Open Thread Wednesday

By on December 8, 2015 11:59 pm in open thread

What’s on your mind? Comment away!

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  • Jeffrey Smith

    There has a big decline in the visable amount and quality of Christmas lighting so far this year. There HAS been a big increase in viable Xmas trees.

    The Best thing this year has been the various Xmas items from the “refreshments” on youtube…Their “The Christmas Race” is great…but their “I’m the real Santa…” is this year’s holiday season total knockout!!

  • Henry

    Council member Steve Levin is in a position to STOP the Heights Library mega-tower boondoggle cold — and head off a juggernaut of similar library sales to developers city wide. Watch this short video about Levin and Brad Lander and BPL President Linda Johnson. City Council votes TOMORROW. Please contact Levin ASAP to voice your concerns.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aks6ymI9Bws

  • DIBS

    Or not.

  • Willow Street Watch

    Typical.

    For DECADES I don’t know of any really good researcher who did not consider the Cadman Library the best research facility per sq ft in the Nation! There was NOWHERE else where you could get more done per day of research in immediate financial business subjects than at Cadman. Now what? All of that’s disposable? Because of a wave of trashy greedy/yupp-o types want it just to be gone? And just also because many of the defenders of the facility are allowing it to happen by using aspirin on cancer?

    What a great…and accurate comment on where we are in the decline process of this country!….

  • alyssabereznak

    Hey friends,

    Our 15th episode is out. And *LIT* like a decorative menorah in a classy bay window. Check it out, if you please. http://bkheightscast.com/15-i-hope-this-place-burns-to-the-ground/

    Alyssa

  • Elaine Rendon

    Am I the only one who dislikes the holiday decor on court st? I mean it’s decorated and that’s nice but they couldn’t choose better ones? I mean bay ridge /park slope have snowflakes and the occasional Santa. I’m just wondering if this has anything to do with the “we don’t want to offend anyone” decorations.

  • Jeffrey Smith

    Exactly. EVERYONE I know just took one look and was repulsed or simply didn’t understand what they were thinking. And, yes, the next thought a LOT of people had that this was PC run totally amok!!!

    Hey, why is it that we had decades of fine, uplifting Christmas/holiday season lights and now we need to have what looks like some Weimar era avant gard film or some geometry teacher’s GERD!

    Paging: Santa, Rudolph, Frosty, Er, call in Gene Autry too…you’re all needed STAT!

  • DIBS

    Ummmm if you were more well informed, you wwould know that the library will have space in the new development.

  • Reggie

    “Head off a juggernaut of similar library sales to developers city wide.” Unlikely, if for no other reason that almost all of the branches in the three library systems lack the development rights to make the strategy worthwhile. Hyperbole much?

  • Roberto Gautier

    Steve Levin has been in this position before and was willing to cast a no vote with great pressures.

    from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle 6/20/2012

    The board of Brooklyn Bridge Park has voted to approve a joint venture between Toll Brothers City Living and Starwood Capital Group to develop an approximately 550,000-square-foot luxury hotel-condo complex on the upland of Pier 1, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced yesterday.

    The vote was 15 in favor, one against and two abstentions, according to a spokesperson for Brooklyn Bridge Park.

    That “no” vote belonged to Councilman Steve Levin (D-Brooklyn Heights/Downtown).

    “Councilman Levin campaigned against housing in the park, and he decided to vote his conscience,” said Ben Petok, Levin’s director of communications.

    Will the pressure be too great this time?

  • John

    DIBS, you ignorant moron living in your subsidized apartment with your tux and Rolls avatar,

    There are two libraries in the space now. Only one is being replaced.

    Get up to speed.

  • Maggie

    I like them. They’re colorful. This time of year, when the darkness sets in, it’s nice to have something bright and fun to look at. To me they look like patterned fabric. Besides, every store window is covered in Santas and reindeer and snowflakes from Halloween through January. I think it’s refreshing to have something different now and then. Atlantic has snowflakes, Montague has tree lights, Court and Fulton have brightly colored patterns, a feast for the eyes!

  • DIBS

    I live in my houses and I don’t drive a Rolls. I actually have a Bentley GT.

    One library is more than enough in any particular location. Wasted space and all that

    I assume with your ad hominem attack that you are a very progressive liberal.

  • DIBS

    Yes, they are enjoyable. We need to enjoy them now before the PC police make them all go away in a few years.

