The Brooklyn Heights Blog community’s effort (ignited by “She’s Crafty”) to rename Squibb Park to Adam Yauch Park went viral today.

Our Facebook page now has more than 1,300 “Likes” and the idea has been covered by the Hollywood Reporter, Gothamist and 1010WINS Radio, to name a few. But a funny thing happened on the way to critical mass: We found out about an effort by Adam “AdRock” Horovitz and his wife Kathleen Hanna to fix up and rename the baseketball courts at State Street Park after Yauch.

Late this afternoon Ms. Hanna contacted us via Facebook, saying:

I just wanted to let you know that Adam “Adrock” Horovitz has already begun working with the Parks Commissioner to fix up and rename State Street Park where Yauch actually played as a kid to Adam Yauch Park. It would be great to get people behind THIS idea as it won’t hurt the Squibb family….Thanks, Kathleen Hanna

Since receiving that dispatch, we have confirmed with the Beastie Boys management and publicist that this plan is real and going forward. Right now the effort is focused on the basketball courts and not necessarily adjoining Palmetto Playground.

The Brooklyn Heights Blog community ENTHUSIASTICALLY supports this idea. We have updated the Facebook page* to reflect this and encourage all those who agree, their friends, family and friends of friends to continue to “Like” the page and share our strong desire to make Adam Yauch Park in Brooklyn Heights a reality.

*Note that Facebook does not allow users to change names of pages with 200+ likes. While the name of our page remains the same, we no longer advocate changing the name of Squibb Park. We are 100% committed to doing all we can to making Adam Yauch Park a reality on State Street.

HBO’s sad-sack series “Girls,” created, produced, directed, written by and starring Brooklyn Heights resident Lena Dunham, has been renewed for a 10-episode second season. The show revolves around the lives of four 20-somethings navigating love, life and careers in New York City post-college. Judd Apatow is an executive producer.

“Girls” debuted April 15 on the premium network, and has averaged 3.8 million viewers, per HBO.

Dunham grew up in and recently relocated back to Brooklyn Heights. As BHB reported in April, the 25 year old was raised in Soho, Brooklyn Heights and Tribeca, and attended St. Ann’s School in the Heights. Her mother is photographer and artist Laurie Simmons and her father is renowned painter Carroll Dunham.

READ IMPORTANT UPDATE HERE.
Commenter “She’s Crafty” suggested in a comment on BHB that Squibb Park be renamed Adam Yauch Park to honor the Brooklyn Heights native and Beastie Boy MC who died earlier this month at the age of 47.

We couldn’t agree more. We hope you do too. A Facebook page has been set up to garner support and we encourage you to “like” it as well as voice and share your thoughts here in the comments.

Here’s our brief mission statement from FB:

Squibb Park in Brooklyn Heights, NY is currently undergoing a transformation into a skateboarding facility and gateway to Brooklyn Bridge Park. The Brooklyn Heights Blog community believes that it would be a fitting tribute to name it after Brooklyn Heights native, musician, humanitarian Adam Yauch (MCA) of the Beastie Boys. Adam Yauch Park sits directly across the street from the Harry Chapin Playground which is also named after a great Brooklyn Heights resident, musician and humanitarian. To show your support please like this page and share with your friends.

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Barbra Streisand’s Brooklyn roots are certainly no secret. She was born & raised in the borough and graduated in 1959 from Erasmus Hall High School in Flatbush. However, she has not performed publicly in BK since then, some 53 years ago… until now. As the mainstream press has proclaimed, Babs, now 70, is returning home for a concert Thursday October 11, at the spanking new 19,000-seat Barclays Center.

Streisand said, “Brooklyn to me means the Loews Kings, Erasmus, the Yeshiva I went to, the Dodgers, Prospect Park, great Chinese food. I’m so glad I came from Brooklyn‚ down to earth. I guess you can come home again.”

Wonder if home will also mean a stop by the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, where she filmed scenes for 1974 film “For Pete’s Sake,” with Michael Sarrazin.

Tix for the Barclays concert range from $90 to $650, with $1,500 tickets available during pre-sale here. Barclays Center CEO Brett Yormark intimated that another night might be added, if tickets fly, as expected. The new Center opens September 28 with a concert by Brooklyn-born Jay-Z. Hmmm, somehow, I don’t think the venue will attract the same audience that night…

Read more about Streisand’s Brooklyn roots in The New York Times here. And scan the full press release announcing Streisand’s appearance below:

The Brooklyn-born and raised, world-acclaimed superstar will perform a concert on Thursday, October 11th, in Brooklyn at Barclays Center, the new 19,000-seat sports and entertainment venue.

