(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.
How could you not love the news that the Empire Blvd entrance to the Botanic Garden is open again, starting tomorrow? And the new "Discovery Garden" is open as well.
But the Q has a bone to pick. What's up with the new "Yellow Magnolia" bullshit? I've been eating at that wonderful Garden cafe, and LOVING it, since 1989 when I got a job for $19,400 a year working at The Brooklyn Museum. Then some crappy zeitgeist caterer comes in and totally messes it up. The chili sucks. No more burgers. No Chunky Chicken Salad. The Hot Dog is too skinny. The salads are...weird.
Artist David Eppley has begun. Folks, YOU made this happen. We made it happen. It's starting. I happen to be in Miami this weekend. I just this afternoon walked around the many murals of the Wynwood neighborhood, marveling at the power of street art. And then, Mr. Eppley sends me this:
If you've ever seen a large grown man cry, you can picture it in your head.
It was three years ago now that we brought the idea before the Community Board. Approvals were gained, donors came through, and all through it David never lost his belief or his determination. The kids that helped him make the flowers were amazing, and now...I just know this is gonna be the talk of the town!
See that word "Deli" to the left of popular swillery Midwood Flats? That's about to become an outpost of popular sushi joint Silver Rice, a place that earned raves up above Eastern Parkway. So what do we know besides the killer reviews on the Yelp?
Heading over to their site the Q found just the description he was looking for. I find the verbiage charming to say the least. I suspect this will be a very welcome addition to the restaurant choices 'round here.
"We are Hideki and Sonny, long-time friends and the proud owners of
Silver Rice. Both from Nagoya, Japan, we were brought together, of
course, by food (free pizza at a hostel in Chelsea, to be exact).
Combining our individual knowledge of the food industry, we started
throwing around ideas to bring Japanese food culture to New York City.
Ten years after we met, we opened the doors to our first restaurant:
Silver Rice. We are thrilled by the positive responses of our customers
and are excited to continue building our business partnership through
additional ventures in the food industry."
So, you might ask, why should I attend some crime thing up on Classon? Well, to put it mildly, I think we're at a serious juncture in the world of police/community relations, and with the uptick in serious crime in the City, it might really be time to listen to what the cops are saying and speak our minds back at them. Hopefully in a civil environment! The topics include Youth Programs, Body Cameras, Gangs, Prevention...and here's the thing that recommends this one to me: it's run by Patrol Borough Brooklyn South. A strangely constructed phrase, this Patrol Borough Brooklyn South. But what PBBS means is that it's not about a single precinct, but rather the command and control center that deals with deploying resources, identifying hot spots, coordinating efforts with the D.A. and all that good stuff. It's the mysterious middle-management part of the NYPD that's actually very important to how the police engage with our neighborhoods. Deputy Chief Jeffrey Maddrey is "the Man," and he's the Bratton appointed head of PBBS. He's on the left in this pic:
So come on out if you're even remotely interested in improving BOTH relations and enforcement.
Local crime-tracking duo Nicole Fabri and Vinnie Martinos once again put on their forensic gloves to create a geographically specific (it's called Sector C, or Charlie, for Lefferts) portion of the 71st Precinct. Feel free to add anything you know of that didn't get reported in this exercise, which involves going through the reports one by one to determine which are Leffertsian. I'm curious why we don't see all incidents of shooting. I'll ask. I suspect it's because someone must be hit in order to end up in Felony Assaults?
Crime Report
April 1 - May 31, 2015
Robberies
April 9th, 4:00PM. 308 Sterling street. Cell phone and clothes (shoes) taken physical force.
April 23rd, 2:30PM. 697 Flatbush. Bike taken by simulation of firearm.
April 24th, 6:00PM. 49 Clarkson. Victim punched in face. Bag taken containing electronics (Ipad Air.)
April 24th, 12:00PM. Clarkson and Nostrand Ave. Cell phone taken physical force.
