No! Former state committeeman Steve Cohn (with son Warren Cohn) has vowed to continue the most important breakfast in Brooklyn in perpetuity! Cohn elaborates below:
"It's definitely not. It's a great networking breakfast and yes we plan to do a Seneca Dinner as always. It should be a really successful. We hope to continue to hand out cheesecakes to the people."
Word is Governor Paterson, Comptroller DiNapoli and others will be making special appearances. Possibly future governor Andrew Cuomo has been invited, but with four days to go before a statewide election, don't count on seeing him there unless it's a last minute thing. He already visited downtown Brooklyn yesterday.
It's a mostly quiet week in Williamsburg and Greenpoint, save for CMJ taking over the north side (since when did CMJ become the Northside festival but larger and with more swag?). Let's run through a few links...
Attorney general candidate Dan Donovan visited Hasidic leaders in South Williamsburg Sunday and did not get captured in an awkward photo shoot with a political colleague or utter an anti-gay slur, but his team did prematurely trumpet an endorsement. I guess that's progress.
And I missed both the pickle festival, the bacon takedown, and some kind of all-you-can-eat late-night taco implosion. I need salt. Does anyone have some salt?
It’s 6 pm and the doors to 211 Ainslie are locked, before Marie lets everyone in. Karen Nieves is nursing her fifth coffee of the day and we have a few stragglers including eight “ambassadors” from national public radio here to talk to community members about a new program designed to connect Williamsburg residents with WNYC, because, why reinvent the wheel? WNYC’s Azi Paybarah couldn’t be here tonight so he sent his secret army instead.
Losing District Leader candidate and current Greenpoint blonde planners mafia charter member Kate Zidar is here too to talk about her Green Eggs Wetland Project which is appealing to funding for a wetlands project which may be eligible for funding from a pool of money administered by City Parks Foundation. She's working very hard to make a publishable photograph. Maybe next time? The Chairman Emeritus makes an appearance but it sounds like he has to get going pretty quickly Unfortunately, sad news to report. We will not be seeing the lovely Julia Morrow tonight because the Open Space Alliance has brilliantly scheduled its community meeting at the same exact time as the board meeting. In her place, we are joined by Caitlin Dourmashkin of the Northside Merchants Association (note: not EWVIDCO) who “hasn’t attended one of these things in years,” and... look at that… Debbie Feinberg, legislative liaison for Assemblyman Vito Lopez, subject of a brief piece on PolitickerNY. Let's see if she has a comment.
6:34 PM: Chairman Chris Olechowski calls the meeting to order, District Manager Gerry Esposito takes the roll and we move onto item one— a sidewalk application. It passes easily.
6:38 PM: Open Space Alliance board member Joe Vance begins to stir as Chairman Chris reads the description of the applicant’s zoning application. This project, a vacant lot on Wythe Avenue that hosted the Rock Yard parties, is asking for a zoning change from heavy manufacturing to R-6 residential use. The property’s owner, Bruce Terzano, talks about his history in the neighborhood before passing the mic to Joe: “He wants this to be a neighborhood project. We’re used to hearing from lawyers on this project but he came to me instead." Joe describes the project as a six-story building with commercial on the ground floor and parking below, and a big backyard. “By and large most of the development we’ve seen is geared toward young people. Bruce believes that eventually these people will have families and will want more space. He believes this project will be family-oriented." CB1 member Jose Leon has a question about where the affordable housing will be, just as CPCR’s Susan Pollock and Barbara Baer arrive. Joe explains that the two buildings will be separate and that the nonprofit developer will eventually own the below-market-rate building. We have more questions about what exist there now and whether commercial tenants will have to move out, and Joe covers a number of details including square footage, FAR and the number of units in the project (59 market rate and 18 below-market).