Streisand will be making a triumphant return to her native borough. Raised in the Flatbush neighborhood and a graduate of Erasmus Hall High School, Streisand will perform publicly for the first time in Brooklyn.

Streisand stated, “Brooklyn to me means the Loews Kings, Erasmus, the Yeshiva I went to, the Dodgers, Prospect Park, great Chinese food. I’m so glad I came from Brooklyn‚ down to earth. I guess you CAN come home again.”

“When I first thought about building an arena in Brooklyn, I always envisioned Barbra Streisand coming home to take center-stage in her native borough,” said Barclays Center majority owner and developer Bruce Ratner. “It’s humbling and almost surreal to welcome arguably the greatest entertainer of all-time to Barclays Center. Barbra is Brooklyn and there’s nowhere more fitting for her to perform. This will be a night to remember.”

“I’m thrilled that all of America will be celebrating one of Brooklyn’s greatest contributions to the world of music, film, television and Broadway this fall when Barbra Streisand comes home to the exciting new Barclays Center,” said Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz. “They just don’t get any bigger than this daughter of Brooklyn and proud graduate of Erasmus Hall High School, and although she has entertained millions upon millions across the globe for the better part of 50 years, Ms. Streisand will always find a home here in Brooklyn. So, no more tears, music fans‚ Brooklyn’s very own funny girl, Barbra Streisand, will create new memories as the main event this October at Barclays Center!”

“Barbra Streisand in Brooklyn will be a huge moment and a defining experience for Barclays Center,” said Barclays Center CEO Brett Yormark. “We are truly honored to bring Barbra full circle, to the borough where it all started for her, just down Flatbush Avenue from her old neighborhood. We are continuing our goal to bring the best of everything to Barclays Center. Brooklyn, after all, deserves nothing less.”

Beastie Boys member MC Adam “MCA” Yauch, who died today at age 47 from cancer, grew up in Brooklyn Heights, where he taught himself to play bass as a teen and formed the trio with Mike “Mike D” Diamond & Adam “Ad-Rock” Horovitz on his 17th birthday. Mike D, meanwhile, was a graduate of local St. Ann’s School.

Despite bios alleging Yauch was raised in Midwood, Brooklyn, he actually attended Edward R. Murrow High School in that nabe and was raised in the Heights, according to numerous obituary posts Friday.

Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz issued the following statement: “Brooklyn, the Creative Capital of New York City, has made so many great contributions to music and the arts, and in the world of hip hop, they don’t come much bigger than Brooklyn native Adam ‘MCA’ Yauch and his fellow Beastie Boys. Of course, Adam’s home borough was immortalized in the Beastie Boys’ 1987 hit, ‘No Sleep Till Brooklyn,’ and he never forgot where he came from with lyrics like ‘Open Letter to NYC’’s ‘At lunch I’d go to Blimpies down on Montague Street and hit the Fulton Street Mall for the sneakers on my feet.’”

Yauch was an only child, the son of painter Frances and architect Noel Yauch. After forming the Beasties, then a hardcore punk band, the white trio meshed punk and rap into a singular sensation, breaking through hip-hop racial barriers with blockbuster 1986 album “Licensed to Ill” on Russell Simmons’ Def Jam Records. The trio is regarded as one of the most influential hip-hop acts of all time, and helped turn the genre into a mainstream force around the world. Beastie Boys are, of course, best known for teen angst anthem “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party).” In all, the group sold 40 million albums and had four No. 1 records.

Yauch also directed Beastie Boys’ videos as well as 2008 basketball documentary “Gunnin’ for #1 Spot,” and he ran a film production and distribution company. He is survived by his wife and daughter.

He was diagnosed with a cancerous salivary gland in 2009, and had been undergoing treatment for a cancerous parotid gland and a lymph node, which prevented him from attending the Beasties April induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year. The group had not performed together since 2009.

BHB reader Hoppy recognizes that the group had Brooklyn Heights in its blood and lyrics in this OTW comment: “I’m saddened by the death of Brooklyn Heights’ own MCA.”

