About Claude Scales

Heights resident since 1983. Lawyer, with strong interests in history, philosophy, literature, music, architecture, astronomy, paleontology, ships and the sea, railroads, baseball, food and wine. Married, with one child.

Author Archive | Claude Scales

Last Minute Weekend Suggestions: Brooklyn Heights and Nearby

By on July 31, 2014 11:42 pm in Arts and Entertainment, brooklyn bridge park, Brooklyn Heights, DUMBO, Events, Food, Fun, Kids, movies, Music, Religion

On Friday evening, August 1, starting at 7:00, Bargemusic will present an eclectic mixture of classical (Schubert), modern (Charles Ives), and contemporary (Scott Wheeler and Martin Boykan) music performed on piano by Donald Berman (photo, by Gil Gilbert). On Saturday evening at 7:00 and on Sunday afternoon at 4:00 the Manhattan Symphonie Chamber Orchestra, featuring [...]

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Subway Service Alerts: Brooklyn Heights and Vicinity

By on July 31, 2014 4:18 pm in Transportation

This coming weekend–from 11:45 p.m Friday, August 1 to 5:00 a.m. Monday, August 4, Brooklyn bound F trains will be diverted to the A/C line from West 4th Street in Manhattan to Jay Street-MetroTech, so no service from Manhattan to York Street in DUMBO. If that’s your destination, you can either get off at High [...]

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Do You Live in the Fort Stirling Neighborhood? Do You Want To?

By on July 31, 2014 10:41 am in Brooklyn Heights, Brooklyn History, Neighborhoods, Streets

BHB reader Ion Freeman has Willowtown envy: he wants to live in a part of Brooklyn Heights that has a name, other than “Brooklyn Heights” or even “the North Heights.” We’re not sure exactly where he lives; it’s “in some unnamed region of the [N]orth [H]eights between the fruit streets and Montague.” The name he [...]

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Heights Author Elizabeth Gaffney to Speak at Brooklyn Historical Society Tuesday August 5

By on July 28, 2014 1:07 am in Arts and Entertainment, Celebrity Residents, Literature

Brooklyn Heights resident and novelist Elizabeth Gaffney will be at the Brooklyn Historical Society Tuesday August 5 starting at 7:00 to discuss her second novel, When the World Was Young, which is to be released for publication that day. Set in post-World War II Brooklyn, this powerful story follows misfit Wally Baker as she comes [...]

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Last Minute Weekend Suggestions: Brooklyn Heights and Nearby

By on July 25, 2014 5:23 pm in Arts and Entertainment, brooklyn bridge park, Food, Fun, Kids, Maritime, movies, Music

Today (Friday, July 25) the Brooklyn Heights Cinema will have its premiere showings of A Most Wanted Man, starring the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman and based on a novel by spy fiction master John le Carré. It will continue to show through the weekend and the following week, along with Chef. On Saturday evening at [...]

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Baylander, at Pier 5, Brooklyn Bridge Park, Opens to Visitors This Weekend

By on July 25, 2014 3:56 pm in brooklyn bridge park, Maritime, Tourism

You may have noticed an odd looking small ship moored near the northeast corner of Brooklyn Bridge Park’s Pier 5 (see photo above) for the past couple of weeks. It’s the Baylander, billed as the “world’s smallest aircraft carrier.” Baylander is a former U.S. Navy vessel, built in the 1960s, that served as a troop [...]

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Subway Service Alerts: Brooklyn Heights and Vicinity

By on July 24, 2014 12:06 pm in Transportation

It’s a green light at local stations this coming weekend (Friday evening, July 25 to Monday morning, July 28) as there are no planned cancellations, route diversions, or station skips directly affecting service here. The following week (Monday, July 28 to Friday, August 1) from 11:45 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. each night, 2 trains are [...]

