If so, help us out, please. Click here.

If you thought you knew Prospect Park, think again. Kevin from Forgotten New York just assembled a pretty darn comprehensive history of Prospect Park that is full of delicious tidbits about Revolutionary landmarks, the Quaker graveyard, that gorgeous Horse Tamers sculpture, why the Vale of Cashmere has that funny name (and why you should stay away from it). In particular, I appreciated his explanation of those annoying hexagonal sidewalks:

“Prospect Park, and indeed most New York City parks, employ special sidewalks on their exteriors and on some park walks consisting of interlocking hexagonal blocks, that can be hard to walk on at times. Most likely, they are there to accommodate tree roots; when roots interact with the usual concrete slab sidewalks, the sidewalks lose the battle and split, making for dangerous walking conditions.”

Just reading the article makes me want to print it out and head the heck on over there!

LINK: Secret Prospect Park [Forgotten NY]
Thanks for the tip: satanslaundromat

Found over on finslippy, possibly the funniest blog in all of Prospect Heights:

“There’s a new cashier at the Met Food (on Vanderbilt Ave.), and this woman is One Cranky-Ass Bitch. She’s a middle-aged woman with badly dyed red hair and a thick Russian accent. She scowls at every item that rolls towards her, and then regards me with an icy stare and spits, ‘Give me $35.17,’ like she’s mugging me. And oh, when I tell her I’m going to use my debit card! The sighing and the rolling of the eyes! ‘Cash back?’ she growls, and then looks at me like God help you if you say yes.”

“So of course, I’ve been trying to make her my friend…”

LINK: Why I Should Probably Be Back in Therapy [finslippy]

Katrin writes: “OK, so we don’t really have a stoop, but we’re improvising! What’s for sale: Clothes–Gap, Banana Republic, J Crew jeans, mostly women’s size 8-12 $7-10; skirts, shirts, a few leftover winter items. Also some vintage-type items and other women’s clothing sizes 4-6. Shoes/boots. Books and a few CDs. Household knicknacks. 159 Eastern Parkway, between Washington and Underhill.”

From a NYPIRG Straphangers Campaign e-mail alert: “Click away! We all had a good victory last week, beating back a ban on photography in the subways. The Daily News had the story first, quoting the Campaign as rejoicing: “Everyone I spoke to thought you couldn’t impose a workable photo ban without violating both free speech and a sense of what the subways are all about,” Gene Russianoff said. “It’s part of the city’s life.”

“To tell a tourist from Ohio or New Yorker from Brooklyn they can’t take pictures of their family in the subway is nuts.”

PHOTO: Lightningfield.com
Thanks for the tip: noisefootprint

Those of you in attendance last night at ATLANTIC YARDS SMACKDOWN are surely still reeling from the adrenaline rush. For those who missed it, the outcome of the event was unbelievable.

Sadly, no one from Team ProHo made it to the final rounds–sorry, Isa, EmilyM, Susan, Heather, Chris, Lucas, Douglas, etc. etc. But if you follow professional Rock Paper Scissors (RPS) you know the outcome was huge. Huge.

In one semifinal bracket, we had Midnight Rider, an absolute newcomer hailing from Parts Unknown, in a victory against Scissoro (Ben Stein) of Manhattan’s Team All Too Flat.

On the other side of the bracket were two Brooklyn rookies: Tony Hightower (aka Chico Bangs), a rookie representing Astoria, who lost to Amanda from Williamsburg, who was nearly disqualified in the first round but re-entered the competition due to the kindness–or naivete–of RPS newbie Kasia (pronounced like the grain).

Amanda advanced to the finals, but proved to be no match for Midnight Rider, determined to win his first-ever professional RPS match. NYRPS wishes Mr. Rider the best of luck as he moves onward and upward to the Western Regionals.

The surprise of the evening was the emergence of RPS referee Blaine Perry, an unbelievably quick study with a keen eye for the borderline throw. In the leadup to the competition, Blaine proved himself to be a true self-motivator who really threw himself into the task. At Smackdown, he made some hard calls, and he stuck with them. In the opinion of NYRPS, Blaine is already one of the most promising arbiters in the East Coast conference, and I am thrilled to hear that he has been invited to preside over the Philadelphia tournament.

It was a surprise, and a huge burden lifted off the NYRPS, to have so many RPS Enthusiasts take such an active role in putting this together. We can’t thank you enough. Give yourself a hand, because you helped spring the Pandora’s box: Competition-level Rock Paper Scissors has finally come to New York!

THANK YOU FOR THE IMAGE: C. Urbanus, who made it to the second round.

Ariel from St. John’s reports to Daily Heights: “Just a heads up… This last Saturday, I was in Target at Atlantic Avenue with a friend. She was so excited by the not-Manhattan prices (having come all the way down from the UES to visit) that she wasn’t paying very good attention to her purse. We turned around and it was gone from the shopping cart where she’d left it.”

