Open Thread Wednesday

By on October 27, 2015 11:44 pm in Brooklyn Heights, open thread

What’s on your mind? Comment away!

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  • MonroeOrange

    what are you talking about…the person who was complaining about the rudeness of the waitstaff, hadn’t even got service, bc they weren’t let in!

  • Willow Street Watch

    If you want better restaurants or better anything, the Heights as a community should get back to what distinguished communities did in saner times. When a restaurant opened. First they had ONE couple from a well established family, perhaps a 7.5 on a 10 social scale come on and test the food and service. The place is empty except for the test couple. If the food and service is good enough they may get another couple a 7.7, er I should have said the social scale is a log scale, if there is a problem with service the first 7.5 couple, through the male, quietly or sometimes at higher volume complains and leaves. The place is still empty and another test couple is sent in. If the food and service doesn’t improve, the place remains empty and, the negative advertising grows. Many restauranteurs made a strong effort to get the mayor or a better social high profile couple to dine. But until one or more people of background and decernment declaired the establishment worthwhile, the place remained empty or did very little business. Sometimes the tester was a single professor or very experienced world traveler, but, you get the idea:

    Today its exactly the opposite. Some often questionable type opens a restaurant and has learned the secret of how to send “the buzz” to one of several social circuits, chiefly the mindless Yups or the foodies and the cattle stampede is on to the “new” spot “everyone is going to” Of course this encourages whatever operator to immediately try to explore 1) how cheap and bad her can run his operation and 2) how far can he thereafter further lower his service while still having the dopes robotally pack in.

  • Willow Street Watch

    The obviously point is, if you want better commercial service, or better government YOU have to change how YOU as in individual and how you allow those in your social group conduct themselves. If you act with decernment and (gasp) discrimination, those who serve you have to keep their service high. This most importantly includes the behavior of government. Why? Because there is an fast, sure and well known PENALTY for bad service behavior. This kind of very healthy reactivity kept society on a high level a high civilation needs to maintain itself and encourages the exploring how higher levels still can be obtained.

    Conduct like you do now and all you encourage is a race to the bottom. Which is exactly what you got…and deserved.

  • gatornyc

    Wow, just wow.

  • ColumbiaHeightster

    Moral of the story is, be a jerk if you want good service? Um, no thanks.

  • HereToStay

    I think you just write these things to try and get people going. This is just nutty. But have fun…

  • CookieGuggleman

    You’re just trolling everyone on this blog.

  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlsiLOnWCoI Arch Stanton

    Oh so now you’re some sort of socialite proponent? After all the “Casino” bashing you’ve done, I’ll call you a hypocrite.

  • NoMoreWSW

    I used to read this blog everyday and this past year or so, I find myself coming less often. Honestly, it’s primarily because WSW has hijacked this blog. Every post has a new magnum opus comment, and every OTW is a WSW complaint about people of color, age or political affiliation. I used to look forward to OTW because of the information or just random musings from my neighbors. Now, it’s basically turned into one person’s personal public ideological soapbox.

    For the love of BHB, please just remove OTW. The well has been poisoned, and we just need to stop using the water. Seal it, and may that water never see the light of day again.

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

    He would seem much classier if he could learn to spell discernment properly.

  • StudioBrooklyn

    I dunno, I feel sorry for the guy. As I’ve said in the past, I comment on this blog out of a certain mixture of boredom and the desire to express/exchange ideas–obviously for whatever reason that’s a need that is going unfulfilled in other aspects of daily life, so taking it out online feels somewhat embarrassing like a bad habit. I have a rich life full of valuable friends and peers, so why this extra kick? And that’s just me. I can only imagine the kind of crippling boredom and isolation that would lead someone like WSW to rant here the way he does. I interpret it as a kind of cry for help: we have a neighbor who appears to be in need of a friend, one that exists away from his computer.

  • Willow Street Watcj

    I notice that you are not offering any refutation of anything I or others disagreeing with me offered. In this series of postings I just responded with my insight on what is fundamentally wrong with modern social practices which produces the poor service incidents so common today.

    As far as I somehow driving away users of the blog, really? Then why is the use of the blog now for all indications on the rise?

    Just look at the still continuing gun debate….the AMOUNT of posts, the quality of many of the posts AND the amount of CRITICAL INFORMATION on an important choice in public policyn which neither print nor broadcast media ever thought necessary to bring to the public’s attention.

    Our debates, explore major issues, but they also probe what is threatening or is going wrong in the Heights and the possible origin conditions to first, try to find the causes and the mechanisms of the problems then formulat a corrective measures and suggest them to the community.

    Of course, there are elements who profit from the disorders and want none of this done and so, protest any of this appearing in public discussion. Of course they will move to attempt to surpress what they can’t answer in honest public discourse. This is what you are seeing here.

    As far as Studio’s response, I think we can all do without any amateur psychology. I and most contributes to the blog do this out of public sprit and concern for community. I do this often during a busy business day while doing other things. Often the not fully finished sentence structure is evidence of this. So? That makes me or others so contributing some kind of bad guy? Really? I give up folks.

  • Brixtony

    I second that emotion. Frankly, this guy strikes me as a loose cannon who is either a cowardly liar hiding behind a pseudonym or possibly a potential danger to others if he actually acts on his fantasies. He is a gun owner who needs his barrel spiked. On the other hand, I’m awaiting, with bated breath, his pronouncements on presidential candidates. Waddya think? Cruz? Should be interesting.

  • Brixtony

    The upper class types don’t have to spell. That’s for the grammarzoids from CANARSIE!

