The Gypsy Moves Out

One day she was there, on 5th Avenue near the corner of 72nd, beckoning the vulnerable with her penetrating gaze, and the next day she was gone, lock, stock, baby and tiny dog.

She'd been there for nearly a year, and had recently upgraded the look of the place, but still no business.

I guess people around here just aren't too curious about their futures.

Torched?

The Daily News reports that the devastating Saturday morning fire in Bensonhurst that killed 5 people -- including a heroic mother who threw her 2 children to safety -- and injured 14, including 13 firefighters and a 2-month-old baby who hit the sidewalk headfirst after being thrown from a 3rd floor apartment -- looks like arson.

The baby's mother died in the fire.

There was a sushi restaurant on the first floor.  Investigators regard the fact that the fire started behind the first-floor door leading to the upper floors as suspicious.

There were 20 people packed inside 4 apartments on the upper floors -- which looked to be illegally converted.  The occupants couldn't escape through the hallways because the fire had engulfed the stairwell all the way up to the roof.

The 4 adults found dead in a 4th floor apartment were trapped inside by child safety bars on the windows. The rear fire escape was also blocked by furniture on one floor.

The building, which had no smoke detectors, was gutted by the 3-alarm blaze.

Firefighters responded within three minutes, and battled the fire for nearly 3 hours.

The article from the Daily News.

More from Huffpost.

From the Daily News, the torch may have been caught on video, and it looks like the baby is going to make it.

Video of the suspect from NY1.

More from Queens Crap.

More from the Courier.

Are you living in an illegal conversion?

"What's New?"

"Aw, nuttin' much.  What's new wit' chew?"
"Nuttin, really. Sun sure feels good."
"Peanuts over by the trash basket."
"Maybe later, once I warm up."

Link Roundup

The cats of Coney Island -- and those who care about them.

JD Salinger, who wrote Catcher in the Rye, the most influential book of my young life, passed away.

Salinger remembered by the Bowery Boys.

One of my favorite musicians, Kate McGarrigle, sister of Anna and mother of Rufus and Martha Wainwright, also passed recently.

Suspicious fire in illegal conversion in Bensonhurst. Five people are dead.

McMahon:  Scott Brown's election not Obama's fault.

Open House at Holy Angels Academy

There will be an open house at the new Holy Angels Catholic Academy (formerly Our Lady of Angels) from 10 AM to 12 PM on Sunday, January 31, at 337 74th Street in Bay Ridge.

Holy Angels, a co-educational Catholic school offering nursery through 8th grade, has been in Bay Ridge since 1924, and offers Brooklyn's largest scholarship program for pre-K through junior high school students.

For more information about the open house, call the school at 718-238-5045.

Tour "Lapskaus Boulevard"

On Sunday, March 7, Bay Ridge preservationist Victoria Hofmo, who heads the Scandinavian East Coast Museum, will lead a walking tour of "Norwegian Brooklyn", today a mini-Chinatown along Sunset Park's 8th Avenue.

Not long ago, however, this area, known locally as "Lapskaus Boulevard" after the Norwegian stew, was the heart of Brooklyn's Norwegian community -- the third largest in the world.

The tour will focus on the area's remaining Norwegian influence and the hybridization of the Norwegian with more recent cultural influences.

The cost is $25.00.

The tour is folded into the Historic District Council's 16th Annual Preservation Conference, "Preservation in New York City:  The Next Generation", from March 5 through 7, opening Friday, March 5 at 6 PM at the LGBT Community Center, 208 West 13th Street in Manhattan.

The conference continues Saturday, March 6, beginning at 8:30 AM, at St. Francis College, 180 Remsen Street in Brooklyn Heights.

Hofmo's is one of 6 walking tours being offered on Sunday the 7th, including:  The Grand Concourse in the Bronx, Lamartine Place in Chelsea, Midtown Manhattan, Parchester in the Bronx, and West End Avenue in Manhattan.