“Fortunately, the Target security people were fabulous, and they managed to recover the purse (and apprehend the thief) within minutes, and the officers from the 88th Precinct were also great when it came time to go down to the station and fill out the report (they even gave us a ride back when we were all done, and in one of the nice new squad cars too!).”

“Apparently, this exact kind of theft (purse from uinattended shopping cart) happens several times a week at Atlantic Yards, and most people aren’t as lucky as my friend was. Moral of the story: when your mom said “never leave your purse in the shopping cart!”, she was right!”

Well… now those hooligans will have plenty of time to think about what they’ve done… BEHIND BARS! (In Reality: probably back out on the street in time for dinner)

Link: Atlantic Center Deliberately Forbidding

Attend the ATLANTIC YARDS SMACKDOWN Rock, Paper, Scissors (RPS) Tournament, TONIGHT, Thursday, May 26th at Freddy’s in Brooklyn, NY. Go here for the full announcement, directions, etc. GET THERE BY 8 PM to sign in and throw!

About time for another Prospect Heights Cutie, wouldn’t you say?

“This is me and Danny Boy,” KRISTEN writes. “Doesn’t everyone have a pet penguin?”

Danny Boy is a Megellanic penguin that we took care of at the Prospect Park Zoo for a while because the aquatic aviary at the Bronx Zoo collapsed after a snowstorm … Not sure how he got his name, but he was very attached to humans. He tried to court me by bringing me nesting material (sticks, etc.). All guys should be so nice.”

SEND IN YOUR CUTIES! cuties@dailyheights.com

PATRICK GALLAHUE writes in the New York Post: “A plan to bring the Nets to Brooklyn will have to go through a competitive bidding process — much like the Jets stadium deal — before the MTA grants its air rights to developer Bruce Ratner…” Read more…

TIP:Captain Marvelous

PHOTO: Nothing like a blurry camphone pic to liven your day.
here

How do May 2005 temperatures look compared with previous years? Does anyone know enough about weather stats to figure that out?

UPDATE: abf tells DAILY HEIGHTS: “The average high so far this May (through the 24th) has been 66 degrees, about 4 degrees below normal. May 2003 was similarly cool.”

May 2005: 66.1 (-3.8)
May 2004: 73.6 (+2.6)
May 2003: 65.8 (-5.1)
May 2002: 69.2 (-1.7)
May 2001: 71.4 (+0.4)

From City Limits, New York’s Urban Affairs News Magazine:

“I’m getting ready to pay my debt, and here it is!” said Bertha Lewis and then turned to Mayor Bloomberg and kissed him squarely on the lips. The executive director of New York ACORN had done it again…

Prospect Heights councilmember Letitia James, a critic of the Ratner development, responded to the housing deal with a mix of appreciation and skepticism. “The question is the 50 percent which is going to be market rate–it will have to be luxury housing. It’s a zero-sum game: the luxury will cancel out the low income,” said James. “The market prices will have to be high to subsidize the affordable housing and the arena.”

Link: Cozy Quarters: Acorn and Ratner Sign Housing Deal [City Limits]

hey! you! passer-by! EAT ME!

Originally uploaded by ranjit.

Miranda Gaw writes to DH: “Thought you might like this photo from Park Sloper Ranjit. It was part of the “Guess Where in New York?” game on Flickr and the answer was … BISCUIT. I think it’s a nice photo.”

Bonus: Great discussion about BISCUIT underneath the photo.

Susan says: “Crow Hill is really Crown Heights, but I’ve come to love the name and I probably sound a little pretentious calling it that. Crow Hill was its pre-prohibition name. My book (The Neighborhoods of Brooklyn) tells me that when it was Dutch farmland, it was believed to have been called Crow Hill after its tallest hill, whose trees were always filled with crows.”

“The book also says that the name could have come from the mid-1800’s when there were African and African American settlements there, and the whites called them ‘crows’. A third story has it that the ‘crows’ were inmates in the Kings County Penitentiary that was there from 1846 to 1907.”

From the WPA Guide to New York City(1939) WPA Guide to New York City: “Crown Heights, for the most part a lower middle-class residential area, lies on both sides of the ridge of Eastern Parkway. The section was known as Crow Hill until 1916, when Crown Street was cut through.”

PHOTO: The Black Lady Theatre / Black Star Recording Studio, Nostrand Ave., Crown Heights [Bridge and Tunnel Club]

LINK: PH Trivia Because I Am Bored [Daily Heights Forums]

Heather texts:

“City lighting under construction now”
“Took out the windows”

PREVIOUS LINKS:
City Lighting “Closed Forever”
City Lighting: Locksmith Says… Mexican

DH is in JEOPARDY! And we do not need money, especially after an unthinkably generous donation that will keep us in the black for months, from an anonymous patron we will refer to as Near Underhill Bill: “I just think you guys do a great job… I enjoy the site, and thought I’d do my small part to help. The site really kind of epitomizes to me how good the internet can be.”

