Brooklyn Heights Blog

A father and son crew put the finishing touches on a snowman on the sidewalk next to Pierrepont Playground this morning. Alas, the forecast calls for temperatures in the low 40s and rain showers tomorrow.

It’s been some time since we’ve heard the name Ivaylo Ivanov. The would-be bomber of Remsen Street has spent the last two years in jail on Rikers Island on charges involving spray-painting anti-Jewish slurs and swastikas in the Heights.

So what’s he been up to? Turns out, Ivanov’s been making friends with Ronald Tackmann, an illustrious thief, considered the Keyser Soze of NYC’s prison system because he keeps escaping.

New York: Recently, [Tackmann] invited me to the Hanukkah party at Rikers Island. The party is held at night in a gym. Through the gates of their cells, inmates howl at the female guests (“Hey, mami!”) and bark at me (“What the fuck you looking at, f—–t?”) as we enter the facility.
Tackmann scans the room as Lubavitch boys sing and dance to a keyboard klezmer. In Rikers, he decided to become Jewish because he likes the kosher food and the rabbi. He declines to wear a yarmulke (“It messes up my hair”) and eyes the gefilte fish suspiciously. At other tables, inmates sit with wives whose fresh eyeliner applied in the visitor’s bathroom now washes away in tears. …

I ask Tackmann’s tablemates what they think of him.

“He’s meshuga,” says Kenneth Glassman-Blanco, who has spent three years on Rikers awaiting trial on attempted murder.

“Well done,” Ivaylo Ivanov of Bulgaria says of the escape.

If we hear/read anything further about inmate #09557033Q, you’ll be the first to know.

Is “Guder“, aka admitted vandal Joe Daiuto of Hawthorne, NJ using a new moniker? Read more »

What’s on your mind? Comment away!

Looking down at Pier 1 from the east tower of the Brooklyn Bridge on Monday morning, December 27, 2009. There’s water in the pond, and a temporary structure has been erected over the “tot park”, perhaps to provide shelter until spring arrives. Contrast this with the last non-snow covered view from this vantage, as taken on Monday, December 14:
More photos and text follow the jump: Read more »

The Brooklyn Eagle reports that Brooklyn Heights resident David Levine, known for his caricatures published in the New York Review of Books, died today at age 83.  The cause of death was prostate cancer and macular degeneration, the report says. Read more »

Join us tonight (12/28) at the new Roebling Inn at 97 Atlantic Avenue, between Henry and Hicks.  We’ll be meeting up around 7:30pm to welcome this new venture from the owners of the Brooklyn Inn to the neighborhood.

Here they are: the BHB Ten for 2009. Your recommendations and suggestions influenced this year’s list of Brooklyn Heights’ movers and shakers.   This year’s members represent new trends in thought, community leadership, the arts and charitable giving.  We look forward to their contribution to our neighborhood, our city, our country and the world for years to come.

Congratulations to this year’s members! Read more »

BHB contributor Karl Junkersfeld has delivered this omnibus of notable Brooklyn Heights residents past and present.

Dr. Larry Weiss, most recently Head of School at St. Ann’s,  has been named to that position at Brooklyn Friends School.   In a statement posted on its website, Alice Pope and Karen Robinson co-chairs of the schools Board of Trustees say: Read more »