Lives Matter - Forum Tonight

Fair Game?

You may have been unaware that a somewhat likely scenario is playing out in the current special election (voting TOMORROW by the way). Since the Democrats couldn't get it together to put a candidate on the ballot, a Republican Lubavitcher might just win the day. If that were to happen, I think it's safe to say he'd lose his seat in two years. But it would be a big deal in the interim.

Since the Q took the Patterson camp to task for its cynical mailers, I think it's only fair that I call this one into question. Did you receive it? If not, it may well be that you were not an intended recipient. As we all know, or at least most of us know who've lived here for awhile, the largest contingent of Chabad Lubavitcher Hasidim in the world live just east of us, in a pocket that is becoming larger all the time. Centered around the bustling Main Street of Kingston south of Eastern Parkway, near 770 EP, the spiritual home of the movement, as it was where the deceased American leader of the movement Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson (whom some have come to see as the Messiah btw) led his flock. It's a fascinating piece of Brooklyn life, the part that gets little coverage in the world of espresso and bistros and sky-high prices and high-rise development.

Menachem Raitport is running on the Republican line, and with the likely split vote among erstwhile Democrats - Shirley, Diana and Geoffrey - well, there you are. It's likely that SDorG will return to the Democratic fold next time around. The question I pose is whether it's unseemly to campaign so directly and explicitly for votes to a specific religious (and let's be honest, racial) community. Were a white gentrifier to campaign thusly, there's no question it would cause an uproar, and rightly so. In a diverse neighborhood, I wonder whether this doesn't cross the lines of decency.

All's fair in love and war?

Long Live the Plaza

The communists were parading just minutes before BP Eric Adams and Councilman Mathieu Eugene cut the ribbon. It was a striking moment, and a reminder that the Bolsheviks still control the central apparatus. Here's Rudy and family leading the parade. Note the red in their clothing:

The Q was fortunate to have been there, at Parkside Donut, when Rudy launched his seemingly Quixotic plan. And at every step of the way, Mr. Delson was presented with challenges that would have kept a lesser man down. I've seen him deftly navigate bureaucracy and calmly keep the forces of negativity at bay. It's a special talent that he has, and one that I hope he continues to bring to the neighborhood over the years, if we're lucky enough to retain him.

Nothing  but good vibes, folks. Adams delivered a nice speech. Eugene was supportive. Let's hope that the brilliant start leads to funding in the future, pols! Cuz it ain't cheap to maintain a plaza day in and day out, bringing out tables and chairs, watering plants, keeping the place clean. As Rudy noted this is YOUR plaza. If you see some trash, pick it up. If you see someone walking off with OUR chairs, whack 'em upside the head.

The music was great. The donated food and drink from Jamaican Pride and Tip of the Tongue was the perfect complement, and yes, I will echo the dubious sentiment of high school newspapers everywhere:

"A Good Time Was Had By All"

The Tyranny Is Real

For God's sakes read this article:
 David Simon in The Marshall Project.

The Q doesn't do serial TV. I was asked recently how I have time for full-time job, family of small children requiring absurd bedtime rituals, daily blog-writing and community meetings up the wazoo. Simple. I don't watch TV. Or read fiction. That's two big chunks of people's lives I do without. Plus I don't need a ton of sleep, haven't gotten drunk in more than a decade, and am completely uninterested in contemporary food culture. My favorite meal is grilled cheese with tater tots. Priorities, I guess they say.

Serial TV - from Breaking Mad Men to House of Thrones to Orange Is the New Good Wife, it's all brilliant and life-changing I'm sure. But if the shows have true merit, which I highly doubt, there'll be time to settle into my comfiest chair after my infirmity begins and watch a baker's dozen of episodes in a row between changes of Depends. I'm pretty confident I'm missing nothing but a crick in my neck at this point, though I have my guilty pleasures too though I insist they don't take too long.

And then, there's The Wire, the only show I regret not having spent more time with, given its relevance to the New Jim Crow and the seemingly endless string of Rodney King commemorations taking place in pretty much every corner of the nation 24 hours a day in towns where significant numbers of black people live, which is to say pretty much every major City except Portland, OR, which is to say every City in the country that matters.

Half a dozen people I respect have sent me this extraordinary interview with David Simon, creator of The Wire, wherein he goes into devastating detail about Baltimore's descent into police state madness through the years. If even half of what he says were true, wouldn't it be fair to say that we're suffering from a massive Drug War hangover in this country that's bound to tear us apart, even more than we're already being torn apart? Put another way, is the Constitution meant only for people who live in the right neighborhoods?

What we desperately need is leadership. Who speaks with authority and has the balls to put his legacy on the line? Mr. President, I believe your date with destiny has just arrived. Please don't wait til you're out of office and haven't the power of the pulpit and the interpretation of the law at your command. If one president started this nonsense, surely another can put an end to it.

Remember your campaign that gave you the keys to the White House? Don't let it be an empty promise. Right now, we could really use some of this, because otherwise things might get a lot worse before they get better.

As I said before, for God's sakes read this article  David Simon in The Marshall Project.

Come Out To Celebrate the Parkside Plaza TODAY 5-2 @ 2PM

Saturday is the big day, folks. 

