Manhattan?

    Why can’t our elected representatives here in Brooklyn protect us the same way those in Manhattan protected their constituents?

  • Mariel

    Nabeguy, Stile’s History of Brooklyn is great. I learned that the corner now occupied by Trader Joe’s was an outlying vegetable garden for a Brooklyn village resident. Also there was a big hill north of what is now the Atlantic and Court intersection. Red Hook Lane detoured around it. Late one night a few fellows in Red Hook ran out of drink, and an unlucky one was picked to go up to Livingstone’s distillery to resupply. He had to go around the hill past a haunted house, and he disappeared, never seen again. Also the African Burial Ground was mentioned in Stile’s. A Brooklyn resident had a town house in the city that was on Broadway, west of the ABG. When it was uncovered they said it was lost history, but it couldn’t have been unknown.

  • GHB

    This might be the longest Heights blog OT without any racist rants!

  • nabeguy

    You’re not the Mariel I grew up with on Middagh Street, are you? Had a brother named Eric?

  • Jorale-man

    I love the “balding, middle-aged man” Peter’s restaurant review.

    Brownstoner has a nice feature on the townhouses on Clinton and Aitken Place today, btw, which it calls “among the most photographed houses in Brooklyn Heights. Long may they stand.”

    http://www.brownstoner.com/brownstoner/archives/2011/04/building_of_the_279.php

  • T.K. Small

    Construction is going on at 200 Hicks St.. Usually I do not complain too much about excessive noise, but has anyone else noticed the remarkably noisy pulley system that they are using to bring the materials up to the roof. It is incredibly loud.

  • heightsguy

    It’s hard to maneuver a stroller and assorted equipment for kids into a crowded place and get money out of a purse. It can be annoying to be stuck behind them, but have a little heart. Such haters this week: kids, moms, dogs! Yes, glad there is no racist rant, but certainly ageism, mysogyny, caninephobia. And the first residents of Brooklyn were native Americans, for about 5,000 years. Heights was called Ihpetonga

  • nabeguy

    heightsguy, I bet you didn’t know that Ihpetonga translates to “have your shells ready”

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

    Nabeguy: Cognac flies from my nostrils. You’ll be sorely missed.

  • TS McGee

    Really Claude? It wasn’t that funny. Kinda pathetic.

  • Arch Stanton

    heightsguy, perhaps you should change your moniker to heightsmetrosexual.

  • north heights res

    heightsguy, being annoyed by privileged and inconsiderate mothers is NOT misogyny. Easy with the sensationalism.

  • Big Dave

    Open Thread wonders:
    Complaints of course, but praise for Life —
    Spring is in the air!

  • nabeguy

    Sorry Claude, I didn’t mean for you to snort your snort.

  • Capt Furillo
  • http://Building Jeffrey J Smith

    Did anyone see the apparent official helo overflight on last saturday at like 11:30?

    There was a VERY VERY LOW overtflight. It lasted till 11:55
    and then ended. It was at such a low level that plates were rattled in ajoining apartments and people came to their doors.

    If ANTHING had gone wrong, the helo would never be able to recover at that altitude. VERY VERY Alarming…..

    What was the possible justification for a overflight at what was
    certainly below 400 Ft?

    One of the grand personages that “cover” or “represent” the heights should take the extreme effort to somehow be concerned when a few tons of metal and fuel is at a very dangerious
    distance just above your children’s heads.

    Someone should be made to answer for this incident.
    should

  • http://Building Jeffrey J Smith

    and why was there a stationary helo at 6:05 AM wed morning till
    aprox 6:30? They were so low that early risers felt the chopper noise pounding. There were a large number of people upset given
    the number of persons at their windows along Henry St large buildings tryiong to see what was generating such noise.

    Wghat was the justification for this incident with its level of
    noise?

  • http://Building Jeffrey J Smith

    Re: GHB, I’ve never seen any kind of genuine racism on this blog.

  • heightsguy

    Arch stanton, me a “Metrosexual”, lmao, maybe “Metroschlepper” would be more apt. or “Gristedeshater”.

    I’m sympathetic to stroller moms b/c I’m the dad of one! I agree that the Heights is full of entitled and snobby people who are inconsiderate, but the level of aggression in some of the posts about kids, mothers, and dogs generated an uncomfortable feeling. I’ll tell you what makes me go ballistic, when cars pull right up into the crosswalk at a stop sign or red light, If you see someone screaming at such a driver, you will know me.

  • TS McGee

    I’m sympathetic to stroller moms b/c I love their huge breasts. I agree that the Heights is full of entitled and snobby people who are inconsiderate, but the level of aggression in some of the posts about kids, mothers, and dogs generated are uncomfortable. Maybe we can call a truce between foolish dog handlers and foolish children handlers.

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