Cat Needs You; You Need Her

A reader reports that a confident kitty connived her way in her house the other day and worked her way into her heart. And so I am asking that you consider bringing "Overhead Cam," as I'm tentatively calling her, into your life, because you love cats, and because O.C. sounds like a real winner, the sort of cat that you'll love with all your heart, like a little baby, until you have an actual baby, maybe, in which case Overhead Cam will go back to being just a cat again, like our cats did. Below are the details on Overhead Cam. Please do consider sending an email to ef4art@verizon.net. If you change your mind after a few months it's fine to post on craigslist and give her to someone else; no one will give you a hard time about it the way they would if you tried to pass along a human baby after a few months of sleepless nights. You've got nothing to lose and everything to gain. From the rescuer:

We’ve learned that she was actually found by others during the Nemo snow storm (mid February) and has been living in their basement since then (they have 2 other cats and they didn’t get along). She ran out of their house and into ours a few days ago. The chances that we find the original owners after so much time are very slim. She has been taken to the ASPCA by the previous rescuers and has been spayed, tested for Feline Leukemia and FIV virus and vaccinated. They were told she is 2 years old or so – though to me she seems younger. She would best fit a house as a single cat and with older kids. Is a great companion, likes to give and get attention.Her endearing characteristics:

·         Follows you like a dog, everywhere you go she goes…

·         Inquisitive, playful and amusing to interact with

·         Likes to sit on your lap and cuddle

·         Learns fast (litter trained, sleeps in a cat bed, uses a scratching poll – all after showing her only once)

·         Has a very long elongated nose. Looks like she has an overbite – really cute…

Please consider adopting this sweet and interesting cat! The non-kill shelters are full and I am hoping she finds a deserving home. We can’t keep her for much longer since we have a cat and they don’t get along. Please share this email with other email lists or friends to increase her chances of finding a home. Come for a house visit to meet her! If someone wants to adopt her we can help transport the cat if need be (we have a cat carrier). If you are a newbie with cats we have an extra litter box if they need, a cat bed she likes to sleep in and some food to get started. Call 718-541 9531

In the Duh, Doy and Der Department

Here it is, if you didn't catch it. Another scoop from the Old Gray Lady. I promise not to give away the big story...oh, I can't help it, this one is so fresh and outrageous. Apparently...white people are moving to once predominantly black neighborhoods. Not just moving there for a little while either. They seem to be moving and staying. Even raising families and opening businesses.

(I did get a kick out of the line in the piece about the girl who moved to Bushwick in 2001 to an apartment for $950 a month, heard gunshots and got hit by a car, moved a couple stops back on the L to Williamsburg swearing never to go back to Bushwick, but then moved back to Bushwick 10 years later and bought a $370,000 apartment four blocks from the original flat. I mean, is that the story of NYC real estate in a run-on sentence or what?)

There was a bit or two of actual "Q at Parkside" interest in there, about the coming building at  626 Flatbush, a proposed complex that took some heat from commenters last time I posted about it here. You can read this excerpt from Michelle Higgins' piece if you're feeling link-a-phobic:

Developers have taken note. Hudson Companies, which invested early in places like the meatpacking district and Gowanus, plans to begin construction in late summer on a 23-story, 254-unit rental building at 626 Flatbush. “We sort of gravitate toward neighborhoods where the land is more affordable than prime neighborhoods,” said David Kramer, a Hudson principal, “but that still have so much going for them — where it’s easy access to the subway, retail that’s good and getting better, and a safe environment.”

Mr. Kramer’s interest in the neighborhood was piqued after a college roommate bought a house in Lefferts Manor and told him what homes there were going for. “It occurred to me,” he said, “if you have a homeowner who is willing to pay that much in a landmarked district, it would be a compelling spot for a rental product that doesn’t exist in these transitional neighborhoods, with a doorman, concierge, views.” He says 626 will have all three, plus a fitness center, a screening room and roof-top garden plots. 

