Open Thread Wednesday (Well, Almost Thursday)

Mea culpa! Filling Homer’s shoes is no easy task. Anyway, here’s a very late OTW, with thanks to reader “Jorale-man” for reminding me. (For many of you, it will be Open Thread Thursday.) What’s on your mind? Comment away!

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  • Hicksanthrope

    Wow. That Pierhouse certainly is big.

  • AnnOfOrange

    The dead Honey Locust trees on the Promenade were being cut down this morning….hopefully to be replaced by nice new hardy specimens. Maybe the people planting those large trees on Remsen Street would like to share.

  • Reggie

    That photo is just one of the many small arguments that can be made for how amazing Brooklyn Bridge Park is.

  • Resident

    Does anyone know when they are going to knock down the movie theatre on Henry?

  • StudioBrooklyn

    More female gingkos perhaps?

  • MonroeOrange

    yes, if the whole park had that feel, it would wonderful….but that sadly is just not the case

  • ShinyNewHandle

    The New York Times extolls Carroll Gardens (and I was half-expecting Karl to be narrating the video)…

    http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/21/realestate/block-by-block-carroll-gardens-video-series.html

  • heights res

    Anyone else besides me no longer receiving Bklyn Hghts blog emails?

  • Jorale-man

    I liken it to a suburban strip mall. I actually wonder how it would look if picked up and moved to the Manhattan street grid. I bet it would easily take up a couple full city blocks.

  • http://selfabsorbedboomer.blogspot.com ClaudeScales

    I’ve received several complaints about this, and am trying to see if it can be corrected.

  • heights res

    Thanks, appreciate your efforts.

  • Roberto Gautier

    It’s always uplifting when people notice trees. They make our lives more serene and take up the slack for our lungs. My wish is that trees would not be seen as mere ornaments for our cityscape. The fact is that we could use a massive planting of trees to help counter the intense pollution in NYC. This proposal goes beyond treehugger rhetoric. More trees translates as a healthier place to live.

  • StoptheChop

    So– we’ll have the 10000’s of pedestrians streaming down Joralemon Street to Smorgasburg on Sunday, competing with the 1000’s of cyclists streaming down Furman Street for the 5 Boro Bike Tour. Should be interesting. Not like the BBP management cares about the impact of their crowds on our neighborhood streets….

  • Boerum Bill

    Welcome to NYC. First day?

  • Bornhere

    What an odd comment. Do you really think that there has always been an unending stream of pedestrians over and back on Joralemon Street? You should have seen it in the good old days — you know, like the 1950s. Or ten years ago…. There was actually a time when the neighborhood was an uncrowded and quiet joy. Even on weekends. Even in the warmer weather.

  • Since2000s

    I remember pre-Brooklyn Bridge Park development when that entire stretch was derelict warehouse and parking lots – with no trees or public waterfront access. My downstairs neighbor who moved here in early 80s talks about the crack den in our building. And the fear of muggings once the sun set. I love the area now, even more than I did before.

  • memeadjuster

    Yeah, but that never had to happen or persist for 40 years. It was due to recklessness, negligence, and gross mismanagement by our “leaders.”

  • Bornhere

    The Heights has never been immune from societal ills, and there are, and likely always will be, muggings and other bad doings everywhere in New York; I am talking about a tone that once existed and is now gone. I feel just as alert, if not more so, to the possibility of a mugging now as I did decades ago; but I have to admit that I never gave a thought to “crack dens.”

  • Willow Street Watch

    This is total nonsense!..anyone who knows the real history of the Heights knows that up to 1972′ you could park a car in the Heights and forget to lock it. Before 1961, there were apartments robbed and kids from red hook looking for things to rip off, but once John Lindsay had his upper/middle management living here the cops came in and rousted any and all bad guys. Between 1964 and the mid seventies it was great.

  • Willow Street Watch

    Then, about 1975, the early yuppies wanted apartments and muggings “induce” older Tennant’s to move, so we had project kids and every other kind of bad guys swarm into the Heights. Some of our “leaders” decided casino kids shouldn’t have to go to dangeriou bergen st to buy their drugs so we promptly had a drug supermarket at the court on Monroe. All this went on until..a group of patriotic Heights residents went hunting each night with the object of causing arrests, which would stick in court. The result was that crime plummited. Finally we threatened to form a gun club…

    And if there’s any more nonsense down at the park, you’ll see what’s going to happen next….

  • Ann B Chapin

    I have not received my “Blog” in email for over a week!! HELP please! Thanks!

  • Ann B Chapin

    have not received in over a week!

  • memeadjuster

    Prattle much?

  • flagel

    I don’t live on the south side of montague but I feel very bad for the people that have had their streets ruined and overrun … a few kids going to the park no problem, but it is more like unruly hordes of people. its and all day and night thing in the good weather.. I have no issue with the park except that the pierhouse is ridiculous and out of place, but the park should only be accessed on old fulton and atlantic. . That’s obvious .. the urban planners that allowed this should be fired , the whole site is poorly planned.. I have a feeling that once pierhouse is open that they will hire private security to keep everyone away from the park so the problem will be solved. and the rich will have stolen a treasure from all citizens of Brooklyn

  • Willow Street Watch

    Accurate history may be unsettling to the dishonest or small of mind, but is very thing that is needed now…

  • Willow Street Watch

    ALL of what you have said was fully predicted openly at public hearings when this “idea” was first floated more than twenty years ago and at every stage of the advancement of the BBP project. But one by one the forces which planned and advanced the BBP turned or silenced every “leading figure” in the Heights. EXCEPT for those who prized sanity over the way the wind was blowing or political correctness and..were immune finally to cries of racism…

    Now ALL of what many openy predicted has happened and worse effects are fast developing. What now folks? Are we simply going to allow conditions to worsen? Don’t look at certain leaders, like a lot of casino types, they’re gone from the neighborhood often from May 15 to Sept 15…

    There ARE highly effective methods to stop what is happening and prevent worsening conditions but you have to be willing to stop your complaining and take the honest, proven course of actions which controlled the far worse situation(s) of the seventies.

  • http://selfabsorbedboomer.blogspot.com ClaudeScales

    The problem is that the email system had a password known only to John. We are trying to work around this problem; in the meantime, you can always get access to the blog through your search engine. To make things easier, you can bookmark it, and it’s then always just a click away.

  • Roberto Gautier

    Lisa Foderaro’s article in the New York Times of May 3 focused on the little bridge that wobbled too much, was closed and went nowhere. She wrote about the foot bridge into Brooklyn Bridge Park from the Squibb Park. Sadly, this span on suspenders (sic) into Pierhouse’s “front yard” falls into the symbolic category. It has turned out to be a costly ornament more appropriate over a stream in rural America. Its reason for being seems to have been more a part of a marketing scheme for the “billion dollar park” with the feel of a packed Venezia during tourist season.

  • Mary

    Stepped out onto the terrace to see the incredible full yellow moon tonight, only to hear a loud helicopter overhead. Made me think of Homer Fink. What a void he left, but thank you Claude for keeping this going.

  • Roberto Gautier

    The moon was magnificent. I, too, thought of Homer when the chopper chopped. It should be pointed out that Mayor DiBlasio has been silent about this. Many don’t know that with a stroke of his pen, helicopter flocks could be reduced big time. We need techies to start proposing design changes in helicopter rotors and engines. Stealth helicopters should not be reserved for Navy Seals.