Some locally relevant lyrics:
“Every Morning I Took The Train To High Street Station
Doing Homework On The Train, What A F**ked Up Situation”
-Root Down

“So I’m out pickin’ pockets at the Atlantic Antic
And nobody wants to hear you cause your rhymes are so frantic”
-Shadrach

Mrs. Fink adds via Facebook: “In 2004′s ‘Open Letter to NYC,’ Adam Yauch prayed ‘Dear New York I hope you’re doing well/I know a lot’s happen and you’ve been through hell/So we give thanks for providing a home.’ I always thought if it as a prayer somehow… And, in turn, I wish the same for him on this next step of his journey.”

And BHB founder Homer Fink offers: “The Beastie Boys influenced a generation. As program director of WNYU backintheday, your humble publisher got to witness the birth of the band. My old pal Timmy Sommer helped them along by playing their music on his legendary “Noise the Show.” This intro was immortalized on the band’s 1994 compilation Some Old Bullshit:

Our thoughts are with Yauch’s family and our many friends who worked with him closely for most of the band’s career.”

Please share your thoughts below.

Brooklyn Bloggers, luminaries and fans took to Twitter in reaction to the death of Beastie Boy Adam Yauch today:

RT @FakeMTA: The M, C. and A trains won’t be running, due to the world being really unfair, sometimes.

— Brokelyn (@Brokelyn) May 4, 2012

BLOG’D: R.I.P. MCA: Beastie Boys frontman Adam Yauch died today of cancer. He was only forty-seven years old. … bit.ly/KiUCze

— Effed in Park Slope (@effedparkslope) May 4, 2012

Adam Yauch marched with us in November over the Brooklyn Bridge. He was a visionary artist who never lost sight of his community. #RIP

— Occupy Wall Street (@OccupyWallSt) May 4, 2012

BP MARKOWITZ STATEMENT ON DEATH OF BROOKLYN NATIVE ADAM YAUCH OF THE BEASTIE BOYS“Brooklyn—the Creative Capital… fb.me/1iuEvDIFk

— Marty Markowitz (@MartyMarkowitz) May 4, 2012

Born and Bred in Brooklyn, U.S.A., they call him Adam Yauch, but he’s M.C.A. RIP Adam. #beastieboys #nosleeptillbrooklyn

— Chuck Schumer (@ChuckSchumer) May 4, 2012

RIP M.C.A. – Brooklyn lost a favorite son today.#BeastieBoys #musicalinnovation

— Stephen Levin (@StephenLevin33) May 4, 2012

“Forget about Kurt Cobain for a second: For kids like me, the Beastie Boys invented the 90s. Technology…” tmblr.co/Zfm8byKu9v__

— bklyndad (@bklyndad) May 5, 2012

RIP, Adam Yauch. All of Brooklyn is sad, dude. music-mix.ew.com/2012/05/04/ada… via @EW

— reclaimedhome (@reclaimedhome) May 4, 2012

RIP Adam Yauch. So talented, so young, so sad. #beastiesforever

— Karyn Bosnak (@karynbosnak) May 4, 2012

RT @KoPoint We’re blasting Beastie Boy classics today at the @KoPoint studio. Twist one up, pour one out, and turn it up loud for MCA.

— Dan Patterson (@DanPatterson) May 4, 2012

first saw this video in ’92 before an intense game of capture the flag.ill never forget that. #Flint #Bklyn #RIPMCA youtube.com/watch?v=ru3gH2…

— THE SHALTZES (@THESHALTZES) May 4, 2012

ABC comedy Suburgatory cast member and former Saturday Night Live regular Ana Gasteyer, who resides in DUMBO, is profiled in New York magazine’s Daily Intel.

Among the questions New York mag tossed at the actor, singer and comedienne: “Where do you go to be alone?” Her response: “The Brooklyn Heights Promenade and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. But I have small children, so I’m not really ever alone.”

Gasteyer will be performing her “Elegant Songs From A Handsome Woman” at Manhattan’s Joe’s Pub April 2. And reaching back to 1998, her SNL impression of Celine Dion remains a classic.

Paul Giamati, meet your new neighbors. Sarah Jessica Parker and husband Matthew Broderick are purchasing a pair of townhouses in south Brooklyn Heights on State Street near Sidney Place. The New York Daily News‘ real estate guru Jason Sheftell reported late Friday that the family is closing in on a contract, after purchasing a Manhattan townhouse on East 10th St. two years ago that they never moved into.

