Adoornment

I thought it was awfully thoughtful of this vandal to share his upbeat message - and in the same pastel pink paint as his tag.

Though I must admit that back in corn country where I come from, kindness is often spoken with a "hot dish" and maybe a jello salad.

Onomastics Exposed

In the last few years I've passed this door at 717 Flatbush many-a-time and made the same sorry associative silly joke in my head about the words on this sign:

Would that A. Shoemaker followed her true calling!

Or:

Finally! Someone to defend the rights of downtrodden cobblers!

Turns out her full name is Autumn M. Shoemaker, and now (hopefully) when she googles her own name (who doesn't?) she'll turn up this blog post instead of that dreary court case involving some petty coop board.

Next time your pumps get sued, you know where to turn.

Chubby Hipster Topples Trees in Midwood; Dollar Vans Cheer

My apologies. After a pain in the ass commute home, the last thing this lazy blogger was about to do was go out and shoot some pictures of mother nature's effect on Dollar Van industry. Thus the above picture.

But I only jest by half, because in fact a tree did topple on the tracks at Avenue M around 4PM, rerouting all Brighton Line subway cars over the dastardly D line - hardly a useful alternative unless you live on the Island of Coney. Thousands of commuters poured onto the streets of Brooklyn looking for alternatives - your humble servant of Q included. Using nothing but my bare hands and all the savvy I could muster, I got off at Dekalb to be near the BEGINNING of the chaos, the easier to get a seat on a bus or gypsy van. I made my way to the corner of Livingston and Flatbush and waved down a reggae blasting D.V. After squeezing my ample buttocks into the back seat next to an even more amply em-bottomed woman with an overwhelmingly aromatic foam container of chinese food, I made my peace with my ride home and watched the sad spectacle of stranded pedestrians flood the sidewalks of Flatbush Ave unable to hail so much as a skateboard.

It's amazing how many of us count on the MTA every day, and how a relatively minor wind event can throw the City into chaos. Remembering 9/11, the blackout, those bizarre shutdowns because the subway couldn't handle rain over a certain density...it's a wonder we so consistently make it home for vittles.

It all turned out o.k. in the end -- the big lady and I both got off in front of Popeyes!

A Caledonian Mystery

I can't be the only one peeved that Park Avenue in Manhattan doesn't run along the park. It's two blocks away for chrisakes. Were city planners totally high, or did they just get lazy and not rename things after the park set its boundaries? I know, I know, I could probably Google my way into understanding, but I'm too lazy, and it's more fun to be outraged. It's not like there's no precedent for changing the names of streets long-known as something else. Ever heard of Avenue of the Americas? Dumb name, right? Somehow that one stuck, and even longtime New Yorkers use it sometimes - like the ones who still say IRT when referring to good ol' green and red.

This humble blogger's physical and spiritual home is here in Parkside, a fanciful land where the glorious Caledonian Hospital once thrived as benevolent castle, and where the fabled U-Deli of Parkside once bustled with lotto sales. And yes, I plan on having my ashes scattered over UMMA park like the rest of you.

One of our main streets - "Parkside Ave" - is aptly named, but of course, it doesn't predate Prospect Park itself. On the map below, purportedly from 1901, it's pretty clear that Parkside Avenue was called Franklin Avenue, which doesn't make a lot of sense, since there's already a Franklin Ave, which you could sort of imagine extending down past Empire and around along Ocean Ave and bend it 'round the corner at "the Q at Parkside" station, thus cutting the park from its parade grounds.



Fair enough then. There were two Franklin Avenues, and never the twain shall meet. And yet, I came across this nugget in the Brooklyn Eagle archives from 1902:



I'm inclined to believe this version of events. And remember, this was right around the time Brooklyn became integrated into NYC, so things were probably happening fast and furious. Oh, and thousands of new immigrants were flooding into Brooklyn every month via Ellis Island. What's a tiny name change during a time of chaos? Just another whimsical bureaucratic swipe of the pen I'd imagine.

Ft. Hamilton Avenue DOES make sense. Lots of sense. Just look at the modern map and mentally extend the current Ft. Ham, pretending Robert Moses' Prospect Expressway ain't there. The choice to extend the name Parkside Avenue all the way to Kings County Hospital? Not so much.

Ah, Parkside. Just between you and me, Parkside between Flatbush and Bedford is my favorite block in all the kingdom. Real class act, Parkside.