Meeting times, locations and directions will be provided upon registration. Tours generally start between 10 and 1 and last about 2 1/2 hours.

To register for the conference, call the HDC at 212-614-9107 or e-mail bdc@hdc.org.

Registration closes February 26.

Valentine's Love Wanted

The 5th Annual "Lovey Dovey" pet adoption event will take place on Saturday, February 13, at Our Saviors Lutheran Church, 414 80th Street (between 4th and 5th Avenues) in Bay Ridge, from 1PM through 4:30 PM, rain or shine.

ID, proof of address and an adoption fee are required.

Animals are provided courtesy of the North Shore Animal League and New York City Animal Care and Control.

OLA Winter Recess Camp

Our Lady of Angels School (soon to become Holy Angels Academy), at 74th Street between 3rd and 4th Avenues in Bay Ridge, will host a Winter Recess Camp from Monday, February 15th through Friday, February 19th, for boys and girls ages 4 through 16.

The program includes basketball, soccer, tennis, baseball, ice skating, arts and crafts, movies, "Bounce U", and, depending on the weather, sleighing.

Extended day transport is available.

For further information, call 718-745-7776.

Notable Brooklyn Bloggers

Neighborhood reporter Dan Cavanaugh of Gerritsonbeach.net, local girl Miss Heather of Greenpoint's New York Shitty, outsider foodie Danny of Food in Mouth, neighborhood activist Jeremy Sapienza of Bushwick BK, indie music maven Dave of Brooklyn Vegan, and tastemaker Keith Ulich of Slant Magazine's The House Next Door have been chosen by the Village Voice as among the New York City bloggers who best exemplify the term "citizen journalist".

Before Dan Cavanagh, a Gerritsen Beach native, started blogging about his deep-in-the-heart of Brooklyn neighborhood in 2006, it was virtually uncharted journalistic territory.  Cavanaugh wanted to give Gerritsen Beach, which has much in common with other South Brooklyn neighborhoods, a more recognizably human face.

Cavanagh works his beat, going to precinct and community board meetings, reporting on and sometimes posting videos of them on his site -- something his readers appreciate.

Cavanagh breaks stories, sometimes tweaking corporate types like Nobody Beats the Wiz founder Stephen Jemal, who hacked the site in retaliation for a negative post.

Miss Heather's NewYorkShitty was initially premised on the dog-shit problem in Greenpoint, which had reached crisis proportions by the time she published a series of "Crap Maps" of her neighborhood in 2006, and, unexpectedly, got a readership.

She branched out from there to include photos, reports, interviews, and neighborhood commentary.

Shitty has, to Miss Heather's surprise and gratitude, emerged as an online forum for people to exchange information, air their feelings about local events, or simply blow off steam.

Both Cavanaugh and Miss Heather, who essentially function as beat reporters in their neighborhoods, have had their stories stolen by the mainstream media, something that Heather says "takes a special kind of arrogance".

Outsider foodie Danny's Food in Mouth, started in 2007,  is a beautifully-produced blog that delivers first-rate writing.

Jeremy Sapienza's newsy, culturally-astute Bushwick BK -- don't call it a blog -- delivers the deep Bushwick dish, stuff only the locals know or care about, as well as community news, event listings and ads.

Started in 2007 as a way for newcomer Sapienza to learn about the neighborhood, the site, which now earns ad revenue and has paid contributors, is gradually featuring more coverage reflecting Bushwick's changing demographic -- from old timers to the "creative class".

Anonymous blogger "Dave's" Brooklyn Vegan, started in 2004, is a local music site, indie and up-to-the-minute. Dave went full-time two years ago when the site, which now earns modest ad revenues, pushed his job out of the picture.

Fans come together in the comments section of BV and give candid feedback about indie rock bands -- and it often ain't pretty.  But getting ripped on BV is apparently regarded as a rite of passage in the Brooklyn music scene.