6:57 PM: Chairman Chris moves to the third item, a special permit for a building on the corner of Roebling, Metropolitan and Hope Street for on-lot parking spaces and 90 apartment units. We have a presentation from Patrick Jones, the applicant. Jones explains that the owner of the 103-year-old building is applying for a certificate of occupancy to bring the old mixed-use industrial building into legal occupancy. The building, zoned for manufacturing use, has been occupied with residencies since the 1980s and has commercial on the first floor. Ward asks a question about whether the request would retain retail use on the first floor and apparently it would. Heather asks about the one-story building with the Roebling Tea House will be affected- and it will not be. A community member who owns a building with commercial nearby speaks against the building's application for parking- mostly because it kicked out other tenants in the building. This item is going back to Land Use on Oct. 27, so we'll have more then. 7:08 PM: Chairman Chris and Rabbi Webber react to yet another miner being rescued from a mine shaft by the Chilean government.
7:09 PM: It's Steve Lenard time! City Planning analyst Steve Lenard will attempt to synthesize a 600-page document on zoning text amendments in a 10-minute presentation. If there's anyone who can do it, it's Steve, a nominee for the 2010 Facial Hair All-Stars.
We pick up mid-stream: "Another clarification is about vesting. This is a situation in which we are changing the zoning to make it change the same way it is today because we don't want to create any negative impacts from this proposal. Under the vesting rules, if the zoning changes, and you are in construction, you have to complete the foundation before vesting. In order to prevent a situation where half a lot is built on some rules and another is built on different rules- but for the purposes of vesting, it's considered one rule."
I'm so turned on right now. Does anyone want to launch a Steve Lenard planning fan club? Nate Silver can't get all the glory. C'mon Greenpoint blonde planners mafia, make this happen.
7:30 PM: Chairman Chris asks Steve to "please summarize" which draws a few laughs, before Steve notes that this is "only a small portion of the entire report." A property owner is somehow allowed to talk about his specific situation for nearly five minutes before Heather Roslund cuts him off and summarizes his point. Thankfully we move on. "Thank you very much Steve, for that intricate presentation," says Chairman Chris
7:39 PM: Chairman Chris asks Maria Batista from Diana Reyna's office to introduce herself and she announces a citizenship drive, and Chairman Chris introduces Liza Garcia as a new liaison to the community board. Debbie remains seated.
7:41 PM: Chairman Chris gives the mic to Rami Metal, who announces a new bill introduced by Councilman Steve Levin to suspend alternate side parking in areas surrounding film shoots, which receives some applause. There's an article in the Observer about it. Sam Pierre also introduces himself as the nwe Brooklyn director of community affairs "Carolyn Saunders-James retired and I definitely took her place. A lot of people told me that I have big shoes to fill but I have size 11 shoes."
7:49 PM: Chairman Chris closes the meeting and Gerry reads the second roll. We've got a quorum and there's a motion to approve the minutes. We're onto reports. I'll summarize. Chairman Chris exhorts members to take committee meetings seriously by actually attending them from time to time. District manager's report... as written. Esteban makes a motion regarding a letter about a Throop Street building, inviting the commissioner to come out for a project. The motion carries. I haven't heard about this issue yet. Will follow-up. 8:00 PM: Committee reports! Land Use kicks off and I'll summarize, but first, hey Ward Dennis. How's life in the cheap seats? Heather Roslund explains the Northside Town Hall zoning request, which was approved 2-0-0. A watershed moment for the town hall project. Heather also notes the comprehensive watershed plan meeting she attended in Borough Hall... and this goes on for a while as press row starts looking toward the ceiling for the Chilean rescue capsule to get us out of this meeting. "Hey, does this thing go to Teddy's Restaurant?"
8:20 PM Public Safety! This committee deserves its own theme music.
Tom Burrows takes the mic, as Mieszko was in Las Vegas doubling down the board's expenditures. The liquor license renewals pass easily. Tom moves onto sidewalk applications before touching on liquor license new applicants. The new licenses pass. Onto renewals, which include Pumps and The Production Lounge. Tom notes no complaints and a recommended approval, except for The Charleston, Spuyten Duyvil, Greg's Tavern and The Production Lounge, which are disapprovals. The board seconds it. Also, Tom notes that Cono's closed so it's not up for renewal.
Now Mieszko is up with the second and "more important" part of the meeting. This calls for another Doda video.