  • Brixtony

    Don’t let facts enter into this. It’s un-American and you’re liable to be shot and banned from all local eateries that haven’t been vetted by those at the top echelons of society and the John Birch Society.

  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlsiLOnWCoI Arch Stanton

    My GF and I had similar experiences. The other night I checked the FOAF website, says they are open till 11, we went there a little before 10:00 only to find a locked door….
    We tried again today for brunch, sign on the door says open a 9:00 it was after 9:30 the door was locked, a staff member appeared and simply said “we’re not open yet”…
    I wanted to like this place but so far they’re of to a bad start.

  • http://selfabsorbedboomer.blogspot.com/ Claude Scales
  • Willow Street Watch

    I shouldn’t responds to 3ither of this kind of post. But, I’,m some kind of loose cannon? This from two entities which just recently “appeared” in BH. Really? I’ve been involved with BH public affairs for like 55 years. Just ask Dozier Hasty who I’ve annoyed for years. S9 how an I a loose cannon.

    And by the way I an no longer a gun(s) owner. I have used the last few years working on and now have several operation prototypes of my beam weapons. Which I’m very proud of….the handheld model achieved 24 megavolts in the latest test….

  • Concerned

    WSW is a reminder (sometimes painful) of the differing opinions (sometimes scary) in the neighborhood. I don’t like most of them, but I am trying to learn to ignore them. If we don’t take the bait (which I am guilty of), WSW’s posts will have much less of an effect on the blog. I say let WSW keep swinging, but let him/her find air at the end of every swing. My guess is that the “crazy” in the posts will subside and the blog will return to the civil discourse we are used to.

  • Willow Street Watch

    More Amateur psychology. Notice that speaking to the ISSUES I and a number of responsible, thoughtful Heights residents raised are left carefully unaddressed. Notice that never do any of these “critics” offer point by point valid refutations of the point responsible citizens raised.Sue they don’t because they can’t and won’t.

    All you’ll see from any of these voices are personal attacks and attempts at character assassination.

  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlsiLOnWCoI Arch Stanton

    You shouldn’t feel sorry for him, I am 99.999 % sure I know who he is. Back in the early 80’s this person attempted to distribute neo-nazi and white supremacist propaganda to the neighborhood teenagers, Till one of our Jewish brothers punched him square in the face… he didn’t come around much after that :) He also had a Ham Radio and would pollute the shortwave airways with his racist rants, under the handle “White Power”.

  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlsiLOnWCoI Arch Stanton

    You know you got him cold when there’s no 10 paragraph response :)

  • Willow Street Watch

    That’s an amazingly vile toned attack. But that’s all were getting here; increasingly nasty personal attacks and assaults on my character. You NEVER see point by point argument. You’ll never see that. Why? Because the forces responsible for so damaging society and their advertent or inadvertent cohorts don’t and never want ANY examination of their activities. And if they don’t want attention, the absolutely don’t want any detailed analysis of their ongoing actions or any overview of the extent of their effects on this nation. And when someone does begin to probe what in actuality is occurring, it’s mechanism and what are the causal factors…or agents, those responsible or complicit go into rage/panic mode. Of course they attack the the examiner.

    But given the nature of the above, by an entity who has just “appeared” it would appear appropriate for me to get, well less pleasant;….when you see certain kinds of remarks, remember that if you go into an infested basement and turn on the light, the vermin always hate the lightbrarer.

  • StudioBrooklyn

    First of all, that’s a pretty strong charge, which I’ll take under advisement but consider WSW “innocent until proven guilty”; perhaps he wants to take the opportunity here to defend himself from it?

    Secondly–I’ll offer as a precursor to what I’m about to say: I’m probably one of the less religious people you’re ever likely to meet in this neighborhood, or maybe even in your lifetime. It’s partly because of my utter lack of religiosity that I’ve come to the conclusion that compassion should be unconditional whenever one is able to extend it. Even if your allegations about WSW are true, I would still feel sorry for him, perhaps even more so. Attitudes such as those engendered by white supremacists don’t grow out of circumstances in which a person is in close, real-life, ongoing contact with accepting, understanding, rational people.

    I try to be friendly and neighborly to everyone I meet around here. I hope that if everyone behaves that way, there won’t be any place for animosity to hide. I know that sounds like a stupid platitude but in my experience it’s been a fact of life.

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

    I expect him to come up with a short, dismissive piece, along the lines suggested by Brixtony, on how orthography is a trivial matter, beneath the notice of great minds.

  • Andrew Porter

    Whenever I pass by, I don’t see anyone in there. Also, suggested they post the menu in the window, for when the door is locked, but I guess they can’t be bothered.

  • Andrew Porter

    Here’s an old photo of the corner of Pierrepont Street and Fulton Street:

  • StudioBrooklyn

    For whatever it’s worth, spelling and grammar are indeed in constant flux. Just last week I kept hearing something on WNYC (don’t recall which program) about cooperation’s relatively recent lack of a hyphen (and resultant confusion by early word processors with “Cupertino”). New Yorker readers will note that the magazine’s style rules affect umlauts where in English none exist.

  • Andrew Porter

    Here is a photo of the corner of Cranberry Street and Fulton Street, before all the buildings were torn down for the Cadman redevelopment. You can see the Peaks Mason Mints building at the left, in the distance:

  • Andrew Porter

    The Miles Standish, if that’s what you’re talking about, was owned by the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who sold it. It was completely renovated a few years ago and is now a rental building. Here’s their website:

    http://www.thestandish.com

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