Open Thread Wednesday

By on December 9, 2020 7:28 am in open thread

What’s on your mind? Comment away!

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  • Gates

    Anyone know if Asya the Indian restaurant on Henry is closed permanently?

  • http://selfabsorbedboomer.blogspot.com/ Claude Scales

    Unfortunately, yes. My wife and I loved the place.

  • Banet

    I’m happy to report that the various entrances to the promenade were blocked from vehicular access earlier in the week with massive concrete blocks. While I dismayed at their ugliness, I was happy to see such a quick response. (Except the entrance by the Pierre pony playground. That one was left unblocked.)

    I’m even happier to report that at least at the northern end these concrete blocks have now been replaced with attractive boulders. They’re maybe 2 feet across and 2 feet tall. Certainly large enough to stop a vehicle but not wildly out of place or overly restrictive.

  • aeshtron

    Cristobal Colon was a genocidal rapist thief who discovered nothing! His statue in front of the Kings County Supreme Court is a representation of the values of much of Amerikkka.

    Imagine the Colon statue replaced by a statue of Brooklyn born Ruth Bader Ginsburg whose values more closely align with those of Brooklyn : )

    Baruch atah Adonai Eloheinu melech ha olam.

  • http://www.yotamzohar.com StudioBrooklyn

    Never not gonna call it Pierre Pony Playground again

  • http://www.yotamzohar.com StudioBrooklyn

    1. I think/hope/expect that most of us agree with you about Columbus. (Not to be confused with the director of Home Alone, Mrs. Doubtfire, Gremlins, and a few of the Harry Potter films.) But I’m curious: is there some timely reason you’re bringing this up now? Is there a plan to tear the sculpture down? If so, I’ll bring popcorn.

    2. As an artist I shy away from sweeping declarations, except for this one: for the time being, figurative sculpture is dead. Maya Lin knew what she was doing when she designed the ‘Nam memorial, and yet unimaginative and feeble minds insisted on sticking some bronze figures nearby because the symbolism of a gash carved into the earth went over their heads. Look at what they just did with Mary Woolstonecraft over in the UK. There’s a reason why Storm King is such a powerful experience: the sculptures are not figurative! That’s what memorial sculpture should be.

  • MaggieO

    I’m guessing the post was inspired by the presence of the statue in the photo that headed up this week’s open-thread.

  • Love Laner

    Oh no! They were a favorite…Their samosas and vindaloo in particular were just to my taste. Does anyone have any replacement recommendations?

  • Rick

    We’ve been ordering delivery from Kitchen Grill Indian Restaurant for about 2 years now and have been happy with the both the food and delivery reliability. We’ve been to India a few times and it is hard to get anything like that here in the US, but theirs is better than the other Brooklyn options we have tried (including Asya).

    They’re not super close, but the food usually arrives hot with a half hour.

    https://www.yelp.com/biz/kitchen-grill-indian-restaurant-brooklyn?osq=Indian

  • Andrew Porter

    In keeping with the neighborhood, rough hewn boulders, from before they invented concrete blocks.

  • Andrew Porter

    Joralemon Street in 1930, showing the back of Borough Hall, with streetcars (and see reply below):
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4709a3e41467b4544dd7c7bc77fdda369910e0d4e1f6a383c2d8ef7559042eac.png

  • Andrew Porter

    And in 1951. Building on extreme left since torn down, now site of Brooklyn Law School:
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ce9041503e1c527536bd5ae2d24efc1087280a2527f44ff322d3f45fe2ff5090.jpg

  • Andrew Porter
  • Andrew Porter
  • CassieVonMontague
  • CassieVonMontague
  • aeshtron

    My giant, ugly, pollution-belching pick-me-up truck could easily and quickly push that rock away with its 305 foot pounds of tourque.

  • KXrVrii1

    Do you have a model of ugly, pollution-belching pick-up truck you’d recommend? I’m in the market.

    For whatever reason, I’m kind of biased towards the Ford F series, but the Dodge Rams also look pretty awesome. And what do you recommend, gas or diesel? I don’t currently have a boat that needs to be towed, but that might be the next purchase, so I wonder if the additional Diesel torque is worth it.