Mieszko notes there is a 200 bed men's shelter proposed for McGuinness Boulevard, one block from the Greenpoint Hotel and proceeds to recap the meeting: "More likely they were trying to defend themselves from an angry mob, and rightly so. As you can see we have no communication with Help USA. They are very bad at public relations. Clearly F. Clearly F. They are not talking to us. They have said it is way to early, but they have bought the building. It's not just for fun. The next day after the meeting, I received a petition with 700 signatures opposing the shelter... Therefore I would like the board to send a letter to Department of Homeless Services saying we are clearly in opposition to building a homeless shelter at McGuinness Boulevard." There's some bickering on the letter, as Ryan Kuonen raises the issue that Greenpoint has its own homeless problem that is badly underserved. Fortunately, Marie notes that Help USA plans to be servicing homeless men at the shelter site, and I once again remind our community leaders about proper grammar. The letter passes unanimously.
8:49 PM: Public session! We're almost done. There's just one item.
*Debra Masters and Kate Zidar note the new Superfund designation and their stormwater project, wetlands with structures 25 feet high meant to mimic the design of the Newtown Creek digester eggs, which will clean stormwater toxins that would go into Newtown Creek. And it will also be a park. And I'm on a horse.
CB1 Public Safety Chair Mieszko is back from Las Vegas, leaving a swarthy path of destruction, debts, and broken promises. In his absence, Big Tom proved remarkably effective, vetting through a list of nearly 50 liquor license applications and renewals that stretched to 10:30 pm. Two of them are worth paying attention to:
The Production Lounge, Miss Heather's favorite Greenpoint Bar, is up for renewal. It had a difficult year in 2009, following the Valentines Day almost-massacre, but its renewal passed quietly. So did Pumps Bar, which bills itself as Brooklyn's favorite strip club. Did you know that Pumps has its own myspace page? And a happy hour from 3 to 6 pm every day? Of course you do. You're reading my blog. Is it too late for Lincoln Restler to change his victory party location? Thanks Miss Heather! And yes, Consumer Affairs may have spotted a violation or two.
We're in it now. And by it, I mean the Newtown Creek Sewage Plant!
I know the posts have come infrequently these past few weeks. I'm going to try to address that going forward with some shorter bursts of links and commentary. This is one of them. Let's take a look at five stories I've written over the past week and five stories from other reporters that merit a second look.
*Ted Hamm and Williams Cole celebrate the release of the Brooklyn Rail's nonfiction anthology. They had two parties in Williamsburg this weekend, but the L-train was out, so I missed them. Fortunately, there's more to come including another reading in Fort Greene.
*And Greg Hanlon has also done some fine work for Capital New York on the New York Giants' defensive line, which looks a lot better after this weekend. We hear another article is coming.
For his 30th birthday, Greg went and got a watsu massage. Then he got sauced. And by sauce, I mean, he went to White Castle with his girlfriend and put all its sauces on a double cheeseburger and ate it. He's still recovering. Happy 30th Greg. It's all downhill from here.
As for the weekend, it's Open House New York weekend, which means that everything from Grant's Tomb to the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant will be open for the public to poke around in. The sewage plant, whose motto is "All Your Waste Belong to Us" and has been referred to as the sh#t t#ts (Thank you Miss Heather for coining that one) is becoming an October tradition for Greenpoint. I've been on the tour before. The highlight is watching people look through the peep hole where you can see everything getting processed. Fan-tastic.
Ahhh... that's right. The blog. I knew I was forgetting something the past couple of weeks. I'm working on an important story. Perhaps you've heard about it?
A Short Story would like to wish Evan Thies a happy 31st (?) birthday. Evan, you don't look a day over 26. Good luck at your consulting office fending off the advances of Ken Cosgrove.
6:15 PM: After a long summer hiatus, Community Board 1 is back in the Swinging Sixties Senior Center for the first meeting of the school year. There are 19 people in the room right now, or as it is otherwise known, Lincoln Restler’s election margin. Unlike the Restler-Cohn election, whether this meeting will be an interesting one is not too close to call. On the agenda tonight includes an appearance by Brooklyn Great Names All Star and Facial Hair Hall of Fame member Jack Hammer, who will give a presentation about the Northside Town Hall, a number of liquor licenses, and a St. Nicks Alliance’s award for the Chairman Emeritus Vinny Abate. Also, there is a very important announcement on some of the tables: All Bingo Players- We will now have Big Bingo every Tuesday this week. All Bingo Players get FREE Grilled Hot Dogs with Sauerkraut AND Coffee. Wow.
