The new Ricky's on Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights was jammed on Halloween day with folks looking for their last-minute costumes.
Jenny Holzer's "Truisms Bench" (click for closeup) stands in Columbus Park near Brooklyn Borough Hall. It's covered with phrases like, "Being alone with yourself is increasingly unpopular," and "Exceptional people deserve special concessions."According to Art in the Parks, her bench is part of the artist’s most famous series of work, her "truisms," which "reveal themselves, upon closer inspection, to be slyly subversive."
The New York City Traffic Congestion Mitigation Commission is holding a public hearing on a plan to reduce traffic congestion on November 1 at 6 p.m. The hearing will be held at City Tech's Klitgord Auditorium, 285 Jay Street at Tillary Street in Downtown Brooklyn.
The city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development heard two hours of testimony Monday opposing the use of eminent domain to seize almost two dozen Downtown Brooklyn properties so a parking garage, open space, an arts space and housing could be built. Duffield Street homes allegedly once part of the Underground Railroad, along with rent-stabilized apartments, a financial services firm and other organizations would be displaced, reports the Brooklyn Eagle.
The hearing was the second on the issue -- the HPD said the department mistakenly did not enter a blight study into the public record during the first hearing last May, requiring a new public hearing.
More here.
The Brooklyn Eagle has quite the excellent roundup of Halloween happenings: look here.- Get spooked at the city’s oldest cemetery in Gravesend, dating back to the mid-1600s. The Urban Park Rangers will creep you out!
BCAT's (Brooklyn Community Access Television) presents Neighborhood Beat: The Bed-Stuy Parlor, on Thursday, November 1 at 8:30 p.m.
Now they're picking on the grownups!
The Roeblings -- John, Washington and Emily -- admire the bridge they built (the Brooklyn Bridge) at Anchorage Plaza. The anchorage itself is located inside the base of the Brooklyn Bridge at the intersection of Hicks Street and Old Fulton Street. (An anchorage is a large, very stable stone structure on either side of a bridge.)
According to Brooklyn Bridge Facts, John Roebling, the bridge's engineer, envisioned the anchorage as either a commercial arcade, or vault for the national treasury. 
Inside the anchorage on the Brooklyn side is a "cavernous complex" of eight 50-foot tall spaces. These cathedral-like rooms were walled off and used for storage for many years (at one point used for wine storage, then for military storage) until 1983, when an arts organization -- Creative Time -- installed a series of highly popular exhibits there.
The Anchorage was closed to the public after September 11, 2001, for national security reasons.
Photos by MK Metz
This surveillance camera on old Fulton Street between the north end of Henry Street and the Brooklyn Bridge caught our eye when it actually flashed in broad daylight (see flashbulb housing at top of pole).
City Tech's Klitgord Auditorium building at Jay and Tillary Streets in Downtown Brooklyn is scheduled to be replaced with a huge new building (or buildings) containing six hundred units of housing -- developed by Forest City Ratner -- as well as 300,000 square feet for academic-office use.
Drilling Co. conducted test borings around the auditorium as part of the subsurface investigation of the site.
I've been told these are Canadian Geese, stopping off on their flight south. Anybody confirm this? (Careful where you sit...)
Many have questioned the purpose of the Court Street Fair in Downtown Brooklyn/ Brooklyn Heights, which took place Sunday. There aren't many local businesses involved, just the usual NYC street fair vendors. There were almost no customers at 12:45 today; when McBrooklyn came by again at 5 p.m., a smattering of locals -- mostly parents with kids in tow -- seemed to have discovered the fair.
The tour started up again last summer, after a hiatus of roughly five years.
The Brooklyn Eagle's Sam Howe reports that two pieces of paper were taped to the lampposts on Clark Street in Brooklyn Heights Friday announcing "Public Notice: Asbestos Abatement." The work areas list more than 30 manholes and the amount is “264 linear feet or 165 square-feet.”
Greenstreets is a citywide program to convert paved traffic islands and medians into green spaces filled with shade trees, shrubs and groundcover.
"Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat up people's gardens, don't nest in corncribs, they don't do but one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That's why it's a sin to kill a mockingbird."
There are stories -- perhaps tongue-in-cheek -- of a spirit that inhabits the underground vault of what was once the palatial Independence Community Bank building, on Atlantic Avenue at Court Street.
This MCI Worldcom phone booth was found laying dead on the sidewalk in Downtown Brooklyn.
According to Wikipedia, MCI Communications was a company that was instrumental in the breakup of the AT&T monopoly, and ushered in the competitive long distance telephone industry.
It grew to be the second largest long-distance provider in the U.S. In 1998 it became MCI WorldCom, then WorldCom. WorldCom's "financial scandals and bankruptcy" led that company to change its name in 2003 to MCI. The MCI name disappeared in January 2006 after the company was bought by Verizon.
Bottles tied together with white string (click on photo to enlarge), filled with either brightly colored or clear liquid, festooned several trees on MetroTech Commons in Downtown Brooklyn.
There was a time when everybody ate at Schrafft's.
The $130 million renovation of the Lawrence Street subway station and creation of an underground connector between the Jay Street and Lawrence Street stations has begun. The job is expected to take four years.