In fact, DAILY HEIGHTS has reached a critical inflection point (what is this? Get Lucas to translate). Real-life responsibilities have become so great that the ridiculously tiny core group of Daily Heights regulars have little time for anything else other than childrearing, recreating cookbooks that the hard drive ate, copyediting every Conde Nast magazine in existence, and planning for the toughest Rock, Paper, Scissors competition that this borough has ever seen, THIS THURSDAY at Freddy’s.

What we need now is more of what you see below, in the post from EmilyM, who reports on the latest knife sharpener on the block: News and minutiae, reported by you… impossibly local, potentially absurdly banal, yet with an impact that could ripple entire blocks beyond what we consider Prospect Heights. Are you up to the challenge?

And, are you are “leet” enough to handle HTML? If so, DH will set you up with your very own Guest Author account. Otherwise, you can do it the usual way: just keep posting in the message boards, or e-mail your stuff to whatsnew@dailyheights.com (the penguin post is coming, we promise)!

IMAGE SOURCE: Systems Furniture Contract Enhanced to Address Broader Range of Agency Needs (West
Virginia Department of Administration, Purchasing Division)

Lo, it’s the knife grinder!

Now, I’ve never before lived in place where a knife-grinder came around, and I have some sewing scissors that need to be sharpened frequently, inconveniently, and usually at unreasonable expense. So I grabbed them and dashed outside in my slippers…
(more…)

BREAKING! Until just moments ago, it was unclear whether Atlantic Yards Smackdown, TO BE HELD THIS COMING THURSDAY, May 26 at Freddy’s, would see any professional representation from Prospect Heights’ own Rock Paper Scissors (RPS) Triangle. This “Fertile Crescent,” bounded by Vanderbilt, Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues, is where some of Brooklyn’s scrappiest RPS toughs have honed their skills in informal pick-up games, illuminated only by the warm orange-white Creamsicle glow of the streetcorner Rock-N-Stop.

Now, cast all speculation aside, and please welcome our first entrant from the RPS Triangle:

PLAYER NAME: CHRIS GILMORE (a.k.a. “Slice”)

REPRESENTING: Vanderbilt Ave.

EDUCATION:
RPS Dojo of West Tokyo (B.S.)
Masters in Scissorology, Wes Chapman’s School for the Carpally Gifted (West Pico Campus)

Team: Independent, despite aggressive recruitment by multiple Class B/C RPS teams

SIGNATURE THROW/GAMBIT: “Triple EEK” method, learned in the wilds of Prospect Park

BOAST: “It is my destiny to win the tournament and make my mark on the world! Stand aside!!”

STRATEGY TIP: If you expect SLICE to lead with Scissors, you have a lot to learn about RPS Strategy. In the first few rounds, try Paper-based strategies, including Scissor Sandwich (paper, scissors, paper) or Brooklyn-style Reverse Denouement (paper, scissors, rock). When you confront Gilmore in the Championship Rounds, the only question is: do you have the guts to stick with Toolbox (scissors, scissors, scissors)?

GET GUARANTEED SIGN-UP in ATLANTIC YARDS SMACKDOWN! CLICK HERE.

Just next door in Fort Greene. This is a strong contender for Saturday night. Who’s in?

HABANA OUTPOST: BROOKLYN
NYC’S FIRST AND ONLY SOLAR-POWERED RESTAURANT

“Starting May 21, 2005 and running all summer long … Habana Outpost: Brooklyn – a dining and cultural experience that brings (Manhattan restaurant) Café Habana to the county of Kings.”

“Featuring an adjoining outdoor market and garden patio, live DJs and cultural performances, children’s activities, movie screenings, a car wash, and much more … Habana Outpost also has the distinction of being New York City’s first restaurant run on solar power…”

Habana Outpost: Brooklyn | 755-757 Fulton St. (corner of S. Portland)

Saturday, May 21: Inaugural event sponsored by Frank 151 Magazine and featuring DJ Mark Ronson

Sunday, May 22: DJs Knox Robinson of The Fader Magazine and G Brown; broadcast by SIRIUS Satellite Radio’s hip-hop channel; outdoor screening of the film, The Warriors

DH regular JoshB writes: “Not to toot my own horn, but I have an article in this week’s Time Out about the puppet library. Go … service journalism!”

You can try looking at the Time Out website, but they have an annoying habit of not posting articles online.