6:22 PM: Holy crap! There’s food? There is! Maybe four dozen wraps are from Food Bazaar's Michael Chironno and Chris Sung. I haven't seen food at a meeting since 2008! Mr. Chironno and Mr. Sung are immediately in the running to be MVPs of the September meeting.
6:30 pm: District Manager Gerry Esposito reads the roll call andChairman Chris clears up some rumors that there will be a discussion about the planned men’s shelter and assessment center on 400 McGuinness Bouleveard. “That’s not going to happen,” says Chairman Chris. Apparently HELP USA! did not confirm. In the meantime, there will be a special joint committee Public Safety, Human Services Committee on Sept. 27, at the Polish National Home, Driggs and Nassau Avenue, just on that one item. A representative from the Department of Homeless Services will be there, but the CEO of HELP USA! has not confirmed his attendance.
6:33 PM Sadly, Jack Hammer did not show up. I can’t tell you how deflating this is. Instead, we have Eunice Su, a project manager from HPD and Felice Kirby, VP of the Town Hall Board, to speak about the non-ULULRP UDAP. Let’s go to Felice.
“I am thrilled and proud to be on the board of the nonprofit. I am so happy to be here on behalf of so many supporters on whose shoulders we sat to save this project. We are thrilled through the hard work of the community board, we were able to stop this building from going to luxury housing and instead it’s going to be a gem for the community. The plans discussed are very rudimentary. We have to raise $2 million and we have raised $1.2 million to date.” Del Teague, chairwoman of the board at Town Hall, just entered, to applause, which was also meant for the money that was raised. Or maybe they're just big fans of Tea With the Queen.
Felice adds more context and Su explains that the city hopes to be done with all public reviews by January and notes that this is the first closed firehouse going through the public review process. Felice continues: "I don't think that the city will put a gun to our heads if we don't raise all of the money. We've heard we have this project. It was a competitive process and we won that contest among 54 competitive bids including complete theatrical companies, which were very impressive... The council money won't materialize until 2012. We need everyone in the community to tell Marty Markowitz, Joe [Lentol] and Steve Levin that this is an important project. That building is happening now. It is unstoppable. We're using it every month. You should see the artist projects that we do."
6:53 PM: Chairman Chris plows through a bunch of agenda items from presenters who are not here, skipping to Jose Leon of St. Nick's Alliance and Lisa Bamonte who will present an award to represent an award given to the Chairman Emeritus, who is 92 years old, on behalf of his work with Settlement House and the School Settlement Association. The award is a framed copy of a Greenline newspaper article about Abate's achievements. The framed picture of Abate will hang in the lobby of this building. Let's go to the Chairman Emeritus: "This is the first time in my adult life that I have not run an organization. It was always busy at times. Now I have a lot of time on my hands. I feel I've walked off the planet. Nobody calls me. They think he just wants his peace. The only peace I could find is if the big guy says come on up or if the other guy says come on down. I have to be very careful what I wish for." Chairman Chris: Thank you very much, Vinny. You're very dear to our hearts.
7:03 PM: We have a presentation from a representative with the Taxi and Limousine Commission, who is not TLC Commissioner David Yassky, to speak about a new service called the Group Ride Vehicles Pilot Program along the former B39 bus route from the Williamsburg Bridge Plaza over the Williamsburg Bridge into the Lower East Side. Esteban Duran, who lost a District Leader race to Vito Lopez yesterday, asks whether the the limos will have service to the disabled, and it's Also, the service will be cash only. And driven by this man.