May 1st, 6:00PM. 537 Flatbush Ave. Commercial store held up at gunpoint. $2000 in cash taken.
May 4th, 11:00AM. 135 Clarkson Ave. Cell phone taken physical force.
May 4th, midnight. 214 Lincoln Rd. Cell phone taken physical force. Two females, 20 and 18 yrs old arrested.
May 8th, 4:30. Nostrand and Winthrop in subway station. Jewelry taken by force.
May 9th, 7:00PM. 9 Clarkson Ave. Cell phone taken by force, arrested 16 yr old male.
May 11th, 12:30AM. 25 Lefferts Ave. At gunpoint in hallway of apartment building, $700 in cash and cell phone taken.
May 12th, 8:30PM. 534 Flatbush Ave. Commercial bodega, removed
merchandise from store. Worker tried to stop him, was punched in face.
Male 24 yrs old arrest.
May 13th, 9:00PM. 1026 Nostrand Ave. Commercial restaurant. Physical force used, $120 was taken.
May 25th, 5:30PM. Flatbush and Winthrop. Cellphone taken by force. 25 yr old male arrested.
May 25th, 4:00PM. 397 Fennimore. Cell phone taken physical force.
May 25, 2:00PM. 280 Hawthorne Street. Jewelry taken by force.
May 29th, 4PM. Flatbush and Ocean Ave in subway station. Cell phone taken.
Felony Assaults
April 23rd, 3:00PM. 279 Clarkson Avenue. Perp attempted to shoot victim with firearm. Missed, and was arrested.
May 24th, 75 Hawthorne St. Person hit with chair. Arrest was made.
Burglaries (when the police have entrance as front door, without noting
that it was forced entry, this can indicate that a person known to the
location, who would have access, is the perpetrator)
March 29, midnight. 1980 Bedford Ave, apartment. Through front door, electronics taken.
April 5th, 10:00PM 184 Maple Street private house. Took electronics and jewelry. Unknown point of entry.
April 8th, 9:00PM. 1022 Nostrand Ave. Took $120 and cell phone came in through front door.
April 9th, 1:00AM. 279 Nostrand Ave. Broke bottom door of bodega. Nothing taken.
May 2nd, 9:00AM. 225 Parkside Ave. Came in through fire escape. Removed
property and 26 y old male was arrested at the scene and is in custody.
May 18th, 4:30AM. 469 Flatbush Ave. Wendy's restuarnt, no property taken, just damaged front door.
May 23rd, 4:00AM. 654 Flatbush Ave. Front door damaged, took $100 cash and cell phone.
May 27th, 10:30PM. 429 Lincoln Rd, apartment Came in through rear door took electronics.
Grand Larceny (No physical force between victim and perp)
April 2nd, 7:00PM. 586 New York Avenue, commercial location. Person put wallet down on counter and unknown person took it.
April 3rd, 5:00PM. 225 Parkside Ave. Perp took tools. 34 yr old male arrested.
April 5th, 1:00AM. Nostrand and Winthrop. Cell phone taken from person.
April 27th 7:00PM. (Address?)Took hammer and broke window and took jewelry off shelf.
May 1st, 1:30AM. Lincoln Rd and Bedford Ave. Front window broken. Credit cards removed from car.
May 7th 6PM. Sterling and Nostrand. Cell phone taken and arrest was made
May 9th, 12:00PM. 2400 Beekman. Perp took credit card and cell phone from woman's stroller.
May 19th, 257 Lefferts Ave. $1400 taken out of private house by unknown means.
May 24th, 9:00PM. Maple and Flatbush Ave. Perp pick pocketed credit and debit card.
May 27th, 12:30PM. 565 Flatbush Ave. Pickpocket credit and debit cards.
Month of April. 187 Lefferts Ave, apartment building. Property manager
was collecting rent from tenants without authority and not remitting it
to building owner, from January to April 2015, totaling $24,000.
From April 1 - May 31, 2015, 14 cases of identity theft were reported in
our area. Victims were in PLG, the perps were anywhere in the world.