Keith Ulich's never-snarky House Next Door, the blog of Slant Magazine, is mostly about film and TV, but has emerged as one of the city's preeminent culture blogs -- both high and low.

The article from the Village Voice.

Unionized City Workers Threatened

In his new proposed budget, Mayor Bloomberg threatens to lay off unionized city workers or flat-line their wages -- unless they agree at the bargaining table to pay more for health care or take smaller pensions.

Saying that the "world has changed" and that city workers have (in so many words) to suck it up, the mayor has taken the money set aside for a 1.25% salary increase to help fill the shortfall in the city's budget -- even as the city's tax revenues produced $1.7 billion more than projected.

More cuts are in the pipeline for next fiscal year.

Bloomberg has threatened to lay off 834 city workers - including 299 at libraries, 186 at cultural institutions and 141 at the Health Department; to close 20 fire companies and eliminate the fifth firefighter from 60 engine companies; and to trim 892 NYPD officers through attrition, trimming overtime by $25 million this year and $50 million the next.

So far, Bloomberg does not plan to raise taxes again.

Bloomberg has accused Gov. Paterson's proposed state budget of cheating the city out of $1.3 billion, which the mayor says will force him to cut the city's unionized workforce -- including 3,150 cops and 1,050 firefighters.

The article from the Daily News.

Sounds like Brooklyn at BAM

BAM's Sounds Like Brooklyn Music Festival features some of Brooklyn's best music, performed over two concert-packed weekends at BAM and at clubs all over Brooklyn.

Sounds Like Brooklyn features artists from all over the borough, from Bed-Stuy to Brighton Beach, showcasing the vibrancy and diversity of the Brooklyn music scene.

The festival opens with Les Savy Fav and the Vivian Girls at 8 PM this Friday, January 29, at BAM Fort Greene, 30 Lafayette Avenue.

For the complete festival lineup, click here.

Life After Marty?

DUMBO's L Magazine has endorsed 29-year-old Gravesend-native Mike DiSanto, an NYU graduate student, as the first person in the past decade with the "cojones" to stand up to State Senator Marty Golden's Bay Ridge political machine.

According to L, Golden's honeymoon may be over.  The magazine characterizes the prominent same-sex marriage opponent as a dirty politician who should be "cleansed" from Albany.

Noting that incumbents are notoriously difficult to unseat from state office — a leading cause of what it calls "Albany's severe dysfunction" — L sees evidence that Golden is increasingly vulnerable in a "slowly liberalizing" Bay Ridge -- now on the verge of getting a Park Slope-like Food Co-Op.

The article from L Magazine.

More from the Brooklyn Paper.

More from Atlas Shrugs in Brooklyn.

And what of Brian Kieran?  Still in the mix?

Hydrofracking Protest Draws Hundreds

Despite the foul weather, hundreds of environmental activists from around the state converged on Albany Monday morning to protest Governor Paterson's plan to allow hydrofracking for natural gas in New York City's watershed.

Hydrofracking threatens to contaminate New York City's drinking water.  Environmental groups want the governor to delay the plan to allow hydrofracking in western New York until the state can ensure the safety of the process.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, in Albany to testify at joint budget hearings, supported the protesters, noting that the potential consequences of hydrofracking near our water supply are so severe that we cannot afford the risk.

The article from Gotham Gazette.

The New York City Department of Environmental Protection's statement on hydrofracking.

The Gale's Aftermath

Water Street, Monday evening, January 25th.

St. Patrick's Day 2010

St. Patrick's Day Dance

On Saturday, Feb. 6, the Irish American Brooklyn Parade Committee will sponsor a St. Patrick's Day dance at St. Patrick's Church, 4th Avenue at 97th Street in Bay Ridge, from 8 PM until midnight.

Music will be provided by "Black Velvet Band", featuring Ricky O'Shea.

Call 718-941-2887 for tickets.

St. Patrick's Day Parade

This year's Bay Ridge St. Patrick's Day Parade will take place on Sunday, March 28 at 1 PM.

