Electronic Waste Recycling at Prospect Park January 16

Bring your old electronics to Prospect Park West and 3rd Street for them to be recycled and kept out of landfills. The Lower East Side Ecology Center is bringing its 8th Annual "After the Holidays" E-waste Event to Prospect Park to help you responsibly dispose of all of your unwanted or broken gadgets.

Help them meet their goal of collecting 100 tons this January by spreading the word to your friends and neighbors.

For more information and to see a list of acceptable items, click here.

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Free Haircuts; Boozing Sanitation Supervisors; and More Brooklyn Briefs

- Upscale stylist Jeffrey Stein is venturing across the bridge to Brooklyn Heights, to debut a salon where customers make a minimum product purchase and receive a free haircut. Observer 

- Four on-duty New York sanitation supervisors allegedly shirked their snow-blowing duties to buy liquor and spend the night drinking. UPI

- Brooklyn had far and away the greatest number of complaints about the city’s handling of the recent snowstorm.  Brooklyn Eagle 

- Check out photos of bus caravan stuck in the snow.  Queens Crap  

- Who will be the Brooklyn Flea's next food star?  Grub Street

- See Phyllis Bobb's Coney Island Polar Bear photos. OTBKB

- So nobody checked the statistics in the film "Waiting for Superman," and as it turns out, they're sort of made up. Huff Post

- Skiing down Park Avenue at high speed behind an SUV (video).  Gothamist 

- Those five thousand dead blackbirds? It's spookier than we thought. NY Magazine

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New York City 2010 Roach Map Shows Roach Density by Neighborhood

Sunset Park and southern Park Slope are just two of the Brooklyn neighborhoods where cockroach density shoots up into the red zone, according to the 2010 Roach Map released by The Great Urban Hack NYC.

According to the Roach Map, which is based on restaurant inspection results from the NYC Data Mine and the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, evidence of cockroaches were found in almost 30 percent of the inspected restaurants in Sunset Park, the third highest number amongst Brooklyn neighborhoods.

See the map and the full story at the Brooklyn Ink. 

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Feeling Artsy in Gowanus? Gowanus Print Lab Opens

Today we're trying to post some of the listings that came in while we were out of town, but obviously we missed out on some good stuff.

Like the Print-Your-Own-Converse Sneakers class at the Gowanus Print Lab, a new membership-based screen printing studio in Gowanus. Damn!

Ashley sent a hello to let us know what was going on:

"We recently opened our doors this past October, and we have an exciting new lineup of courses for the next coming months including Print-Your-Own-Converse Sneakers this Sunday (missed!), Wallpaper Printing, Make Your Own Band Swag, etc."

From their web site: "Our main focus is to provide our members with everything one could need to complete a variety of screen printing projects. Membership includes the use of inks, emulsions, squeegees and screens."

After seeing all those fine screen-printed goods at the Brooklyn Flea right before Christmas, we were almost inspired to try it ourselves. Sound like you? Check the site for all the important  information.

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Mulchfest: Where to Recycle Your Christmas Tree in Brooklyn

On January 8th and 9th from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm you can bring your holiday tree to either the Third Street entrance to Prospect Park or Park Circle at Parkside Avenue and Prospect Park Southwest to have it turned into environment-friendly ground cover.

You can even take home some free mulch for your own yard or garden. While you wait for your mulch at the Third Street entrance, you can also enjoy hot chocolate, cookies and spicy cinnamon tea served by the Park Slope Civic Council.

Can’t make it? If you live in the area between Union and Fifteenth Street and between Sixth Avenue and Prospect Park West you can leave your tree at either end of your block before 1:00 p.m. on both days and it will be picked up by volunteers from 1-800 MR RUBBISH.

Mulchfest is co-sponsored by the Park Slope Civic Council in partnership with the Prospect Park Alliance and MR. RUBBISH. To volunteer, please contact Jessica Jamhoury, Project Coordinator at the Alliance at (718) 965-8960 or email the Civic Council Sustainability Committee at sustainable@parkslopeciviccouncil.org.

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Rooftop Films Heads Indoors for The Tillman Story at BAM

 BAM, A&E IndieFilms and Rooftop Films are coming together to present the critically acclaimed documentary, The Tillman Story.

An exclusive screening at 7 p.m. on Thursday, January 6 at BAM Rose Cinemas, the film will be followed by a special Q&A with director Amir Bar-Lev, moderated by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Morgan Spurlock.

