So now that summer is almost over, what’s the deal with the fountain at Grand Army Plaza (Bailey Fountain) that stilll hasn’t been turned on? queen_of_pies reports on the Prospect Heights message board… “Here’s what Prospect Park Commissioner Tupper Thomas wrote to me when I inquired about why it was dry: ‘We hope to have the fountain running by Labor Day, but it could be as late as Sept. 15th. The engineering sub-consultant has taken responsibility for the problem and the new pump has been ordered. Installation will begin as soon as the new mechanical device arrives…’”

Read more on the Prospect Heights message board.
IMAGE SOURCE: Bridge and Tunnel Club

chippenziedeutch wrote in the Park Slope message boards: “Did anyone else hear those two loud explosions last night (Friday) (around 9:00ish)? I was in a backyard and it seriously sounded like someone had done blowed something up. Anyone know what it was?”

Read more: Bombs on 5th Ave.? [Park Slope Message Boards]

I’ve heard rumors. What do you think? Hit the message boards.

436 Sterling Place between Washington and Underhill; 10 a.m. – 3 p.m.

Lots of “like new” baby stuff:
- Fisher Price Baby Papasan (baby chair with soothing vibrations and melodies)
- My Brest Friend nursing pillow
- Doorway jumper
- Very cute and like-new clothes for 0-6 mo boy

Hundreds of comic books! 25 cents each or 5 for a dollar! Marvel, DC and independents!

Star Wars stuff! Including dozens of action figures, mint in packages for $6 each!

Plus: Toys, books, 35mm camera, camera bag, portable CD player, botanical prints, lighting, numerous household items and much, much more!

We need to clean house, and we’re right around the corner from Tom’s Diner!

436 Sterling Place between Washington and Underhill; 10 a.m. – 3 p.m.

Lots of “like new” baby stuff:
- Fisher Price Baby Papasan (baby chair with soothing vibrations and melodies)
- My Brest Friend nursing pillow
- Doorway jumper
- Very cute and like-new clothes for 0-6 mo boy

Hundreds of comic books! 25 cents each or 5 for a dollar! Marvel, DC and independents!

Star Wars stuff! Including dozens of action figures, mint in packages for $6 each!

Plus: Toys, books, 35mm camera, camera bag, portable CD player, botanical prints, lighting, numerous household items and much, much more!

We need to clean house, and we’re right around the corner from Tom’s Diner!

rossmelanie writes in the Prospect Heights message boards: “Just walked by and it’s open. Was in a hurry, so didn’t get to look at the menu. Any one know anything about this place?”

In fact we do, thanks to Susan who checked in with this report: “Walked past the old Peralta Supermarket on Carlton and St. Mark’s place and saw it full of renovators. The Work Permit says it’s getting a kitchen update to the existing store.”

More details this post: Former Peralta’s to Become Restaurant

rossmelanie writes in the Prospect Heights message boards: “Just walked by and it’s open. Was in a hurry, so didn’t get to look at the menu. Any one know anything about this place?”

In fact we do, thanks to Susan who checked in with this report: “Walked past the old Peralta Supermarket on Carlton and St. Mark’s place and saw it full of renovators. The Work Permit says it’s getting a kitchen update to the existing store.”

More details this post: Former Peralta’s to Become Restaurant

“Love, American Style” is a great song by The Cowsills, a band much better known for recording the song “Hair.”

The “Love, American Style” song was the theme for a TV show of the same name name. According to TV.com, the hour-long show debuted on ABC in the fall of 1969 with “stories about common people finding love in all walks of life. Each hour-long show would give us either one, two, three, or four stories of love.”

THE PROBLEM: The full lyrics to this song do not seem to exist online, even on the Cowsills’ own website. At best, you can find a transcription of the ~30 seconds used as the intro to the TV show. So as a public service, Daily Heights presents the only page on the Internet where you can find the full lyrics to “Love, American Style.” Including chords. After the break.

Love, American Style

La-hove, love, … (clap) la-ha-hooove …
Love, American style, truer than the red, white and blue
Love, American style, that’s me and you
And on a star-spangled night my love, (My love come to me)…
(more…)

JOSHUA ROBIN writes in Newsday: “The MTA voted this afternoon to negotiate exclusively with developers planning a basketball arena and high-density residential community on the authority’s downtown Brooklyn rail yards, shutting out for now a rival bid that sought a more modest neighborhood on the site.”