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Ducks Deluxe in Brooklyn Bridge Park

By on July 22, 2014 11:55 pm in brooklyn bridge park, Wildlife

Brooklyn Bridge Park has become a favorite spring to summer resting place and breeding ground for ducks. Back in March, I spotted this mallard drake on the uplands of Pier 1. More photos and text follow the jump. In June I saw this mother duck and three ducklings paddling between Pier 2 and Pier 1. [...]

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Apple Tree Pruning Time at Poplar Street Community Garden

By on July 22, 2014 6:42 pm in Agriculture, Brooklyn Heights, Gardening

This Saturday, July 26, from 11:00 a.m. until some time in the afternoon when the trees all get pruned, it’s apple tree pruning time at the Poplar Street Community Garden, at Hicks and Poplar streets. Come by and lend a hand; if you haven’t done it before, there will be experienced pruners there to show [...]

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Is S.S. United States Coming to Brooklyn?

By on July 19, 2014 4:54 pm in Maritime, News

According to a New York Times article, S.S. United States, once the pride of our nation’s merchant marine and last holder of the Blue Riband, may be moved from a pier in Philadelphia where she has been docked for some years (and where I photographed her in 2006) to “a location in Brooklyn within four [...]

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Smell Something? Say Something.

By on July 19, 2014 12:21 pm in Environment, Maritime, News

We’ve received this somewhat cryptic message from Notify NYC: Notification issued on 7/19/14 at 11:18 AM. The United States Coast Guard reports that a ship in Arthur Kill [red in map] off the coast of Staten Island is offloading various fuel products. As a result, there may be an odor in Staten Island and Brooklyn. [...]

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Street Milling and Paving in Brooklyn Heights Next Week

By on July 18, 2014 6:21 pm in Brooklyn Heights, News, Streets

With apologies for the late notice they received from the City’s DOT, the Brooklyn Heights Association has notified us of street milling and re-paving to be done each weekday next week (Monday, July 21 through Friday, July 25) from 7:00 a.m. until about 4:00 p.m. on many Brooklyn Heights streets. Parked cars will have to [...]

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Jonathan Ames, Randy Cohen at Brooklyn Historical Society Wedesday

By on July 18, 2014 5:27 pm in Arts and Entertainment, Literature

Jonathan Ames (photo, right), writer — Wake Up Sir!, The Extra Man (adapted as a movie with Kevin Kline and Katie Holmes), The Double Life is Twice as Good, and others — raconteur, creator of the HBO series Bored to Death, promoter of the World’s Most Phallic Building contest (in his opinion, the Williamsburgh Bank [...]

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Montague Street BID Sponsors Photo Contest

By on July 17, 2014 11:08 pm in Arts and Entertainment, Events, Photography

The Montague Street Business Improvement District (BID) is sponsoring a photo contest that begins now and has a deadline for submissions of September 17. We are looking for striking digital images taken along Montague Street (between Court Street and the Brooklyn Promenade) in Brooklyn, NY. Your images may show the architecture, storefronts and displays, people, [...]

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Last Minute Weekend Suggestions: Brooklyn Heights and Nearby

By on July 17, 2014 2:22 pm in Arts and Entertainment, brooklyn bridge park, Brooklyn Heights, Brooklyn History, Food, Fun, Kids, movies, Music, Theater

On my customary morning stroll around Pier 1, Brooklyn Bridge Park, I found actors rehearsing Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew for Random Access Theatre’s free performances of that classic comedy at the Granite Prospect on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evenings (July 18, 19, and 20) starting at 7:00. More information here. Also at Brooklyn Bridge [...]

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Subway Service Alerts: Brooklyn Heights and Vicinity

By on July 17, 2014 10:21 am in Transportation

This coming weekend–from 11:45 p.m Friday, July 18 to 5:00 a.m. Monday, July 21, Brooklyn bound F trains will be diverted to the A/C line from West 4th Street in Manhattan to Jay Street-MetroTech, so no service from Manhattan to York Street in DUMBO. If that’s your destination, you can either get off at High [...]

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