Items overheard on the Prospect Heights Message Boards about the West Indian-American Day Parade (Caribbean Day Parade), coming up this weekend (Labor Day weekend) on Eastern Parkway:

*NYPD have allegedly nicknamed it the “Murder Day Parade.”

*”Gun Play on the Parkway” was memorialized in Calypso songs of the 1970’s.

*Shootings and stabbings are commonplace, and most of it never makes the papers.

*It’s not a murder unless the victim dies.

*The last parade-related murder was in 2003, 2 years ago.

*In 1999, two 11-year-olds and an 18-year-old were crushed by vehicles involved in the caravan. In 2004, a 21-year-old woman got crushed but survived.

*Labor Day is the single biggest day of the year for trauma at the Kings County Hospital Emergency Department, beating out New Year’s Eve and Fourth of July.

*Many people have been going to the Caribbean Day Parade for years and have never had a problem with violence.

*Much of the violence is not random.

*It’s the only time you can ever find good corn on the cob in this damn city.

*The food is all incredible. Try the roti… Nothing like roti and a cold beer.

*It’s not the same since Giuliani banned alcohol sales (no more $1 Red Stripe truck).

*Some people bring rum punch in Gatorade bottles.

*Others like to bring a thermos full of rum to add to the pina coladas and other tropical drinks they sell.

*It’s scheduled to end at 5pm, but the fun (or madness, depending on your perspective) continues into the night.

*The website of the West Indian-American Day Carnival Association is www.wiadca.org.

This post sponsored by the the Prospect Heights Chamber of Commerce.*

*Note: Not actually sponsored by the Prospect Heights Chamber of Commerce.

More chatter:
Lock your Doors [Prospect Heights Message Boards]
When’s that West Indian Day Parade? [Prospect Heights Message Boards]
The Labor Day Parade [Prospect Heights Message Boards]

IMAGE SOURCE: RedLipstick.net

HouseBroken wrote on the Prospect Heights message boards: “… a great rotti-puppy has been living on a junkyard lot on Bergen tied to a tree. Her owner finally agreed to give her up and now she needs to find a home or a place to stay while she finds the right home. She is about 9 months old and less than 50lbs. She is super sweet and loves people.”

sje adds: “I met her … she’s sweet, playful and anxious to please. We taught her ’sit’ in about a minute. She needs to learn how to walk on a leash. This dog is so happy for any attention, she’ll make such a loving pet. She’s only about 50 lbs, a purebred Rottweiler, and contrary to the photo, has a normal sized tongue…”

Click here for more info.

Since there are so many New Orleans expats and aficionados in Brooklyn, here’s a few updates on the chaos that’s spreading through the city. Funny, people were almost celebrating last night that the city dodged a bullet…

The breach in the 17th Street canal levee (on the lakefront) is “football-field sized” and they are trying to sandbag it. In the meantime, all of downtown is filling up with water. No news on the airport that I’ve heard, but many of the roads out are now underwater since the levees broke. CNN is reporting that 80% of the city is “under water” now–that can’t be right, can it??

The report on CNN a few hours ago was that there are about 10,000 people stuck in the Superdome and the authorities won’t let them out yet, mainly because there’s nowhere for them to go, and many of the roads out are pretty much blocked. EMS personnel are delivering injured persons to the Superdome.

The tension in the Superdome is getting pretty extreme, and one guy just deliberately jumped to his death - he got up from a domino game, said “look out” and threw himself over a balcony.

Now, there are fires breaking out in several places. Refugees are flooding toward the Superdome right now, because the water is still rising. The area around the Superdome has gone from knee-deep to waist-deep and is expected to go even higher.

Finally, just saw footage of Canal Street looters - the stores are all being completely pillaged! People are stopping in the street to try on Nikes and make sure they get the best fit.

No word on Jacques-Imo’s and uptown in general, but downtown, I imagine the French Quarter is starting to fill up…

UPDATE: Jefferson Parish is under martial law. It’s going to be at least a month before anybody is allowed back in!


