And friends, let us add to these moments of comfort and wisdom via America’s Newspaper of Record this extraordinary opening line from an article in this past Sunday’s Times:

“Being a teenager is hard – being the parent of a teenager is even harder.”

APPARENTLY, sometime while I was watching the World Cup or considering the infinite superiority of King Kullen to Waldbaums, THE NEW YORK TIMES BECAME AN EPISODE OF BLOSSOM.  Because the above sentiment is something I hardly expect in the FIRST LINE of an article in THE NEW YORK FUCKING TIMES (out of respect for a fellow journalist, I refrain from mentioning the name of the writer; let’s just say that her name begins with an “L” and rhymes with Lisa Damour).  I mean, I KNOW this whole teenage-parent thing must be hard indeed BUT I WANT TO READ ABOUT HAMAS AND IRAQ AND CARMELO ANTHONY AND SHIT, and YEH I’ll tolerate the articles about Alan Cumming and THE DAILY rants about how Manhattan is the new Brooklyn which was the new Manhattan; but if you want to write things like “Being a teenager is hard – being the parent of a teenager is even harder” I will SIMPLY have to present you with The First Annual Noise The Column Mayim Bialik Award For Irrelevancy in the Newspaper of Record.

(And I DEARLY HOPE that Ms. Bialik, the VERY DEFINITON OF THE KIND OF SASSY AND OBERLIN-BOUND FOX I WOULD HAVE HAD A LIFE-ALTERING CRUSH ON WHILE I WAS AT GREAT NECK SOUTH, is not insulted by my appropriating her VERY HONORABLE NAME for the moniker of a Very Special Media Prize.)

I am sure the writer is a perfectly nice person.  I mean that.  I was just a little startled to encounter a sentence in the New York Times that, truly, seems better suited as the voice-over in a promo for Clarissa Explains It All About Being a Mom of a Teenager!

(YES I KNOW mixing up the whole Blossom and Clarissa thing is problematic, but I’M A GUY, WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU EXPECT, I AM TRYING MY BEST HERE, AND MY EDITOR JUST TOLD ME THAT HODOR IS DOING A DJ TOUR, SO I AM A LITTLE DISTRACTED, dammit.)

And now…MORE NEW YORK TIMES CORRECTION FUN!

This is one of the best ones ever, and I must credit poynter.org (via my great friend, the actor Kevin Hogan) for making me aware of this CLASSIC:

“Correction: June 19, 2014:  An article on Tuesday about Germany’s 4-0 victory over Portugal at the World Cup misspelled the surname of the Portugal center forward who left the game with a leg injury. He is Hugo Almeida, not Almeido. The article also misstated, in some copies, the year Germany last won the World Cup. It was 1990, not 1090.”

 Otto the Great was crowned in Aachen in 936, and then by the Pope in Rome in 962; the latter event, especially, marks the true beginning of the Holy Roman Empire, which is where the story of Germany, as we would recognize it, really begins.  Now, In 1090, the Emperor (also recognized formally as King of the Germans) was Henry IV; history tells us that circa 1090, Henry IV was consolidating his power after his historic invasion of Rome, during which he actually attempted to OVERTHROW A POPE, and install his own.  The history books, however, MAKE NO MENTION OF A GERMAN WORLD CUP VICTORY AT THE END OF THE 11^TH CENTURY.  Honestly, I think it would have, if such a thing happened; Germans love their Footie, y’see.  But even though I can’t find ANYTHING in the history books referring to it, according to the New York Times, the Germans won the World Cup in 1090, just 24 years after the Norman Invasion of England, and 840 years before the FIRST World Cup.

The Lesson Here Is This:  Dear NY Times:  Your words have comforted me and your articles have roused me to sundry levels of elation and indignation since I was an information-hungry child, lusting after Bialik-esque peasant-blouse’d-wearing Queens of the Island that is Long.  However, IF YOU ARE GOING TO MAKE A MISTAKE AS EGREGIOUSLY DUMB AS CLAIMING THAT GERMANY WON THE WORLD CUP IN 1090, or, for that matter, that METALLICA BEGAN IN THE 1970s, DO NOT DRAW ANY ADDITIONAL FUCKING ATTENTION TO IT.  Got it?

