It's been an action packed final weekend for Magnetic Field [97 Atlantic Avenue] with many local faves playing their final shows at the venue including a surprise appearance by indie legends Yo La Tengo on Friday night. Who knows what hijinx await at tonight's farewell bash. Check out Jay Lajoie's photos of the weekend's debauchery. Photo: Magnetic Field's William and Lee yuck it up with photog Jay Lajoie original partner Stephen Freeman.
In the meantime we're kinda feeling like this: (more…)
Retired Wall Street investor/Brooklyn Heights resident Ted Shen is spending his golden years as an angel investor in, of all things, musical theater. Bloomberg interviewed him at his Columbia Heights townhouse: (more…)
The NY Daily News reports on the continuing drama that we like to call "The Thing Where Folks Complain About Judges and Their Minions Parking in Columbus Park":
NY Daily News: Secretaries, Law Clerks…: "It shows there is a lot of room for belt-tightening there," added Brooklyn Heights Association Executive Director Judy Stanton, who has pushed to get all 50 or so cars out of the park.
In 1999, judges allegedly promised to move their cars to a garage at the new courthouse at 330 Jay St. when it opened in 2005.
But they have more recently argued it is unsafe and inconvenient for judges who preside over divorce and foreclosure cases to park in the new Criminal Court garage and make the six-minute, two-block trek to Civil Court.
"They can't walk two blocks to a garage, but they all walk to Queen for lunch," quipped one insider, referring to a well-known Court St. Italian restaurant.
The New York Times reports today on how real estate agents are having to go that extra mile to earn their 6% commission. Joan Goldberg, a Brooklyn Heights based broker at Brown Harris Stevens, is featured in the article. Goldberg's current nabe properties include 135 Joralemon and 30 Orange Street (where's she's pictured placing new garbage bins, below):
New York Times: Brokers Facing Stiffer Competition: “People are often overwhelmed by the prospect of selling, and it’s my job to get them to see that their home will show better and sell for more if we can just take away some of the layers and layers of personal items and grime they’ve accumulated,” Ms. Goldberg said.
For the most part, she does the hiring and scheduling, and she said that she tries to get each client as fair and economical a deal as possible. Sometimes, she winds up paying for some work herself or simply doing it herself.
“I like to plant flower boxes, and I change them weekly and water them if the owner forgets to,” she said. “I often go to the flower district early in the mornings or out to the big nurseries on Long Island to get just the right thing to put in a pot on a brownstone stoop. But, then, I’m a bit of a perfectionist.”
Photo: New York Times
This week's Time Out New York features the parents of its writers speaking out on what they like to do in New York City. Heights resident Jan Rust, mother of TONY's Katherine Rust says:
TONY: Parents Talk Back…: I love going to eat brunch at the Clark Street Diner in Brooklyn because I love Mark, the owner. It’s like visiting family when we go. Getting a cup of Sahadi’s coffee on Atlantic Ave early in the morning and walking to the promenade in Brooklyn Heights, sitting down on a bench and looking at the view of the tip of Manhattan.
Instaputz tells us that NBC's 30 Rock starring Tina Fey was filming this morning on Joralemon Street. Anyone get a photo?
bkyn_eurotrash writes: So, here's a bizarre dream I had:I was in an old flophouse, or small hotel or roominghouse of some kind. I knew that I was in Brooklyn Heights in the era of Truman Capote and Norman Mailer etc. etc.I arrived in the middle of a dark and stormy night. They had an arrangement where writers and artists could rent a room out for blocks of a few hours as a kind of "studio space." I wasn't sure exactly what I was going to do with it, but it sounded like a great idea. My own little retreat. I paid $16 or something and got the space for a 2 or 3 hours.
But there was a psychopathic man upstairs on a mattress on the floor, and he forced me at knifepoint to compose flowery prose out loud for him. As I spoke I understood that my distressed ramblings were, in fact, the works of William Shakespeare, being composed as I said them. Once he demanded too much of me and I began to back away, so he dug the knife into my side, making a shallow cut near my right kidney or so, and I had to beg him not to plunge the knife in and disembowel me, please sir, thanks.
The Herman Behr Mansion at 82 Pierrepont sold this week for $10.98 million slightly under its $12 million asking price. Named after the industrialist who built it about 1888 the building had a sordid existence after its namesake died. Under the moniker of The Palm Hotel the site was home to a madame and her working girls. It redeemed itself (sort of) when it became the Franciscan House of Studies, a residence for monks. Real estate agent Sandra Dowling of Brooklyn Heights Realty tells the Brooklyn Eagle that local rumors suggest the home was used for monks to "dry out".
As previously reported in our coverage of the Brooklyn Heights Association's annual meeting, noted historian Francis Morrone will be collecting historical information on every building in the neighborhood. The Brooklyn Paper reports on the project this week: (more…)
The New England Society in the City of Brooklyn (the name is a tipoff that this organization has been around for a while) held its sixth annual Poetry Evening this past Tuesday in the Founders' Room at Plymouth Church of the Pilgrims. The theme of this year's event was "Music, Poetry's Muse." The program was introduced by Helen Houghton, editor of The Music Lover's Poetry Anthology, and consisted of readings of poems, inspired by classical, jazz and pop music, by poet Susan Kinsolving (left above) and actor Jack Gilpin (center), concluding with a Puccini aria and two Sondheim songs by soprano Ann Hoyt (right). (more…)
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