Dog obsessed Brooklynites: You know what time it is!

The 9th Annual Howl-o-Ween Charity Doggie Costume Parade and Contest has been scheduled for Sunday, October 30th from 1-3pm on the Promenade.

If you’d like to enter your dog in the parade/costume contest, you’ll need to pre-register at Perfect Paws, 102 Hicks Street (corner of Pineapple). The cost of entry is $25/dog, all of which is a  tax deductible charitable donation and all of which will be distributed among three animal-related charities:

• Sean Casey Animal Rescue in Windsor Terrace, Bklyn
• Friends of Hillside Dog Park right here in Bklyn Heights
• Blue Rider Stables near Great Barrington, Massachusetts

Fabulous prizes awarded in many categories.  If you’re participated in previous years, you know how much fun this is and if it is your first time, come on down!  If you don’t have a dog in this race, it’s free to be an observer and cheer on the contestants.  Last year several hundred bemused locals and tourists watched over 70 parade participants strut their stuff for fun and glory.

Dr. Sara Neuman and the gang over at Vinegar Hill Vet are hosting the catered after party immediately following the contest judging–now three years running (yea Dr. Sara!).  Contest winners will be announced around 4pm at the after party. You won’t want to miss this!

Local Businesses Owners:  Get your business in front of hundreds of locals and support animal charity at the same time. You can sponsor a table at the parade/contest, or donate items for the contest goodie bags.   Call Tom at the above number 501(c)(3) certificate on file if you need a copy for your business.

See you there!  May the best costumes win!

Read about it on Cobble Hill Blog.

Reader epc attended last evening’s “stakeholder meeting” concerning reconstruction of the portion of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway that passes by or through Brooklyn Heights, DUMBO, Cobble Hill, and Red Hook. Here is a portion of his report (his entire comment can be read here–scroll down to bottom):

[T]hey’ve eliminated two of the potential alternatives which would have involved taking much of DUMBO and portions of Brooklyn Heights around Squibb Hill. The alternatives still on the table include:
– rebuild existing roadway & cantilever, making almost no changes to clearance or lane widths[;]
– a number of tunnel options: under the Heights (a couple of variants), under 4th Avenue, and a couple of options which run under the river (either cutting through DUMBO, right through [the] Dock Street development if I understand the map correctly, then under the park; alternately going under the river much farther north and returning inland around 65th St).

I haven’t been attending the meetings so I kept my questions to one: whether or not the various alternatives which rely on the existing BQE to serve as a collector road include renovation and the cost of renovation of the existing cantilever in the separate estimates, the answer was that they did (so the approximate $4bn for one of the tunnels included $250MM for renovating the cantilever).

The next meeting is expected to be in May. They will return with an analysis of the various options using funding and likelihood of funding as the criteria for making a determination.

We’ll keep you advised of further developments, including the date of the next meeting when determined.

A bicyclist was killed this morning on the Atlantic Avenue ramp of the BQE, according to BHB’s Weegee. Channel 7 adds a report that makes it sound like the rider was on the expressway itself:

WABC-TV: Police say the victim was hit in the westbound lanes, near Atlantic Avenue, just before 4:30 a.m. Thursday.

The first vehicle to hit him left the scene. A second vehicle then struck the bicyclist, and that vehicle stopped.

The victim was rushed to Long Island College Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Our man with cam gives us views of fireworks, festivities and food on a New Year’s Eve and following morning, spanning Brooklyn Bridge Park, the Heights, Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens.

BHB photo by C. Scales

It was here, way back in 1776 at the “Battle” of Brooklyn, that George Washington staged the evacuation of his army to Manhattan, allowing it to survive for another day, insuring that we’d one day drive on the right side of the road.

(Despite the snarky quotation marks, there really was a Battle of Brooklyn; indeed, it was the largest battle of the Revolutionary War. What happened in the Heights was its aftermath.) If there had been a category for literary significance, Montague Terrace could have won there, too, having been home to both W.H. Auden, who wrote New Year Letter at One Montague Terrace, and Thomas Wolfe, whose novel, Of Time and the River took shape two doors away at Number Five. Also, of course, Montague Terrace has featured as the gateway to hell, a distinction L bestows on Central Avenue between Moffat and Knollwood Cemetery, in Bushwick.