365 days a year, for years and years to come, out on Parkside Plaza, you will b able to sit on the bright slender chairs, relax under the broad red umbrellas, make a picnic on the gorgeous Deer Island granite ... but this Saturday is the one and only opening day, and there will be free music, free food, and free speeches to boot!

And it's all brought to us ... by us.  We passed the hat to build this plaza, and we need to keep passing the hat, to keep this plaza looking gorgeous.  Care to chip in?

  www.ioby.org/parkside2015

The music starts at 1pm, with steel drumming by Tropical Pan Vibes, and continues at 3pm with the Funkrust Brass Band. 

And in between there will be lively speeches by your City Councilmember and your Borough President, and a ribbon cutting featuring ten yards of green ribbon from Save-a-Thon, all of this filmed, we're told, by the folks from Channel 12. 

Drinks from Tip of the Tongue, food from Jamaican Pride, neighbors from near and far, and spring weather to boot.  Come on out!

Jane's Walk of South Crown Heights - Saturday

The Q's a big fan of the the never defatigable Mike Fagan at Brooklynian. He's leading one of these "Jane's Walks" that are happening all over the world in honor of longtime chimp activist and speedwalking enthusiast Jane Goodall, (who was also married to Robert Moses for a few harmonious years until they split over the proposed elevated highway project through Prospect Park). The point of these walks is to quickly spot as many Landmarks violations as you can, jot them down, and turn them in Stasi-style at the local "Jane's Office," a tastefully-marked turn-of-the-last-century one-family brownstone dripping with period details but with a thoroughly modern kitchen and bathroom hardware parquet floors and a whimsical master bedroom with mid-century wall paper.

Meet at the Bedford-Union Armory at, coincidentally, Bedford and Union.

Info on this walk and your tour guides


There will actually be 6 stops:

Stop 1:  Bedford Union Armory
Stop 2: Medgar Evers College
Stop 3: Ebbetts Field Apartments
Stop 4: Empire Boulevard
Stop 5: The Spice Factory
Stop 6: Sea Crest Laundry

More Plaza Pics

Sisyphus just dropped off some of his luggage, and boy are his arms tired!

Here's a Big One

From left: 845 Flatbush Avenue in Flatbush and Harbor Group’s Jordan Slone

From The Real Deal comes news of a major purchase down the Flabenue a piece. This will be 30,000 s/f, a nice chunk for a developer who digs big projects. I suspect you don't pluck down $22 million to leave it as is. Unless Slone really loves working out at Blink Fitness, and this is his way of getting a V.I.P. membership. Or V.I.M. membership if you will. Look for lots of the deals along Flatbush. There are tons of taxpayer buildings to turn into apartments. Some of the old buildings would be nice to retain, but many of them, sadly, are already condemned and unlikely to be salvaged.

Cynical Circulars Send Sinister Signals

The special election for Assembly is but a week away, and rather than focusing on the issues most pressing in our district, we get stuff like the below:

It's true that Geoffrey Davis has a bit of a troubled past, with an order of protection from some eight years ago against Renee Collymore, a former district leader who is now (coincidentally?) the treasurer of his opponent Shirley  Patterson's campaign. Fair enough, that's all for anyone to see online, and might be enough to disqualify him for office in the view of many. But for the Independence Party to spend a bunch of dough to send this big creepy card is a bit over the top. Granted politics is rarely pretty. But then the flyer goes on to note that Geoffrey Davis has been accused again "less than two weeks ago" without any details. That's weird. Accused by whom? In a court of law? Is this information public? And who's the woman in the picture? It doesn't take an Alfred E. Newman to figure out that this is a way to siphon off votes from the Davis camp for Patterson, though I don't know why the I.P. would assume the votes wouldn't just as easily go to Richardson. The Independence Party, btw, is Patterson's party du jour, since the King County Democrats didn't fill the ticket on time, another outcome with a mysterious backstory.

And guess what? Guillermo Philpotts, who was shunned at the altar, is BACK, claiming he was hoodwinked out of his rightful spot atop the ticket. This report from NY1 basically says the Dems conspired to keep his name off the ballot, and that it wasn't a "mistake" at all that led to his missing a deadline. Why on earth Mr. Philpotts would wait til this late date to make mention of it is anyone's guess. Maybe Mrs. Philpotts knows, but I don't get it.

Listen, I've got nothing against Shirley Patterson. I hardly know anything about her. And she seemed thoughtful enough, though a little out of her comfort zone on Monday at the "forum" at Grace Church on Bedford. She could have used some pep, and didn't seem at all interested in responding with zeal to the accusations that she took "tainted" developer money that some say makes her biased in favor of those greedy high-riser types. But then I get the below flyer, also from her campaign, and I really have to say it's pretty pandery. Yes, we all believe that killing of unarmed black men is horrendous. But how is this Shirley Patterson's issue to resolve? I mean, Assembly members don't have any say over the NYPD, do they? It seems like this is a way to grab a few more votes from unsavvy voters. One could safely imagine that both Richardson and Davis would take a similarly dim view of profiling and the outsized use of force by cops. Shock tactics like these don't show good judgment, in my view. Then there's the quote from the awesome Shirley Chisholm - "you make progress by implementing ideas." Which begs the question: what are the ideas to be implemented by this campaign? Or any other campaign, for that matter.

Honey, Your Plaza's Ready

photo Duane J. - Gettin' Close!