Open Thread Wednesday

By on March 8, 2016 11:51 pm in open thread

What’s on your mind? Comment away!

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  • Concerned

    Right, but who will chase them off?

  • Concerned
  • Jeffrey Smith

    Owls are an important occult symbol among many secret societies throughout history. Just look at their use at Bohemian Grove….

  • miriamcb

    When he comes back for the season, he is there on Tuesdays too. It’s much quieter during the week with more variety.

  • Alec

    if you have a car, and a reason to drive to New Jersey, Metropolitan Plant Exchange in Fort Lee is the SPOT – not cheap, but the best plant and flower store ever. Also, Lowes on 9th St has decent stuff

  • MonroeOrange

    so do all the highschool and st george kids (they pee everywhere and loiter in teh warmer months)…should we ban them too?

  • Jorale-man

    It looks like the B.Good restaurant is getting ready to open in the former Grand Canyon restaurant space on Montague. Apparently, it’s the first one in NYC. The Eagle reported on it last year: http://www.brooklyneagle.com/articles/2015/7/21/bgood-eatery-human-touch-replace-grand-canyon-restaurant-brooklyn-heights

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

    Reading the article brought back memories. The Hamburger Stop had an electric train on the counter that was supposed to bring you your burger, but it never worked. My Little Chickadees LOL that place was owned by one of the Foffe boys, who lost the business up his nose, but hey, it was the eighties and those things happened…

  • Jorale-man

    Interesting…that’s before my time in the Heights but it looks like the trend of rising rents pushing out mom-and-pop stores was happening back in the ’80s. (At least this new place isn’t another Duane Reade or Citibank.) From 1986: http://www.nytimes.com/1986/02/22/nyregion/retailers-rents-on-montague-st-taking-a-toll.html

  • H. M

    I grew up in Chappaqua, suggested above. Great public schools. Great soccer. Not a single homeless person (or, anyone who didn’t look exactly the same). You might really like it.

  • Concerned

    Yeah…this thread is old news. But good effort coming from a clothing store!

  • StudioBrooklyn

    I read that as a pun on “thread”…I like that better.

  • Concerned

    Either way works for me. lol

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

    There are different shades of homelessness, such as, couch surfers, people living in cars and squatters. Not all are mentally ill.
    I’m not saying the cost of housing is the main cause of homelessness but it is a contributing factor.

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

    Yep that’s when Montague St started its decline.

  • Roberto Gautier

    Let’s stay concentrated on the intrusion that honking car horns has on our and other neighborhoods. Automakers use the beeps to confirm the alarm, to back up, to alert the driver to this or that. It’s gotten totally out of hand, say a group of determined activists.

  • StudioBrooklyn

    Well, I finally caved and looked it up. From skimming the first several non-promoted google hits for “causes of homelessness” it seems we’re both right: more than half of the homeless are families with children–in their case they tend to have been rendered homeless by sudden changes in their situations for which they were unprepared. These are the unseen majority making their way from shelter to shelter or huddled in train station tunnels. But in the case of the people encamped on the outskirts of the neighborhood, the lone men, more likely other factors such as mental illness.

  • StudioBrooklyn

    It’s a cultural problem here I think. People just don’t use their horns this way in many other places. Therefore my half-serious ideas for solutions (using the horn at under 5mph deploys driver airbag, horn as loud inside the car as outside) could never be put into effect. :(

    Best thing we can do is teach our kids differently, set a good example ourselves, and I’ve often told my cab driver that if s/he uses the horn while returning me to my neighborhood the tip will be reduced, and I include a reminder that it’s obnoxious and unnecessary. Try to make it an educational opportunity.

  • Concerned2

    Ban the urinators and defecators – baaan them all!!!

  • StudioBrooklyn

    I’d love to see the St George disbanded, make the kids move into regular apartments so that they have to become members of the community. Would reduce the public noise and urination problem, or at the very least it would just move back to the McKibbin lofts in Bushwick.

  • Roberto Gautier

    As we enter a new phase of heavy-duty construction in our neighborhood, we should be aware how the closing of the DOT’s Lower Manhattan Construction Command Center due to budgetary constraints will affect us. The LMCCC’s role was to provide oversight of construction activities. Now, there will be less. All neighborhoods that are “blessed” with condo construction, particularly those with after-hours variances, require careful scrutiny and supervision. By leaving a void in this area, the city of New York is negligent in protecting its citizens. Its long-time practice to waive the NYC Noise Code is another of the city’s failings to protect its citizens. So, we propose a genuine Construction Command Center for Brooklyn.