In 2011, Parker filmed I Don’t Know How She Does It in Brooklyn Heights. Check out our coverage here.

The couple currently resides in a townhome in the West Village on Charles Street, near West Fourth Street, with their son James Wilkie, 9, and twin daughters Marion and Tabitha, almost 3. A source told the Daily News, “They loved the West Village but wanted something more private, laid-back and discreet.”

When construction is completed, the two adjoining State Street townhouses the actors purchased will create “an urban mansion of 7,000-plus square feet with a suburban-size backyard,” the News reports. Both were an “off-market” transaction, meaning the houses weren’t officially for sale, according to Sheftell. City records show both are owned by Mark and Diane Baker.

Parker and Broderick paid $18.995 million for the East 10th Street townhouse two years ago, and fully remodeled the home, which the News says is now on the market.

CORE senior vice president Doug Bowen noted, “Brooklyn Heights is the city’s first official historic landmark district; that’s how beautiful it is and what it means to New York. The price difference between the West Village and Brooklyn Heights is sometimes two, three, four times the amount. That’s why even big names are deciding to live here. It’s an easier financial commitment.”

(Photo: New York Daily News)

The New York Observer identifies the buyer of 70 Willow Street as Dan Houser, creator of the popular Grand Theft Auto series of video games, and co-founder of Rockstar Games. The Observer story notes that the seller, Nicholas Callaway, a long time publisher of coffee-table books, is also involved in the digital world, having started a company, Callaway Digital Arts, to design and market mobile apps, especially for the iPad.

Anne Hathaway seems to have a penchant for Brooklyn. The Oscar-nominated doe-eyed actress—who is starring next as Catwoman in this summer’s “The Dark Knight Rises”—has just moved from her BK Prospect Heights home to… DUMBO.

Both Curbed and Gothamist are reporting a goodie bag of details: She and fiancé Adam Shulman have moved into a rental unit in the Clocktower building at 1 Main Street, setting up house in a 1BR with home office going for $6,400 a month.

Hathaway and Shulman had been sniffing around various Brooklyn locales, including her temporary nest in Prospect Heights, before settling into the waterfront building next to the Manhattan Bridge. This followed Hathaway’s leaving her Manhattan digs at 641 Fifth Avenue, a $37,000-a-month 46th/47th-floor duplex, which she shared with ex-fiancé (and now imprisoned con man) Raffaello Follieri.

The New York Post notes that the couple’s sixth-floor $6,400-a-month DUMBO rental is a far financial cry from the building’s premiere penthouse space: the $19 million Watchtower triplex that has been sitting empty with no serious bidders (and was once asking $50,000 a month in rent). Meanwhile, the Post says, “Neighbors describe Hathaway as low-key.”

With the yellow house at 70 Willow Street where Truman Capote once lived fetching the highest price for a single-family home in Brooklyn history last week, New York history blog The Bowery Boys has come up with a delectable post “Ten fabulous facts about 70 Willow Street.”

Read all about the home being a destination for the anti-women’s Suffrage movement, its donation to the Red Cross, Capote’s love for the Heights and Jackie Kennedy’s lunch date there. And scandalous anecdotes, like the fact that 70 Willow Street was built in 1839 by Adrian Van Sinderen, a descendant of original Dutch settlers in New Amsterdam. The house passed to his son Adrian Jr., a prominent New York lawyer, who fell spectacularly from grace when he mishandled the family trust. He died nearly penniless and alone in New Lots.

Another post offering a history lesson on 70 Willow can be found on the Brooklyn Before Now blog here.

(Photo: The Bowery Boys)

New York magazine offers an exhaustive (if not exhaustingly long) feature on Björk’s new album “Biophilia,” including some revealing details about the Icelandic singer’s Henry Street home in Brooklyn Heights.

The Feb. 26 piece by Nitsuh Abebe shares that “Björk lives in a bright, orderly penthouse in Brooklyn Heights, at least during the third of the year when she’s not in Reykjavík or on tour. I manage to meet Björk in the most unmagical way possible: while exiting a typically narrow Brooklyn-apartment bathroom that she’s paused in front of.”

