Open Thread Wednesday

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  • Ed Weintrob

    TICKET TERROR: Agent ticketed all cars parked on the “No Parking Tuesday 8 to 6″ side of Garden Place, around 4 pm yesterday, even tho “alternate side” parking was suspended for the Jewish holiday.

    While agents mostly do not ticket these 8 to 6 “alternate side” blocks, this agent was quite aggressive (and a bit nasty) when questioned about it. She was, however, technically correct. Although the announcements are not precise (probably because the city is deliberately deceitful), suspensions apply only to “street sweeping” signs — the ones with the broom illustration.

    Signs on “8 to 6″ blocks, even tho the only reason for the suspension is street cleaning, do not show a broom.

    Good luck fighting your tickets! (In this case, a few parkers told me, they are worth fighting.) I fortunately avoided a ticket since I happened to spot the agent and stood by my car.

  • MM

    Who is responsible for the maintenance of a sidewalk, the business that sits in front of it, or the city? The sidewalk running along the side of the CVS on Henry Street (the sidewalk is on Love Lane) is terrible – holes in the sidewalk, constantly covered in trash, huge weeds growing up… I have asked CVS about it but they don’t seem to care much. It seems like CVS should be responsible for it, but I’m not sure. When it snows, that sidewalk is also never shoveled either!

  • Banet

    Sidewalks are supposed to be kept clean, shoveled and in good repair by the business or home the sidewalk abuts. It’s CVS’s responsibility.

  • Andrew Porter

    The owner of Vineapple says they will definitely return. They told the Eagle’s Mary Frost, “I had a baby and took a leave and vacation! We are probably going to be back and open again as soon as we can [to] serve our amazing community again soon!”

    The Cranberry Street Fair has been cancelled again, second or third year it’s not going to happen.

    Happy Fin Poke, 60 Henry Street, is closed and out of business, possibly due to DoH violations.

    Finally, courtesy the Municipal Archives, here’s 116 Court Street in 1983:
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/0a5a8327d3944111e6ae7f45b9e563a82d49980d6c4672d0367342c318cabb30.png

  • MaggieO

    It’s the responsibility of the owner of the property to clean and maintain the sidewalks and 18″ into the street. if CVS owns the building it is their responsibility. if they don’t own the building their lease can also give them the responsibility for maintaining the sidewalk. call 311.

  • Andrew Porter

    Hey, Ed, it’s been forever since you were publisher of The Brooklyn Paper, and Celia was editor. I remember when I used your services to have an issue of my own SF Chronicle set in type using your CompuGraphic machines with their 8″ diskettes.

    And I avoid the terror of Traffic Dept. ticket agents—and the true horror of having to move a car to who knows where when they film—by never owning a car.

  • Andrew Porter

    Or the responsibility of the property’s owner. Does CVS actually own the building?

    I would also contact the BHA about this.

  • Andrew Porter

    The Police Blotter, basic info cribbed from The Brooklyn Paper:

    Police arrested two men for allegedly stealing phones from a man on Montague Street on Oct. 12. The victim told police he met with the suspects near Hicks Street to sell 4 phones he advertised on Craigslist. They allegedly tried to pay using counterfeit money. When the victim resisted, one allegedly punched him and drove away with the phones. Police later found the suspects in Manhattan and charged them with felony robbery.

    Movers allegedly stole a $7,000 work of art by Radamés Juni Figueroa on Sept. 12. The victim hired movers to move her from Manhattan to an apartment between Cadman Plaza W. and Clinton Street. The movers did not respond to her complaint, according to police.

  • Robert Perris

    Ed (and others who were ticketed), take a look at Section 4-08(a)(7)(iii)(B) of the New York City Traffic Rules and Regulations, which states, “For the purposes of this subparagraph (iii), street cleaning parking rules shall mean those rules (a) on posted signs, consisting of the letter “P” with a broom through it or (b) except as otherwise provided in item (D) of this subparagraph, on posted signs containing “No Parking” rules restricting parking on one day per week or on alternate days.”

    Personally, I wish this section would be rewritten to exclude the carve-out but the law is the law and you should fight the ticket.