The winner in the category “Best Block for Groceries” is Atlantic Avenue between Clinton and Court, which straddles the Heights/Cobble Hill border.

All-world market Sahadi and wonderful bakery Damascus (nearly side by side) would already count for the win, but this block also has a Trader Joe’s, a Key Food, and the Green Pea Grocery.

I’m glad Green Pea gets a mention, but Key Food??!!

Finally, the nod for one of the “Five Best Brooklyn Blocks to Live On” goes to Columbia Heights between Clark and Pierrepont.

Hard to argue with the views from the western side of this heightiest of Brooklyn Heights streets. Seriously, how do these people get anything done?

It could also have been named best block anywhere for helicopter spotters.

I would have made Garden Place best block for Halloween decorations, as well as for trick-or-treating, but L awards both these to Humboldt Street between Nassau and Driggs Avenues, Greenpoint, which, I confess, I’ve never seen.

Neighboring nabes also made out well. Cobble Hill, as already noted, shares the “Best Block for Groceries”. Charming Verandah Place, between Clinton and Henry (which boasts another Thomas Wolfe residence, where he penned the classic exercise in local dialect, Only the Dead Know Brooklyn), gets another of the five best to live on awards.

Whenever we pass by the tiny Ted and Honey and see the happy people outside enjoying a drink or relaxing in the park or meandering down the lane-like Verandah Place, we wonder, “Who are they, and how did they get here?” And then we are jealous.

Smith Street between Bergen and Dean, on the border of Cobble and Boerum Hills, is named “Best Block For Street Festivals”.

This might piss off borough traditionalists of the Italian persuasion, but the annual Bastille Day party (brought to you largely by Bar Tabac, at the corner of Dean) is the most fun had by French people anywhere, ever.

Reflecting its status as a happening place, DUMBO scores four times. “Best Block For Date Night ” is bestowed on Water Street between Main and Old Dock Streets.

Highbrow culture at St. Ann’s Warehouse or Galapagos Art Space; drinks before dinner or after at Water Street Restaurant; and fancy-ass dessert at Jacques Torres (closes at 9pm on weekends). Top off the night with a stroll through Brooklyn Bridge Park for that Woody Allen moment…

Front Street between Jay Street and the Manhattan Bridge is honored as “Best Block For Celebrity Sightings”.

Jason Schwartzman, Cynthia Nixon, Jay Z, Beyonce, Spike Lee, Alexis Bledel (of the Gilmore Girls!), the entire cast of Gossip Girl, Paul Dano, Michael Pitt… These are just a few people we’ve recently seen near our office.

Washington Street between Water and Plymouth Streets is called the “Best Block For Gallery Hopping”.

See large-scale projects by established artists and new works by emerging locals skipping between Smack Mellon’s massive refurbished boiler house space, the Dumbo Arts Center’s expansive loft and Rabbithole Studio’s raw basement gallery.

Finally, Main Street between Water and Front Streets gets dubbed “Best Block For New Media”.

Realtors recently re-dubbed Dumbo “Silicon Beach.” Seriously. A sampling of new social networking locative buzzword emergent media companies operating in this block’s behemoth office building: Digital Gravel, Fusia Communications, Red Herring Design, Lost Boys International, FreeAssociation, Domani Studios, Freeserver, Big Spaceship, The Joey Company, and so on. Also, The L, keeping it real for old media!

Hmmm…not exactly a disinterested choice, but probably valid.

In the schadenfreude department, we note that Park Slope gets only two mentions, “Best Block For Iconic Brownstones” (Garfield Place between Seventh and Eighth Avenues) and “Best Block For Ugly Condos” (Fourth Avenue between 4th and 5th Streets: “It looks like a service road south of Cancun.”)