7:18 PM: Diane Jackson gives a short presentation to update the community board regarding Greenpoint Renaissance Enterprise Corporation and its subsequent meetings with Housing and Preservation Development after it awarded the bid to another developer. Jackson: "It is said there is still possibility that the city has stopped discussions with the winning bidder." Unfortunately for GREC, HPD confirmed it is still awarding the Greenpoint Hospital project to TNS-Great American, and not GREC. Jackson notes several additional events at Cooper Park and arts events in Bushwick Frank Lang, Housing from St. Nicks Alliance
7:26 PM: New board member Maria Viera arrives, chatting briefly with Levin liaison Rami Metal. Standing in the doorway is Lopez superstar intern Andy Marte who is checking out the scene. Will try to find out what his reactions are to a busy day of campaigns during a break in the action. Meanwhile, Chairman Chris closes public session and we're into the board meeting. Motion to adjourn is approved and we go to the second roll.
7:30 PM Chairman Chris announces three new board members who will be sworn in: Ryan Kuonen, Maria Viera, and Moishe Zelig. Moishe isn't here, but Ryan and Maria are. 7:36 PM: Committee Reports! The Karen Nieves Era leads us off with her Transportation Report, beginning with a summary of a June committee meeting. She's reading her notes word for word, beginning with a Nassau Avenue construction update. The community's worries so far include flooding on Nassau Avenue and Jewel Street, truck traffic at PS 84, truck traffic on Wythe and Kent Avenue, the proposed Greenpoint Avenue bike lane and proposed traffic calming measures...
While Karen continues, let's welcome Juliet Linderman of the Greenpoint Gazette to Press Row! For the past hour, Linderman has been asking hipsters in McCarren Park if they would be so kind as to put out their cigarettes because it is now illegal to smoke in parks for a story. How'd that go, Linderman? "They were none too pleased."
Karen yields the floor to Julie Lawrence who talks about a kayaking event on the Pulaski Bridge- she must mean in Newtown Creek under the Pulaski Bridge- before continuing on other events.
7:51 PM: Karen finishes her report. Esteban has a question about Flushing Avenue garbage pickup and demands a letter. At this point it needs to be pointed out that this meeting is severely dragging... but to the rescue comes... Mieszko Kalita!
7:54 PM: Mieszko- "We only have two liquor licenses, but for the first time ever, one is a hotel license." Gasps from the crowd. "This is for the entire building. If it is 2 am and you desire a drink, a drink will be brought to you." This is the Graves Hotel Project, known as Hotel Williamsburg and its cafe, Streets Restaurant. It is easily approved. Mieszko notes the Sept 27 meeting about the Homeless Shelter at the Polish National Home, also known as The Warsaw. 7:58 PM: Dewey Thomspon gives an update about the $10 million Environmental Benefits Project, regarding money awarded to the community due to the city's numerous construction delays and violations. Thompson notes that the impact area for these projects (aka the cash) must be within half a mile of the impact area in Greenpoint. City Parks Foundation is in the process of evaluating where the money will go, so we're going to have to wait a bit for that decision. Dewey has his own awesome plan to build a boat house at the end of Manhattan Avenue for kayaks and canoes, but he doesn't talk about that too much.
8:07 PM: Chairman Chris welcomes Heather Roslund as the new Land Use Chairwoman. Ward Dennis sheds a tear. Roslund says that it's been a quiet summer but notes some controversy between the Java Street Pier, aka the Impro-Pier, and a phantom RFP that the city put out which went to only one developer. Linderman has been on this for a couple of weeks, and a new article in Architect's Newspaper, "Plan for Pier Floods Greenpoint," is out too. The board wrote a letter requesting the city to revoke the RFP and begin the process anew. Rami Metal mumbles through his says that Levin is on his way and will speak shortly.
8:13 PM: Public session *A new event called Willifest, the international film festival, is coming Sept 23-26. 169 films from around the world will be playing for three days. Several venues include El Puente, The Knitting Factory, Brooklyn Bowl, the new Indie Film Theater on Kent and S. 2nd, and more.
*Laura Hofmann wants to let everyone know how bad an idea it is to locate a homeless shelter on McGuinness Boulevard. She acknowledges that the homeless need a place to stay, but is disturbed by its close location to the Newtown Creek Nature Walk. Also there's a chloroform cloud at Paidge Street and Hofmann says it's unfair because homeless should not be located in an area that is unfit for habitation.
8:18 PM: Old Business. Miss Heather from New York Shitty takes the opportunity to say hello and goodbye. And we should check her blog out. Done and done.
