October, 2009Archive for

Weekend Walks in Crown Heights

Photo Credit: NYC Dept. of Transportation  From the Department of Transportation (DOT:  Over the last two years DOT assisted businesses and community groups in all five boorugh to host temporary pedestrian streets, by closing streets to motor vehicles on weekend days and opening them to people and local businesses.  To see photos and learn about the 2009 Weekend Walks program please visit http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/weekendwalks/html/home/home.shtml.  DOT has identified...

Arabic Conversation Group

Every Tuesday through December 15th, the central branch of the Brooklyn Public Library hosts an Arabic Conversation Group.  All Brooklynites are invited to join other adults who enjoy speaking and practicing Arabic in a comfortable stting.  The group runs from 6:00pm - 7:30pm in the Multilingual Center.  It's free and registration is not required.  Their next meeting is this Tuesday, November 3, at 6pm.

City Council Election Heats Up

With election day four days away the race for who will represent the 36th District in the city council is beginning to heat up.  Challenger Mark Winston Griffith started the week off strong with endorsements from two prominent politicos Charles Barron and Al Sharpton and held a slew of well attended events throughout the week including a meet and greet at Tavern on Nostrand.  Similarly, Al Vann corralled his own slate of endorsemnts and capped the week with a brand new mailing showing ...

Sterling Place Halloween Party

Sterling Place Community Association is having a block party and Costume Parade on Saturday October, 31st.  The block party starts at noon and the Costume Parade is scheduled to be held later in the afternoon.  Festivities will take place on Sterling Place between Nostrand and New York Avenues. 

Affordable Housing Forum!

From the Crown Heights Revitalization Movement: FORUM ON AFFORDABLE HOUSING Date: Thursday October 29th   Location: The Atrium at The Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation, 520 Prospect Place (entrance is on Classon bet. Prospect and Park Places)   Time: 7:00 PM to 9:30 PM Space is limited.  To assure space will be available for you, please RSVP to:  crownheightsrm@gmail.com   About the Forum: On Thursday, October 29th The Crown Heights Revitalization Movement is spon...

Re-Designing Crown Heights

Last week we asked readers whether blogs can help "design" a community.  This poll question followed up on an earlier video featuring a presentation by Tim Brown explicating his concept of "design thinking."  In an era where everyone "has a blog" and hyperlocal websites are fast replacing newspapers as people's primary news source, we were interested in igniting a conversation about what is now the purpose of weblogs given that they have become both ubiquitous and utilitarian (sometime...

Bloomberg Bashes Rudy Giuliani

Feinberg/AP via New York Daily NewsYou will never read the above headline in any of the local papers, but quiet as its kept,  a key component of Michael Bloomberg's assault on opponent Bill Thompson's political record is a stealth indictment of his predecessor in Gracie Mansion.  Time and again Bloomberg and his allies have referred to Thompson's reign as President of the Board of Education.  These repeated referrences have the effect of making people believe that Thompson was thi...

Hot Spots for Hot Joe

Looks like the Franklin/Classon corridor's becoming the hot spot for a hot cup of joe in Crown Heights. Of course, we've blogged about the Glass Shop on Classon a couple of times now.   And now, as I Love Franklin Avenue reports, two more coffee shops are opening on Franklin.  You can check out ILFA or Brooklynian for more news about the newest spots - Pulp and Bean and the Breukelen Coffee House.

Crime – Down in the City, Up in Crown Heights

Yesterday, a poster on Brooklynian shared some distressing (though as the poster points out, not altogether surprising) statistics about Crown Heights.  While crime in the city is down, crime in Crown Heights - in particular homicides -  is up. Just the other day, our state Senator Eric Adams (who is a former police officer) posted a hortatory message regarding the need for active citizen involvement to keep our community safe: If we want safe communities, we will have...

Can Blogs “Design” a Community?

Can Blogs Help "Design" a Community?(answers)