The most inexplicable entry is this:

45. Best Block for Urban Detrital Discoveries (by day), Lynchian Encounters with the Unheimlich (by evening), and Profound Malaise Bordering on Fear (by night)
Meserole between Bushwick Ave and Morgan Ave
This one wrote itself.

What kind of archaic hipster BS is that?

Cintra Wilson, in her “Critical Shopper” piece in tomorrow’s Times about the new Barneys Co-op on Atlantic Avenue, has this to say:

New York Times: Something was rubbing me the wrong way, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Then I put my finger on a prewadded NSF shirt, a garment affecting all the “realness” of a Vietnam veteran camouflage jacket, replete with a living-under-a-freeway patina ($195). On the next rack, there was another retro-camouflage jungle-jacket (Rag & Bone, $475). Among the handbags was a brass-studded Desert Storm sand-tone canvas field pack ($295). A fur-lined sleeveless Army parka in olive drab was $2,300.

Clothing is a language, and the Brooklyn Barneys seemed to have one sartorial message being recited like a mantra on virtually every rack: lock ’n’ load.

She sums it up thus:

It’s haute Salvation Army à la Salvador Dalí and the wacky sensibilities that brought urinals into the art gallery. Brooklyn’s bourgeoisie may safely let its beard mat into felt and start shouting at passing cars: It knows where to shop to look sexily impoverished.

She does have some nice words for the staff, whom she writes are “affable”, and resemble “a skateboard team composed of the cast of ‘Glee’.” She also nearly echoes BHB reader my2cents’ description of the target market by describing the women’s fashions as ” irresistible to the well-heeled young yoga-mom.”

The long pending merger of Long Island College Hospital into SUNY Downstate Medical Center may be closer to consummation, as the State is expected to announce approval of the deal tomorrow.

Wall Street Journal: State officials are expected to announce Thursday that SUNY Downstate Medical Center will take over the financially ailing Long Island College Hospital in Brooklyn, aided by $40 million in state grants, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Gov. David Paterson is scheduled to announce the deal, along with the grant awarded to retire some of LICH’s debt, according to a state official who wasn’t authorized to disclose the announcement. That money is on top of $22 million in state grants given to Downstate last October.

If the deal goes through, SUNY will continue to operate LICH at its location in Cobble Hill.

Update: It’s official. Today, Thursday, October 14, Governor Paterson announced the $40 million grant to enable SUNY Downstate to acquire LICH from Continuum Health Partners.

According to the Governor’s press release:

John C. LaRosa, M.D., President of SUNY Downstate, said: “I want to emphasize that the agreement with Continuum represents a significant step forward, but there are many more review and approval steps that must be completed before an agreement can be finalized. This agreement will also strengthen Downstate’s education and training mission and preserve Downstate’s standing as the hub of medical education in Brooklyn. Equally important, critically needed healthcare services in Brooklyn will be safeguarded.”

Today we learn that the scoundrel who smirked, “I don’t do CPR” as 11 year old Briana Ojeda lay dying of an asthma attack Sunday in Cobble Hill, has been identified as  NYPD officer Alfonso Mendez from our very own 84th Precinct.  He has been suspended and faces termination:

WSJ: Law-enforcement officials with knowledge of the investigation say Mr. Mendez, 30 years old, though trained in CPR, admitted he wasn’t confident enough in his skills to perform the procedure.

Mr. Mendez traveled behind the mother’s car, providing an escort of sorts to the hospital. However, when they arrived, Mr. Mendez allegedly drove off and never reported the incident as NYPD regulations require, police officials said. The girl was pronounced dead at the hospital.

After the mother went to the news media with allegations of inaction by an NYPD officer, detectives from the NYPD’s Internal Affairs unit showed the mother pictures of every officer in the 76th Precinct where the incident took place. However, she wasn’t able to identify any of the officers as the one she dealt with.

Police said Internal Affairs detectives then expanded their search to include what Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly called on Tuesday the “universe of law enforcement that might be in the area.”

After Internal Affairs identified Mr. Mendez as a suspect they showed his photo to the mother and she identified him as the officer.