LINKS:
PUPPET LIBRARY Coming Back to Grand Army Plaza
HOME HEATING OIL Puts Prospect Heights on Map

Multi-Block Stoop Sale (Saturday, May 21st from 9am to 3pm)

Sterling Place (between Vanderbilt & Underhill and Butler Place)

—————————————————-
Furniture/Clothing/Jewelry/
Household Miscellaneous/Lps/
Appliances/Kitchen Goods/plants/
Knick-Knacks/Tchotchkes

Add your stoop sale in the Comments or send a notice to whatsnew@dailyheights.com.

Reported on BOWSER.ORG: An exclusive interview with Edlyn, a babysitter who knows “what happens when” in the local kids’ world. Edlyn is looking for work in the area for the month of July. If you or someone you know needs a short-term babysit, contact her.

From the interview, conducted by a local mom:

“Edlyn tells me that on Tuesdays, the Brooklyn Public Library at Grand Army Plaza offers computer playing, while on Wednesdays and Thursdays, it’s story time. On Fridays, there is arts and crafts, following a story time session. All these programs are posted in the library for different ages - or you talk to the local nannies.

“Edlyn tells me that on Monday, the library is closed, therefore kids can go to Barnes & Noble (on 7th Ave. and 4th St. in Park Slope) for story time. As an alternative, you can go to the ‘babysquare’ downstairs, where all the babies ‘hang out.’”

“Of course, playdates are always another option to consider. And there are so many toddlers in the area, that it is not hard to find a friend or two. JJ’s Place on Flatbush Ave. (by Chase Bank) has play sessions three times a day. They have a lot of toys, including a slide, doll houses, a chalk board and crayons. They do have coloring books.”

“If you want to invest some money, you can sign up your child for tumbling class at Eastern Athletic (Eastern Pkwy. and Plaza St. East). They also offer ‘Baby and Me’ swimming classes. Music Together is another great place to go. They offer classes every day at different locations in Brooklyn, including 6th Ave. and 1st St. in Park Slope. The price is about $200 for 10 45-minute sessions.”

The mom adds: “By the way, if you as parents want to hang out with your kids and have a drink, I know a great place: Soda Bar on Vanderbilt Ave. This bar has already been mentioned many times on DailyHeights.com. The great thing about it is the extra lounge area with fake fireplace. It is a very cozy atmosphere, and there is room for kids to run around (the waitresses are also very understanding and accomodating) while the parents can enjoy some happy hour drinks or bar food (fish and chips, onion rings, burgers, pizza, salad, BLT sandwich, etc.). In the summer they have outdoor seating in the back yard! So, doesn’t that sound like the perfect place for ‘mommy and baby’?”

LINK: What you can do with your toddler in Prospect Heights [bowser.org]

Louise Crawford writes on OtBKB about her son’s band: “They’ve been practicing for months but he’d made it clear that he’d tell us when he was ready for us to come to a rehearsal … Cool and Unusual Punishment is the name … they rehearse every Friday night in the drummer’s apartment. The drummer’s parents are extremely good natured about the noise. They actually keep the drum set in the living room.”

“The people in their apartment building are good natured too. Apparently last week they called while the group was rehearsing a song called ‘Where is My Mind?’ by the Pixies. the drummer’s mother came into the living room holding the telephone: ‘The woman downstairs would like to speak with you,’ she said ominously. The kids got nervous, of course, sure that she was calling to complain about the noise. But it turned out that she loves the song … and just wanted the band to play it again.”

“It would be virtually impossible for the band to rehearse in our building what with Mr. Persnickity downstairs … “

Link: Cool and Unusual [Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn]

Get your Rock, Paper, Scissors chops up to speed! There will be a RPS PRACTICE CLINIC at SODA, tomorrow night (Thursday) at 6:30 pm. See the announcement here.

SMACKDOWN takes place as scheduled, at Freddy’s, next Thursday, May 26th. Check-in starts at 8, and the first Round of 32 gets underway at 8:30!

Also: There will be an announcement on ATLANTIC YARDS SMACKDOWN in the New Yorker. There was an brief telephone interview in which a member of the NYRPS was asked to comment on state of the game. There was also a follow-up call in which facts were checked.

Pre-register now, before the word gets out! Send an e-mail to info@nyrps.org with the words “SIGN ME UP!” in the subject line.

PICTURED: The home of the New York Puppet Library in Brooklyn. What would puppets read (WWPR)? You can find out. This just in from the The Puppeteers’ Cooperative:

“The Rights of Spring in Brooklyn, NY will happen, starting with a volunteer parade, 1PM Saturday May 14th and Sunday May 15th … Saturday starting at the Arch (Grand Army Plaza), and Sunday starting at the Meadowport Arch, just inside the park at the Grand Army Plaza. Come parade and be in the show - you can watch it too, if you wish. This weekend will also be the kickoff of the New York Puppet Library lending season. Then we will attempt to have a show in, at, or near the Arch every Saturday at 1PM, and have the library open 1-4 PM.”