  • Robert Perris

    I should include 4-08(a)(7)(iii)(D): “Posted signs restricting parking for a period of six or more consecutive hours on one day per week or on alternate days are not street cleaning parking rules. However, such restrictions are suspended on the days that street cleaning rules are suspended”

  • CassieVonMontague

    The 14th St busway is amazing. Does Brooklyn need one anywhere?

  • Cranberry Beret

    That no-broom/broom distinction is one of the bigger scams perpetrated by the city.

    This should be info provided to all new Heights residents, like how to pronounce Joralemon.

    Don’t get me started on why most Heights streets allow parking only on one side (ostensibly because our streets are narrow), but in Cobble Hill you can park on both sides (even where the street widths are the same).

  • Teresa

    Please include the link.

  • Teresa

    Ditto here. Small papers have a hard enough time staying afloat without people taking their info. Send them to the source, please.

  • Teresa

    I think I have to give up on Whisk. I’ve had so many bad experiences there, including rudeness from the staff (owner?). I really, really miss Cook’s Companion.

  • Jorale-man

    I’ve complained to 311 about several dirty sidewalks recently, nearly all in front of chain drugstores. They’re the worst offenders in the ‘hood, bar none. At the Duane Reade at Court & Joralemon St, it appeared an entire trash can was emptied onto the sidewalk last Saturday and it sat like that most the weekend. You’d exit the subway and think you’d suddenly entered a third-world country.

  • Local_Montague_Man

    Anyone have info on the scaffold over the Montague Street entrance to the promenade (why it is there and how long it will be there)?

  • AEB

    The dread crossing guard, who plied her trade at Hicks and Middagh, is gone! No more her half-empty coffee cups left on the covers of my building’s garbage cans. No more her unrelenting–and I mean unrelenting–whistle blowing. No more her penchant for dragging a corner garbage can to the curb near her beat to prevent car parking and THEN LEAVING IT THERE.

    Wish long and hard enough and miracles DO occur!

  • CassieVonMontague

    It’s for the FISP Cycle 8 (Local Law 11) facade repairs for 2 Montague Terrace.

  • H Ginsberg

    Any here live at 150 Hicks Street? Your building always has overflowing garbage and recycling bins and loose trash left on the sidewalk. It is the most unkept buildings on the block if not the Heights.

  • http://www.yotamzohar.com StudioBrooklyn

    I thought she retired toward the end of last school year. I heard a number of different stories about the circumstances surrounding her retirement/departure.

  • CassieVonMontague

    150 Hicks is a rental building managed by Trezza Management. Call them at 718-624-5226 and they might clean up their act.

  • Mary Kim

    Happy Fin Poke’s closure wasn’t due to DOH violations. One of the owners told me they were closing and very nicely offered meals for my whole family on the house. I didn’t ask whether I could post the reason why, but it wasn’t due to rent, violations, legal problems, or anything of that sort. Sad to see the nice young guys shut their business.

  • Andrew Porter

    The info about Vineapple was in an e-mail to me, not on a web page.

  • Andrew Porter

    Here’s the link to the original post, in the Brooklyn Paper’s usual dese-dem-dose wording:

    http://tinyurl.com/yy96kw6r

    Includes all sorts of other stuff from the 84th Precinct BH people probably don’t care about.

  • karateca2000

    Every time I enter the store I feel sad for the loss of Cook’s Companion.

  • AEB

    That may have been; her absence didn’t register with me until school began weeks ago.

  • MaggieO

    and now that Duane Reade is apparently closing… i complained about the nastiness on Joralemon outside Starbucks but the city closed out the complaint because sanitation had already picked up the trash that day. a portion of the sidewalk has been totally ruined by nasty trash disposal there.

  • Local_Montague_Man

    cool beans, thanks. any idea of how long it will be there?

  • Jorale-man

    Interesting, after all the work they did to expand and renovate that store, what, 3 or 4 years ago? I guess being so close to the branch on Montague didn’t make a lot of business sense.

    The Starbucks side of the street is also frequently a pigpen – all the way up to Clinton. At least the city sanitation took care of the incident you saw (though that should be the building owners’ responsibility, of course).