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Comings and Goings on Montague Street

This afternoon your correspondent had to walk from his residence to the bank, which entailed going the length of Montague Street. Along the way, he snapped some photos of storefronts either emptied, about to be emptied, or, in one instance, newly occupied, since the outbreak of COVID-19. This doesn’t purport to be an exhaustive survey, […]

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Brooklyn Townhouses are Hot; Small Apartments Not?

The publication Mansions Global, which I discovered only because I have a Google alert for anything mentioning Brooklyn Heights (which, along with stuff about our neighborhood, gives me info about a suburb of Cleveland, a poor neighborhood in Nashville, a pizza parlor in Austin, a drag queen popular in the D.C. area, and a race […]

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Permanently Closed: Brooklyn Heights Businesses Lost To The Pandemic

Seven months into the pandemic, most of our local small businesses are hanging on. With pure grit and ingenuity, restaurants turned parking spots into dining spaces, and retail stores went online until their doors could open again. Tragically, not all of the businesses survived the long shutdown, not to mention the loss of tourists and […]

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Botched Ballots to Be Resent to Over 100,00 Brooklyn Voters

If you received your absentee ballot and it’s got the wrong name on the return envelope, raise your hand. Both Gothamist and The New York Times reported a “printing error” as the cause of the literal mix-ups. As many as 100,000 absentee ballots were sent with return envelopes mismatched to the intended voter. The vendor responsible, Phoenix […]

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Brooklyn Women’s Exchange Plans to Re-Open Soon; Meanwhile, You Can Shop On Line

This window, at the Brooklyn Women’s Exchange earlier this year, promised better days ahead. COVID-19 forced the shop, at 55 Pierrepont Street, to close. For a time the Exchange could only take orders by phone or email. Now they are able to take orders on line; you may shop here. The Exchange hopes to be […]

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Photoville is Back, but in a New Format, and Many New Locations

Photoville, the exhibit of contemporary photography that, in recent years has been held in shipping containers in an empty lot beneath the Brooklyn Bridge, has, because of COVID-19, been taken outdoors. It’s now on billboard like structures, as in the photo, taken near the Old Fulton Street entrance to Brooklyn Bridge Park. These displays are […]

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Poll on Closing Montague Street for Outdoor Dining

Update: the survey resulted in Montague being kept open to car traffic on weekends. Our friends at the Montague Street BID and at Brooklyn Community Board 2 have alerted us to a poll being run by the BID asking whether Montague Street should be closed to auto traffic on Fridays from 5 to 10 p.m. […]

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Clark Street Elevator Repairs on Hold; MTA to do Borough Hall First

We’ve seen some questions on Open Thread Wednesdays, and heard them in on line conversations with friends: when will the MTA proceed with replacement of the Clark Street elevators? Just this February the MTA announced that the Clark Street subway station would close for eight months while all three aged, breakdown prone elevators are replaced, […]

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BQE Below Brooklyn Heights Being Resurfaced

Our friends at the Brooklyn Heights Association have advised us that the City Department of Transportation, in an effort to reduce the problem of vibrations from the cantilevered portion of the Brooklyn Queens Expressway, has ordered the resurfacing of the BQE from Brooklyn Bridge to Remsen Street. The BHA’s announcement said that the reduction in […]

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Pastoring During a Pandemic: An Interview with Rev. Adriene Thorne of The First Presbyterian Church of Brooklyn

Rev. Adriene Thorne says she’s not magical. But many in the community would disagree. Since moving to Brooklyn Heights four years ago to become Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Brooklyn, her mark on the community has been tremendous. Adriene tends to her congregation of 300 members, with a focus on faith as it […]

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