8:26 PM: Councilman Steve Levin arrives, takes the microphone, and lays out how the whole impro-pier saga went down:
"What EDC did was put out an RFP. Didn't tell me. Didn't tell community board. I don't even know if they told folks in the administration. But they went ahead and did it anyway, with Stiles LLP, who owns the adjacent land. What they get with it is a density bonus. The whole thing is very fishy. We've taken a public stance that this RFP should be withdrawn... The community gets nothing out of it. Nothing, unless maybe if you have a historic vessel..."
Mieszko asks Levin about his position on the 400 McGuinness shelter. Levin: "I have my reservations on this. It's a temporary situation with 200 beds. It does nothing to address Greenpoint and Williamsburg's issues regarding homeless. We have issues in Greenpoint with chronic homelessness. I live on the corner of Morgan and Meeker and all winter there were homeless individuals who slept under the BQE on mattresses."
8:45 PM: New Business. Esteban has a question about a negative recommendation for the rezoning on three small site projects on Bedford and S. Third, and two lots at Maujer and Ten Eyck.
Tom Burrows asks the Community Board for another letter, a stronger letter, to the city asking for the community board' support of the GREC proposal and to reverse its award for TNS-Great American Construction. As Tish Cianciotta gives an impassioned speech demanding the need for a letter, Levin shakes hands with a few community members in the back of the room and heads out. Chairman Chris asks for a motion to vote on the letter, and then asks for a copy of the RFP from GREC. There's some quibbling from several board members who don't want to do that. The letter is approved. We have a motion to adjourn. Before that, let's do a mustache-off. Vote for your favorite Community Board 1 facial hair this month.
Hallo. I am Mieszko. Welcome back to Community Board One. It's been a long hot summer without your Community Board, but we are back in 211 Ainslie, which some call, the Swinging Sixties... Not me. I don't swing.... did I mention the summer was long... and hot... my it's hot in here right now... ...where was I? Ah yes. My committee report. We have 486 new liquor license applications which the committee recommends approval and one application which we recommend disapproval with modifications of course. This one establishment wants to open for 25 hours, which is technically, not possible... since there are only 24 hours in the day, or if you lived in the Eastern Block as I did, when there were 15 hours in the day. Very confusing. Between you and me, those 14-hour work days were... very difficult. A dark time for Poland. But back to community board.. there is a meeting tonight. The agenda is available online, but it will be very short. Very short. Shhhhhhh. It's ok. Mieszko is here. It will be alright. After, we will celebrate with beers. Welcome back, community members. I've missed you.
Linda Minucci, Joe Lentol, Vito Lopez, Kevin Peter Carroll, Jo Anne Simon and Chris Owens all won their races yesterday... but the Lincoln Restler- Warren Cohn battle remained too close to call. Restler celebrated his 20 vote margin anyway last night at Teddy's, as unofficial results put Restler ahead- barely- 50.2 percent to 48.8 percent (Kate Zidar lost to Minucci by about 400 votes though those numbers were unofficial). Both sides went to Board of Elections headquarters at 42 Broadway and are now in Sunset Park sifting through votes in order to sort this thing out. It's so close that both camps are predicting a "protacted legal battle" and A Short Story has decided to retain election attorney Martin Connor just for the hell of it. It's fourth an inches, as Warren might say, unless things get called back for a penalty, and they probably will. Stay tuned. C-O-H-N! COHN! COHN! COHN!
A baby alligator attempting to vote for Lincoln Restler in Fort Greene was picked up by officers from the 88th precinct. The alligator, which was wearing a "Reptiles for Restler" campaign button was put in the back seat of a police cruiser and taken to animal control, where it also attempted to vote for Lincoln Restler.
Meanwhile, a pigeon in South Williamsburg was seen carrying a Warren Cohn flyer in his beak flying by Taylor Wythe houses. Details to follow.
In the days before the primary, everyone and their brother is leaving giant dumps of badly written political analysis on blogs, websites, news articles, twitter feeds, etc. And this site is no exception. But someone has to sort through all that bullsh-t. Let's take a look through a busy weekend of political coverage before we screw it and go home.