71st Precinct made 3 arrests in the past month and found an ATM skimmer
on a bank at Utica and Easter, as well as East New York and Lefferts,
and did a warrant on Clarkson where a skimmer was recovered from
someone's apartment. Warrant was originally for narcotics but a
skimmer was recovered. These are mobile skimmers that can be used by
workers in restaurants or anyone else who handles credit cards.
Grand Larceny Auto
April 4th, 9:00PM. 576 Parkside Ave. 2001 Tan Chrysler Town and Country stolen.
April 7th, 7:00AM. 105 Winthrop St. 1998 Gray Lexus stolen.
April 16th, 8:00PM. 96 Sterling St.1996 Green Acura stolen.
May 11, 8:00PM. 44 Empire Blvd. 2009 Gray Ford stolen.
May 26th, 9:30PM. 268 Lincoln Rd. 2014 Blue Yamaha motorcycle stolen.
A little bird tells the Q that his little olde wine shoppe is opening on Nostrand, not on southern Flabenue as previously reported. That's not to say that the OTHER wine shoppe up by Bluebird Cafe isn't still on. But these things take time, what with the NY State Liquor Authority and everything. But the little bird referenced in the first sentence, who isn't related to Bluebird or the wine shopppe opening near it, is opening on the same block as the world famous Alan's bakery. What along with IM Pastry and Deserts by Michael Allen and a rumored Farm to Market grocery store, Nostrand is shaping up to be the sort of place you can healthy, fat and drunk all in one fell swoop. And express yourself in ceramics with the wonderful Lindiwe Kamau.
Images like the above are likely to be a much more common occurrence with the coming of new beat cops. Two recent develops will affect those of us in the northern reaches of Flatbush, which came from the most recent 70th Precinct Council meeting:
The precinct has assigned two Parade Ground posts, which means there
will be four cops working there “pretty much from morning to night,” Executive Officer
Sanseverino said, noting that’s “something we’ve never been able to
afford.”
Flatbush Avenue, from Parkside Avenue to the Junction, has been
added to the precinct’s Impact Program — meaning there will be
additional police presence in the area during the day, Sanseverino said.
Some more Monday Morning analysis from the Q, that is one Monday later. The much watched and much linked "police action" at a ULURP meeting from a week and a half ago is below. Remember, last week the vote was finally held to begin a study. By an overwhelming margin of (I think) 24 to 6. At THAT meeting, the chant from protesters was "Hands Up, Don't Shoot," a reference to, I must say, a much more serious issue than disrupting community meetings. Some of the Concerned Citizens joined in. The below video is from the week prior's committee meeting. THAT arrest has been characterized by Alicia Boyd as police brutality. The cops weren't happy about that, as they were doing their best to take her out of the meeting without incident. Remember, the 71st was asking after CB9 committee chair Ben Edwards asked them to remove her so the Board could vote, which she was preventing by claiming, ironically, that she and others had not been "heard."All very surreal.
MTOPP clearly found the fuel for its engine. The anger is out there. It's real. But it's misplaced. Targeting the majority black, liberal community board means creating an enemy, but in my view, it's an enemy that doesn't exist. To fight them AND the all-black locally elected leadership (Adams, Hamilton, Richardson, Clarke, Cumbo, Eugene) you have to, apparently, paint them as Uncle Toms. To fight the Jewish Community's leadership (religious Chabad Jews make up a significant minority of CB9) you need to paint them as in-cahoots with the above, or worse, as having created secret deals to protect themselves. I was told by one protester, for instance, that I was "siding" with the Jews. And to fight the most-often white gentrifiers you must paint them as White with a capital "W" so that it includes everyone who has more money than you - even if they don't have more money than you because they're renting while you own a million-dollar home. Ignore the newcomers' politics, their story, the fact that they got priced out somewhere too. Forget that they purchased property legally from its rightful owner, or signed a lease in good faith. Ignore that it's the landlords, laughing their way to the bank while you fight CB9, who are the ones flouting the law. Forget that you personally have banked hundreds of thousands of dollars in equity as you fight those who helped buoy your house price. Forget creating unity or harmony or coalitions. This is about creating a tenor of anger and fear that assures you get whatever you want. Which is, apparently, nothing. Because by shutting down process and making enemies at every turn, it's unlikely you, MTOPP and allies, will get anything more than a pair of handcuffs and a legal nightmare. So much for goals.
