Pack your bags, Dan…
DeeDee writes: “Just saw on CNN that the Supreme Court ruled in the eminent domain case in Connecticut. The Court ruled that local governments can seize private property (homes and businesses) for private economic development. This ruling would support the proposed Atlantic Yards development plan.”
Links:
Supreme Court Rules Cities May Seize Homes [Associated Press via Yahoo! News](Thanks to Ben for the tip)
Chaos Ensues in Daily Heights Forums [Daily Heights Forums]
FedUpMom writes: “Two Sundays ago I exited the 2 train at Bergen St. on the Brooklyn-bound side. I had my 18-month-old daughter with me in her small stroller. There was track work on the Manhattan bound platform, and so no token clerk on either side… No one was anywhere to be found when I pushed the bell to open the gate to leave the station. I was stuck in the station and unable to get out! This was a very dangerous and scary situation. I can’t push the stroller through the vertical turnstile, and I can’t carry the baby and fit the stroller through the vertical turnstile (even when folded).”
“I finally got lucky and someone helped me bring the stroller through, and I carried my daughter …”
“The answers I am getting from the MTA are ridiculous … It seems that the MTA is unwilling to acknowledge that on the day in question there was not a soul at the station, and that since it was Sunday, it could have taken 20-30 minutes before a conductor on the next train was due. This is not what customer service and safety are about. Something needs to be done, even if it means that the MTA has to admit that during repairs, some stations have no safe exit.”
1. daveb writes in the Daily Heights Forums:
“I was mugged and beaten up pretty badly on Saint Johns Place between Underhill and Washington (I also happen to live on this stretch) Sunday night (19th). The police did not seem too interested in getting a description of the attacker and seemed to me to stop taking notes after ‘tall, black and in his late 20’s,’ cutting me off when I offered descriptions of his clothing, what direction he ran in etc. My overall feeling was that they just didn’t care. I’ve also had my apartment robbed twice in the past year, both times eliciting a very lackluster response from the police. I’m very upset about the crime in this neighborhood and the lack of policing. It’s no fun having to eat through a straw and knowing that the guy who nearly killed you likely lives on your block, if not your street.”
2. BONUS! Arielbl writes in the same thread: “My next door neighbor was mugged and pistol-whipped in the vestibule of our building on st johns between franklin and classon, on a friday evening, between maybe 11pm and midnight. The guy must have been following him and pushed him into the vestibule when he unlocked the door.”
“I like to think that this kind of stuff is an anomaly. This is my first summer in ‘proho,’ and it seems like things are a lot worse with the warm weather.”
ADAM NICHOLS writes in the Daily News: “[Tristan] Charlier, 24, and [Leon] Roberts, 25, of Jamaica, Queens, were found at 2:20 a.m. Wednesday with multiple gunshot wounds by a bus stop in this Caribbean island paradise [St. Thomas]…The friends had arrived in the U.S. Virgin Islands fewer than 15 hours earlier to attend the wedding of [Twumasi] Weisel, who is from Prospect Heights, Brooklyn.”
WEISEL: “[Charlier] had some kind of altercation with someone. He didn’t say what had happened and I didn’t give it a second thought. Now I can’t stop thinking about it.”
“Weisel’s marriage to Jessica Dukes, 35, went ahead on Saturday, but the festivities were dampened by the slayings… ‘ There was definitely a cloud hanging over the day, but I think it was good that we did something positive, that we moved on,’ he said.”
LINK: New Clue in Paradise Slays [Daily News]
thoversover writes Daily Heights:
“Go to curbed.com; scroll halfway down the page and vote for our new neighborhood name: FLATenD! Strike a blow for outscale development! Whee! Polls are only open till 1 pm today (Tuesday).”
LINK: Curbed.com “‘Hoodwinked” Contest Curbed.com]
Rita writes Daily Heights: “I saw this on TV this morning… apparently our 7th Ave subway stop is one of the cleanest in the city. Who knew?
From the NY1 report: “Meanwhile, the cleanest stations were found to be St. George station on Staten Island and the Seventh Avenue stop in Park Slope. Both of those areas have residents with median annual incomes of between $45,000 and $50,000 … NYC Transit says it won’t comment on the report because it hasn’t seen it yet.”
IMAGE SOURCE: [Transportation Alternatives]
The hits just keep on coming at Namaskar, Inc.
TODAY’S IMAGE: Muntu checks in with another eye-catching sandwich-board statement.
Namaskar, Inc. | 643 Vanderbilt Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11238. 718-636-1967.
INTERESTING SIDE NOTE:
“In Sanskrit, ‘Namas’ means, ‘bow, obeisance, reverential salutation.’ It comes from the root Nam, which carries meanings of bending, bowing, humbly submitting and becoming silent. ‘Te’ means ‘to you.’ Thus ‘namaste’ means ‘I bow to you.’ the act of greeting is called Namaskaram, Namaskara and Namaskar in the varied languages of the subcontinent.
JENNIFER BLEYER wrote in the Sunday New York Times: “Gus Vlahavas, the owner of Tom’s Restaurant on Washington Avenue in Prospect Heights, watched the white flight from the neighborhood in the 60’s, and its descent into crime and drugs in the 70’s. By the late 80’s, Mr. Vlahavas saw that some people — Park Slope types, he thought — were trickling to Prospect Heights, but he became convinced that change was afoot only in 1992, when a photographer named Randy Duchaine appeared and said he was shooting a calendar about Brooklyn icons. ‘I was in it,’ Mr. Vlahavas said, proudly. ‘Mr. January.'”
LINK: The Day When ‘Back in the Day’ Ended [New York Times]
PHOTO of TOM’S RESTAURANT, INTERIOR: Food, NYC, Life is Good [Snap City]
THANKS FOR THE TIP!: Candicissima
On the walls at Gallery on Dean (backroom of Tavern on Dean). Unfortunately, I lost the text description. And I’m not sure if the show is still up. However, it’s worth clicking here to see a larger-size image, including 4 paintings. The idea is that the artist is taking well known subjects from classic paintings and putting them behind the wheel of classic automobiles.
Architecht Douglas Hamilton, RA writes in a release archived on boerumhillbrooklyn.org:
“… After a virtually clandestine announcement in the back pages of the Times, the embattled state transportation agency is allowing only 43 days for potential competitors to prepare bids on a spectacularly valuable and very complicated Greater Downtown Brooklyn site that the State’s preferred developer has been working on for more than a year-and-a-half.”
“The New York business community should be deeply concerned about the message that this kind of backroom deal-making sends to the larger world of commerce. In essence, we are posting signs at all ports of entry to New York saying, “CLOSED FOR BUSINESS (Unless you have inside connections)”. …the ghosts of Tammany Hall and Robert Moses are still lurking in the back corridors of City Hall and the Statehouse.”
Full text of Hamilton’s statement below.
Read more …