Police say that a gasoline charge Mr. Mendez made with an NYPD-issued gas card placed him in the area at the time of the incident. Mr. Mendez is assigned to the 84th precinct in downtown Brooklyn. On the day of the incident he was in traffic court at 139 Flatbush Avenue and was traveling to relieve an officer assigned to a security post on the Brooklyn side of the Brooklyn Bridge when he encountered the girl’s mother, police officials said.

One police official with knowledge of the investigation said Mr. Mendez’s biggest mistake was that he failed to make the proper notifications.

Cobble Hill community activist Roy Sloane has proposed re-routing the BQE through what would be the longest highway tunnel in North America, taking it from the Navy Yard, under parts of Fort Greene, Downtown Brooklyn, and Boerum Hill, to the Prospect Expressway.

YourNabe.com: The extraordinarily ambitious two-and-a-half-mile tunnel is one of several options for replacing the beleaguered highway that is being considered by the state Department of Transportation, but it is already emerging as a favorite.

“It’s brilliant,” said Allen Swerdlowe, an architect participating in state-sponsored design workshops, who praised the tunnel idea because it would discourage traffic-enraged drivers from exiting the highway as they do now and driving on local streets.

Swerdlowe does not, however, agree with Sloane’s idea of keeping the existing stretch of the BQE, including the cantilevered portion below the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, that would be bypassed by the tunnel, open for local traffic. He believes that this will just eventuate in additional traffic volume. Instead, he suggests as a possibility shutting down this roadway and converting it to recreational use, in the manner of the High Line in Manhattan.

Other, shorter tunnel proposals would bypass the troubled cantilevered stretch, but would link to the “ditch” carrying the BQE parallel to Hicks Street past Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens, and would involve tunneling under at least part of the Heights.

Cobble Hill Towers, built in 1879 as an example of better housing for the poor,  will soon be converted to condominiums:

Brooklyn Paper:  Tenants in the landmark building will be offered the chance to buy their apartments at insiders price such as $230,000 for a studio and $595,000 for a three-bedroom apartment. Owners would then be free to set their own re-sale prices, though residents in the rent-stabilized apartments will not see any changes if they want to go on renting.

Still, the plan will result in the building’s transformation from moderate-income rentals to luxury condos. As a result, it has frightened residents, who are unsure whether they’ll be able to buy, even at the insider prices.

“It’s ridiculous,” said longtime resident Cindy Nurullah. “Some people are going to have to pay more money [to buy their place].”

Hudson Companies’ Principal David Kramer called the concerns misguided, as there is no plan to evict any tenants.

“I think change can be scary to a lot of people,” he said. “We are giving people the best deal in town.”

Editor’s note: Before Homer had his coffee this morning, he incorrectly identified this as a story about Riverside Apartments.  Sorry.  Now, please carry on.

The contract dispute previously discussed here between Continuum Health Partners, the consortium that presently controls Long Island College Hospital, and UnitedHealthcare, the parent of the popular Oxford Health Plans as well as other plans covering unions and similar groups, has been resolved.

Crain’s New York Business: The dispute is over: Continuum Health Partners and UnitedHealthcare signed a new contract Wednesday night after months of sometimes tense negotiations. The contract is for all product lines, including commercial, Medicare and Medicaid, and is effective retroactively to March 1.

This means that persons covered under Oxford or other UnitedHealthcare plans may continue to use LICH and LICH-affiliated physicians during the time LICH remains under Continuum’s control and the new contract remains in effect. If and when the merger between LICH and SUNY Downstate Medical Center takes effect–approval by the State Department of Health is still pending–coverage should not be affected, as there is no present dispute between SUNY Downstate and UnitedHealthcare.