There might come a day when these posts by the Q on race and class and wealth will become quaint, remembered as letters in an old drawer. Pull them out and reminisce about simpler, more - ahem - "assertive" days. But one thing will always strike me, remembering this time when the nation convulses with horror-anger-fear over its decades-long treatment of African-Americans post-King. Why in 2015, in this neighborhood, did it seem so vital to some to maintain blackness, a black neighborhood in name and deed, where even two generations ago it wasn't, where two generations from now it may not be? I ask this not to suggest the question is inherently wrong, but to try to answer the NEED for black neighborhoods, as opposed to them coming about by the natural racist order of things. Okay, now I'm being cynical. But seriously what IS a black neighborhood in an ever-changing City? If such neighborhoods were a consequence of people choosing NOT to live around blacks, then why is it wrong to have whites move back in? This question is rhetorical mind you, not intended to be quoted out of context. We all know this about money, and ultimately, money IS imbued with the predominant ideology. Which, as discussed before ad nauseum is...
And when I say Black Neighborhood, I mean Majority black. Significantly so. To some, such a place is space where black can be black, a black neighborhood, a REAL black neighborhood, a deserved or undeserved reputation in a borough of reputations and shifting demarcations, where even blackness comes in shades and attitude. Jazz or funk or rap. Martin or Malcolm or Louis. Baptist or Pentecostal or Christmas-only. Dirt poor or Bourgie or even, dare we say it, black and flat-out wealthy. In other words, even the protagonist is diverse. And if you're going to create a common enemy, you need to paint them sufficiently mean, organized and racist to warrant a coordinated broad-based attack. In other words, you need to L.I.E. (not the expressway - I mean you must concoct a narrative that isn't true). And that narrative goes like this: White People Are Taking Over Our Neighborhood. It's simple, it's clear, and the proof is all around us. The fact is...white people are MOVING to the neighborhood, and they're bringing with them their whiteness, their white money, and they're white ways. It's a fascinating thing to watch, really. All the pet dogs. The shorts and flip-flops on the men. The lines for brunch. The, god forbid, BLOGS!!
In racially de facto segregated America there can be no misinterpreting the color of a neighborhood. It is rare to have a truly diverse mix of races living together in relatively equal numbers - so exceedingly rare in fact that it is frequently remarked upon, right here in the Flat Bush. "I live in the most wonderfully diverse neighborhood" one might say at a social gathering. "What I love about my town is that it is truly diverse," said someone recently about Maplewood, NJ. But truth be told, at 55 % white and 35% black, Maplewood skews white in a big way, and it's getting whiter and richer. The most telling fact is that the median family income in M-wood is over $120,000 a year there. Even the exemplary racially diverse suburban town is not so economically diverse. Meaning, it's a lot less scary to the whites. Meaning, it's not what the Q experiences. Which is a block that spans from homeless to millionaire, Section 8 to Capital Gains.