And:

“Björk’s family has been in this apartment for two and a half years now. ‘I never thought I would ever move to such an urban city,’ she says. ‘I could never live in Manhattan. I’m too Icelandic for that. But there are incredible schools here.’ The schools are for Ísadóra, now 9, her daughter. The penthouse has windows looking out in all directions and takes in enough sunlight for eight to 10 more ordinary Brooklyn homes.

‘I get claustrophobic in urban situations,’ Björk says, ‘but at least here you have the option to relate to the sky.’ We sit in a nook off the kitchen, in which Isadora has drawn a season on each wall; there are polar bears, foxes, berries and women stacking bananas on a tropical island labeled ‘not Iceland.’”

Plow through the entire story in New York mag here.

Our Brooklyn Heights neighbors at Theater 2020 (read more about them here) will present a free dramatic reading (not a staged play: actors will be seated and reading from scripts throughout) of a new play by Lynn Marie Macy, Lady Susan or the Captive Heart, a Jane Austen Bodice Ripper, at the Brooklyn Heights branch of the Brooklyn Public Library, Cadman Plaza West and Tillary Street, on Saturday, February 25, from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. After the reading, there will be a discussion session with the playwright. As this is a work in progress, which Theater 2020 plans to mount as a full stage production later this year, you may contribute to its development.

Accordion music, knishes, and egg creams, along with our Heather Quinlan, greeted upwards of 100 guests at the Brooklyn Heights Cinema this evening to see a preview of Heather’s work-in-progress film If These Knishes Could Talk. Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz was on hand to give a short talk on the Brooklyn accent, which he, naturally, considers the true American speech (never mind those people who say the real McCoy is found in Buffalo). He also described how one of the best kosher delis in Brooklyn has passed from Jewish to Italian to Egyptian Muslim hands, while remaining kosher. Marty was treated to a birthday knish with candles.

During a Q&A session after the screening, Heather was asked what she plans to add to the film. She said she hopes to travel to New Orleans to interview speakers of the Yat dialect, which is similar to “Brooklynese”, and to East London, to interview speakers of the Cockney dialect, which she sees as the closest British analogue to a New York accent.

Brooklyn Heights Cinema owner Kenn Lowy prompted enthusiastic applause at the close of the event when he announced that the Cinema will be around for some time, as the landlord has said he wants to do the right thing.

Brooklyn Heights resident Björk has launched a combination concert & performance art event in support of her new album “Biophilia,” at the New York Hall of Science in Queens. If you missed her opening set Friday, she will encore Monday 2/6, Thursday 2/9, Sunday 2/12 and Wednesday 2/15.

The performance offers Björk accompanied by novel musical instruments, including four 10-foot pendulum-harps and a MIDI-controlled pipe organ, as well as a 24-piece Icelandic female choir and visuals from Biophilia Apps. The new album is a multi-media experience, available in collaboration with Apple here.

Björk will also collaborate with the New York Hall of Science in an upcoming three-week “Biophilia” education series, featuring interactive science and music workshops for middle-school children. Topics include the scientific concepts at the core of “Biophilia’s” songs, including crystalline structures, lunar phases, viruses and more.

The New York Hall of Science is located at 47-01 111th Street, Queens: 718-699-0005. Tickets for the concert, which range from $75 to $150, are available here.

Warbling Icelandic recording artist and Brooklyn Heights neighbor Björk, who bought a pad on Henry Street with filmmaker hubby Matthew Barney in 2009, has released new album “Brooklynphilia.” No, wait, that’s not right: It’s “Biophilia.” She appeared on Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report” January 31 to rap about the project and perform tracks.

According to USA Today, the recording is—historically—the “first app album,” in collaboration with Apple. Its iTunes link explains that “Biophilia” comprises “a suite of original music and interactive, educational artworks and musical artifacts,” and is released as 10 in-app experiences accessed “as you fly through a three-dimensional galaxy that accompanies the album’s theme song ‘Cosmogony.’” Say what?

Perhaps you can figure out what that means as Björk attempts to explain it to Colbert via clips at USA Today’s Pop Candy blog here.