March is Women’s History Month, and Keelie Sheridan, the reigning Miss Brooklyn, wants you to know that there are events scheduled here in the Borough to mark the occasion. Specifically, there will be a series of exhibitions, readings and discussions of artwork and writing by Brooklyn based women artists and authors. This will start with a reception, featuring artwork by several illustrators, at the restaurant Superfine, located at 126 Front Street in DUMBO, on Thursday, March 4, from 6-8 p.m. The artwork will be on display from Tuesday, March 2 through Sunday, March 14. Other events in the local area include: a panel discussion featuring several author/illustrators at BookCourt, 163 Court Street, on Sunday, March 14 starting at 11:00 a.m.; and a group story time, featuring the same group of author/illustrators, at P.S. Bookshop, 147A Front Street, DUMBO, on Sunday, March 21, from 4-6 p.m. For more details, see Miss Brooklyn’s website.

Andy Campbell of The Brooklyn Paper this week interviewed representatives of three Brooklyn hospitals, including Long Island College Hospital along with Maimonides Medical Center and Methodist Hospital. Asked what LICH was doing to stand out among other hospitals, interim president Dominick Stanzione said:

It’s important that LICH remain a full-service hospital, serving the community. The merger [a pending one with SUNY Downstate] provides an opportunity to expand that service, rather than consolidate it. Even before that happens, we’re in the process of adding additional services.

Stanzione also described the healthcare system as “broken”, and said it “needs to be fixed”, but thinks the plan currently proposed “would not be particularly helpful to New York.”

Nurses at Long Island College Hospital today marched with placards to protest management’s attempt to modify their union contract.

The Brooklyn Paper: Nurses at Long Island College Hospital took to the street in front of the Cobble Hill medical center on Wednesday, alleging that the financially flatlining institution is tinkering with their contracts as it braces for new ownership.

The sticking point is a job security clause that management wants to eliminate, allegedly because of a demand by LICH’s prospective merger partner, SUNY Downstate Medical Center.

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.

I’m told the Guide is almost done – it’s being proofread right now, and is available for pre-ordering on Amazon. As for the Y’all Stars, Leadon described them as on “hiatus”, as several members or their partners have recently had babies. In fact, Leadon and his wife are expecting their first child.

Perhaps though in a final fling with nap-time-less freedom, he played with his own band on Saturday at Freddy’s, the Prospect Heights bar under imminent threat of demolition for Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards.

I got myself down to the gig, and it was a fine show. The songs were all his, and the band was aces. Part of Brooklyn’s thriving bluegrass and traditional music scene.

Here’s “My Nashville Rose”, and more can be found here.

As we noted here last July, discussions have been underway concerning a transfer of management of Long Island College Hospital from Continuum Health Partners to SUNY Downstate Medical Center. This now appears closer to fruition.

The Brooklyn Paper: Long Island College Hospital’s financial malaise is about to run its course, thanks to an agreement that would merge it with another healthcare center, officials say.

LICH’s current operator, Continuum Health Partners, approved an agreement on Wednesday that would merge the Cobble Hill hospital with SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Crown Heights — effectively easing LICH’s fiscal woes and its tumultuous relationship with Continuum.

The agreement, under which SUNY Downstate would operate LICH as a second campus in addition to its present one in Crown Heights, must still receive approval from the New York State Department of Health. Should LICH leave Continuum, and presuming there is no dispute over insurance coverage between SUNY Downstate and UnitedHealthcare, the completion of this merger should mean that those covered under UnitedHealthcare’s medical insurance plans, which include Oxford, will still be able to use LICH.

The contract dispute between UnitedHealthcare, the health insurance giant that controls the popular Oxford Health Plans, and Continuum Health Partners, the hospital consortium that controls Long Island College Hospital, is the subject of a front page article in today’s Times:

The New York Times: A front in the national health care battle has opened in New York City, where a major hospital chain and one of the nation’s largest insurance companies are locked in a struggle over control of treatment and costs that could have broad ramifications for millions of people with private health insurance.

The fight is between Continuum Health Partners, a consortium of five New York hospitals, including Beth Israel Medical Center and St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center, both major teaching hospitals, and UnitedHealthcare, which includes Oxford health plans and has 25 million members across the country, one million of them in New York.

