Archive | September, 2008

Nabe Columnist: Government Bad for Lunch

The NY Sun may be gasping its last breath, but that’s not stopping nabe resident/columnist Sandy Ikeda from taking one last swipe at Brooklyn Heights’ infamous restaurant scene:

NY Sun: How Government…: Restaurants in the Heights must cater to the huge lunch-time crowd pouring from those institutions from 1 to 2 p.m. on weekdays because that’s where most of their business comes from. This market demands cheap food served and consumed quickly, not fine meals served expertly and savored slowly. For some reason few places can successfully combine the two. Consequently, few places to get an exceptional dinner.

Thus, on the first block of Montague Street west of the municipal buildings, other than a dozen or so banks, there’s a Chipotle and Eamonn Doran. The former is strictly fast food but the latter is an Irish bar that serves only passable meals at dinnertime. On the next two blocks there’s nothing special: a couple of diners, middling Italian restaurants, and other assorted ethnic places including Turkish, vegetarian Chinese, Thai, two mediocre Japanese restaurants, as well as a Starbucks and a Connecticut Muffin (my “office”). In fact, the only widely acknowledged “nice place” on Montague is Heights Café at the far end of Montague, about as far from Borough Hall as you can get.

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Days of Awe

Hm . . . Memorable . . . what? (He peers closer.) Equinox, memorable equinox. (He raises his head, stares blankly front. Puzzled.) Memorable equinox? . . . (Pause. He shrugs his head shoulders, peers again at ledger, reads.) Farewell to–(he turns the page)–love.
– Samuel Beckett, Krapp’s Last Tape

In Florida, autumn came
as a change in the light
in late afternoon,
around mid-October.
I hardly noticed it
until I was nineteen.
A girlfriend left me.
I wrote a poem, ephemeral
as the love it mourned.

At sixty, autumn seems
like that last song
sung by Dave Guard’s Trio
(later covered by Sinatra):
vintage wine, days decreasing.

And now, in Brooklyn
(I’ve lived life backwards:
Florida, Manhattan, Brooklyn),
an older voice whispers
gently, to my gentile ears,
L’shanah tovah.

Claude Scales
(First published in Self-Absorbed Boomer, September 26. 2006.)

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Parole Office Mess Open Thread

Clearly, the escape of a 32 year old parolee about to be busted again on assault charges from the parole office at 147 Pierrepont Street (1 Pierrepont Plaza) has confirmed many residents’ worst fears.

The Head of St. Ann’s School, Dr. Larry Weiss, told channel 9,  “Two weeks into the school year to have an experience like this is exactly what we we’re told was not going to happen.”  He added that the the school was promised that a menagerie of sex offenders would not be visiting the parole office.  However, channel 9 reports that 53 have passed through its doors since the office opened.

What should happen next? What would be your constructive solution for this issue?

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Eagle: New Contracts for 166 Montague

At least four contracts have been signed up for residence at 166 Montague Street, aka the historic Franklin Trust Company building, according to the Brooklyn Eagle.  Remsen Street’s Kiddie Korner will be opening a second location there soon, the paper adds. Continue Reading →

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Ikea to Curtail Shuttle Bus Service.

The Daily News reports that, effective October 1, Ikea will reduce both the hours and frequency of its shuttle bus service from Borough Hall MTA station to its store in Red Hook. The buses have been running daily from 10 A.M. to 10 P.M. with departures every fifteen minutes; starting this Wednesday they will run from 1 P.M. to 10 P.M. with departures every half hour. A similar reduction is being made to the bus service from the 4th Avenue/9th Street and Smith/9th Street stations, and the schedule of ferries carrying shoppers from Manhattan is also being cut back. Ikea management says these reductions are being made because of a drop in customers using the services since Labor Day.

We have previously noted objections by some neighborhood residents to fumes from the Ikea buses idling on Joralemon Street.

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Parolee Escape at One Pierrepont Plaza

As a commenter on the previous post noted, this afternoon a parolee fled from an interrogation room at One Pierrepont Plaza, a building which the federal parole office shares with part of St. Ann’s School, and was pursued on the street by officers, at least one of whom may have drawn his weapon, ten minutes before school was to be dismissed. Channel 9 has a full report here.

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North Heights Residents Invited to Meeting About Rats.

A reader has advised us that she has received a flyer inviting residents of Cranberry, Middagh, and Willow Streets to a meeting at 20 Willow, at 7:00 P.M. on Monday, September 29, to discuss the issue of rats in the neighborhood.

Given the comment on this week’s Open Thread Wednesday about a foul odor emanating from the former Busy Chef space, I wonder if there could be a connection.

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Trader Joe’s @ 12:50 P.M., Opening Day.

