Candicissima writes: “Curbed.com has open polls for the neighborhood of the year and no other place in NYC deserves it more than Prospect Heights (and DH). So, go vote! Voting closes at noon on Sunday.”
rita writes in the Prospect Heights Message Boards:
“someone threw a battery through our parlor floor window. i woke up this morning to a perfectly centered hole through two panes of glass, and shattered glass all over our apartment.”
“it must have happened at some point yesterday - we got home around midnight, so it must have been before then. so i ask the DH community, WTF?”
“i doubt it’s personal, but … were they aiming for our dining room chandelier (which is visible from the street) as a symbol of us gentrifying the neighborhood? or is this just the urban equivalent of hitting malboxes with garbage cans?”
Nestor’s House on Christmas Eve, Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, NY
Originally uploaded by dailyheights.com.
sje writes: “My excellent neighbor Nestor always lights his house up, and this year is no exception: on Underhill at Bergen.”
Where are the best Christmas lights in Prospect Heights? [Message Boards]
Oiseau writes in the Prospect Heights Message Boards: “…I ended up riding over the Brooklyn Bridge with the cars. It was the only way to ride over that bridge, other wise you had to walk it.”
“I yelled at Marty to get some bike lane police, and then turned around because my derailer cable broke and Bicycle Station was open real early and fixed it quickly, amazingly, because I was about to give up…”
“Then I found some abandoned pregnant cat on Dean St., and couldn’t take it to the animal shelter, not that that is a good thing, but at least it’s warm, but with the traffic and all, I just gave it some food.”
“And you?”
The word “illegal” has been thrown around pretty loosely, and over and over again, at every opportunity, in the media. And now, by the anti-strike crowd (by now, that crowd numbers approximately 99% of Brooklynites, MTA employees excluded). One of the other “messages” that keeps surfacing in the local media is the claim that the international TWU had advised the NY branch NOT to strike. It would be nice to verify these claims, but like pretty much everybody else, we spent an extra 5 hours today negotiating traffic and logistic hassles brought on just in time for Christmas (at least UPS is still delivering).
Oh, hey… there are about 50,000 comments on this in the Prospect Heights and Park Slope message boards… let’s take a look:
IT’S ON - TWU STRIKES!! (Chaos ensues in more than 100 comments on the Prospect Heights Board)
WAR STORIES: How did you get there?? (Prospect Heights Board)
I would TOTALLY start an illegal taxi service… if I had a car.
… “On the 12th day of Christmas, Bruce Ratner took from me/
12 months of taxes/
11 blocks of sidewalks/
10 acres peopled/
nine cultures mixing/
eight unclogged …
EmilyM writes in the Prospect Heights Message Boards: “Stephen Colbert has been doing a 434-part* series on the congressional districts and last night, while we were all at Festivus, he did ours! He talked about Eastern Parkway, the Caribbean Day Parade, and interviewed Major Owens. It was pretty funny.”
Catch it before it drops off the front page of the Colbert Report (click here for links and more info).
Brooklyn Subway Refugees
Scenes from summer 2003, originally uploaded by CatsFive, who wrote: “During the 2003 blackout, the subways, which run on electricity, all stopped. Lots of riders had to exit the subway in some pretty unusual ways.”
OK, we got a temporary reprieve… last we heard, the latest deadline is tonight at 12:01 am. To get you in the mood, STACEY posted the following tidbit (about the strike from the early 1900s) in the Prospect Heights Message Boards:
“Subway motormen on the BRT had gone out on strike on Nov. 1st, 1918. Dispatchers and supervisors were pressed into service as replacement workers. That day, dispatcher Antonio Luciano was assigned as motorman on the Brighton Line that ran at that time from Park Row over the Brooklyn Bridge (which had train traffic at the time) and Fulton Street to the current Franklin Shuttle. He had never before operated elevated trains in passenger service.“
“… Luciano had to navigate an S-shaped curve on what would later be called the Franklin Shuttle at Malbone Street. The speed limit at the location was posted as 6 MPH, but those on the scene later reported that he roared through at what must have been 50 MPH. The first car held the rails, suffering only minor damage, but the second and third cars derailed, the second being demolished and the third nearly so. About 100 passengers lost their lives, though Luciano was spared.”
alafairnadia writes: “yay festivus! … we got: newbies; stacey as festivus elf (and is getting free drinks next happy hour…); random airings of grievances; feats of strength. we lacked a pole. we had veg. burgers.
