The Americans UK. The music is not bad either–old school, loud, fast, wall-of-guitar a-blazin’. In short, would you kids please turn that racket down? Here’s CoolerThanYou.mp3.

Cari (Dogs Steal Yarn) says: “They support knitters … shouldn’t knitters support them?”

The Americans UK are playing PIANOS This SATURDAY, 4/16/05, at 8 PM, $6 cover.

Hands On New York Day (formerly N.Y. Cares Spring Clean-Up) is this Saturday, April 16. Basically it’s a day for New Yorkers to celebrate spring in the city while beautifying over fifty parks in the process. Prospect Heights locals can partake in nearby clean-up action at Prospect Park, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.: “Meet at the north end of the Long Meadow. Enter the Park at Grand Army Plaza.” One way to look at it: a way to contribute to the community by helping revitalize our shared outdoor spaces. Another way to look at it: a chance to indulge your obsessive-compulsive disorder by correcting flaw after flaw after flaw in our urban environment. Aren’t you just dying to pick up that crumpled potato chip bag lying in the grass, and that dried-up condom stuck to the path? A fun opportunity to right some of the world’s wrongs…. [Photo: J. Chesbrough; prospect park with the bike gang: April 18, 2004.]

[UPDATED]
Will the Union Temple Condo be 16-18 stories? 30 stories? 15? Both Curbed and Brownstoner picked up on Quig’s coffee-spitting moment yesterday when a New York Times reporter blithely alluded to a (ho, hum) 30-story condo to be developed on the Union Temple’s parking lot on Grand Army Plaza. Reliable sources had led us to believe that the project was going to be only 16-18 stories.

Is it possible the NYT simply got it wrong? If so, it will be another great excuse to haughtily smirk and wryly refer to that paper, with a nudge-and-a-wink, as “The Gray Lady”–which, if you’re an editorialist at a competing paper, is shorthand for “I’m intensely jealous that THEY get all the readers and that they rejected all my freelance queries.”

Now, our favorite ProHo reporter DEBORAH KOLBEN–who is always right there on the stories we care about (and who has never publicly referred to the Times in a pejorative, ageist manner), has done her own piece on the Temple Tower, which pegs its height at a more reasonable 15 stories.

Catering to the Rich: Did we call it? We called it. Developers originally and laughably sold this condo project to us as “not luxury.” However, Deb’s conversation yesterday with a “boasting” spokesperson for Richard Meier revealed that “It will be the most luxurious building in Brooklyn.” Local agents speculate a 2-bedroom unit will go for about $1 million.

So what’s the real story? 15 stories? 30? The real story is that a developer has been planning for years to put a very large, very exclusive condo in your neighborhood, and you probably didn’t find out about it until very recently.

[UPDATE TO UPDATE] Thank you, dear guest: “The NYTimes has confirmed that (the condo) is NOT in fact 30 stories. They were working from old info and will run a correction shortly. The building will be 150 feet tall, and roughly 16-18 stories.”

Lizzie on Underhill writes: “Just wanted to alert everyone to a mugging that took place last Friday afternoon, around 3:45pm, on Underhill Ave. and Prospect Pl. My neighbor was the victim, and he wrote a rather humorous account of the situation below. Tell everyone to watch those little iPods!”

THE STORY: “It was a bright and sunny Friday afternoon at about 3:45 in the P.M. Walking up Underhill Avenue from the Clinton Washington stop on the C train (I usually take the more reliable and trustier B train but it was out of commission as a result of a fire), I was enjoying a particularly heady live version of Scarlet Begonias by the Grateful Dead (a 1978 recording, very nice) when I noticed a group of about 7 or 8 young men hanging out outside their building (this was right between Prospect and Park on Underhill). As a teacher, large groups of 15 year old kids usually do not faze me in the least, so I continued walking, optimistic and confident.”

“He then repeated his demand for my iPod, I considered my options, and then decided it was not worth getting sliced up for. I called him an asshole, and handed it over. As I walked away, I heard them laugh and then run down the block. On my way back to my apartment, I stopped by the deli and picked up a nice 40 ounce bottle of Bud Light (on account of me being on a diet), thankful they took neither my wallet or my watch. I called some friends, had a few beers, and mourned the loss of my sweet little silver mini iPod.”

This is just one obstacle on that treacherous stretch of pavement bisecting Eastern Parkway near the Brooklyn Museum. A few weeks ago, Robert Witherwax wrote: “Those of us who traverse this god-forsaken path every day, on foot, by wheel, or with paws, know that it is in DESPERATE need of repair between Washington and Plaza … the intersection at Washington is DANGEROUS, and that the median is a shameful welcome mat to put out for the millions of guests coming to our neighborhood, and our cultural institutions.”

Now Robert reports that representatives of the Eastern Parkway Cultural Row Neighborhood Association just met with the Brooklyn Delegation of the City Council to seek funding for the renovation of the Median between Washington Avenue and Plaza Street East: “We emphasized the need for a safe, accessable, and passable median; for improvements to the traffic flow at Washington and Eastern Parkway; for better access to the subway entrance; and for a space that acts as both a welcome mat for those visiting the institutions of the neighborhood, and a front stoop for the residents of the neighborhood.”

Now we wait on the Council - we will forward news of our budget allocation (if any!) as soon as we hear it … Thanks to everyone who came out … Here’s fingers crossed for Fiscal Year 2006!

To stay updated on the project, e-mail Robert.Witherwax@morganstanley.com.