Principal sticking points in the dispute are Continuum’s demands for increased payments, and United’s insistence that hospitals notify insurers within 24 hours of any patient admission or face a penalty of having reimbursement for that patient’s treatment cut in half.

As reported by NY1, a state court today issued an order temporarily restraining UnitedHealthcare, a major health insurance group that controls the popular Oxford Health Plans, from terminating coverage for services provided by doctors affiliated with hospitals in the Continuum Health Partners consortium, which includes Long Island College Hospital. As we previously reported, Continuum’s contract with UnitedHealthcare expired because the parties could not agree on terms of a new contract by the January 1 deadline. Under state law, the insurer was required to provide coverage during a two month grace period following the contract expiration, which meant that, if the parties were still not able to agree on new terms, coverage would have ended March 1. The court has now ordered UnitedHealthcare to continue providing coverage beyond that date, pending arbitration of the dispute.

Norval White, architect, author, and long time Heights resident, died at his home in Roques, France on December 26, at the age of 83. As Henrik Krogius noted in the Brooklyn Eagle:

His own Brooklyn Heights brownstone served him with examples of noteworthy architectural elements. Norval C. White, co-author of the important AIA Guide to New York City, celebrated many Heights buildings in that work, as well as in his more personal “bouillabaisse of a book,” The Architecture Book (1977), about which Paul Goldberger wrote that “it has a breezy irreverence that seems especially correct as a basis for an architectural viewpoint today.”

Krogius also points out that, in his writing, White used details from his own brownstone at 104 Pierrepont Street to illustrate architectural concepts.

This New York Times article from last year describes White’s work with his new AIA Guide co-author (the co-author of the first four editions of that work, Elliott Willensky, also a Heights resident, died in 1990), Francis Leadon, a Cobble Hill resident, on the fifth edition of the Guide, which was completed before White’s death and will be published this year.

Visiting Brooklyn proved a bit more exciting than planned for a British teen and his dad (shown above with Dr. Caitlin Jones of Long Island College Hospital), who were forced to extend their holiday stay here when the lad developed an abscess the size of a golf ball in his throat, and was taken to LICH for emergency surgery. After the ordeal, the homesick pair were treated to dinner by the Atlantic Chip Shop. In LICH’s words:

Keaton Bishop, a 17-year old British teen “on holiday” with his family, expected to do the things all first-time visitors to New York do – sightsee, shop and take in a Broadway show or two. Instead of returning to college and his South Yorkshire home before Christmas, however, Keaton and his dad, Paul, experienced something else entirely: Brooklyn emergency medical care – and hospitality.

What began as a sore throat rapidly developed into a severely infected abscess of the tonsil, a condition known as peritonsillar abscess. It nearly suffocated the teen, who was brought to Long Island College Hospital (LICH) fighting for his life. Caitlin Jones, MD, assistant director of the Emergency Department, rapidly diagnosed Keaton’s condition, called for an otolaryngologist (ear, nose and throat specialist) and raced him to the Operating Room for emergency surgery. “We had Keaton from the ER to the OR in less than 30 minutes,” says Dr. Jones. Richard Rosenfeld, MD, MPH, Chairman of the Department of Otolaryngology, operated on Keaton. “The abscess was the size of a golf ball,” he noted. David Fishman, MD, the anesthesiologist who performed an extremely complicated intubation, was also critical in saving Keaton’s life.

Unable to travel home due to the risk of post-surgical bleeding, Keaton and his father remained in Brooklyn over the holiday. A joking reference to having their Christmas dinner at Brooklyn’s English-style Chip Shop restaurant led to a genuine invitation from Christopher Sell, the owner, who generously gave the Bishops a little taste of home.

A few interesting – and colorful – coincidences: Keaton is from Dorcaster, Yorkshire, home of William Bradford, one of the leaders of the Puritans who sailed to America aboard the Mayflower and served as a governor of the Plymouth Colony. Additionally, Keaton’s throat abscess, also known as quinsy, was the condition which led to the death of our first president, George Washington – who fought the British at the Battle of Long Island, also known as the Battle of Brooklyn. The August, 1776 clash was the first major battle of the Revolutionary War following the U.S. Declaration of Independence.