The dramatic fireworks easily seen from Brooklyn Heights and heard all over Brooklyn Sunday night were part of the Indian celebration of Diwali, a festival of light. The 20th Annual Deepavali Festival was held at the southernmost tip of Manhattan yesterday, complete with a mela (fair), Indian food, music and dance, and the fireworks display.
The Brooklyn Eagle breaks the news that the famed Harlem soul food restaurant, Amy Ruth’s, has signed a lease for the former Gage & Tollner restaurant space at 372-374 Fulton St. on the Fulton Mall in Downtown Brooklyn.
"The Third Bridge," an artwork in fiber optice by Osman Akan, was installed at Brooklyn Bridge Park in Dumbo Sunday. It glows green at night (see link, below).
“The Third Bridge,” an artwork in fiber optics by Osman Akan, will be installed on the waterfront in the Brooklyn Bridge Park near the Manhattan Bridge from October 14, 2007 to January 14, 2008.
A day of pony-rides, pumpkin carving contests, local vendors, canoe-rides, fresh produce, live music, and Oktober brews flowing late into the night. Open Bar at 8pm, compliments of Schwelmer. Premium German regional brew, served with love. and pickles...
Close Your Eyes and I’ll Test You: A visit to Brooklyn Hospital’s Sleep Disorder Lab, where patients with trouble sleeping find out if those problems are tied to serious medical conditions.
Street Screening: How to get proper medical care to those who really need it. The ScanVan, a mobile facility run by Project Renewal, screens for breast cancer and tuberculosis in poor and homeless Brooklynites.
TB in Brooklyn: Tuberculosis is still here, especially prevalent among immigrant and minority groups. Host Monica Sweeney talks about TB and contagious disease with Dr. Beth Raucher of Maimonides and Dr. Adam Karpati, head of the Brooklyn division for NYC’s Department of Health & Mental Hygiene.
Living with Lupus: This autoimmune disease, whose victims are overwhelmingly female, is still not very well understood. One single mother in Bay Ridge tells us how she copes, first and foremost with courage.
Tuesday, October 16 at 9pm and Friday, October 19 at 9:30 pm.
Thursday night at Brooklyn Borough Hall, BP Marty Markowitz hosted a gala to celebrate Italian-American Heritage Month. The music and dancing filled the Rotunda, and the food, provided by local Italian restaurants, was mouth-watering. There was one dish where the chef dropped hot oiled noodles onto the middle of a huge round of Parmesan cheese. The cheese melted and coated the noodles -- delicious. (I think Marco Polo was the restaurant behind that one.)The Borough President honored Robert Catell, Chairman of (what used to be called KeySpan) National Grid US; RoseAnn C. Branda, President of the Brooklyn Bar Association; and Lella De Angelis and the Gargiulo Restaurant Family, among others.
A group of traditionally costumed ladies danced the tarantella -- which, according to Wikipedia, is associated with the large "tarantula" spider, whose bite was allegedly deadly and could be cured only by frenetic dancing. One variation of the legend said the dancer must dance the most joyous dance of her life or she would die.
UPDATE: More photos here.
Photos by MK Metz
A single sign announces that a Bank of America ATM facility is coming to the boarded-up corner of Court and Atlantic in Cobble Hill, across the street from the future Trader Joe's. Many signs announce that the movie "Nicky Barnes, Mr. Untouchable," will open October 26.
A partial stop work order is in effect at this site at 47-49 Dean Street near Smith in Boerum Hill. Apparently the excavation was undermining neighboring homes. One comment at the DOB web site says neighbors complained about things shaking: "Thinks (sic) are being knocked off the shelves."
Just in time for the holidays, trendy Exit9 Gift Emporium has opened at 127 Smith Street (near Dean). Exit9, which also has an outpost on Avenue A in Manhattan, says its mission is "to provide creative and inspirational gifts to a world that is quickly becoming a department store."
As part of the Department of Transportation's twenty-year street furniture franchise with Cemusa, Inc., 330 familiar old green newsstands are being replaced with new snazzy stainless-steel numbers. This one (pictured above) is being installed on Court Street near Livingston in Brooklyn Heights (technically Downtown Brooklyn).
To honor the 250th anniversary of the birth of the Marquis de Lafayette, a group of French-Americans, with the support of the Consulate General of France, raised funds for the restoration of the Lafayette Monument in Prospect Park, Brooklyn.This Thursday, October 11 at 11 a.m., an assemblée (bunch) of dignitaries including NYC Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe; the Consul General of France in New York Francois Delattre; that old French fox B.P. Marty Markowitz; the Prospect Park Alliance and more will celebrate the restauration of the monument at the 9th Street and Prospect Park West entrance to the Park.
It should be a jolly célébration!
So a patient and apparently untethered gray bird (see man in skirt, right) seemed content to perch solidly on its "owner's" hat as he pirouetted, marched and strutted his green beard during Sunday's Pulaski Day Parade on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue. (click on photo for enlargement)
The Brooklyn presence was strong, with marching bands, schools
and churches well represented.
From time to time, McBrooklyn puts on its Headhunting gear and scouts out a handful of Brooklyn employment opportunities.