“The 11-1 vote allows Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials to seek more money from developer Bruce Ratner for the Atlantic Avenue site, giving them 45 days to reach a new agreement … If the deal isn’t struck in that time, MTA officials could return to discussions with the rival developer, the Extell Development Co.”

beep… beep… beep… (radar sounds)

daniel writes: “Not sure if this is the same guy, but before I read this, I passed some guy standing on the corner of Union and 7th in a large red soccer jersey muttering obnoxious comments to women as they walked by. I paid him no notice.”

CHARLES V. BAGLI writes in the New York Times: “The real estate investment group battling with the developer Bruce Ratner for control of the Atlantic railyard near Downtown Brooklyn offered a compromise yesterday that it said would allow both parties to declare victory: The group would incorporate Mr. Ratner’s plan to build a glass-walled basketball arena for the Nets into its project.”

“The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is scheduled to review the rival bids, and possibly select a winner, at its board meeting tomorrow. The investment group, led by Gary Barnett, president of Extell Development Company, has offered $150 million in cash for development rights at the 8.3-acre site, or three times as much as Mr. Ratner.”

“But Mr. Ratner, who has worked for three years on a $3.5 billion proposal for the arena and 6,000 apartments at the railyard and on adjoining parcels of land, brushed off the proposal. He contends that the transit authority and the public will get far more from his project than the $50 million he bid, including a newly built railyard, affordable housing, transit station improvements and tax revenue from the arena.”

“‘Forest City Ratner has an unmatched record in Brooklyn and throughout the city for developing and completing highly complex projects,’ said Joseph DePlasco, a spokesman for Mr. Ratner and his company, Forest City Ratner. ‘Also, they already have in place a long-term partnership with community groups and community leaders to develop thousands of needed jobs and 2,500 units of affordable housing while generating billions of dollars in revenue for the city and the state.’”

LINK: Development Rival Offers Compromise on Nets Arena [New York Times]

[Thanks to RHODAMINE for the photo of the Atlantic railyards.]

Alert! alice writes in the Prospect Heights message boards: “A half-hour or so ago, a man pushed in the door behind me as I entered my building [Vanderbilt btw Park and Sterling Pl.]. I promptly freaked and pushed him out as hard as I could, and he took off.”

“The police found him a few minutes later, but then they let him go (?) after taking his information. … be on the alert as you enter your building … He was an African-American man, in his 30s-40s, missing most of his teeth, wearing an oversized maroon t-shirt and jeans. Very skinny. I had seen him a second before when he was sitting on the stoop of the building next door to mine.”

“When I saw him before this happened, he was murmuring comments at all the women who walked by… I didn’t even register him as a threat because he was being so conspicuous … I don’t get why the police would just let him go. I’m fairly unnerved by this, as he knows where I lived and he seemed, let us say, unhappy with me.”

LATEST UPDATE: “I just called the 77th–the first officer I spoke to was puzzled over why they let him go; the 2nd one guessed they just gave him a summons for trespassing. Either way someone is supposed to call me back with the details, so I will let you know.”

LINK: Push-in on Vanderbilt Monday Afternoon [Daily Heights message boards]

FLUTE wrote in the Daily Heights message boards: “I was standing around [near the corner of Underhill Ave. and Park Pl.] one day this past fall, just looking at the buildings and noticing that there were a number of lovely brownstones with missing cornices. As I was pondering the reason for this, a very tiny woman, dressed all in black — a dress from head to toe — almost burkha like. Her grey hair was pulled back severely in a bun.”

“She asked me what I was looking at and I told her I was wondering about the the lack of cornices on those particular buildings. She asked me if I was an architect, and I said no. She told me that she was an architect, had gotten her Master’s in Architecture from Columbia in the 1930’s or 40’s. She then proceeded to tell me about her home, and how she had a Kurdish museum there, as her late husband was a Kurd. She invited me in and gave me the grand tour of the museum, which takes up her entire parlor floor. It’s quite amazing and she was exceedingly friendly and informative.”

“After my tour, I thanked her. Mischievously, I questioned her about the vines growing on her home. I said, half jokingly, that as an architect she must be aware that the vines eat away at the mortar between the bricks and ultimately destabilize the exterior wall of her home. She told me yes, she was aware, however, she enjoyed the privacy it afforded her.”

“Just one of those small magical things that happen in New York.”

Kurdish Heritage Foundation of America
345 Park Place, Brooklyn NY 11238. (718) 783-7930.
Site Address: 144 Underhill Ave.
Director: Vera Beaudin Saeedpour
Description: “Our purpose is to collect, preserve and make available materials on Kurdish history and culture through on-site visits, exhibits and special projects. The Kurdish library is a research institution; the Kurdish Museum focuses on folk arts and crafts.”