Molly Smith Metzler, a playwright who lives in the Heights with fellow theater scribe Colin McKenna, is featured in a Sunday Los Angeles Times profile January 22. Her play “Elemeno Pea,” opens Feb. 3 at South Coast Repertory. The Tony-winning professional company in Costa Mesa, Calif., is regarded as one of America’s foremost producers of new works.
“Pea” is based on a woman she met while working at a yacht club on Martha’s Vineyard soon after college. “Everyone hated her. She was so demanding,” Smith Metzler tells the Times about the character of Michaela, the downward-spiraling diva who drives much of the comic action. She got to know the woman and “when I saw her life up close and personal, I felt very sympathetic. I had never seen a sadder person in my life, who had more money than God.”
In “Elemeno Pea,” the 33-year-old Juilliard-trained playwright “dramatizes both the seduction and the repulsion as Simone, personal assistant to the exacting, increasingly needy Michaela,” the Times reports. Other characters include Michaela’s middle-class sister, Devon; Simone’s swaggering, idle-rich boyfriend, Ethan; and a dryly impertinent handyman, Jos-B.
In the piece, Smith Metzler also discusses the disastrous launch of her off-Broadway debut, “Close Up Space,” a comedy-drama starring David Hyde Pierce and Rosie Perez, which runs through Jan. 29 at Manhattan Theatre Club.
Read the Los Angeles Times story here.

Brooklyn Heights-based artist, gardener, musician, author, sculpturist and overall creative guru Ford Rogers is whetting the artistic appetites of visitors at popular Italian eatery Noodle Pudding—at 38 Henry Street—with a dozen of his original paintings on display through February.

Rogers is well known in the neighborhood for designing the one-acre Bridge Harbor Heights Garden on Poplar Street between Hicks and Henry, home to 300+ plant varieties, which he designed nearly 20 years ago. Ford received the Brooklyn Heights Association’s Community Service Award for his horticultural efforts. His work was featured on the Brooklyn Heights Blog in July 2009.

Meanwhile, his artwork and sculptures have been displayed in NYC, Orlando, Nashville and Providence, R.I., while the New York Salmagundi Club honored Rogers for his acrylic-on-wood sculptures. Add to that his series of voodoo-inspired dolls and decorative items, including furniture, lamps and computer equipment. His works are heralded in private collections throughout North America and Europe.

As if that’s not enough, Rogers has also published three cookbooks: on citrus, nuts and olives. And overlooking the Brooklyn Bridge, he has a studio where he produces music, which has been used in a Dutch film and in a number of gallery installations.

Among Rogers’ works on display at Noodle Pudding are internationally inspired “Lima Fruit Vendor,” “Iceland Kirkja,” “Iceland Farm” and images of Svartifoss and Reykjavik in Iceland.

The NY Observer reports that actress Amy Ryan (The Office, The Wire) and her former SNL writer husband Eric Slovin are moving to Brooklyn Heights.

Slovin is the writing partner of former Pierrepont Street resident, now Cobble Hillbilly, Simon Rich. So when they’re not crossing the Atlantic Avenue DMZ to visit him, perhaps Ryan and Slovin will be dropping in to see her Win Win co-star Paul Giamatti who lives a mere stone’s throw away from their new Hicks Street digs.

NY Observer: As a Queens native, Ms. Ryan knows her way around a New York block. In an interview with The New York Times last year, the Gone Baby Gone actress explained that the city has a singular vitality. “I need the pulse of New York City,” she said, admitting that she draws inspiration from the people she encounters in the subway and on the street. We have the feeling that there will be plenty of material for you to work with in Brooklyn, Ms. Ryan. Only time will tell how the new environs will shape her acting career, however. Perhaps we’ll see her in Requiem for Dream Part II?

Sometimes it just feels like life is all nun and shin but no gimel. This is especially true during heated games of dreidel during Chanukah. Rabbi Simcha Weinstein (@rabbisimcha) of Congregation B’nai Avraham in Brooklyn Heights shares his double secret super dreidel powers:

Chabad.edu: Welcome to “Extreme Sports: Jewish Style.” I’ll leave the suicidal skateboarding to the kids. Being a rabbi, I’m more of a dreidel blackbelt!

While they aren’t as transformative as the Kabbalah or as lucrative as a lottery win, I’m uniquely qualified to reveal to you another very powerful secret of the universe: the Upside Down Dreidel Spin.

This is the bubbie of all spins, but in the spirit of Chanukah, remember: just as the oil in the temple burned for eight days, a great dreidel player must cultivate patience and perseverance in order to master this move.

Brooklyn Heights resident/ playwright Molly Smith Metzler’s Close Up Space opens tonight on Broadway at New York City Center Stage I [131 W. 55th Street Manhattan] (buy tickets). The play, recently in previews, stars David Hyde Pierce as Paul Barrow “an obsessive book editor on a major deadline.”