  • Roberto Gautier

    In the vein of cultural commentary, what do you make of the DOT’s 2013 decision to remove “Don’t Honk” signs because they asserted that few paid attention to them. Plus, it was stated that reckless honking is nearly impossible to enforce. Signs, on the other hand, are indications of a culture’s preferences. In southern Italy, I’ve seen signs urging angelic behavior –
    “Do not blow your horn between 9pm and 6am.” I call for artists to dream up signs that are both works of art and culture bumpers.

  • Jeff Racoon Cap Smith

    Well a big problem is people actually bring them in as pets! There is sort of a culture of ‘more interesting’ pets in parts of park slope and Williamsburg type areas. Part of the urban hipster thing. Of course they escape and they promptly find how MUCH food there is in the average American home’s trash. /Hey, In parts of Park Slope there are block associations telling neighbors not to put out any remaining milk in the trash because of the fast growing population now of racoons!!!

    Personal note; a family member yells for me one night, there on the fire escape is a big opossum! The is like six,eight storys up! He or she sees up and in a flash find he’,s up the ladder to the roof and is gone!!!
    This is of course right on Willow. You had to see the SIZE of it! Fat on garbage or some crazy who has it as a pet!!

  • Jeffrey Smith

    People need to get off their complaining duffs and in mass yell endlessly at every city and state elected official. Make their lives miserable. Storm call the press (both assigned reporters AND the editors). The really BEST to do is what happens in the Village. Construction crews don’t try much nonsense there because activists have become VERY familiar with hard law and codes and the minute a construction starts doing anything illegal, villagers report them instantly and to exactly the right agency. AND if the agency doesn’t take instant strong action, they make the agency heads and elected lives unlivable. No, they havent reduced construction nonesense 100% But Notice how quiet the Village is? Even near some construction sites!!!

    Learn to do what the Village activists do. Hey, complainers, its the old story…get smart and take (smart) forceful actions…or be walked on….

  • StudioBrooklyn

    I think the decision to remove the signs was unnecessary and wasteful. Let’s say it’s true that they had no direct effect on motorists’ behavior; they still provided a legal precedent in the event that an officer felt like doing his or her job once in a while and issuing a citation to a horn-blower. During the taxi rides I referred to I would point out the signs to my driver as we’d come down Henry. And how much more money did the city spend on removing the signs, when it would have cost nothing to leave them there?

    Sadly (or maybe this is a good thing, as signs are ultimately a visual intrusion, especially if you happen to appreciate architecture), I don’t think signage should be used to direct cultural behavior and it’s clearly not effective in doing so anyway. If we want to stop people from honking we can either ramp up enforcement (costly, and a step in the direction of a police state), or we can just start telling our kids that the horn is only for emergencies, and that they shouldn’t be passive about it when they see others honking out of childish impatience, or boredom.

  • brooklynbull

    Your poor kids.

  • Concerned

    Good points, SB.

  • StudioBrooklyn

    http://gothamist.com/2016/03/11/sunny_balzano_rip_2016.php

    RIP Sunny. :( His was the best bar in Brooklyn.

  • redlola

    dirty is just fact. we can sugarcoat it anyway we want but they are dirty. as in lacking hygiene. nothing privileged about making an objective point visible to anyone who can see, annoying is subjective. i get his viewpoint. i think ppl tend to think of the heights as a little nirvana that is and should stay free from city problems. there is nothing wrong with wanting that. the reality is we can’t have it. the homeless ppl i see around here are not victims of the housing crisis. they are like category 5 street dwellers. i am sure at some point they have been offered help. i’m also sure some of them do not want help. this is their lifestyle and as much as they are entitled to their lifestyle others are entitled to not want that lifestyle in their environment. let’s stop defaulting to this basic generic game of victims and villains.

  • Andrew Porter

    I’m deducting points for failure to capitalize first words of sentences, poor punctuation, and lack of paragraphing.

    And is it so hard to spell out “people”? (Unless you’re abbreviating “pimple” and channeling e.e. cummings.)

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