New Orleans Flooding: Discuss in the Message Boards

On calallillie.com:

“Alexis and I spent the better part of this weekend snooping around new neighborhoods …. We began the day visiting an open house in Park Slope– a beautiful 2BR brownstone floor through, nicely renovated with a great kitchen. The price was right, but when we got there, we realized that swarms of people had visited and that there would most likely be a rent bidding war. A bit crestfallen, we walked on, hitting South Slope/Greenwood Heights (is that really a neighborhood?) and Prospect Heights on Saturday, then the Gowanus area, Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens on Sunday.”

“End Result: Nothing is really available over this Labor Day stretch. Furthermore, since when do bidding wars happen with RENTALS?”

LINK: Searching for a New ‘Hood [callalillie.com]

Comments: Daily Heights Message Boards

Oops. A bit dated now, but here it is. From the New York Times via Brownstoner.

PROSPECT HEIGHTS $750,000
34 Plaza Street
2-bedroom, 2-bath, 1,250-sq.-ft. co-op in postwar building; 24-hr. doormen; dining area, windowed kitchen, parquet floors, Manhattan skyline view; roof deck; maintenance $1,029, 30% tax deductible; listed at $695,000 (multiple bids), 3 weeks on market (broker: Warren Lewis Realty)

Discuss: Prospect Heights Message Boards

Some people in Prospect Heights avoid shopping at the corner bodega because they think it’s more expensive than making the trek to Key/Met Foods or a chain drug store. Not so! Case in point: the Rite Aid on 7th Ave. recently charged almost 3 dollars for 2 16-oz. bottles of seltzer; whereas the typical bodega here charges $1 per bottle. So that’s a 50% premium. Ditto with pet food, coffee, milk, eggs… what’s your experience? Please discuss. And take a look at the price tag next time you buy.

PICTURED: Josh Goldstein of BodegaNYC.com sent us this picture of himself standing in front of Espinal Grocery at the corner of Sterling Pl. and Underhill Ave.

Click here.

Now up at Tales of the Cupcake Mafia: “Stopping by Video Edge … I had just rented Dead Like Me Season One Disc Three when I decided to stop and pick up dinner. Eschewing traditional take-out I decided to take advantage of my new neighborhood and head to a place called ‘The Wing Wagon.’…”

“The wings only came in batches of 10, and I wanted to try at least two different sauces. So I ordered 20 wings, 10 BBQ and 10 Medium and waited for my order. I was repulsed yet giddy with the weight of my wings as I carried them home. Opening the boxes, the potential for mess was so great, I moved the whole operation to the kitchen sink and ate standing up beside it.”

“… I was attacking these wings with a fervor that had not been seen since the days dinosaurs walked the Earth. Sauce was all over my mouth which would generally gross me out but I swear I did not care … I looked up quickly and caught a glance of my reflection of the kitchen window and mistook myself for a feral raccoon.”

Discuss: Wing Wagon

Last week’s “server overload” incident knocked Daily Heights off The Internets, and in an emergency session, we had to negotiate with our benevolent webhost to put us back on the air, please.

In response to these woes, DAILY HEIGHTS regular Carnivore inquired about donations. His “can I donate” post generated a flood of response. Within hours, we had more than $500 in donations come in through Paypal! I’m really struggling for a way to properly thank FLUTE, JamesOnVandy, Lucas, Stacey, Daniel, alafairnadia, Carnivore, 11238, Eugene from Prospect Park, and all the rest of you for your support.

The immediate crisis period is over, but you can still make donations at any time via paypal (at this address: paypal@dailyheights.com) or by check/cash/whatever. Clicking the “donate” link over to your right makes this process super easy.

So what about that server problem? The status of Daily Heights is a bit better than last week - we are still limping along on the same old server. We’ve crippled a few server functions so that the site won’t run so hot. It’s not clear whether we will stay or go, but inertia certainly consumes fewer man-hours of internetty frustration. Whatever happens, all of your donations WILL GO toward improving the site, paying for bandwidth/server space, supporting neighborhood events, etc.

Regards,

The Management

Comments here.

NewsHour with Jim Lehrer is doing a piece on Ratner and Atlantic Yards, so they ducked into Freddy’s–a hornet’s nest of anti-Ratner sentiment–to get the community perspective.