Prospect Heights Message Boards
DH fan Jon Keegan, an illustrator living in Prospect Heights, wrote in: “I was interviewed by the New York Times for this Sunday’s paper…They are doing a “Living in…” for Prospect Heights. I made sure to give dailyheights a good plug!”
Thanks, Jon… Looks like NYT writer JEFF VANDAM was pretty impressed with the DH community… we got mentioned twice in the article, and the NYT Prospect Heights slideshow is narrated by Mark McCartney, aka Mr. Tips, a regular on DH’s Prospect Heights Message Boards. Here are some excerpts from the NYT article:
“ON the heavily trafficked Web site www.dailyheights.com, a recent poll asked visitors to vote on new SoHo-style nicknames for Prospect Heights, their beloved Brooklyn neighborhood. While there was some support for ToPoSlo (Too Poor to live in the Slope) and HoSloFugee (Home for Slope Refugees), the biggest winner by far was not a name, but a criticism: ‘This poll is extraordinarily dumb…’ ”
“… ‘There’s a great cultural corridor here,’ said Jon Keegan, an illustrator who moved in 2002 from Park Slope into Newswalk, a Dean Street loft building formerly home to a Daily News printing plant, with his wife, Julie, a painter. ‘There’s this sweet spot of being between BAM and the Brooklyn Museum - Prospect Heights is so perfect for that,’ he said, referring to the Brooklyn Academy of Music.”
“Yet as Mr. Keegan and his fellow users of dailyheights.com are well aware, there is an undercurrent to all of the recent success of Prospect Heights: the plans of the developer Bruce Ratner to build a sizable complex of shopping, offices, housing and a Frank Gehry-designed arena for his New York Nets over the railyards on Atlantic Avenue. Concerns about eminent domain issues and the project’s potential impact on the area’s density are widespread, as is uncertainty over what form it will finally take.
“Still, not everyone is up in arms. Mark McCartney, a computer programmer who rents a one-bedroom apartment on Washington Avenue with his fiancée, Beth Elliott, lives south of the proposed project’s area. ‘We’re so far away it wouldn’t affect us,’ he said. ‘And I don’t like basketball.’ ”
So Fricking Ominous… Thanks to Curbed.com (”Will Evil Be Crushed?”) for reminding DH of an issue that has been right under our nose for so long.
And thanks for giving props to Atomische, taker of this incredible photo, and one of the original colonists of the Prospect Heights Photo Pool.
Lucas writes to Daily Heights about the coveted Rap-Id-Wrap building on Bergen St.: “Walked by last night (Dec. 9) and it was gone. I never got to say goodbye. Folks on the forum noticed, too….
Before (photo © 2005 Frank Lynch):
After (from Lucas):
Guest writes: “I saw them tearing it down at about 11 am yesterday morning. I spoke with one of the demolition crew and he said they could tear the whole thing down in just a few hours. It was pretty fantastic to watch this giant machine with a claw tearing into the building as snow was falling.”
The status of the permit was called into question, but Ben writes: “hard to say if there is a permit or not. None shows up on the DOB website, but in a complaint from 12/9 a permit No. is referenced…”
Guest writes: “A manhole cover blew on 5th ave. They started off ABC 6:00 news with this ‘breaking news’.”