Or maybe HIRE SOME PROOF READERS and not just give the job to some freaking unpaid Syracuse Intern in a Kenny Rogers t-shirt that they wear ironically.  Seriously, New York Fucking Times, when will you learn NOT to trust proof reading to anyone who a) doesn’t get paid b) knows someone who went to The Dwight School with the Strokes.  Seriously, man.

Finally, the World’s Greatest Rock’n’Roll Bands are Neu! and Fu Manchu.  I shall elaborate on this at a later date.

When you think trendy vintage fashion, you think Brooklyn Heights. No? Well The New York Times‘ Intersection video series tried to change that by focusing on Brooklyn Heights as a place with a “Refined Vintage” look. The three people profiled are engaging enough—and they didn’t just stick to youngsters—but repeated shots of Tango and Housing Works made it feel like not a lot of new territory was unearthed. Still, it’s good to see the neighborhood profiled about something it’s not usually known for. Watch the video and let us know what you think. Now if only they’d covered the 5am look of those who come into Happy Days hungry for eggs after a night of debauchery—THAT’S a story.

Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/64851

Brooklyn Bridge Park is closed until further notice. The Brooklyn Historical Society will be closed through Tuesday, November 6. Fortunately, Bargemusic didn’t sustain any serious damage, but repairs to an outside sprinkler pipe will keep it closed through this weekend. However, Brooklyn Heights Cinema, 70 Henry Street (corner of Orange), which remained open through Sandy’s ravages thanks to the dedication of owner Kenn Lowy, will have its normal schedule of shows. Looking ahead to this coming Wednesday, November 7, the Cinema will present songs and a reading by Steve Witt from his new novel, The Street Singer. And there’s more…

The Troupers of St. Francis College will present three performances (Friday and Saturday at 8:00 p.m.; Sunday at 2:00 p.m.) of Yasmina Reza’s award winning play God of Carnage, about inter-domestic strife in Cobble Hill (image, taken from the Broadway production, from The New York Times. The performances will be at the College’s auditorium, 180 Remsen Street.

If you want to to help people who were affected badly by Sandy, our neighbors in Red Hook are taking donations of food and other essentials at 767 Hicks Street; for more information see here. Brooklyn Bridge Park may need additional cleanup help; watch the Park’s Facebook page for announcements. The Red Cross has other volunteer opportunities.

Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/50980

Paul Richard Olson has completed twenty years’ service as Organist and Choirmaster at Grace Church, as well as Music Specialist at Grace Church School (he is shown in the photo giving an introductory lesson on the church’s Austin Organ). Today, there was a celebratory brunch in the church’s Guild Hall to mark the occasion. As a special honor to Paul, the hymnist Jacque B. Jones, a member of Plymouth Church, wrote the lyrics to a new hymn, “As Starlight Warms to Daybreak,” which she set to a Swedish melody in recognition of Paul’s Scandinavian heritage. There’s a video of the assembled multitude singing the hymn after the jump.

Piano accompaniment was provided by Craig Whitney, retired New York Times editor and Grace Church parishioner, as well as author of All the Stops: the Glorious Pipe Organ and its American Masters, a must read for fans of the King of Instruments.

Photo: Grace Church; video by Martso.

Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/49527

Dr. Barry Commoner, the scientist and environmental advocate whom the New York Times calls “Planet Earth’s Lifeguard,” and a resident of Brooklyn Heights, died Sunday after a long illness. He was a Brooklyn native, a graduate of James Madison High School and Columbia University, and received his doctorate at Harvard. On the occasion of the first Earth Day, in 1970, Time magazine put his image on its cover, and he was a candidate for President on the Citizens’ Party ticket in 1980. During that campaign, the Times notes, a reporter asked him, “Are you a serious candidate or are you just running on the issues?”

According to the Times:

Dr. Commoner was a leader among a generation of scientist-activists who recognized the toxic consequences of America’s post-World War II technology boom, and one of the first to stir the national debate over the public’s right to comprehend the risks and make decisions about them.

He is survived by his wife, Lisa Feiner, two children by a previous marriage, and a grandchild.

Photo: 250.columbia.edu.

Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/48732

This time it’s The New York Times that’s weighing in on the increasingly controversial $40 million Field House proposed for Brooklyn Bridge Park.

In a lengthy story titled “A $40 Million Gift, a Proposed Bike Arena and Now Skepticism in Brooklyn,” writer Lisa Foderaro ventures that Joshua P. Rechnitz’s pledge to build a field house in BBP—the largest single gift in the history of New York City’s parks system—was originally “heralded as a much-needed boost for the 85-acre waterfront park.