  • aeshtron

    IMHO, all domestic pick-me-ups are poorly built pieces of low quality metal manufacturered with very loose tolerances. Take a look at the variation in the gaps between the body/door panels and compare that with a quality pollution mobile.
    Depending on what one is trying to do with their pick-me-up dictates which one is best. Full-size trucks are annoying to street park in dense NYC.
    The extra torque from a diesel is absolutely worth it if you need it, but make sure you’re pairing it with a good transmission such as an ALSN. Also, make sure you have a place to plug in your block heater on cold nights. A diesel is roughly plus $12k.
    IMHO, I don’t care for the Aluminum body panels on the F-150’s and wouldn’t buy a full size with a V-6. IMHO, non 4×4 pickmeups are lame. IMHO, Active Fuel Management (or whatevs each manufacturer calls it) only causes problems. I sold two of my boats in the past two years, I never had time to use them.
    I’m a beach driving, fishing/hunting, pickup owning hardcore libtard whose closest friend is a Qanon believing antivaxxer NCW. I like my pickup best when the bed is strewn with blood from an animal I recently killed. And I generally LOVE living in Brooklyn Heights : )

  • KXrVrii1

    Thanks for the tips. I’m also still somewhat skeptical of US automotive manufacturers – this would actually be my first US built car / truck. But it seems like manufacturing standards are becoming increasingly standardized, and I just feel like buying a big-ass American pick up (no disrespect to the venerable Toyota Hilux.)

    And this would not be a city vehicle, unless I get bored and decide I want to drunkenly drive over that big rock protecting the promenade.

    Will definitely use it for fishing, hence my comment on a possible boat down the way. But yeah, I agree with you, boats really are a hard investment to justify. Much better to have friends with boats. Might take up hunting, but so far I’m happy just plinking at the local range… Or at least I was briefly until ammo prices went completely crazy.

  • BrooklynLiving

    Is anyone near Cadman Plaza West being woken up by construction or garbage trucks in the middle of the night?

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7nPOzGeyaw Arch Stanton

    FWIW, I have a Diesel Mercedes SUV (ML350) that I love. I regularly use it to pull trailers, it has plenty of power, yet easy on fuel costs and sports a luxurious interior.

  • Andrew Porter

    Sorry, the fog rolled in and I couldn’t see your post.

  • http://www.yotamzohar.com StudioBrooklyn

    I’m not an expert on this but my understanding is that as a general rule, diesels far outlast gasoline engines. Is that true for the regular private cars built around them? And if so, this would seem to indicate more relative “environmental friendliness”; I’ve read that that the majority of pollution, or at least the emissions we should be concerned about, come from bigger ticket items like jets and cargo vehicles. I’ve also read that the relative environmental damage caused by mining the rare earth minerals used to make batteries in electric and hybrid vehicles far exceeds those caused by private car emissions—so in this sense even a gas-guzzling SUV like a GMC Suburban is less bad (but still bad) on the ecosystem than a Prius. It seems that one of the big innovations that will mitigate our climate and ecological crises will be a new kind of battery that doesn’t require us to level rainforests or displace components of watersheds, etc.

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7nPOzGeyaw Arch Stanton

    Diesel engines do indeed generally last longer but that doesn’t necessarily mean the rest of the vehicle will. What usually determines the fate of a passenger car or truck is more about the condition of the body and interior, whereas the owner of a commercial vehicle might not care as much about cosmetics.

    My Mercedes has a DEF system to reduce harmful emissions. Although Mercedes lied about the numbers, it’s still less polluting than an unmodified diesel.

    I think some of those anti-battery stories might be propaganda.

    Be green if you can afford it…

  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7nPOzGeyaw Arch Stanton

    Ugh, another piece of “PC” revisionist history. Let’s just say, moral standards were quite different 500 years ago, get over it.
    Not to mention, if Columbus hadn’t discovered the Americas (from a European perspective) you wouldn’t even exist.

  • Cranberry Beret

    Diesels are great. The best car I ever owned was a diesel. The pollution control tech makes the cost/benefit compare very favorably to the other petro-mobiles.

    Unfortunately, everyone and their mother likes to disable the controls. There was just an article in the NYT where the EPA says the delete devices on pick-ups alone are causing far more pollution than anything VW did.
    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/25/climate/diesel-trucks-air-pollution.html

  • Bornhere

    I do believe I just saw and heard (!) the remaining Goggle Brother. There seemed to be raised voices on Joralemon, and a quick dash to the window revealed Mr. Goggle walking behind a man with a stroller, telling said man that, “I’m 91 years old. When you get to be my age, they take care of you!”

  • Cranberry Beret

    Evidently NYPD is worried about the statute too, because they’ve had 1-2 vehicles parked out front ever since the summer. (You can see one of their mini-cars in the photo)

  • Cranberry Beret

    I think about 10 years ago, the Goggle Bros twins won the contest of “Who would you most like to see profiled by BHB?” :)

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