A reception for ticketholders will follow immediately afterwards at BAM. For tickets, please visit: https://www.movietickets.com/purchase.asp?perf_id=627279674.

To RSVP for the reception, please email tffrsvp@aetn.com.

BAM Cinematek (Fort Greene)
30 Lafayette Ave., Brooklyn NY 11243
2/3/4/5/B/Q to Atlantic Ave or D/M/N/R to Pacific St.

THE TILLMAN STORY (Amir Bar-Lev | USA | 90 min.)
"Documentary filmmaking at its finest"
- Steve Zeitchik, LOS ANGELES TIMES

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Garbage Collection Resumes in Brooklyn Heights Tonight

Word from the Brooklyn Heights Association:

According to the superintendent in charge of the Sanitation Department (DSNY) garage that services Brooklyn Heights (as well as the other neighborhoods sharing the same Community Board district), starting tonight, you can expect collection of regular garbage but NOT recycling.

The DSNY asks you to make it possible for the workers to reach your garbage. Try to clear a path to the curb to make collection faster. If your trash is still buried under a pile of snow, please dig it out and put it where they can get to it.

Regardless of whether your regular recycling collection day is Monday or Wednesday, the DSNY is NOT picking up recyclables until further notice.

Photo by Nomadiq Miles, Creative Commons license

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The Most Useless Stories of 2010

It's time for McBrooklyn's annual roundup of the inane high lowlights of the year just past. How could you forget these great moment of 2010?

Here they are:

January: - A small New York subculture returns to the habits of their Paleolithic ancestors, call themselves cavemen. NY Times

February: Videos of UFOs over Brooklyn are posted on YouTube. The folks at The Disclosure Project issue several demands: that President Obama investigate the matter, gain proper control over these operations, and end for once and forever the secrecy surrounding the UFO subject. McBrooklyn

March: Nets fan wears paper bag over his head to protest the team's dismal season, provoking negative reaction from Nets CEO. Later, they make up. HuffPost

April: Genius physicist Stephen Hawking warns that if aliens visit Earth, we're in deep trouble. NY Magazine

May: The Observer discovers Brooklyn Bourgeois Bohemians -- BroBos! "Young, comfortable and inclined toward creativity, they enjoy a utopian-seeming existence marked by strolls down tree-lined streets, carefully chosen foods and leisurely weekends spent in coffee bars and parks." Jezebel

June: Smoking and drinking babies come out of the woodwork. Village Voice

July: Wearing dark sunglasses, rapper Foxy Brown waved to her fans as she rode up Schermerhorn Street in her black Lamborghini, on her way to Brooklyn Criminal Court -- this time for mooning her neighbor.  Brooklyn Eagle

August: Man locks himself in the bathroom for five days to get a few things done. Mark's Blog

September: Assistant DA in Brooklyn submits her resignation after her sudden celebrity on Donald Trump's "The Apprentice" starts getting in the way of her real job. McBrooklyn

October: Whole families take naps under the covers in beds at the packed Beijing IKEA. NY Mazazine

November: Man in a panda costume gets punched and kicked in Brooklyn. On purpose. Village Voice

December: Drinking cocktails and dressing up while watching the season finale of a period specific television show becomes all the rage. CarrollGardensPatch

What wonders will the new year bring? Adventures await us!


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Hilarious Brian Williams Video on The New York Times' Discovery of Brooklyn

A hilarious Brian Williams discusses the "media story of 2010": The New York Times' discovery of Brooklyn.

"There are young men and women wearing ironic glass frames on the street. . .There are open air markets. . . artisanal cheeses! It's been fascinating to watch the paper venture over the bridge, venture through the tunnel, go out to the outer reaches, the outer boroughs of the city."

(Morning Joe Dec. 24) jbutler at Youtube
 Thanks to owler at Brooklynian

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If the New York Times Can Find Brooklyn, Why Can't City Snowplows?

Even the New York Times seems to have discovered Brooklyn this past year -- but records show that New York City's snowplows didn't seem to have a clue where the borough was after Sunday's blizzard.

While Mayor Bloomberg "scoffed at claims" that snowplows favored his home borough of Manhattan, a report in Saturday's New York Daily News shows "a stark disparity in the time it took to clear Manhattan streets and the time it took to plow out much of Brooklyn and Queens."

It took two days longer for Brooklyn's streets to be plowed (like the one shown above, in Brooklyn Heights) than for Manhattan's lofty lanes.

Details here.

Photo by MK Metz

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