Fair enough. Perhaps more than anything I've read about the neighborhood to date, that's pure unadulterated Brownstonerization. Don't try to deny it; I will claim you supplied it. Can't imagine that 123 on the Park, the old Caledonian Hospital, will be much different. That's why I have to laugh when I read some of the comments bemoaning lack of amenities around here. It's only a matter of time. There will come a day, barring major economic or terrorist tragedies, when we might wax nostalgic for the goode olde days of balde koins, closeout heavens and internet coffee houses. The Q is a realist, but I'm not always thrilled to be. And dang if I didn't get old too. [Not to go all off-topic, but I remember when yesterday's bands sounded like today's bands. It's annoying. It's not like today's bands sound bad. They don't. They still sound good. I'm not saying they sound bad, honest. I'm just saying they sound like a band that I used to like when I was your age called something else, which makes you think that I'm old, which I am. Which is why guys my age usually end up getting into jazz. Problem is, I don't really like jazz. That's why I work where I work I guess. A place where it doesn't matter how old you get, they don't make fun of you for liking the music you like. And you can talk to someone a third your age about what you like about it and not feel creepy. Is THAT the difference between art and pop? Not feeling creepy?]

Let me also dissect that word "prime" used in the excerpt as well. Apparently, Mr. Kramer does not consider this neighborhood yet prime, a word which can be defined many ways, but let's assume he's not referring to the mathematical term meaning a number that can only be divided by itself and one. Mr. Kramer means that while the area has some of the potential to be every bit as great as a Park Slope, a Cobble Hill, a Murray Hill or a Turtle Bay, it just needs a few doormen and roof-top garden plots to get it there. Thankfully, Mr. Kramer and other like-minded philanthropists are considering pooling their resources to take us to the promised land.

But now let me get serious for a second. Ms. Higgins is clearly an excellent writer and a well-researched one at that. But there's a moment in this article when I nearly dropped my, er, phone. Because I was reading it on a...phone. Which is a weird things to say, when you're, old. Anyways, I do have to say I take issue with a paragraph about Crown Heights that I find pretty lazy, or maybe just insensitive or indicative of the way real estate becomes a shallow stand-in for history and race-relations. When I moved to Brooklyn in 1988, I moved to a place that was both deeply segregated and yet, paradoxically, fiercely liberal, union, staunchly Catholic, way Jewish, Muslim, and every other faith, angry, ueber gesticulating, anti-Manhattan, suspicious of outsiders, suspicious of money, suspicious of developers...I mean it was so not what New Williamsburg is today. So this article that is basically about how the high price of housing and how it's sent some residents seeking new central Brooklyn neighborhood options, sets up this paragraph about Crown Heights:

Buyers will find an area still very much in transition away from a turbulent past. In August 1991, to take a notable example, a Hasidic man in Crown Heights lost control of his car and killed a black child, sparking three days of riots that saddled the neighborhood with a reputation not easily shaken off. Community relations have vastly improved since then, thanks in part to residents’ efforts. 

 I mean, "in part?" How about "thanks to the extraordinary power of the human desire to put aside ancient tribal resentments, fears and hatreds in order to love, live and learn from each other to build a better community and world so that their children might one day be brother and sister or even husband and wife and move the species towards a greater humanity, one where inalienable rights to faith, health and dignity might blah, blah, blah and blah blah, with blah blah and blah blah to blah????"

G'night everyone. May we never riot again, unless it's for a really, really good cause.

Stuff The Q Likes To See

From Vinny, One of the Good Ones. If you think you might need some high school labor this summer or beyond, please consider contacting him. This could be a really big opportunity for a local kid.

HIGH SCHOOL

JOB FAIR

            On Saturday May 18, 2013 at St Gabriel's located at 331 Hawthorne Street between 1000 AM AND 2PM the 71 Precinct, St Gabriel's and The Rugby Alliance will be hosting a job fair specifically targeting High School students. If anyone has  information or can lobby for companies wanting to set up a job/info table please contact me at 718-735-0527 or email me at vincent.martinos@nypd.org We are also hoping for people looking to hire HS kids for internships. If anyone is interested in interns please contact me. We are in the early planning stages of this event. Any help is appreciated. Please forward this email to anyone that may be interested. 

Thank You

  

Detective Vincent Martinos

   
71st Precinct - Community Affairs

New York City Police Department 
421 Empire Blvd 
Brooklyn, New York 11225
 
Phone: (718) 735-0527

Fax: (718) 735-0518 
email: Vincent.Martinos@NYPD.org

Makeover Time For The Q Plaza

If you missed last Sunday's meeting at PlayKids regarding the attempt to remake Parkside Avenue, have no fear. Pictures are here! The indefatigable In Cho volunteered her skills and time to make a rendering that has now been presented to the DOT as an ideal use of their Plaza Program. If you recall, Rudy and company over at The Parkside Prize applied to DOT's plaza program last summer, only to be told they don't do major greening projects so close to the park. BUT, in the case of the Parkside Q, they'd help out by providing elements, from street trees and planters to benches and granite blocks, to improve the triangle and give it a major facelift. The catch? We as a community must help support it, financially, programmatically and maintenance-wise. And so, given the elements at our disposal, this is what In came up with. Drum roll....