Brooklyn Papers just published an article about the PBS news crew coming to Freddy’s. Hey Jess, great article, but you got the reporter’s name wrong… it’s Ray Suarez, not Luis…

Read more…

Warning! This link is not safe for work. Or kids. Or anybody, really.

Via Gawker…

“This is, to the best of our knowledge, for real, and it happened earlier this week in Prospect Heights Park Slope.”

>>From: XXXX
>>Subject: For your “Only in New York” files. (Warning: nudity)
>>To: XXXX
>>
>> Hey all…
>>
>>OK, so it’s 2:30 a.m. on a Monday night, and right outside
>>my window, on the public street below, in front of God and
>>everybody are a man and a woman going to town on a dirty,
>>stained mattress the neighbor girl threw out earlier that
>>morning!!! Imagine!
>>
>> …
>>Now, the question begs: Who’s the bigger pervert, the couple
>>bumping uglies on a dirty mattress in the middle of a public
>>sidewalk, or me for taking pictures?

Click here to view the picture. And comment. And vote in the Daily Heights poll.

Away with your FILTHY, pre-owned items! We must have it new. New!

Here are the remnants of the National Council on Jewish Women (NCJW) thrift store on Flatbush - you know, the one that used to pile all sorts of treasures out on the sidewalk. Oh… wonder what they have today? … Well, you can forget about that, now. Happy?

Just a few weeks ago, Jack wrote on the Prospect Heights Message Boards: “Oh, no. Oh, no. I can’t believe they are gone! They were truly one of the last old school gems and they really had a nice selection of stuff… it seems all the cheapo places to shop in this city are fading fast.”

“One of the two sisters was there in the store with the other African American woman who worked there. They recognized me, and when I asked ‘So, you’re closed forever?’ they said ‘Sorry, yes, thank you for coming…’”

“… that place has been there virtually forever … Seeing it all cleared to the walls was just a shock. This city is changing in ways I just don’t understand anymore.”

This is just one of three notable Flatbush Ave. junque store closings recently. As marthajoy reported, “a lot of second-hand stuff on Flatbush has closed down … [including] that antique store [next to Franny’s]. I noticed that the Second Time Around furniture (also affiliated with Jewish Women’s thrift store) over behind Yummy Taco is closed too.”

Discuss.

pervert081805

Originally uploaded by friendly_chic407.

Just doing our part to pass this one around. We originally saw this posted by friendly_chic407 on citynoise.org, the website of Prospect Heights’ very own rhodamine. Now it’s on Flickr, and Boing Boing, and joshreynolds.blogspot.com, and …

‘chic says: “I tried to avoid eye contact with him but I had a feeling he was up to no good when he kept massaging his crotch … So I took out my cell-phone and turned on the camera. Then I aimed the camera at him and took a quick shot. He quickly zipped himself up and got off at the next stop (it was two-three stops before union square). That didn’t prevent me from getting a really good shot of him in the act.”

Discuss. Also, another photo of another alleged subway pervert via brooklyngirl. [Daily Heights Message Boards]

noisefootprint just texted me that there is a new “Healthy Nibbles” awning on Flatbush and Prospect Place. Apparently it looks like a juice place, with organic snacks… appears to be taking over half of a storefront that has some boutiquey, leather-goodsy, framey type place with the art on the wall. Half of it shut down, and it’s reopening as a juice bar.

So this is practically across the street from the Happy Carrot juice/health food place, or whatever that’s called. And isn’t “NY Naturals” nearby? How much health food can one block bear?

Discuss.

Now that gasoline is more expensive than gold, is anyone surprised that siphoning is making a comeback of 1974 proportions?

Rhodamine reports on the Prospect Heights Message Boards that his old Volvo was “running on vapors” after only two trips to Williamsburg (fie, you hipster!) and moving once for alternate side parking:

“So, I figured that either(1) anti-gasoline black matter exists in Williamsburg, or (2) someone in PH has been syphoning off my gas.”