Because the truly unusual thing about Central Brooklyn is the current 2015 demographics of racial AND economic diversity. We all know it, and can feel the tension and possibility inherent in it. It's not until brazen voices come right out and say it plain as day that it seems truly unsettling, because we live it every day and do our best to live in it gracefully and with dignity. All of us. Let's face it, some things about decrying the evils of the new colonialism don't really stand up to scrutiny. Because when you try to define diversity in terms of race AND wealth AND class at the same time, you run into a seemingly endless number of variables that confound categorization. And add to that a 4th distinction - renter/owner - and now your analysis is down for the count. Wait, how about a 5th? Rent-Stabilized-Renter/Market-Rate-Renter. Or a 6th. Coop-Condo-Owner/House-Owner. Earned money or inherited? Native New Yorker or Transplant? Advanced Education or High School? Professional, artist, entrepreneur, student, craftsperson, seeker, agnostic, devout follower, foreigner, new-gentrifier/old-gentrifier, Carribean, bi-racial, multi-racial, Section 8, househusband, unemployed, immigrant, single-mom, D.I.N.K., yuppy, Asian, undocumented, Latino, mixed-marriage, Jewish-Religious/Jewish-Secular, bald, fat, ugly...and anyway, who wants to know?
Then, as if raised like Golem from light brown clay, along comes a self-described activist ready to pigeonhole us all, neatly, us against them, All-Black vs. All-White, All-Rich vs. All-Poor, All-Jew vs. Not-Jew. Southern-Crown-Heights vs. Lefferts-Gardens vs. The Jewish Quarter. It's all a bit pat, a little unnerving don't you think? God forbid there be any miscegenation, any unassigned friendships, any latte-loving-blacks or Jerk-loving-whites. All of this from the mouth of someone entrenched in the zeitgeist, who contradicting herself wrote lovingly of the new bars and cafes on Airbnb, and who (at least on her internet profile) embraces the diversity as a child does her teddy.
Bullshit. Again I call bullshit.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Laws are being broken. Civil rights are being denied. Albany is laughing at us. People are hurting.
But if we learned anything from this nation's gravest and most tragic mistakes, it's that you don't succumb to bigotry even when it seems only fair, and historically called for. Eye for an eye. But listen up MTOPP. You don't get to take the moral high ground and race-bait. You don't get to save certain streets for certain people with certain characteristics. Just like we don't get to tell people who to sell our houses to, or how to raise their kids, or how to worship, or how to think or with whom to associate. Because when you do, you're as bad as the demons you're fighting, and the truth can't will out, and your message will crumble with each dissembling crusade.
But I digress. Nothing new there! The point is...in here somewhere. Got it. It's a slippery one, definitely full of traps. Gotta be careful lest I articulate it a way that paints me insensitive. Wait, did I think that or write that?
Simply put, Boyd claims to speak for the black neighborhood that she imagines...not the one that exists. Clearly there are tons of black folk who want nothing to do with her, who don't relate to her, or frankly don't even care. Is she speaking for them? Clearly not. One might say that she's speaking now for everyone who WISHES they could speak up louder and angrier about whichever resentment gets them worked up.
And that's why it's dangerous. Standing in the room the other nights (last Tuesday and the one before it) as Boyd worked the room, I couldn't help but notice the sheer BREADTH of what she was trying to tap into. It wasn't just "sky-risers," a term that she seems to have coined for the "switch" of the bait-and-switch of a Planning Study with DCP. It was the anger of those whose apartments feel insecure, whose politics feel marginalized by the progressive City administration, whose Socialism feels energized by the current distress, or whose feminism feels disrespected by the men with the microphone - from Eric Adams and Bill de B to Jake Goldstein and yours truly and more.
Yes the neighborhood is getting whiter. It's also getting wealthier. It's also, and here's the irony, becoming MORE diverse. And while the fear of course is that we're headed towards a white nabe, there's precious little reason to believe it'll all happen tomorrow. It will take time, perhaps not a lot, but the Great City of NY will chip away at the neighborhood's current identity until it looks not only unlike what MTOPP wants, but unlike what LOTS of us want. Want now. Today. With 2015 economy, 2015 desires, 2015 trends. We may not recognize ourselves, but...if we don't take steps to retain our ECONOMIC diversity, we'll miss out on the one option we have to truly retain the livable NYC.
Not everyone subscribes to such black and white thinking.
The Q takes no pleasure in posting Wanted Posters, and generally lets 'em slip by. He makes exceptions in case of sexual predators and missing kids. If you've seen this guy follow the instructions. Ugh.
