So the Brooklyn Bridge is celebrating the anniversary of its opening today, in low-key fashion. Back in 1983 though, the centenary was a big deal. Lots of fireworks, and the FDR Drive was closed to cars, so people could get a good view.
I was working as a messenger for a downtown law firm at the time and brought my camera and tripod in to work, to capture the evening’s festivities.
Not only can you park in a bike lane to go to church, some people use their official cars to do it. Continue Reading →
Apparently the Department of Sanitation is unaware that the new Love Lane Mews features “gracious condominium living”.
Perhaps you get a monogrammed shovel at the closing?
Selling trees in the rain, beside Our Lady of Lebanon Church.
The other day, I came across on Gothamist, some illustrations of Brooklyn at the time Walt Whitman walked his city of “ample hills”. I thought it would be neat to go and take some pictures of the same places today.
Above is Henry Street, between Cranberry and Orange in 1852 — , from all the flags flying, perhaps a July 4th parade. At the site of the low, red-brick buildings, was Whitman’s printing press. Continue Reading →
Tonight at about 10:25 PM, to the sound of screeching tires and blaring horns, two cars raced the wrong-way down Pierrepont Street.
With traffic coming the other direction, the car in front was unable to proceed, and the occupant(s) jumped out and fled. Multiple police cars arrived shortly thereafter. Continue Reading →
The Henry Street bike lane, is now actually car-free on Sundays.
Last December was when the BHB first covered the use of the bike-lane as a parking lot by members of the First Presbyterian Church.
It’s taken eight months of my kvetching and strategery, but working with Assemblywoman Millman’s office, and the 84th precinct, the church has seen the light. Gory details over at Inklake (the blog of yours truly, who promises Homer that he’ll try to write about something else).
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| From Joralemon Street Sunflowers |
In front of the David Chauncey House.
The Brooklyn Paper covers the ongoing bike-lane abuse, by houses of worship in Brooklyn Heights. The paper quotes the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church as saying their flouting of the law is made possible with the complicity of the 84th Precinct.
Last week, at the precinct’s monthly community council meeting, this blogger played for Captain DiPaolo this video, which I shot last fall. The captain seemed to adopt a kind of ‘surprised’ attitude, and asked if that was the case “every weekend”. I replied that not only was it the case, but last June, I had raised this issue with him at a community precinct meeting, in the very same room we were meeting in now.
He said that there “needed to be a balance”, and I told him that I was all for “balance”, but wagered that his precinct had not issued a single ticket to anyone for these violations. He said, “you’re probably right”, and said he would “look into this”. Apparently, that’s as much as the captain is willing to say, because he refuses to comment to both the Brooklyn Paper, and to Gothamist.’
The Reverend Phelps though, was more willing to talk to the Brooklyn Paper, and said, “we see see this as an acceptable cost, and they agree.”
Just who “we” and “they” are, is TBD; as is also if a cyclist is injured, or fire-truck or ambulance delayed, due to this “courtesy” (as it has been described), the cost will still be deemed, “acceptable”.
Norval White and Fran Leadon - NY Times
When Norval White, who passed away in December, was working on the latest edition of his AIA Guide to New York, he knew it was going to be the last one with which he was involved. With both the future in mind and needing assistance–in his eighties, his mobility wasn’t what it was–he enlisted the help of City College assistant professor Fran Leadon in completing the edition.
Leadon, who lives in Cobble Hill, was referred to White by another CCNY professor, who knew both. White had founded the architecture department at City College and taught there for more than twenty-five years, before retiring and moving from Pierrepont Street to France, with a stop in Connecticut.
Even with White back in France, Leadon, with a legion of his own students, was able to carry out the leg-work that allowed the fifth edition of the “go-to” guide of NYC architecture to get completed.
An article in the Times back in the spring mentioned that Leadon was also a musician, which is how I knew him – as a singer for the Brooklyn bluegrass band, the Y’all Stars. Last week,I contacted Mr. Leadon to ask how the book was going, and when the next Y’All Star gig was. Though in the Times he was self-effacing about his avocation, he is an accomplished musician, and grew up in Florida, listening to bluegrass, folk, country and honky-tonk.
Brownstoner has a neat article on the architect Frank Freeman, who has been called “Brooklyn’s finest architect” by the late Norval White.
Perhaps his most famous building is the Herman Behr Mansion, which is right on my corner. Built in 1888, it’s now apartments, but at one time was a hotel, a bordello, and a home for Franciscan monks (not all at the same time). It was sold a few years ago, and recently has undergone a cleaning that brought out some of the really beautiful details.
There are always tourists clutching AIA guidebooks and snapping photos. The bit of history I like most about the place is that the original owner’s son survived the sinking of the Titanic. Continue Reading →
Pierrepont Street
“They take care of us, so we take care of them.”That’s what Officer Reynoso, the very polite (and forthright) policeman from the 84th Precinct told me last night, when I asked him why he was writing a ticket for the car on the left, but not for the one on the right.
He said no cop will write a parking ticket on a car with an MD plate, as “someday they may need to take care of us”.
“So you think that if you write them a ticket, they won’t save you if you get shot?”, I asked. Continue Reading →
This week’s New Yorker has a piece on the parking placard abuse that continues despite the mayor’s vow to crack down. (free registration to read). The bomb scare in Times Square on New Year’s eve was occasioned by a van with a phony placard that had sat unmolested by the NYPD for days.
There seems very little point in limiting the number of genuine placards issued, if people are free to make their own. The article mentions the First Presbyterian Church’s ‘we’re praying’ windshield signs, which apparently confer ticketing immunity – even in a bike lane, as well as the bogus ‘on medical call’ signs that plague the neighborhood.
I took these pics on Pierrepont Street. How do I become a member of the Fraternal Order of Amtrak Police?
It’s not news that significant parts of the 1988 film Moonstruck were filmed in BH and environs. Most everyone knows the house at Cranberry and Willow, (recently sold and currently under renovation) which served as the focal point of the Castorini household, and the focal point of the film, and that the Cammareri bakery was on Henry Street in Cobble Hill.
However, a bunch of locations were either dressed-up, and/or have changed in the 22 years since the movie was made. Continue Reading →
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