[Thanks to rhodamine for the photo!]

TECHNICAL OUTAGE RESOLVED! While the message boards were up without interruption, Daily Heights experienced a technical blackout for nearly 13 hours due to attempted introduction of new Internet technology (Lucas, I will have a word with you later).

PICTURED: Many readers are surprised to learn that it takes ONLY 3 COMPUTERS to generate Daily Heights.

I give up. The comment spammers win. The trackback spammers win. I’m tired of playing janitor and cleaning up behind this garbage. CIALIS XANAX TEXAS-HOLDEM VIAGRAGAAHAAHAAAAAHAAAAAAAA

UPDATE: On the advice of Michael, Daily Heights is now loaded with an ingenious spam shield that checks whether or not a human is typing the message. Fingers crossed!

Daily Heights Happy Hour photos, Soda Bar, Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, this past Wednesday. Enjoy.

So… speaking of never blending in… how about that thing going up behind the billboard? It’s “145 PARK PLACE,” a new 95,000-square-foot, 50-unit luxury condo building under construction on Flatbush. This is from our friend Transfer:

This is from MIHAI RADU Architects:

What… You were expecting it to be “architecturally correct?”

Ha, ha. Nice one. Welcome to Brooklyn.

Breaking! Lucas writes: “Whoa - no less than half an hour after I left [the Wed. night Daily Heights happy hour at] Soda, BUILD caught a brick (or something) through the window… A report from the streets:”

20 minutes ago (say, 10:50 pm), the sound of breaking glass spilled into my living room, immediately followed by an inaudible yell (”Fuck You!” ?). My roommate and I walked over to the window (no, we didn’t jump up and run; smashing glass isn’t unusual around here - La Rena, the market across the street, was robbed a couple weeks ago at 5 am). We looked down from the third floor and tried to determine what was going on. A police car was stopped at the Bergen/Vanderbilt light, headed westbound on Bergen. There were no more than 4 or 5 people on the street. The police car crept forward as the light changed, paused for a minute (a 20-something black man in a tank top was walking towards the car, away from the sound), then the police accelerated quickly away. My roommate and I sat down, assuming someone had broken a beer bottle. Less than 10 minutes later, the breaking sounds resumed …

More photos and story after the jump! …
(more…)

Tonight at SODA. 6:30ish till whenever.
In the backroom, in the corner nearest the door, or possibly the lower patio. For the shy, A DH representative will be wearing a “Where’s The Beef?” pin with a picture of Clara Peller shouting into a telephone. If all else fails, look for the tiny blonde. [Thanks to noisefootprint for the SODA photo.]

Link: TONIGHT - Happy Hour at Soda Bar [message boards]

Via PHeightsParents: “BROWN male with beautiful green eyes. May be part Siamese. Healthy but for a case of ringworm. Not a kitten but young. Extremely loving. Photos forthcoming.”

I actually like the pizza at Amorina (Cucina Rustica) for reasons that other people hate it. Namely, the chewy crust, which has been described as “uniformly leaden” and “dense to the point of being impenetrable.” I wouldn’t go that far, but the last time I got two slices “to go,” I got jaw fatigue (not kidding) halfway through the second slice.

Jaw fatigue is not a sensation I usually associate with lunch. But I love a challenge.

That’s why I returned the other day. But when I sat down and looked at the menu, I was afraid I would look too cheap if I spent a mere 5 bucks for 2 slices. So instead, I scanned the panini section (look out, Half Wine Bar, here comes Amorina).

They had this great-sounding panini with pears and cheese. But the sausage panini looked good too… so I mused aloud if it would be possible to add sausage to the pear panini. The waitress just shook her head and said, “no.” I smiled nervously and said, “so… strict vegetarian panini, huh?”

But the waitress did not smile. She said that the chef had come up with the panini selections, and that the chef’s “reputation” was at stake. Instead, she said, I could buy a side order of sausage. That side probably would have been served on its own distinct plate–so as not to cause confusion between the signature Amorina Panini and the side order.

I knew I had already crossed the line. So I retreated, and stuck with the safe choice: sausage panini, which was excellent and definitely worth the extra 2-3 bucks, especially with the arugula/cherry tomato side salad (or maybe I was supposed to put that on the panini? Whatever. I think it was a side salad, even though it came dry).

In retrospect, I’m not sure how I should react to this. Amused that panini has become a “reputation” issue? Insulted that Amorina won’t bow to my typically American demands to have everything “my way”? Or maybe impressed at Amorina’s dedication to the quality of their food, all the way down to the lunchtime panini?