*The most damning political article this week comes courtesy of the New York Post regarding how the two top Ridgewood Bushwick execs, Christiana Fisher and Angela Battaglia, saw salary increases of 180 percent and 73 percent respectively from last year's tax filings. The nonprofit, Vito's baby, has received over $21 million in earnings, a substantial portion of which is from government grants and subsidies (read: member items). Nearly every nonprofit in the city has an active and aggressive development office writing grants and holding fundraisers. In three years of covering RBSCC, I have not encountered one.
Okay, you've done all the required reading. Let's get to some highlights:
*The nastiest spat on the trail has occurred between (surprise) Jo Anne Simon and Hope Reichbach. Simon eviscerated Reichbach in a post on Brooklyn Heights Blog that's more about Vito than Hope. Reichbach bit back in another guest post. Also, Alan Fleischman apparently filed a formal complaint against Hope's dad, Judge Gus Reichbach, for participating in her campaign and Simon's husband made an off-hand remark about Hope's physical appearance. Vito also made an off-handed remark about Jo Anne's physical appearance a year ago at his picnic, so, this means they're even, right? Anyway, Hope has a new video out.
*I believe it's time that we had a grammar lesson. In Warren Cohn's campaign literature, there's a line that reads: Warren was raised with a commitment to service others. In the Post, Vito is quoted saying Ridgewood Bushwick "does an outstanding job servicing the residents of north Brooklyn." Guys, you don't want to use the word servicing as a verb in the present participle because it means something vastly different than what you think it does.
*Finally, some blanket predictions. I believe that every district leader candidate in Brooklyn younger than 37 will win tomorrow, with two exceptions: Jesse Owens and Esteban Duran. Williamson will take the 52nd without cracking 40 percent and Vito will likely trounce, earning over 70 percent of the vote. And I think Restler and Cohn is heading for a recount, with Restler up by under 100 votes. I have absolutely no idea what is going to happen tomorrow and I'm not basing this on anything, so if Simon holds off Reichbach, Owens or Strauss emerge victorious, or if Restler or Cohn wins big... well...
I did not actually take any of your campaign signs, although I was extremely tempted to do so. I applaud your courage for running for Probate Judge in the Norwich Probate District (not Windham County as I previously wrote) as it should make for compelling political journalism over the next coming months.
I am also slightly afraid of you for the fact that you have your own fight move, the "roundhouse kick," registered with the U.S. Patent Office and that you once wrestled and killed a bear with your bare hands to save Cybill Shepherd.
In conclusion, I am including my address below so that your campaign could send a Chuck Norris for Probate Judge poster, which I will pose with and photograph on my blog at a later date, but not and I repeat not for the purpose of tracking me down to deliver a well-deserved Chuck Norris-style butt-kicking.
With great esteem,
Aaron Short 121 St. Nicholas Avenue #3B Brooklyn, NY 11237
From Marty's lips to your ears... L'Shana Tovah! And if you find yourself out of braided challah, kosher chicken, and rams horns, check out my shopping guide to Lee Avenue! Next year in South Williamsburg!
After a relaxing hiatus in the wilderness, A Short Story is back and posting (hopefully) regularly from here on out. Quick Connecticut note. Did you know that there's a Republican candidate from Windham County running for probate judge and his name is... Chuck Norris? Route 32 is blanketed in Chuck Norris for Probate signs. Guess how many I stole?
Chuck Norris of Norwich, CT demonstrates his unique brand of windshield justice.
A set of political links is coming later today, but, first, a new school year beckons. Where better to launch the new academic year than the Harbor School on Governor's Island? I couldn't find a video of the students starting maritime classes on the island, so enjoy this video of a school bus getting hit by a train instead. Happy new year!
Beloved Parks spokesman Phil Abramson is shifting over from Brooklyn to cover Manhattan, where the grass is greener, so to speak. I mean, have you seen Bryant Park these days? Nevertheless, he will still come to major events, possibly whenever McCarren Park Pool opens to jump in it with Marty Markowitz. Below from the desk of Phil:
After over four years of serving as the Parks Department’s Brooklyn press liaison, I am shifting over to focus on inquiries pertaining to Manhattan... And I’ll still be around / filling in here and there, so I’m sure we’ll all still speak!
