The Q at Parkside

(for those for whom the Parkside Q is their hometrain)

News and Nonsense from the Brooklyn neighborhood of Lefferts and environs, or more specifically a neighborhood once known as Melrose Park. Sometimes called Lefferts Gardens. Or Prospect-Lefferts Gardens. Or PLG. Or North Flatbush. Or Caledonia (west of Ocean). Or West Pigtown. Across From Park Slope. Under Crown Heights. Near Drummer's Grove. The Side of the Park With the McDonalds. Jackie Robinson Town. Home of Lefferts Manor. West Wingate. Near Kings County Hospital. Or if you're coming from the airport in taxi, maybe just Flatbush is best.

Thursday, September 1, 2016

More Knee Jerk J'Ouvert Reactions

Lest You Forget - Stabbing and shooting people? Bad. pic Andre T.
More temporary insanity from various groups involved in the staging of J'Ouvert and West Indian Day Parade. The above poster has made lots of people insane, and not the good kind. The sentiment on the poster is so condescending and the potentially hopeful, upbeat message so garbled, that it makes you wonder...who is this poster for anyway? Clearly not the trees. Hundreds of these flyers have been stapled...yes, stapled...to trees all over C-Heights and L-Gardens. Shaking my head so much these days my brains is scrambled eggy. This is a primed example of politicians needing to look like they've done something. An absurd number of cops will be present. Expensive overlighting will be everywhere.

(More on this story and the islands removed for the Islands celebration here.)

In the Q's last post he lamented the ridiculous ripping out of pedestrian islands on Eastern Parkway at Kingston and Brooklyn, supposedly because "elected officials" complained. Complained about what? I know those floats dang well, and they're not so big they can't fit on one side of the islands or the other. The intersection is too damn wide for some folks to cross, and the islands were a perfect solution. The number of pedestrian accidents is real. What's wrong with people?

Then a pal finds this, which must have caused the islands to lose fans in the Jewish Community as well. But these were safety measures decided by community groups already.

I'm telling you man, you can't get anything forward-thinking done around here without somebody bitching and moaning about how it "inconveniences" them. It's conservative bullshit and I hope there's a politician out there with the guts to buck the conventional voting bloc wisdom. Do the right thing for a change, huh? Just tell folks to calm down the sky ain't falling and it's not ALL ABOUT THEM. Sheesh.

2 comments:

Curious31 said...

Interested to see how aggressive they'll be with lighting on residential stretches of Empire. I mean, I'm not very much interested in sleeping through J'Ouvert, but still.

Also, how can I get behind a big truck on the parkway? I wanna march with a band but so far all the open invites are from local politicians and, unless they have a big truck with a nice sound system, I'm not sure how interested I'd be...

Alex said...

Sounds to me like the time that DOT removed the bike lane from Bedford ave in a certain neighborhood... A group went out and repainted the lines in protest.

Anyone have masonry skills?