“But attention quickly turned to the centerpiece of the plan: a velodrome with a 200-meter inclined indoor cycling track and stadium seating for almost 2,500 spectators. Now, some parkgoers, neighborhood activists and community leaders are looking that donation in the mouth and saying, Thanks, but no thanks.”

Leaders of community groups in Brooklyn Heights and DUMBO are loaded with questions specifically regarding the track, the Times says, worried about the building’s size (with a footprint of up to 70,000 square feet, it is larger than a football field) “and the traffic it might draw to the cobbled streets of Brooklyn Heights, while pointing out the relatively obscure nature of track cycling, in which riders on fixed-gear bicycles without brakes travel at terrific speeds around curves banked at 45-degree angles.”

The NYT adds that some also doubt Rechnitz’s motives: a 47-year-old resident of the Upper West Side, he is an avid amateur track cyclist who has tried and failed to bring a velodrome to the city. Now, they say he is buying the track he wants on public land.

Joan Zimmerman, president of the Fulton Ferry Landing Association, tells the NYT she is concerned that the park was already being nibbled away by structures, and “putting this large of a building at one of the narrower necks of the park raises the question of what’s more important: green space or buildings?”

But NYS assemblymember Joan Millman, who represents Brooklyn Heights and the area containing the park, supports it, in part because it would replace a rundown storage building near Pier 5 that she calls an “eyesore.” And Regina Myer, president of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Corp., which governs land use in the park, emphasizes that “it’s not taking away any green space; the plan always called for that location to be a maintenance building.”

In any case, the Field House has a long way to go before it becomes a reality in BBP. The Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation must still approve the plan, which will also require state approval. There’s much more to read in the Times piece here.

Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/45077

Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/45023

In the Sunday New York Times Metropolitan section, Kevin Baker remembers his friend of many years, Dennis Holt, who died last month. Baker paints a colorful portrait of Holt as “a classic New York eccentric” who once chased an intruder from his Boerum Hill townhouse while brandishing a Civil War era dress sword.

Baker also discloses that, as a student government leader at the University of Alabama in 1956, Holt faced down thugs who rioted when an African American woman, Autherine Lucy, attempted to enroll there. He later sponsored a resolution “that mob violence be denounced at the University of Alabama and that means be found to protect the future personal safety of the students, white or Negro — and the faculty and the reputation of the university.” He was also a national collegiate debating champion. Who knew?

Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/43894

“Battersby Is Poised For The New Brooklyn.” That’s the headline in a generally flattering New York Times restaurant review for “elbow to elbow” intimate Cobble Hill eatery Battersby at 255 Smith Street and Douglass Street, owned by Joseph Ogrodnek and Walker Stern. Quote: “At its best, the food at Battersby is thoughtful, poised, occasionally revelatory.”

Regarding the restaurant’s lamb, NYT reporter Ligaya Mishan muses, “This is a biography of lamb, intimate in its details. You sense that the person who cooked it broke down the animal himself. You do not coo over such a plate; you bow your head, in grace.” The menu of about a dozen dishes changes as often as three times a week, she reports.

Recommended on the menu are the kale salad, crab parfait, quinoa with herbs and lettuces, octopus and chorizo, branzino, lamb and spontaneous tasting menu. Prices range from $7 to $29, with a tasting menu for $65-$85.

One more amusing note… Mishan suggests that Smith Street is “a formerly insalubrious strip that is now just a Marc Jacobs away from becoming Brooklyn’s Bleecker.”

(Photo: New York Times/Elizabeth Lippman)

Source: Cobble Hill Blog
http://cobblehillblog.com/archives/7461

Gran Electrica, the Mexican restaurant that opened in March at Five Front Street on the DUMBO border, gets the full treatment in a New York Times review. Mind you, our own BHB Karl Junkersfeld has already weighed in. His verdict: “Delicioso.”

The Times’ Robin Finn remarks that the restaurant “is a brick-walled, votive-lighted, tin-ceilinged amalgam of the sustainably local and the whimsically loco. The mescal beverage options promise to knock your Birkenstocks off, as does the back garden, where the Brooklyn Bridge curves overhead like a distant awning.”

See full review here. (Photo: NYT)

Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/41166