Perhaps you recall her winning design from the Parkside Prize? It kicked butt, but who knew we'd have a chance to realize at least parts of the plan? Here was her utopian vision:

 I'm not entirely sure I don't like the new design better. Especially cuz you can't plant street trees over the train itself, which runs diagonally out of the station. And IT'S the one that actually stands a chance of happening. Now, there's a long way to go. Not least we need Pioneer Supermarket's buy-in, cuz they're gonna need to change to their chaotic delivery and canning situation. And we'll need them to help water the street trees, especially in their first years. There are lots of other things to discuss, but most important now is to get elected officials on board, some commitments of resources from them, and perhaps run a kickstarter.com campaign to raise funds for the actual plants in the DOT's planters. A leadership group has been formed to project mange this, and if you want to be more involved please, please email me and I'll forward your info. Very cool. And here's another view of the proposed elements in context. (FYI, the tree size represents the canopy, not the tree pit itself.)

Peppa's Places...Second

While the smoky drums jerking birds behind Peppa's may approximate the Kingston vibe, they were no match for the exquisite chicken of Exquisite Express on Church near Nostrand, so says a piece in a certain weekly of a certain age. Never been myself. The People's Choice on Parkside was an offshoot of Exquisite for a hot minute, and I did sample their signature delicacy and was somewhat impressed. The fact is though, Peppa's does a beautiful bird - charred skin and moist meat (ew...did I really just write that phrase?) So why would I hoof over to the very reaches of the hood just for a slightly better mound of meaty morsels?

All this must sound utterly revolting to vegetarians. Actually, these chickens and the ones at my other fave joint "Melany," a Dominican treasure on the corner of Lenox and Flatbush, are probably the LEAST organic farm fresh cage free birds on the planet. They seem to be made almost entirely of breast, which suggests they didn't have a lot of room to frolic. I know for myself that when I don't get exercise I too seem to turn entirely to breast. I'm already white meat, so it's the breasty part that troubles me. Somehow, I've twisted it in my head that it's okay, since it's "ethnic" food. Ever LOOKED at the pork in chinese food? What is that exactly? The burger at a Greek greasy spoon? The chunks of lamb in Indian take-out? They almost all scream "Forgive me Jonathan Safran Foer, for I have sinned, and I know you're Jewish and this confession must seem a bit strange coming from a complete stranger, but for the love of Jehovah take away my carnivorous shame!"

Back in the real world, the one where the Village Voice has lost nearly every ounce of cultural currency it once had, but still chugs along as sort of a Triple A farm team for the majors (actually, if the VV is Triple A, what is the Q? Tee-ball? Hmm...maybe bloggers in glasses shouldn't throw stones...at other people's glasses, or whatever Billy Joel implied*), a piece comes at us judging the relative merits of the Jerks in the area. Give it a read and see if you agree!

Village Voice Jerk

* Ever notice how hits ABOUT Rock 'n' Roll are often the worst sorts of rock 'n' roll? Forget the Velvet Underground song...that was most definitely not a hit in its day. But Billy Joel's "It's Still Rock and Roll To Me" from the above-mentioned Glass Houses album; Huey Lewis and the News with "The Heart of Rock 'n' Roll," Boob Seeger's "Old Time Rock 'n' Roll." Kiss's overrated "Rock 'n' Roll All Night" hardly rock 'n' rolls at all...more of a Grand Funk Boogie. "We Built This City (On Rock 'n' Roll) is closer to Broadway than Little Richard. I'll even go out on a limb and say Led Zep's "Rock 'n' Roll" is WAY not rock 'n' roll. I don't even think it's that good, frankly. It barely grooves at all. Only the "lonely lonely lonely lonely lonely time" has any pizazz. The rest is all fuzz and muscle. I love John Fogerty, like LOVE John Fogerty, but "Rock 'n' Roll Girls" is completely sexless. Check out Peter, Paul and Mary's outstanding "I Dig Rock 'n' Roll," and as great as it is you can't accuse it of making you want to jitter bug. Even Joan Jett's version of "I Love Rock 'n' Roll" is lifeless if you listen close. Slow, lumbering, the beat plods along and only the guitar sound and her voice have any life at all. Ever try to dance to that song? It's near impossible. Embarrassing even, cuz you get up going "yeah, dude, Joan Jett!" and then you start dancing and pretty soon you look like a slow-mo caveman stuck in La Brea Tar Pits long before there was a museum there. I mean LONG before there was a museum there.

