Open Thread Wednesday

By on September 24, 2019 11:38 pm in open thread

What’s on your mind? Comment away!

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  • Andrew Porter

    Courtesy the Municipal Archives, here’s 16 Court Street in 1940. All the buildings to the right and in the foreground have since been torn down:
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1d60b3ab7ab5dd1433ea8f80a5f205686c12e867eb73c5876c99badfdbda49bc.png

  • Nomcebo Manzini

    I saved this for what looks like a lovely – but very slow in the nabe – Wednesday:

    https://www.nysun.com/new-york/brooklyns-clark-street-elevator-failed-400-times/53421/

    May I be permitted the PC-sanctioned “We’ve come a long way, baby!”

  • AEB

    Ha! Plus ça change, indeed. I never ride the elevators without feeling, to various degrees, a sense of threat.

    The last minute or so of their ascent is particularly anxiety-making as they then move so slowly that one could easily feel, as I sometimes do, that they’ve stopped between floors. The car windows are so smudged that one can’t verify movement.

    I hope the new elevators, when they arrive, will be speedier!

  • Heightsman68

    I’ve noticed construction workers in the neighborhood smoking marijuana on the promenade, as well as act menacingly towards a neighborhood resident. I was happy to see the resident who was harassed promptly call the police, who tracked down the workers who were harrassing. I’m not sure if there was an arrest.

  • http://www.yotamzohar.com StudioBrooklyn

    I wonder if they’re using marijuana while on break and about to head back to the site, or once finished for the day? I’ve known people whose ability to function while high was enhanced in some areas but generally it’s bad practice as it may pose a safety risk. But if someone wants to smoke weed on their own time, I don’t see how that’s relevant to anyone else. (And to anyone about to quote law, don’t bother—drugs, this one in particular, should be legal and anyone who enforces their foolish illegality is a fascist and in practice, a racist.)

    The harassment thing—never acceptable, from construction workers or anyone else, sober or not. Foremen and construction firm hiring personnel need to step up their practices and train their workers how to conduct themselves professionally on or near the job. How can this be incentivized?

  • Jorale-man

    No rain for weeks = smelly NYC sidewalks.

    Thank you to the good BH neighbors who have hosed down their sidewalks and stoops during this dry stretch.

  • Brooklyn Noob

    Um, here is how smoking pot is relevant to the community: 1. It’s not safe for my (or your) kids around second hand smoke 2. It’s not safe for the community to have people impaired driving a vehicle 3. There is no such thing as a “little high” — you can drink a beer with no effect on your behavior; not so much with pot, hence the tendency to menace and/or act in a way that endangers others 4. IT”S ILLEGAL! As is an open alcohol container, which also results in fines. It’s when we stop enforcing laws then everything goes to crap. When it’s legal, fine, but today it is not, so it is sourced illicitly and used illicitly. Oh, and the Promenade, like all city parks are smoke free, so you got that.

  • Proto Plano

    I don’t agree with your logic. The anecdote about your high functioning weed using friend is irrelevant here. Whether it is alcohol, weed or otherwise, you do not want someone working on a construction site , operating machinery, driving, etc… while using a controlled substance. This is especial true for someone who self-identifies as having high tolerance for anything can that impair judgment. It takes just a split second of marginally impaired judgment to cause an accident. Would you walk under a scaffold filled with bricklayers you know just had a little weed at lunch?

    Continued debate on the potential public health implications and controlled enforcement are two valid reasons why NYS cannabis legalization bill failed to move forward in this legislative session.

  • Piddles pankreata

    Can anyone share their opinion whether they think the slow zone designation has changed driver behavior in BH? I live on Hicks in north heights and it is my experience that speeds and driver aggression is no different during morning and pm rush. I think those little blue “slow zone” signs found on Atlantic and Cadman plaza are pathetically small. Also noticed that many speed bump mph warning read 20 mph and others read 15 mph. Also, I counted just two street painted 20 mph decals on Hicks st from Atlantic to Poplar street

  • http://www.yotamzohar.com StudioBrooklyn

    1. If you want to talk about secondhand smoke (due to marijuana smoking as opposed to vaping or edibles), you’ll get no argument from me, though I’m not up on the exact science about the dissipation of smoke outdoors. 2. Again, no argument about operating machinery while inebriated. 3. Not sure where you are getting your assertion that inebriation from cannabis is a binary consisting of either sober or stoned out of ones mind. Has that been your experience? If so, you should try a lower dose. 4. I couldn’t care less whether it’s illegal, given the transparently malevolent reasons it became a scheduled substance. And in many cases it’s sourced legally in another state (such as nearby MA).

  • http://www.yotamzohar.com StudioBrooklyn

    That anecdote was given as a qualifier to the statement that it’s considered bad practice to attempt most professions while high. And I avoid scaffolding whenever I can, not because I worry that it was installed by someone who was high but rather because it was designed and managed by someone who was given a small budget.

    The reason for the “continued debate” boils down to “war on drugs” holdouts who don’t realize or care how destructive their precious anti-marijuana legislation is. This isn’t one of those “two sides to every story” issues that self-proclaimed moderates love to pin on their vests.

