Open Thread Wednesday

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  • HereToStay

    Last year we brought spring flowers from the nursery over in Red Hook near Fairway and they all died… Are there any places nearby folks recommend for early outdoor potted plants?

  • rjg

    Last night solar-powered Bigbelly trash cans were installed along Court Street and Boerum Place.

    http://www.downtownbrooklyn.com/posts/community/let-s-talk-trash

  • Concerned

    I’ve noticed new homeless persons on Montague. They’re an eyesore. They’re dirty. They’re annoying. I want them gone. That’s right. I said it and I don’t even vote republican!!!
    Outside of curing the entire city’s homeless/mental illness problem (surely what some will advocate here) is there any way to get rid of these poor souls from our neighborhood?

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

    Why don’t you buy them a condo in another neighborhood, I bet they would be open to making the move.

  • WillowL

    Concerned???? You don’t sound very concerned. This is one of the worst posts I have ever read. ” They’re dirty”, ” they’re annoying”. These are just down right cruel comments to make. If you were concerned you would reach out to the coalition for the homeless. These people are dirty because they don’t have access to a clean shower, they’re ” annoying”, because they don’t know who else to turn to for help. Most of our city shelters are over crowded and down right dangerous. Perhaps you need to spend sometime volunteering at a soup kitchen to become more comfortable with these dirty, annoying…, human beings. How dare they’re mental illness’ go untreated, how dare our city’s shelter system fail them. What terrible people they are. Get a grip…, find some kindness in your heart. and if you can’t do that, then at least be thankful for what you have and use this blog as a platform to help them, instead of bash them.

  • StudioBrooklyn

    St. Anne’s church Monday. Door maintenance or replacement, not sure which.

  • StudioBrooklyn

    Just curious, how would you answer the question you concluded your post with?

    Or are you just venting? Because if we’re venting I’d like to express my frustration at not being wealthy or owning a townhouse on the west side of Columbia Heights. I’m really annoyed about that.

  • Concerned

    I know it’s shocking, but I actually do give to charities and I have also volunteered at soup kitchens (although I must admit it has been 8-10 years). But that doesn’t make me a good or compassionate person. The fact of the matter is that there are MANY problems in this world/country/borough. If possible, I’d like to keep as many from my doorstep and children as I can.

  • nswz11

    where is your basic decency? and “that’s right. I said it” … trying to sell pure ignorance as commendable, blunt honesty = bad look.

  • Concerned

    Part venting. But what I was really thinking is that I could fight annoyance fire with annoyance fire. I could get some contributors to help pay for some greenpeace/planned parenthood sidewalk sign up young adults. But instead of bothering me and countless others on the sidewalk, they could stand next to the homeless people on Montague and bother them until they leave.

  • Concerned

    “Pure ignorance”. What am I ignorant about? Just because I don’t share the same views as you, doesn’t make my views ignorant. Believe me, I understand the view that these poor people need our compassion and help. I agree with that. I just don’t want to see them every day walking my kids to school.

  • Banet

    The Borough Hall Farmers Market on Saturday. Chris has been selling plants there for at least a decade.

  • StudioBrooklyn

    Things you notice when you have a young kid: the owl standing guard atop Peas & Pickles. This makes the second one we’ve spotted, the first being on Pierrepont a few buildings east of Hicks. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/252137e3c1040fc20e53fafe29874b7f0ead3ec93afc34f00f5edff672efbd66.jpg

  • R.O.Shipman

    When you compress a community into a few square blocks, it is impossible to block the ills of society completely from view (unless, of course, you have some Gestapo like force cleaning things up). You choose to raise your kids in the City, you’re choosing to expose them to some of these ills. If you don’t like it or can’t take the time to explain to your children why the homeless exist and why they deserve our compassion, you should pack up your family and move to Chappaqua or some place where you can isolate your kids from society’s ills.

  • Willow Street Watch

    That’s to control the pigeons of course.