Songs with rock 'n' roll in the title that actually rock include: Rock 'n' Roll High School by the effin' brilliant Ramones, Any others? Please share. (Without dropping names, I had lunch with a certain rock "n" roll critic the other day with whom I was once em-banded, and told him despite my past I NEVER blog about music, but then, in classic my-generational fashion said to myself "rules are for schools" and did the exact opposite. So there, Mr. Critic! Now, sir, I challenge you to write about Community Board Committee Meetings and then see how many twitter followers you attract. Not so easy, is it?

Food Coop In Lefferts/Crown Heights Gets Off the Ground

Well shiver me timbers and call me Ishmael! Those crafty folks at the proposed Lefferts Food Coop have taken their show off the page onto the stage. Coming up on Saturday March 16 they're asking for you, the reader/eater, to come to their poppe-up shoppe at 324 Empire near Nostrand and help cleanup the space being GIVEN to the group to get the store off the ground. Wow. I mean, I'm really impressed. This is no slight undertaking, and you guys are proving a little elbow grease can lead to organic bulk elbow macaroni. The group has apparently been purchasing wholesale items and getting the hang of inventory etc.

Here's the flyer. I highly encourage you all to check it out and help create a viable alternative to the Key Foods of the world.

UPDATE: Parkside Ave Tragedies

Two serious car vs. person crashes last night. One on Parkside near the Parkside Q, the other on Parkside and Nostrand. Each late afternoon. Each very, very serious if not fatal. Information I gathered from bystanders was inconclusive. Anyone see either of these accidents and care to comment? I don't see them in "the News" yet. Hard to believe they both happened on the same street blocks apart around the same time. But eyewitness twitter accounts corroborate.

UPDATE: From a very reliable sounding account in the comments section:
 

I was walking to the Q and heard the crash, saw a sneaker go flying about twenty feet in the air. I was the first person there. A teenage girl was unconscious on the ground with a pretty severe head injury. She'd been knocked down by a woman driving a toyota camry who stopped immediately. The girl was jaywalking. I called 911, checked her pulse. She was breathing and had a steady pulse. Big crowd gathered around, including some of her friends/family members. She started waking up/trying to move and a couple of us held her to keep her in place. She may have had a broken arm/shoulder as well, but I was most concerned about the head/neck. It appeared that she had hit her head very hard on the pavement. Police came within about 5 minutes and took over the scene. The girl was conscious but clearly very badly injured when I left. No idea her name. I really hope she can pull through. It was horrifying. Please, please be careful crossing around that intersection.

Lefferts CSA Open For Registrants

Below find the cut and pasted info from the Lefferts CSA (d/b/a as the PLG CSA). Go their website and get all the details. You can brows the crucial stuff here, like the March 24 registration deadline.

In other socialist news, local drug dealers are taking a page from the local food movement and starting their very own CSN's, or Community Supported Narcoticulture organizations. By jointly purchasing shares you can cut your drug bills in half with the assurance that your heroin, crack and crystal are made with love, by hand, by nearby meth-labs, or carried by grass-fed, humanely treated camels from organic poppy fields of Afghanistan. Your shares may be picked up at Ray's, in front of Shifty Fifty Lincoln Road, anywhere along Woodruff between Flatbush and Ocean, in front of 35 or 60 Clarkson, next to JJ's on Flatbush near ParksideZ, at various buildings along Hawthorne and Fenimore, or for those preferring the cover of dead-end streets, try Beekman Place.

The info on the FOOD CSA below:

Yes! It’s finally here! Registration for the Summer 2013 season is now open! Our 2013 Season will once again offer vegetable, fruit, eggs and pasta shares. The season will run for 22 weeks on Saturdays from June 22 to October 26 from 9:30-11:30 a.m. at Maple Street School.