Lineup begins on Marine and 4th Avenues at 12 Noon, with step-off at 1 PM at St. Patrick's Church, 95th Street and 4th Avenue, proceeding north on 4th Avenue to 5th Avenue and then on 5th Avenue down to 59th Street at OLPH, where the parade disperses.

The grandstand will be at 75th Street and 5th Avenue.

This year's parade is dedicated to John (Butchie) McGoldrick and Shamus O'Toole.

For information about the parade, or to buy raffle tickets, contact Jerry Callahan at 917-582-7171 or  jercal@aol.com.

More from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.

A profile of the grand marshal, from the Daily Eagle.

Profiles of the deputy grand marshalls, from the Daily Eagle.

The parade lineup from the Daily Eagle.

The parade website.

The Park Slope parade.

Bay Ridge vs. Reckless Drivers

Pedestrian advocates in Bay Ridge, angered by the number of pedestrian deaths on neighborhood streets, have organized a petition drive to publicize the seeming epidemic of reckless driving in the neighborhood.

Their petition, delivered to Community Board 10 at its January meeting, contends that drivers do not respect the pedestrian right of way, the speed limit or the traffic laws.

The petitioners, most of them parents outraged over the hazards pedestrians face in Bay Ridge, are asking for better traffic enforcement, pointing out that the neighborhood's large cohorts of senior citizens and new immigrant families make it more pedestrian-oriented than ever.

The group's Facebook site, mounted earlier this month, already has 112 members. A notice posted on the site brought 15 members of the group to the CB 10 meeting.

The most dangerous streets in Bay Ridge, according to the group, are Third and Fourth Avenues, Shore Road, Bay Ridge Parkway, the streets around Owls Head park, and those near Russell Pederson Playground, at Colonial Road and 84th Street.

In addition to better traffic enforcement, the group wants to increase public awareness of and respect for the rights of pedestrians.

The article from Yournabe.com

More from BK Southie.

Link Roundup

BK Southie on the impact of the proposed MTA service cuts on South Brooklyn.

Looks like Marty Golden is finally getting some competition, from Democrat Brian Kieran.

The 411 from the architects involved in the Domino Sugar factory renovation.

Brooklyn weekly events calendar from the New York Post.

Staten Island Live's Tom Wroblewski plugs alt-GOP blog Atlas Shrugs in Brooklyn.

Atlas gives Marty Golden hell for endorsing a Democrat.

At Brooklyn's landmarked Gage and Tollner's, an Arby's is born.

Crazed luxury condo dweller goes on egg-throwing rampage in Park Slope.

Mayor Bloomberg delivers a muted 9th State of the City address. OTBKB comments.

City's Council's re-shuffling of committee chairs leaves Charles Barron without a seat.

Spread-Thighs beware:  the NYPD is comin' fer you!

The State Legislature passes an ethics bill.  Gov. Paterson says he'll veto it.

New York Brit reacts to the recent U.S. Supreme Court case that has unleashed corporate lobbyists on our democracy.

Haiti relief links from President Obama.

Haiti relief links from the New York Times.

Reverend Billy in Tribeca

Reverend Billy and the Life After Shopping Gospel Choir will appear on Saturday, February 6 at 8:00 PM at 92Y Tribeca, at 200 Hudson Street in Manhattan.  (Take the 1, A, C or E to Canal Street.)

Doors open at 7:00 PM.

For more information, please contact the church office at 646-299-3019 or Revbilly@revbilly.com.

The Reverend sees the fading of consumerism in 2009 -- the 6% fall in gross revenues and big retail's flat-lined Christmas -- as good things, and looks forward to the death of the sweatshop era and the arrival of a new economy characterized by blank billboards, de-commercialized schools and public parks without private development.