  • Andrew Porter

    The Brooklyn Botanic Garden is a great resource, with a retail store at the entrance next to the Brooklyn Museum parking lot. Every Spring they also do a several day sale in a big tent.

  • Andrew Porter

    “They’re an eyesore…dirty…annoying.”

    Sure you’re not talking about posters here on the BHB?

  • Concerned

    R.O., I appreciate your view and I understand it. You’re right to a very large extent. And I am not suggesting gestapo like force, or any physical force at all.
    I guess that until the homeless problem in the city is taken care of, there’s no humane way of ridding our neighborhood of the homeless. Sad.

  • Jeffrey Smith

    Uh, just a little breath of sane overview. The REASON why you HAVE homelessness, poverty is because we hand a HUGE amount of the nation’s productivity and wealth to the Fed and its well hidden stock holders for the “service” of circulating our own currency. All the above controversy shows in appealing and very graphic terms that Americans have no concept of the creation of money or why we have a huge parasite/tapeworm draining our nation’s lifeblood.

    Before anyone addresses homelessness you should READ the works of Charles Lindburg SENIOR.on who creates our money and the REAL effects that has….

    If it weren’t for the fed (and the London banks kiddies, we’d have money to outright GIVE every unfortunate a new home and food, clothing and decent support for the rest of their LIVES. should we choose as a society.

  • Andrew Porter

    And it doesn’t work, judging from the number of pigeons that roost and poop on the Pineapple Walk awnings.

  • Andrew Porter

    Maintenance. The Folk Music Festival will be held there the second weekend in April, and I guess they want to make sure there are no problems with the doors constantly opening and closing.

    BTW, I’ve already bought a 3-day pass to the festival (which will include a banjo toss among performers!) and look forward to some great music. You can find more info here:

    http://www.brooklynfolkfest.com/tickets/

  • Jeffrey Smith

    Ime out for some sane insights. A LOT of the reason you have homelessness is a lot of the housing stock being endlessly flipped in the last 40 years. The result is that thousands of buildings NOW have a huge but, financed amount, so owners HAVE to get max or near max rents. So the push out of everyone except market rate renters.

    Of COURSE what that means is thousands and thousands of people made homeless. Sure but why is this and how could it have happened?

    ONLY one way…because every round of the flipping/tulip craze there was some friendly financial institution which was VERY willing to write more paper kids, you don’t like the street effects of that? Well
    try t9 summon the base intelligence and courage to deal with the CAUSAL AGENT involved……

  • Concerned

    Thanks, Jeff. Everytime people are attacking me for being a jerk, you always swoop in with your ridiculousness to deflect.

  • Willow Street Watch

    It doesn’t help that major religions are for practical purposes nice and silent on this issue. Sure, because if they really engage the issue, some where along this line, they’ll have to deal with the behavior of the financial/NGO world….so the city continues to divide between gleaming cultureless towers and rotting neighborhoods…and street corner scenes which look like scenes from Dickens london

  • Jeffrey Smith

    Hey, well I don’t know your real name, but “concerned” you are correct on many ways, but the height of being ridiculous is treating symptomology endlessly, and NOT even attempting yo explore serious,very dangerous causal agents….in this regard ALL of you here are being, frankly, ignorant and irresponsible….

  • ER

    I live on Love Lane and that damn owl you saw wakes me up every night/morning! I’ve actually never seen it, though.

  • StudioBrooklyn

    You must have very sensitive ears. The owl is plastic and I don’t think it’s equipped with any noise making device.

  • DIBS

    You left out the “military-industrial complex” as a key bogeyman in a lot of consoiracy theories like yours

  • DIBS

    LOL

  • ER

    Lol, I wasn’t referring to the one in the photo, but, rather, the one on pierrepont and hicks that you mentioned. I basically live on that corner (back of building faces love lane), and there has been an owl there for the past few weeks waking me up. I haven’t been able to spot it, though, and thought maybe you had!