VEGETABLE SINGLE SHARE: $340 ($15.45/week)
VEGETABLE DOUBLE Share: $600 ($27.27/week)
FRUIT SINGLE SHARE: $135 ($6.14/week)
FRUIT DOUBLE SHARE: $265 ($12.05/week)
ONE DOZEN EGGS: $105 ($4.77/dozen)
HALF DOZEN EGGS: $53 ($2.40/half dozen)
PASTA SHARE: $110.00 ($5.00/12 oz. box)

Initial deposit and registration is due by Sunday, March 24, 2013. Final deadline with FULL payment is due Sunday, April 21.A limited number of income-based shares are available. Please contact us at board@plgcsa.org or 347-823-1076 for more information. If you have any questions or for more information, please visit the website at plgcsa.org (Karen, Pavani, Diana, Barbara, Ashley, Gen, Justine, Sheila, Alecia)

Good Morning, Lefferts!

This arrived for the "Timothy" family. I'm thrilled to be on their mailing list! Did y'all get this too?

Trash Violations

Over at the Community Board and its Environmental Protection Committee we've spent the better part of a year warning local businesses that trash on the Flabenue must be reined in or we'll ask Sanitation to step up enforcement. Gradually, we've seen more summonses issued, as DoS has been directed by District Manager Pearl Miles to clamp down. We've repeatedly warned the merchants, who along with landlords are ultimately responsible by City ordinance to maintain the cleanliness of their buildings to six inches into the street, that they must step it up. Now the next phase begins...ensuring that each business has an updated arrangement with a private carting company contract, a City-wide requirement meant to ensure that business trash is picked up daily and that merchants don't simply dump their trash at corner bins. To be clear, most businesses comply, and are disturbed to see their neighbors trying to freeload. It ain't good for unity, that's for sure. And it ain't good for business neither.

If it sounds like we're being harsh, consider this. The rules are the same throughout the City, and apply to private homeowners as well. We're not singling out Flatbush - we're trying to drag it into the modern era. The thinking behind the laws is simple: the City can't be everywhere at all times cleaning up after selfish litterers and thoughtless supers, landlords and merchants. So it sets certain requirements and twice daily (between the hours of 9-10am and 4-5pm) issues summons for dirty sidewalks. That's to create incentives for everyone to do their part. IF an avenue wants to organize into a strong merchant's association or, more rigorously, a City-sponsored Business Improvement District, it can and is encouraged to do so. In so doing, they then have resources to hire someone to clean the streets and bag trash for them (like the Flatbush BID does south of Parkside Avenue). I don't think this is the job of local residents - everywhere else in the City merchants take the pride and their longterm interests into account and do the legwork. We residents are asked to place litter in receptacles, make sure our garbage is set out at the right times in the right places, and owners and landlords must take care of their own. For we residents to pick up the tab is essentially an acknowledgment that we haven't everyone on board. And getting everyone on board is much more important than ponying up dough or organizing cleanup days, in my opinion.

I've been over all this before, I know. I must seem like a man obsessed. I'm really not. If nothing came of the effort I wouldn't die from heartbreak. I do find it unacceptable that an open business would look outside and see mounds of filth and do nothing. Sure it's probably not YOUR trash, but have you no pride in your business, or feeling for others who have to walk through and past the mounds? Even the biggest businesses aren't responsible for more than a few square feet! I've met with Delroy at that FEPMA merchant's group and with various interested local folks. We've done a couple community-wide cleanup days to bring awareness to the issue - props to all who made those happen (congrats Skei on the baby girl!) My wife and I routinely walk into places and remind them of their responsibility to do their part. Many people have stepped it up. Delroy arranged a program with the D.A.'s office to get community-service-mandated folks out here to bag trash, and we hope that will continue. We've done everything we can do to let people know what they need to know, and to warn of impending enforcement of the private carter requirements. It's do or die time - either you're part of the community, or you're a drag on the community. The City will aggressively fine you for the latter.

People ask why I'm so dogged about dumping, tenacious about trash, livid about litter. Simple. A relatively few buildings make most of the trouble, and I want to make sure we let them know how we feel, and compel them to change their behavior. Because, as I noted when I brought it up at the CB9 meeting a few months ago, it's a "consensus issue." Very, very few people are opposed to cleaning up the trash. So it's something everyone can get on board for, to make all of our qualities of life better.

And so, let the more rigorous ticketing begin. Below is an example of a sanitation summons, levied last week on our un-neighborly neighbors BOOST Mobile, or rather the landlord, at 701 Flatbush. That block in particular is a real dump, particularly in the middle. They, and Original Struggs, simply don't seem to give a hoot (don't pollute.) They can no longer claim ignorance, however.