Playbill: Molly Smith Metzler is the author of Elemeno Pea, which recently premiered at the 2011 Humana Festival at Actors Theatre in Louisville. Her plays — which include Training Wisteria and Carve — have been developed by Manhattan Theatre Club 7@7, Playwrights Horizons, The O’Neill Theater Center, Ars Nova, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Chautauqua Theater Company, Summer Play Festival (SPF), Cherry Lane Mentor Project, hotINK, London’s Tristan Bates Theatre, Boston Playwrights’ Theatre and the Kennedy Center, where she was the recipient of three KCACTF Awards (The Kennedy Center National Student Playwriting Award, The Mark Twain Comedy Award and The David Mark Cohen Award).

Brooklyn Heights resident/author/BHB pal/ Snookie’s ghost writer Valerie Frankel plugs her new book It’s Hard Not to Hate You in an interview with WCBS 880′s Pat Farnack. Listen after the jump.

At a pre-Halloween party sponsored by Midori, our acclaimed local pumpkin carver Hugh McMahon, who, it seems, can also apply his talent to other vegetables, produced a pumpkin likeness of Brooklyn Bridge Park fan Kim Kardashian.

Wall Street Journal Online: It took three hours to create the gourd, which weighed 125 pounds and stood three-and-a-half feet tall. “I did Heidi Klum a little quicker,” said Mr. McMahon, a Brooklyn Heights resident who this year alone has carved Anderson Cooper into a pumpkin and Susan Sarandon into a watermelon. “In [Kim's] case, it’s getting the eyebrows right. They’re very pronounced. I hope it’s voluptuous. I think it is.”

As a few commenters have noted, Norton Juster’s classic The Phantom Tollbooth is celebrating its 50th birthday this week. Juster and illustrator Jules Feiffer shared an apartment in Brooklyn Heights where the book was written:

WSJ: I was living in Brooklyn Heights with Jules in a big old decrepit duplex apartment. I had been looking for a place to live and he just happened to be living above [what became] my basement room. That was in the 1950s and it was a very different place. I went back recently to Montague Street and I couldn’t remember a single store or restaurant or anything. Things do change.

But wait… there’s more! The Annotated Phantom Tollbooth is edited by Brooklyn Heights resident Leonard S. Marcus:

Educating Alice: Tracing the publication history of The Phantom Tollbooth led me back to the book’s editor, Jason Epstein, whom I interviewed in his lower Manhattan apartment. Epstein is one of the great innovators of modern American publishing: the creator of Anchor Books and the Library of America, and a co-founder of the New York Review of Books, among other ventures. No wonder he found an adventurous book like The Phantom Tollbooth well worth publishing, even though he was not in the business of publishing contemporary children’s books at the time.

I loved finding out the derivation of expressions like “short shrift” and “to make ends meet.” Almost as a bonus, Jules Feiffer and Norton Juster were both living in the neighborhood where I now live—Brooklyn Heights, New York—at the time they collaborated on The Phantom Tollbooth. So I got to do some historical time travel and learn quite a lot about what life in the Heights was like a half century ago.

Anyone know where Feiffer and Juster’s apartment was in the Heights? The pair are recently seen in front of the brownstone in the video above – can you figure out the address?

The Brooklyn Eagle covers the artistic stylings of world renowned pumpkin carver guy/Brooklyn Heights resident Hugh McMahon:

Brooklyn Eagle: An uncanny likeness of celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse — with the addition of an eerie orange glow — emerged from the X-acto knife held by “pumpkin carver to the stars,” Hugh McMahon. The pumpkin was destined for a tribute to Lagasse at the New York City Food & Wine Festival at the Chelsea Market.

“I’ve been on his program four or five times,” McMahon nonchalantly told the Brooklyn Eagle. “It gets very busy this time of year — the orders are pouring in. Last year I carved for Heidi Klum’s Halloween party. This year it’s Red Bull and something for the Nets. They’re talking about a logo.”

Ephemeral New York takes a look at the seedy history of Sands Street and mentions how much one time Brooklyn Heights resident/author Hart Crane sure liked to “cruise” the strip:

Ephemeral New York: Struggling young poet Hart Crane (below), an Ohio transplant living just a short walk away at 110 Columbia Heights in Brooklyn Heights, regularly visited Sands Street in the 1920s.

