Open Thread Wednesday

By on April 26, 2023 9:53 am in open thread

What’s on your mind? Comment away!

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  • Andrew Porter

    Claude, I recognize that as the planted area in front of the entrance to Mansion House. When was it that the tree fell down across Hicks, onto the wooden house across the street?

    Instead of posting what I’d planned, here’s a postcard of the gardens behind the original Mansion House, torn down and replaced by the current structure:
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d0b8912ee2742d4523ec0dde35c4610690c7987aaae1084c6447e92015da1e2d.jpg

  • Andrew Porter

    Here’s an image of the current building, from the 1930s sales brochure—which states, “Careful restricted selection of tenants.”
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/04055782084b93ac72e142887808df8a943aa8db5a31bbbeec6cbee12adfd874.png

  • Kit

    The tree fell during Hurricane Irene, as I recall. Am sure I have a photo somewhere but can’t find it now.

  • Andrew Porter

    Article in The City: “Link5G Towers Must Pass Historic Preservation and Environmental Reviews, Says FCC”. So maybe BH can be saved from where those ugly things are erected:

    https://www.thecity.nyc/2023/4/25/23698373/fcc-link5g-historic-preservation-environmental-reviews

  • Sweeties
  • Karl Junkersfeld
  • Karl Junkersfeld

    Supplementing our local historian, Andrew, I have a snippet of history about Brooklyn Heights and Mansion House in this video.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwspR_6MS1U

  • gc

    Fantastic! Thank you for sharing. I have lived here since 1958

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

    That tree had been a contentious issue at the Mansion House, before it fell. The Residents being divided by those who wanted it removed and those who wanted it saved. Apparently, the roots were damaging the foundation wall and there was also concerns of it falling…

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

    Perhaps they can make a filigree enveloped, cast iron version!

  • Andrew Porter

    Mary Frost, writing in The Brooklyn Eagle, reports that one of those stealing mail has been arrested—and it was a postal employee:

    https://brooklyneagle.com/articles/2023/04/27/cops-nab-alleged-brooklyn-mail-thief/

  • Andrew Porter

    Article in The New York Times, “When a Walkable City Becomes a Death Trap,” includes the following:

    “Fifteen traffic deaths were logged in the first 24 days, one of them having occurred on a notorious stretch of Atlantic Avenue… On April 16, a 31-year-old woman, Katherine Harris, was crossing Atlantic at Clinton Street, where she had the right of way, when she was struck and killed by a speeding 27-year-old driver, who was charged with vehicular manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, driving while impaired and refusing to take a breathalyzer.”

    Here’s the link (though behind a paywall):

    https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/28/nyregion/traffic-deaths-nyc-vision-zero.html

  • nomcebo manzini

    For those disinclined to follow this VERY interesting link, the takeaways include these:

    1) For all that “Vision Zero” started and got serious funding for most of Billy D’s 8 years, the current traffic fatality numbers are very nearly “as terrible as ever.”

    2) Atlantic *is* the variety of road – mostly “wide” and heavily trafficked – that winds up chronically on the “10 worst” lists. I suspect that its being a feeder or exit street for the BQE makes a bad situation worse. Just as the transition from subway to bright sunny day does a number on your eyes, the drivers hurrying to get home or wherever probably view stop-and-go-traffic on Atlantic like fingernails-on-blackboard.