“My fears were verified when I went to the AutoZone on Atlantic and picked up a $12 locking gas cap and the clerk asked me ‘Having problems with someone stealing your gas, too? I must have sold a hundred of those this week’…”

In a time-honored tradition, Daily Heights is offering $25 for a photo of the Prospect Heights Gas Siphoner in flagrante delicto. Camphones at the ready!

Read more…

The Prospect Park Alliance wants your wedding photos for the Monday, September 19th ribbon cutting in celebration of the Picnic House’s restoration. Bring them in person, e-mail them, or send them by regular mail. More details here.

LeslieGore writes: “I am getting really tired of … people leaving their junk on the corner- it blows up and down the street, getting in my yard and in others. It is so inconsiderate.”

“To who ever left their old clothes on the corner- If you want to throw out your stuff- do it in front of your own house. If you want to leave it for your neighbors- do it in front of your own house.
To the person who left out the air conditioner- do you know that there is a free city agency that will pick it up for you? … So you do not have to leave it on the corner- in front of a building you do not live in? That way, when the guy with the bat and the shopping cart comes by at 11 pm to beat it up and to rip out the motor- I will not have to call the precinct house. Thanks for letting the freon out all over the place.”

“I do not mean to offend anyone- I am just getting really tired of people treating the corner as if it is a dumping ground. We all live here- please try to be considerate of your neighbors.”

Read comments…

shay shay and sandy

Originally uploaded by trevorbrklyn.

The Prospect Heights photo pool on Flickr now has 95 entries, thanks to recent entries from Alafairnadia (sp?) and trevorbrklyn. Here is “shay shay and sandy,” which I think may have been taken this weekend at the St. Johns Ave. block party (Trevor, true? yes? no?)

Tony Limuaco is trying to get the word out that The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer (PBS) will be down at Freddy’s tomorrow (Tues. Aug 23) at 6:00-ish 6:30-ish “to investigate the impact of the Ratner curse”:

“Rinse out those softball shirt and represent, or just show up. I’m making a selected set of prints from Sunday’s softball game. If you know any of the musicians that have played at Freddy’s they should show up too.”

He asked if dailyheights.com could do another Rock Paper Scissors competition. It’s too short notice to put on something major. But I can suggest that people meet there spontaneously to hang out, drink beer, and participate in spontaneous games of chance and skill, including, but not limited to, Rock Paper Scissors.

Happy hour, anyone? Read more.

Just saw this on David Gallagher’s site, lightningfield.com.
The second photo looks like the old public school-turned-condo at the corner of Vanderbilt and Sterling.

Source: Lightningfield.com

You heard it here first (thanks to sje for the tip), and thanks to NYT reporter Jennifer Bleyer, a soon-to-be Prospect Heights resident, for a great article!

” … Local residents took notice when Janice Combs, the mother of the hip-hop mogul Sean Combs, opened Mama Duke in 2001, and when the restaurant suddenly closed, they took notice again. Rumors spread quickly on a Prospect Heights Web log, dailyheights.com, about why Mama Duke was no more …”

Still seems much more affordable than Park Slope, or…?

Source: New York Times via Brownstoner.

PROSPECT HEIGHTS $425,000
135 Eastern Parkway
(Turner Towers)
2-bedroom, 2-bath, 1,000-sq.-ft. co-op in a postwar building; 24-hr. doormen; dining area; gym in building; maintenance $820, 40% tax deductible; listed at $425,000, 1 week on market (broker: Susan N. Breen)

Discuss: [Prospect Heights Message Boards]

Filming the Robert De Niro film, “The Good Shepherd.”

Via turbanhead.com. …was Angelina there too?

Discuss: [Fort Greene/Clinton Hill Message Boards]

Let me see if I can get this straight… Muk reports, that he heard from DeeDee, posting on Chowhound, who heard it from a “reliable source”, that Half Wine Bar is up for sale. “Does anyone know what the proverbial ‘dealio’ is?” Muk asks.

Discuss.

LINK: Half Being Sold?
[Prospect Heights Message Boards]

Half Being Sold?

Lucas writes:

“1 pair of Shuoes…
$2.00/xx sises 6-11″

“Posted in the window of the laundromat on Vanderbilt between Bergen and Dean.”

Discuss.