WINE SECTION!
I have another word to say: Lambrusco. Try it! It’s fun to say, especially if you fake an Italian accent. But it may not be so fun to drink.

Amorina has no liquor license, but across the street is Fermented Grapes, which actually now has two cardboard boxes labeled “Albano’s Picks.” That means: these are the wines suggested for you to buy and take over to Amorina. One was a Montepulciano, and for 7 bucks, you can’t go wrong.

However. The other is a “Lambrusco” that costs about 13 bucks… what can I say? You may like it, but it’s just not Cosa Nostra, capite? It’s “frizzante,” which I thought meant it would be a “new wine” kind of thing. Instead, it’s like some kind of cross between sparkling wine and red wine. If sweet is your thing, go ahead and buy it. We took a bottle home and tried it, but ended up dumping the remainder down the drain, which I’ve never done before in my life.

Caution: This post contains Salty Language.

From Finslippy, the funniest Parent Blog in Prospect Heights:

“My son has been cursing lately. I don’t believe he’s cursing for effect, as he doesn’t check us for a reaction–as he might do before he, say, brains another child with a dump truck. For example: the other day he made himself comfortable on the couch — Raisins? Check. Sippy cup? Check — and called out: ‘Turn on the TV.’ Before I could respond, he repeated, ‘Turn on the damn TV, please.’ Well!”

“And then yesterday, as he pulled an oversized book from the shelf, he exclaimed, ‘Wow — this is a big fucking book!’ I tried my best not to laugh, but I did anyway. Luckily he didn’t notice, as he was hidden behind the big fucking book.”

LINK: It Can Now Be Revealed [finslippy]

Did anybody go to the Al Sharpton pep rally (going on right now, actually) at Underhill & Sterling? I was just there 5 minutes ago. Got there just in time to hear him introduce the Honorable William C. Thompson (New York City Comptroller). The program I have here says that Sharpton follows Thompson, so maybe if you hurry, you can catch his keynote remarks.

The audience is about 90% black, maybe 5% Hispanic. Most of the Caucasians in attendance looked like they were media (not exaggerating). The crowd is pretty thin… It is definitely NOT standing room only… Duryea Presbyterian is a small church and there’s still enough room to fit double the crowd.

I also got another copy of The Brooklyn Standard thrust at me.

Exclusive! Where to begin? How about June 25, when sje shocked us all with the news that Flatbush BBQ joint Mama Duke’s was shutting down. An anonymous Guest poster then suggested that the owners might be looking to reopen on Vanderbilt Ave., and stated, quite provocatively, a completely unsubstantiated rumor that “The reason they are leaving is because that predator/slum lord Pintchick raised their rent from 5k to 7k.”

Now, in the “Flatbush BBQ Scene in Crisis” thread, Matthew Pintchik himself advances the story:

“For the record, during the month of June 2005, Mrs. Janice Combs asked PINTCHIK if we would permit her to break her lease at the restaurant. The lease was not up until February of 2006 ! Quite frankly we were dissapointed that she wanted to close … At NO time was there ever a discussion about a lease renewal …”

“When a reporter recently visited our office from a local paper [hmm… wonder where they got the lead? -ed.], she verified the facts. The reporter explained that since Mrs. Combs closed the restaurant for reasons not relating to the rent or her landlord, there probably would not be a story written. Too bad ! I would have enjoyed having the facts published. I felt that since this posting was an outright lie I would respond. “It’s sad that some people have nothing to do but make up garbage.”

[We called Pintchik and talked to Matthew - he confirmed it was in fact him who posted these comments to Daily Heights.]

Developing…

LINK:
Flatbush BBQ Scene in Crisis [Daily Heights]

Recent entries on the 19th Century Blog (their term for it) at Beast bar and restaurant on Vanderbilt Ave.
–

“the cold wind bit viciously at the
at the naked breast. damn it is hot in hee. There was an angry whore at the door
charming the bartender. The sticky humid atmosphe e is clinging to my skin.
I hate the suffocatin air. Why Oh Why isitso dam hot in here.”

“If you want your darling baby back in your arms. Bring 2 million dollars to the
west side pier. Com alone. If I even smell a pg. That b aby will cry no more.”

“yes it is hot in here, when it is gay pride weekend, why is it empty.
I love this place.”

“thus is th e weekend to b e surrounded by xxxxxx beautiful women. Where are
allofthebeautifùl women? xx xx I am proud to be a same-sex gender lving woman.
Whe re are the dykesxxKkxx on bike s?”