“With Emil away at sea a lot and their relationship intermittent, Crane walked down to Sands Street searching for sex to share in a rendezvous meant not to last,” writes Evan Hughes in his wonderful book Literary Brooklyn.

“Cruising was a dangerous pursuit for Crane in a time of rampant homophobia. More than once he came home beaten and bloodied.”

The New York Times reports today on a lawsuit over the sale of the late Norman Mailer’s 142 Columbia Heights co-op:

NY Times: In July, Wesley Golby, a hedge fund manager, signed a contract to purchase the apartment for $2.08 million, and he put down a deposit of $208,750.

For Mr. Golby, the appeal was not just the apartment’s sweeping views of the Manhattan skyline and its storied history, but also the highly unusual layout that resulted from a renovation performed in the early 1960s, according to Mr. Golby’s lawyer, William Fried.

Mailer, seeking to conquer a lifelong fear of heights, essentially had the roof lifted up to create a tri-level crow’s nest of sorts. A series of ladders lead up several flights, with landings and small rooms resembling tiny ship galleys on each level.

But after Mr. Golby signed the contract, he contends, the Mailer estate failed to provide evidence to back up assurances that the work had been done legally and in accordance with zoning laws and building codes.

He wants to be released from his contract and get his deposit back, according to a civil complaint to be filed in State Supreme Court in Brooklyn on Wednesday.

“This is not about money,” Mr. Fried said. “Wes loved the apartment. His problem is he loved that apartment as it is and he does not want to go in and find out he can’t have the apartment he wants.”

The Brooklyn Eagle marks the occasion of what would have been former Brooklyn Heights resident Arthur Miller’s 96th birthday with a great article detailing the highlights of his life here.

Brooklyn Eagle: During his time in Brooklyn Heights, Miller “never gravitated toward a society of writers.” He was far more likely to explore the livelier neighborhoods just beyond the Heights. “I loved walking along the waterfront,” he recalled. “When I got interested in the longshoremen, I spent a lot of time in Red Hook around Columbia Street. There was a movement at the time to rid the union of racketeers … I knew a newly graduated lawyer involved in that struggle. There were lots of murders, bodies dropping into the river in concrete slabs. He called me. He thought I could get some publicity in the papers. Then I became a supernumerary of that movement.” Miller’s experience in Red Hook gave him the background for A View from the Bridge and the young lawyer furnished part of the characterization of Alfieri.

Shortly after learning that the Willow Street house formerly home to Truman Capote has had its second asking price reduction, we have the news that Norman Mailer’s nautical themed apartment has, following the collapse of a deal to sell it, been taken off the market by Mailer’s, and his wife, Norris Church Mailer’s, heirs.

NYCurbed: So, it looks like Norman Mailer’s $2.5M apartment in Brooklyn Heights is off the market after a 6 month run with Corcoran. The Post reports that a serious buyer emerged in August, and the family even had a final dinner to say farewell to the apartment in preparation for the move. They even go on to say “They had also begun moving out the legendary author’s belongings.” Well, get the boxes back in the apartment ’cause that deal is dead!

The Atlantic Avenue Local Development Corporation has named as its first “Ambassador of Atlantic Avenue” Charlie Sahadi, proprietor of Sahadi’s, the gourmet and Middle Eastern food market at 187 Atlantic Avenue, between Clinton and Court streets.

“A true ‘ambassador’ of the Borough of Brooklyn, Charlie has helped to make Brooklyn an international destination and represented our community as both a cultural and business leader. Through Charlie’s vision and hard work, Sahadi’s has become not only a major wholesaler with international influence but also top retail hub for other local businesses to build off of and create a unique retail district where so many cultures and neighborhoods merge,” said Christian Haag, Atlantic Avenue LDC President.

Mr. Sahadi is the inaugural recipient of the Ambassador award, which will be presented annually. He will be honored at a ceremony to be held at Roulette, 509 Atlantic Avenue, at Third Avenue. Tickets are $50, and may be purchased here. Proceeds benefit the Atlantic Avenue LDC, a not-for-profit organization that “promote[s] economic growth and vitality, enhancing the preservation and development of downtown Brooklyn and neighboring communities. [It] sponsors the Atlantic Avenue ArtWalk each spring, the Atlantic Antic in the fall and a Holiday Promotion each year.”

Photo: Brooklyn Community Foundation.