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.

Friday, May 20, 2016

House Tour Sunday - Do It Before It Turns 50!

Has it really been 46 years since the Q first created the PLG House Tour? I was 3 at the time, but my prescience was as sharp then as it is today. Those were good times...not exactly Good Times, but kinda like it. Me and Mayor Lindsay hatched the idea over egg creams. Seems so silly now, but we really worried that NYC would go the way of the Dodo. Such memories...

Flash forward 46 years and the tour is still hopping. And man, business is GOOD if your business is real estate. Folks are flocking here and paying more than $2 million for a house! Bob Marvin, longtime tour operator, bought his for (get this) $750 and a subscription to Prevention Magazine. Talk about horse thieves!

Below, find the deets. And if you see Bob, remind him about the deed restriction he and I placed on his house - to only sell to supporters of the ERA Constitutional Amendment. (You see, back then, ERA stood for Equal Rights Amendment - it wasn't a real estate broker.) He may have forgotten, since not long after he started a political club with Ayn Rand, following their whirlwind romance in Malta. Bob used to run a speakeasy there. He once said to me "of all the gin joints, of all the bars, in all the world, she walks into mine."

The point? He'd still be running that dive if it hadn't been for us chance trip on the PLG House Tour.

More hard facts:

Have you been on the PLG House & Garden Tour? Please support this annual event by purchasing tickets at the following local merchants: Bluebird, Gratitude, Little Mo Wine, Play Kids, PLG Drink, Tip of the Tongue, Trixie's and Tugboat Tea. Or purchase online at tinyurl.com/plghousetour2016

The 46th Annual Prospect Lefferts Gardens House & Garden Tour will be held on Sunday, May 22, 2016 from 12:00 PM to 5:00 PM

For more information see leffertsmanor.org

"The tour is so worth it." - Callia Piperides

"The house tour is very important to me. My wife and I fell in love with the neighborhood after going on the 1974 tour, stopped looking at houses ... and closed on our Midwood Street house four months later. For that reason I've worked on every annual house tour since 1975..." - Robert Marvin


2 comments:

Bob Marvin said...

Thank you for running this Tim. The story of my Maltese affair with Ayn Rand is little known. It was during the siege of Malta, two years before I was born (you have nothing on me Tim when it comes to prescience). Ayn (rhymes with swine) had floated across the Mediterranean to Malta, on a raft made from the bodies of those who had helped her to escape from the Soviet Union (damned altruists!). Those were the days!

Rochelle Anixt Gold said...

A Community with an Identity. Have a great Sunday in PLG with the House Tour.