Pitu adds: “Channel 7 is reporting … two buildings evacuated for carbon monoxide on Fifth Ave near Flatbush … ”
Details: Prospect Heights Message Boards
PHOTO: Originally uploaded by the known universe.
You’ve probably walked past this one (guess where):
Rojo Soupios
died
March 3, 1996
Peace for our beautiful baby boy.
We love you, Angel.
Forever.
“We really liked it. We sat in the back room and they played old R&B and the Beatles the whole time.”
“I don’t recommend the calamari appetizer — rubbery, hard to bite through. He really liked his shell steak, though. I wasn’t crazy about my catfish, but I’d still return to the place because the menu was better than I expected.”
Elizabeth Hays writes in the Daily News: “It’s a jungle out there for frazzled city parents forced to push a stroller along bumpy, treacherous streets, a new (Transportation Alternatives) survey shows.”
“Grand Army Plaza was hands down the most notorious Brooklyn spot. The busy traffic circle is near stroller-heavy destinations, such as the Brooklyn Public Library and Prospect Park.”
QUOTES FROM PARENTS who answered the TA survey:
“The corner of Flatbush and Grand Army Plaza in front of the library is a KILLER. Please fix.”
“You feel you are risking your child’s life on a daily basis [at GAP].”
“My son flew out of stroller flat on his face (with a ‘thunk!’) when we hit a bump once.” (This one was actually regarding a treacherous situation in Park Slope proper, not GAP)
Daily News Photo (Bales): Cecilia Varas, of Prospect Heights, uses a pedestrian crossing to wheel 2-month-old son, Aedan, across Grand Army Plaza: “I pray and hold on to my stroller because I’m scared.”
BONUS:Is GAP really that much better?? KAY SARLIN of the Transportation Department claimed that Grand Army Plaza has already been improved, with longer crossing times (huh??), added sidewalk space (you mean the pedestrian island? that’s so far outside of any traffic path that it’s still as pristine as the day it was poured), ramps (about time), and pedestrian barriers (the bollards are a huge improvement, even if the vast majority of them protect that no-mans-land that Sarlin described as a “sidewalk”).
A little Internet archaeology turns up the following:
Hot Bird
665 Vanderbilt Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11238
718-468-2473
Fast Food American
What’s at 665 Vanderbilt today? The former Hot Bird space is where you’ll now find the (recently renovated/repoened) Aliseo Osteria del Borgo.
Is Sushi Tatsu worth it for the free sake? Some days, I vote yes. Others, I say no. It all depends on whether we can get a table at Geido, really.
That Yarn Guy writes on the Prospect Heights Message Board: “Cold enough fer ya? Warm up at the Knit-In at Freddy’s Bar this weekend. It’s the first Saturday of every month from 5:00 until 8:00 PM or when ever the band kicks us out.”
“This is the second winter for knitting at Freddy’s. The Knit In was featured in Knit.1 Magazine and also on The Jane Pauley Show. It’s not a craft class - it’s a friendly drink-optional depot for stitching, bitching and unwinding.”
“It’s never too late to make a hand-crafted gift for the Holidays like a pot holder or a hat. Or maybe a hat made from holders. So drop off your laundry, pick up some Chinese food, join us this Saturday and finish that scarf! Stick around for the Tom Waits tribute later that evening. Always on hand at the Knit-In are a swift, wool-winder, patterns books and spare needles. Crocheters are welcomed and men are encouraged.”
GMilner writes in the Prospect Heights Message Boards: “Last night, a man tried to force his way into my building by following a neighbor of mine. She managed to get the front door closed just in time…”
“The police took about 15 minutes to show up, and the guy was still in front of the door… for whatever reason the cops the cops let him go. They told us that he was barely coherent and that he had said something about how he worked in this building, so they got his address (or whatever address they gave him) and told him to go home.”
“Obviously, I’m annoyed at how they handled this. People should be careful in case he tries this again. Our building is on St. Marks between Underhill and Washington.”
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