  • StudioBrooklyn

    I learned something new today! I thought for sure that reference was going to be to Hemingway’s short story, “Hills Like White Elephants”, a staple in creative fiction curricula. Your reference definitely worked better. Nicely done.

  • StudioBrooklyn

    For a reasonable fee I’ll paint a grizzly crucifixion scene, full of lambs and angels and stuff, on any surface and you can hang it up wherever you like. It doesn’t even have to be a grizzly crucifixion, I’ll do mangers, snowmen, the Prophet Muhammad, apocalyptic scenes depicting Birkenstock-clad liberals being flayed alive by snakes with Ben Carson’s face, whatever floats your boat. And I’m a way better painter than a lot of the other people out there doing that sort of work (for example, see attached image). Let me know if you’re interested.

  • DIBS

    Sorry, not interested. I try not to associate with the wackjobs except online places like here.

    And, you made my point by introducing your politics into it.

  • R.O.Shipman

    That’s not quite right either, though. The business library is being relocated to the main branch at GAP. You are free to argue that this is a loss for the neighborhood, I guess, though as a borough wide resource Brooklyn is still keeping that library.

    I’d also note that as to WSW’s research argument above, it’s a silly point. The best research library by square foot in the world is a computer in a closet. Most private companies that have had in-house libraries (law firms, media companies, etc.) are cutting and shrinking them left and right. Almost all research is done online today. Research libraries are needed only for truly esoteric subjects. Not “financial business subjects.”

  • StudioBrooklyn

    My mistake DIBS! That comment was intended for a number of other people who I think are more thirsty for publicly displayed religious imagery during the winter holiday season. However, from your Bentley comment I surmise you’re a man of refined taste. Do you collect art? I don’t actually specialize in religious scenes.

    And what exactly are my politics, anyway? I’ve never been able to figure that one out.

  • DIBS

    LOL. I certainly did get a laugh at the “Birkenstock-clad liberals” phrase. The only other phrase that might be more appropriate might be “kale-eating liberals.” But now I tread too closely to an ad hominem comment that I admonished John for above.

    I don’t collect art per se but 18th & 19th C American furniture, silver and pewter along with all sorts of drinking objects for ales, alcohols and teas.

    If there’s anything “Christmasy” that deserves a good rant it’s the selling of ORGANIC Chrismas trees at the church at the cor of Montague and Clinton

  • RJG

    I enjoy the lights! The liveliness is impressive given the designers worked with only triangles and half circles.

    Here’s the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership introduction: “New Design to Light Downtown for the Holidays”

    http://www.downtownbrooklyn.com/posts/community/new-design-to-light-downtown-for-the-holidays

  • Elaine Rendon

    Well that’s what happens when I speak to soon lol. i had no idea about the concept of their designs. Still I stand by my opinion but I see why the change is well liked.

  • Elaine Rendon

    I see your point. As I mentioned in a comment further down, I still stand by my opinion but see where you are coming from

  • Henry

    Watch the video and you’ll see Linda Johnson, President of the Brooklyn Public Library, touting the Brooklyn Heights Library sale-for-shrinkage deal as an *example* for all three library systems in New York City.

    Says Johnson: “The other systems are looking at projects like this … this is a model they are now examining …”

    Of course not every effort to “leverage” these valuable public assets will result in a 400-foot luxury condo tower. But there are plenty of other library properties on BPL’s list, which was developed years before the Brooklyn Heights deal was announced. Straw man much?

  • Elaine Rendon

    I sincerely hope you’re not talking about me. The only one who took this into religious territory is you. I get that Christmas has more religious meaning to some, I was just merely stating my opinion on how it’s less christmasy around here. No big tree at the promenade, no snowflakes etc. I fail to see what trees and snowflakes have to do with people wanting more religious imagery.

  • Concerned

    Nice bromance between DIBS and Studiobrooklyn… Maybe you two can take a ride on DIBS’ internet Rolls and then SB can send part of his ear to DIBS’ mansion.

  • DIBS

    Don’t quit your day job.

  • Concerned

    :(
    “Don’t let compliments get to your head and don’t let criticism get to your heart.”
    – Concerned

  • Reggie

    Yeah, sure, and the Center for an Urban Future thinks its a good strategy too. But the fact is the strategy will work in very few places.

  • Reggie

    juggernaut: “a huge, powerful, and overwhelming force or institution”

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