  • Bornhere

    I think that, in general, traffic-restriction signs are so easily ignored that they’re … easily ignored. After appealing to DOT, I was rewarded with a NO TRUCKS type of sign at Henry/Remsen, to discourage (private) sanitation and other large vehicles from barreling down Henry, especially after midnight. It’s loud and jarring, and the sign has made no difference. Without enforcement, there is no meaningful value, and unless an RMP sits at Remsen from midnight to 8, no change can be expected. And it’s unreasonable to expect allocation of policing resources for this. Unfortunately.

  • gc

    I would think that the PD might be able to provide some type of enforcement with cameras instead of someone sitting there all night.

  • Cranberry Beret

    The speed limit for the slow zone depends on proximity to religious building or school. So the hump next to Plymouth Church is marked 15 but the one next to the St George is 20.

    The zones & humps might have a minor effect. But a traffic signal or stop sign would do a lot more. In particular, to break up the stretches in between the humps or existing stop points.

    I’d love to see a signal or stop sign at Hicks & Orange. This would cut down the drag race between Clark and Middagh significantly.

    The neighborhood lobbied DOT successfully to get a signal at Hicks/Pierrepont in 2002 (after years of effort). Folks in DUMBO have gotten multiple installed as traffic (both vehicle & pedestrian) has increased there in recent years. Someone needs to count the traffic at each Hicks St intersection and make the case to DOT.

  • Cranberry Beret

    Anyone know why there are police barricades on the north side of Old Fulton Street all the way from Cadman down to the ferry landing? Sounds like something this local would probably want to avoid :) I don’t see any mention on the city’s weekend street closure website.

  • Remsen Street Dweller
  • Remsen Street Dweller
  • Piddles pankreata

    Thanks for the info. The 20 mph warning for speed bumps makes no sense if the
    official speed limit is now at 20 mph.

  • Blake Stevens

    Dog owners think the streets are a sewer for their dogs.

  • Joe

    So people who disagree with you are fascist and racist? That’s a stretch don’t you think?

  • http://www.yotamzohar.com StudioBrooklyn

    My opinion has nothing to do with it. This isn’t about me. People who believe in the law that puts marijuana users and street dealers in prison are supporting racism, yes.

  • Joe

    You’re delusional

  • http://www.yotamzohar.com StudioBrooklyn

    Whatever, Anonymous Joe, bye

  • http://www.yotamzohar.com StudioBrooklyn
  • Clara West

    Looks like they have begun the repair of the now infamous
    sway bridge. Saw workmen as passed Squib Park on bridge
    area. They were taking measurements and removing planking.

  • Eddyde

    From what I remember they are they decided to replace the entire bridge. Perhaps though they will reuse the piers and only replace the spans?

  • Brooklyn Noob

    Turnstile jumping, public urination, pot smoking . . . all decriminalized by this horrible “mayor” under the guise of “fairness” and all degrading to the quality of life for the rest of the community. Why is it always the people who work hard and follow the rules that have to experience the deterioration of their standard of living to ensure others are coddled? The decline is fast; the fix takes much, much longer . . .

  • http://www.yotamzohar.com StudioBrooklyn

    Regardless of one’s fragile/precious and narrow view of fairness, restorative justice works and has better long-term, large-scale effects.

    Which private prison company would you like to see benefit from prosecuting turnstile jumpers and people who pee outside of one of NY’s two or three public toilets? Which young people’s lives would you most like to see irreparably destroyed as the result of a lapse of judgment?

  • Nomcebo Manzini

    Don’t try too hard to be logical where BBP and its priorities/modus op. are involved…. And I’m sure that goes double for a project that reminds them of some serious contracting/oversight issues.

    I *get* the stated purpose of the berms, … but to put a new one where it’s going … and NOW?! – with the BQE work [whatever it proves to be] all but imminent … boggles the mind.

    Ditto their pathetic attempt to deal with tens of thousands of people per week walking and riding (and a few other modalities) past the odious Pierhouse battlements.

    At a minimum, those buildings got way too much “buffer space,” so the rest of us are already being herded the same awful way the Brooklyn Bridge footpath has become.

    Oh yes, and then see what near zero “signage” about designated lanes does! Someone above pointed out that the community – probably only if VERY organized – can get a traffic light installed, but BBP answers to NO ONE!

  • Eddyde

    I didn’t read through all the articles but the ones I scanned seemed to leave out another very well documented and known reason(s) for anti Marijuana laws; William Randolph Hearst and his interest in eliminating hemp as a competitor to cotton, of which he owned a considerable share of the market. He used his newspaper empire to smear the “evil weed with its roots in hell” to sway public opinion against pot. Also, there was the burgeoning pharmaceutical market that couldn’t patent natural plant based drugs and wanted to capitalize on their newly developed psychotropic drugs. The racism component was probably more of a tool than a cause.

    To say that Marijuana use today is somehow a racial or ethnic thing is throughly ridiculous.

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