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WaMu Collapse May Herald Changes on Montague

Yesterday’s seizure of Washington Mutual by federal bank regulators, and the subsequent purchase of its deposits by J.P. Morgan Chase, may mean that the space now occupied by WaMu’s branch at the corner of Montague and Henry will soon be vacated, as Chase has a much larger branch in the Brooklyn Trust Company Building, the magnificent Italianate palazzo (see photo) one block away at Montague and Clinton. As noted here before, Chase has sold that building, but remains as a tenant. It is also possible that Chase will move out of the Brooklyn Trust space and consolidate its operations in the former WaMu space. Both the exterior and interior of the Brooklyn Trust Building are landmarked, so there are stringent limitations on what can be done with it. If Chase leaves, its most likely successor would be another bank, although the owner may seek an adaptive re-use, as in the case of Trader Joe’s in the former Independence Bank space at Atlantic and Court. (Anyone been there for the Grand Opening yet?) One prospect, as pointed out by Dennis Holt in this Daily Eagle editorial, is that the building’s owner, Stahl Real Estate, may seek to build a residential tower above it, as it lies outside the Heights Historic District and therefore is not subject to the District’s height limitation.

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DUMBO Art Festival This Weekend.


This Saturday and Sunday, September 26 and 27, DUMBO will host the twelfth annual Art Under the Bridge Festival. Displays of work by many visual artists will be found throughout the neighborhood and in the adjoining Brooklyn Bridge Park. The newly opened Galapagos Art Space will present a non-stop video art show. Over 100 artists will open their studios to the public. The Festival is produced by DUMBO Arts Center and sponsored by Current, on whose website detailed information about the displays and events can be found.

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The Envelope, Please.

The award for zaniest headline goes to Mike McLaughlin of The Brooklyn Paper for this.

Hmmm…methinks young Mike’s (we hope) temporary state of deprivation may be affecting his writing style.

Velvets and James Brown? Can’t fault his taste in music.

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Lebanese Food Festival This Weekend.


All fanciers of tabboule, fattouche, moutabal, sambousseks, and baklawa, or those just seeking new and different taste treats, should find their way to the Cathedral of Our Lady of Lebanon, corner of Henry and Remsen, this weekend.

Update: Thanks to helpful reader Amy, who found this site, which gives further details, including that the Festival will run from 2:00 P.M. until midnight on all three days (Friday, Saturday and Sunday), and that in addition to food it will feature games, kiddie rides and a bazaar.
Entry is at 113 Remsen.

9/28 update: Went there yesterday evening and dined on meat and spinach pies, stuffed grape leaves, and chicken kebabs, all of which were delicious, washed down with refreshing Lebanese lager beer. We regretted having no room to sample the very tempting desserts. This evening’s your last chance.

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Recovery Rally on Cadman Plaza Saturday Morning.

Early this Saturday morning, “thousands” of people are expected to gather on Cadman Plaza Park in preparation for a march across the Brooklyn Bridge, during which they will form a “human chain”. This event is sponsored by The Recovery Project, “a wide-ranging, multi-year initiative of A&E Network, federal agencies and leading non-profit organizations designed to raise awareness that addiction is a treatable disease and recovery is possible.”

According to Recovery Project’s press release:

Recovery Rally participants arriving by bus, train and subway, as well as special ferries from Liberty State Park in New Jersey, will gather beginning at 7:00am at Cadman Plaza in Brooklyn. There they will enjoy pre-walk entertainment by Road Recovery’s house band – Crazy James, a New York based rock band comprised of sober youth, warm-up activities led by a personal trainer and create signs indicating how long they have been in recovery.

Once on the Manhattan side, participants will be entertained by “a special solo musical performance by Rufus Wainwright.”

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Open Thread Wednesday 9/24/08

What’s on your mind?  Comment away!

BHB Photo Club pic by jwpalmer via Flickr

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Extensive Nighttime Street Work in Heights Next Two Weeks

The following “heads up” was provided by Judy Stanton of Brooklyn Heights Association:

We have just been handed a tentative Street milling schedule from the NYC Dept. of Transportation for work scheduled over the next two weeks, starting Thursday.

Currently, all the work is scheduled for nights between 9PM – 5 AM!

We urged the DOT to reschedule the work to daytime hours but the request was refused outright because their contract has already been signed. Nonetheless, Councilman Yassky is trying to get it changed.

The schedule indicated below is tentative since delays at any point would push subsequent routes to later dates, and conversely, early completion could result in an earlier start date for subsequent routes.

No Parking signs are to be posted 48 hours in advance of work and there would be no parking starting at 6:00 PM on a work night through 6:00 AM the following morning. DOT denied all previous requests (by BHA, CB#2, Yassky) to require contractors to give residents 7 days notice of no parking restrictions on streets to be milled. Parking will be permitted during the day subject to regular parking rules. Watch for the parking notices as work progresses.

The tentative schedule is as follows:

Court Street/Cadman Plaza West from Prospect Street to Joralemon Street: start 9:00 PM Thurs., 9/25; end 5:00 AM Sat., 9/27

Court Street from Joralemon Street to Atlantic Avenue: start 9:00 PM Mon., 9/29; end 5:00 AM Wed., 10/1

Remsen Street from Court Street to the Promenade: start 9:00 PM Wed., 10/1; end 5:00 AM Thurs., 10/2

Joralemon Street from Clinton Street to Hicks Street: start 9:00 PM Thurs., 10/2; end 5:00 AM Fri., 10/3

State Street from Clinton Street to Smith Street: start 9:00 PM Fri., 10/3; end 5:00 AM Sat., 10/4

PS We’ve asked the Mayor’s Film Office not to permit any film shoots anywhere near these streets until the work is finished.

We will report any changes to this plan as soon as possible.

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