Of course, all is long forgiven between our two countries who now enjoy a “special relationship.” Keaton and Paul Bishop returned home after the New Year, declaring Brooklyn to have been the best place to be – under the circumstances.

Keaton and Paul Bishop enjoy a Chip Shop dinner with John Dunham (right) and guest.

Continuum Health Partners, the hospital consortium that includes Long Island College Hospital, and UnitedHealthcare, a major underwriter of health insurance plans, including Oxford, failed to renew their contract by the January 1 deadline.

Crain’s New York Business: A big Manhattan hospital system and one of the country’s largest insurers have failed to come to terms on a contract, potentially forcing thousands of New Yorkers to find new hospitals and doctors, or face higher healthcare costs.

Continuum Health Partners—which includes Beth Israel Medical Center, St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center, Long Island College Hospital and the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary—dropped out of UnitedHealthcare’s network on January 1.

The expiration of the contract immediately affected those covered under self-funded accounts managed but not insured by United or its affiliates. Those covered under plans insured by United or affiliates, such as Oxford, as well as Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries, will continue to be covered during a two month grace period mandated by state law, which will expire at midnight, February 28.

According to the Crain’s article, Continuum and United are “continuing to negotiate”, so it is possible that a new agreement will be reached before the grace period expires.

The Grammy Award-winning Brooklyn Youth Chorus will present a selection of songs for the holiday season tonight at 7:30 p.m.  and tomorrow (12/19)  at noon and 7:30 at Our Lady of Lebanon Cathedral at 113 Remsen Street.  ”The selections for the evening will be songs of the season and choral masterpieces old and new,” says Valerie Lewis, Brooklyn Youth Chorus executive director.

Under the baton of Artistic Director Dianne Berkun, the Brooklyn Youth Chorus has been performing since 1992. Members of this ethnically and culturally diverse chorus hail from over 125 high schools in over fifty zip codes.

Lewis is confident the concert will be a big success. She told The Brooklyn Heights Blog, “From Mariah Cary’s ‘Hero’ to ‘Frosty the Snowman,’ all five chorus divisions promise to bring joy to Brooklyn Heights.”

For tickets and more info, check out brooklynyouthchorus.tix.com or call 1-800-595-4849

Have a room you want to fix up? Want some friendly competition with your neighbors? You could be on HGTV’s newest home renovation series, Battle on the Block. Get the details at Cobble Hill Blog.

Today Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz and Deputy Borough President Yvonne Graham kicked off the eighth year of the ‘Take Your Man To The Doctor” health care campaign. There are 400,ooo Brooklynites without health insurance, men being twice as likely as women to be uninsured.

Markowitz asked Brooklynites to take the men in their life, whether straight, gay, or multiple partners, to have an annual check- up and develop a relationship with their health care providers.

Brooklyn reality TV stars Alex McCord and Simon van Kempen (“The Real Housewives of New York City”) revealed Mr. van Kempen had a heart scare a few months ago and has since quit smoking. They have since become involved with the American Heart Association and pointed out not only should you get your man to the doctor, you should make sure he gets his prescriptions filled.

Brooklyn newlyweds Nicole Brewer and Damien Gurganious (“Biggest Loser: Couples”) admitted they wanted to have children. Mr. Gurganious said he would like to be a “fit dad, not a fat dad.”

Also on display was Brookdale Hospital’s 3-D HD robot, da Vinci which users a laser to for less invasive, more efficient operations for both prostate and hysterectomies.

The event included free health care information, included screenings for cholesterol and colon cancer. Supplies for flu shots ran out by 1pm, though the event continued to attract passers-by and Brooklynites seeking information. For futher screenings and information visit www.brooklyn-usa.com .

The acrid odor of smoke in the area this morning is wafting in from a three-alarm fire in a vacant building in Long Island City.  Lots of people in our area, however, are calling the Fire Department, hence the cacophony of sirens.  No major conflagrations here, though.