But it don't run along the side of no park.

Artful Dodgers

What I wouldn't give for a photograph of Parkside Q in the 1700s! I mean I wouldn't want to live then, there, what without air conditioning, bagels, modern footware and FrozFruit® bars. Oh and that pesky little issue of slavery. I was reading about the history of Flatbush, shocked to learn that population in the 1790s was around 1,000, only to find out that the census frequently left out women, children and non-free men, who weren't considered full peoples at all, though how much of a person you were could fluctuate from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, meaning you really never knew how much of a person you were. For some reason this brings to mind the ridiculous notion of achieving one's full potential, an ephemeral benchmark created by multiple competing interests all hellbent on assuring your eternal misery. But that's a story for my shrink, if I had one, which I don't, because thankfully I have this blog, which is considerably cheaper and doesn't work out of its home way up on the Upper East Side, though it did take off a couple weeks in August.

But some old photos DO exist, and they exist primarily to blow your little mind. Case in point...

If you've ever walked "up" Bedford towards Empire and historically accurately named Ebbets houses you come upon a scene that looks like this:

Had you taken the same walk just 50 years prior, you'd have seen this:



So the next time some dork pines about the day the Dodgers left Brooklyn for L.A., remember these photos. And remember that Jackie Robinson, who broke the color barrier in the Major Leagues, and whose name adorns the sorry-ass school that sits in the ghost-shadow of Ebbets Field? Not so much longer ago, he'd've never showed up in the population count.

An Unexampled Poster

I'll let you read this first, if you haven't seen it up on a local utility pole:



I have a lot of thoughts about this poster, and they're confusing to me. The language. The choice to discuss the Domestic Violence issue. The need for cat-owners to be energetic. The choice of the intensely unusual word "unexampled."

I'm truly pro-cat and way anti-violence of any kind. Always have been. But like I said, this poster confused me.

Hope it all works out y'all. Consider your plea passed along...

Ever wonder what it costs...

In an ongoing series, I look at various buildings and businesses and ask "I wonder what that costs..."

Episode 1. We were recently mailed this enticing advert at work (yes, some bloggers have jobs):



Mrs. Q and I have long been fans of Lily's Touch of Millenium, recently defunct. In reference to a recent brave Hawthorne Street blog post about white folk and hair stylists on Flatbush: Mrs. Q actually got to know Michael, the owner of Lily's, when she was supervising the getting of the hair did for a young dancer, a white English gal who was performing in an art thang. In fact, Mrs. Q got her hair did herself just a couple of years prior as part of a BAM gig she was in. And the intense braiding scene hit even closer to home recently, since our amazing babysitter from Congo takes our daughter over to an African braider named Laura to hang occasionally. I'll put in a plug for Laura here - she's on Woodruff near Flatbush -- but I've never personally had my hair African-braided and I tend to go for the 15 minute cut, rather than the 15 hour variety.

Regarding the building for sale...who's got an extra couple mill to drop on this joint? To pull a Brownstoner, I don't think it's worth more than $1.1. What do you think?

Meeting set with 205 Parkside Owner and Architect

Pearl Miles, our fearless District Manager at CB9, has responded to neighborhood concerns for the centrally located Masonry Cesspool Building by setting up a meeting with the perpetrators. Some of you have expressed interest in joining - if you have specific expertise to bring to bear, I'd love to hear from you. So far the Q has reached out to Hawthorne Street blog, Eric Adams office, and will be looking for someone from the unfortunately named PLeGNA, as well as inviting a longtime resident lawyer of some repute who lives 'round the way. I suspect the meeting will end up looking something like, or exactly like, this:

Calm, rational conversation overlooking Midtown... I'm the guy in the lower right hand corner, and yes, that is Brylcream with a touch of Grecian Formula.

By the way, Grecian Formula is not Greek at all and...has lead in it! Meaning that dad's vanity can lead to baby's retardation! Not only that, the same company makes another krazy-kool product that you don't admit to using - Odor Eaters, and despite the company's obsession with gross body issues and snake-oily potions, their name is way less stomach-churning than PLeGNA - it's COMBE INCORPORATED. All you ever wanted to know about C.I.:

Combe Incorporated, based in White Plains, New York, is a privately owned personal-care company founded in 1949 by Ivan Combe. It is best known for its Odor Eaters line of foot-care products. Combe also owns the brands Just for Men, Lanacane, Scalpicin, Vagisil, and Grecian Formula.

Combe was the originator of the Clearasil brand but sold the rights to it in 1961.

In October 2002, Combe acquired J.B. Williams, thereby adding such longtime names as Brylcreem and Cepacol to its brand stable.

Now

Snooze/Lose rule applies at 205 Parkside

Good afternoon neighbors!

Our good friends Moses Fried and David Tepper, at 205 Parkside (i.e. the one-time Free Rathole of Craigslist a/k/a The Luxury Squatter Gardens complex so centrally located in our neighborhood) has WON approval to build their latest real estate assault on Brooklyn.

Community Board District Manager Pearl Miles informs me that the owners have received all the necessary approvals to build a 19-unit Apartment Hotel in the dilapidated building.

Brownstoner and Hawthorne Street had reported just last April that the application had been denied to build more of the Prince Hotel Group's Junkie/Prostitution Hotels. It would appear that the owners decided to sneak through a loophole, and create instead a complex of Junkie/Prostitution Apartments. If a building is intended for stays longer than 30 days, you don't need to change the zoning of the building.


I've asked that we be granted a meeting with the architect (and owner) to discuss what's really going on here. If the owner intends for these to be decent, affordable apartments...great. But the duo's history suggests otherwise. We'll need to be vigilant - any building of this size so close to the Q at Parkside is bound to make or break the feel of the neighborhood. The problem we have with Apartment Hotel is that it encourages transience, not permanence, and cash transactions over leases and the rules and protections that go with them.

Anyone care to join me for a meeting at Community Board 9's office?

Jamaica's "Queen of Comedy"

A perfect fall day this. Saturday, and the colors are bold and the air crisp. I like that word "crisp." It's like a dyslexic Crips, one of my favorite neighborhood gangs, as they favor the color blue, and incidentally were first called The Cribs back in L.A. when they started because of their young age, but when they started walking with canes (an oddly aristocratic affectation) people started jokingly calling them Crips, for Cripples, though I suspect that the first person to make the Crips joke is no longer with us. The name stuck, and on crisp days like this, I like to imagine that the gang consider a less felonious pursuit, like the elves of Keebler, making cookies, which could be called Crips Crisps. Say that 5 times fast! Heck, that's such a tongue-twister I can't even say it twice slow. But that's the kinda day it is. The sort of day on which even Pepa might pick a peck of pickled peppers.

So I'm walking up Flatbush, past Mansoob's Deli at the corner of Parkside. Don't get me started about this place. It's filthy, and frequented by junkies and lowlifes (lowlives?), but still they frequently have the flavor of ice cream favored by the Mrs., and I find myself supporting them more often than I'd like to admit. And speaking of Crips and my wife (true story), Mrs. Clarkson FlatBed heard someone ask where the Crips hung out and the answer was...you guessed it...in front of Mansoob's. But that's not what this post is about. Actually, what is it about? Oh yes. It's a post about this poster:



My eyes and brain were simply not culturally equipped to handle this image; I had to do some research. Herein, my findings:

A. The, um, striking woman in the picture is a character known as Delcita, who is played by Jamaica's Andrea Wright.

B. The story of her ascent to that island nation's comedic throne is told here, in the Jamaican Gleaner.

C. The Jamaican Gleaner has been continuously published since its founding in 1834, and has a huge role in all aspects of life on the Island.

D. The poster is promoting a purportedly uproarious play called "The Plumber," which you can get a glimpse of here. I'm reminded of Tyler Perry's character Madea. As you can see, the crowd goes crazy for Delcita!

E. Jamaica has a long history of serious and comedic theater, both on the Island and in Britain.

F. Jamaicans love nicknames, and Jamaicans are arguably the most creative linguists in the world, with a wild and wacky playful relationship to the English language. If you want to know more about Jamaican's, I suggest this amazing blog: THINGS JAMAICANS LOVE.

G. This production of "The Plumber" takes place on Columbus Day, which is ironic in as much as that's the day America celebrates the beginning of its colonization, leading to slavery and the slaughter of the New World's indigenous populations.
Though it's safe to say that without those horrors, "The Plumber" would certainly not be happening next weekend.

I ask you once again: is this an amazing neighborhood or what? Shine on Caledonia!