Reverend Billy and his consort, Savitri D., broadcast a weekly "Hour of Power" video at 2 PM EST, viewable at revbilly.com

J Street at Prince George Ballroom

J Street, the political arm of the pro-Israel/pro-peace movement, will hold a kickoff for their new local organizing effort on Thursday, February 4th, at 7 PM at the Prince George Ballroom,15 East 27th Street in Manhattan.

The event will feature a live video broadcast of J Street Executive Director Jeremy Ben-Ami, the chance to meet and schmooze with other mid-east peace activists, and the chance to share ideas and strategize.

If you can't make it to the event, but want to get notice of future events, click here.

If you know someone outside the area that might want to get involved with J Street local, you can send them a J Street map so they can find a local near them.    

Click here to RSVP for the local event.

Roe vs. Wade Turns 37

Landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision Roe vs. Wade, which legalized abortion, turned 37 on Friday.

In those 37 years, the right to choose abortion has been under unceasing attack from the religious right, resulting in legal restrictions, mandatory waiting periods, prohibitions on federal funding, clinic closings, murdered doctors, bomb threats, the demonization of the procedure, and persistent attempts to outlaw it.

Even now, one of the most significant restrictions on access since Roe vs. Wade lurks in the language of the failed health care reform bill, which would have essentially wiped out health insurance coverage for abortions.

Whether the U.S. will ever acknowledge that abortion is health care seems to depend on how willing we are to listen to women:  to the woman forced by her cancer diagnosis to choose between their own survival and the survival of her fetus; to the very young woman who chooses to terminate her accidental pregnancy; to the woman whose fetus would not survive for more than a few hours after birth if carried to term; to the woman who will never be able to have another child unless she terminates this pregnancy.

The language in the existing bill, which would only have excepted "life-threatening" situations, would have left all of these women without coverage.

Restricting access to health care coverage will not deter women from getting abortions:  it will only change the ways they find to pay for them, and make it harder for them to find a qualified provider.  They will delay medical care or be forced outside the medical establishment for an abortion they can afford.

That Congress would have been willing to curtail women's health care coverage to this extent, given the fact that abortion is not only a legal medical procedure, but one so common that 1 in every 3 women will have the procedure in her lifetime, is shocking to me. Each woman's choice is unique to her, but ultimately, the decision is about her health care -- not my, or anyone else's, religious beliefs.

The article from Huffpost.

Hydrofracking Rally in Albany on Monday

According to an e-mail blast from Environmental Advocates of New York, there will be a rally in Albany on Monday, January 25, from 10:30 to noon, to protect New York State from hydrofracking for natural gas.

Concerned citizens from across the state will travel to the Capitol to hear from state lawmakers, county legislators and environmental groups about the consequences of hydrofracking in the Catskills, Central New York and the Southern Tier.

The event is sponsored by Environmental Advocates of New York, Citizens Campaign for the Environment, Sierra Club-Atlantic Chapter, Catskill Mountainkeeper, and dozens of other environmental and conservation groups state-wide.

The meet-up point in Albany will be on the west side of the State Capitol building, in West Capitol Park.

In other states, hydrofracking for natural gas has polluted wells, lakes and streams and poisoned landscapes. This could happen in New York -- if we let it.

The organizers have chartered buses. The cost is $10 per person.

Click below for a form you can fill out and submit online:

If you are coming from New York City, click here. The New York City bus will leave from the corner of 33rd Street and 8thAve (Penn Station) at 6:30 am.

If you are coming from Syracuse, click here.

If you are coming from Horseheads, click here.

If you care coming from Ithaca, click here.

If you are coming from Sullivan County, Oneonta or Binghamton, click here.

Click here for more information about hydrofracking for natural gas in New York.

Hyer-Spencer Would Restrict Hydrofracking

State Assembly Member Janele Hyer-Spencer is advocating the passage of a bill, A.8748, that would ban drilling for natural gas within 5 miles of New York City's watershed.

In a mailing this week, Hyer-Spencer urged voters to fill out and return a self-addressed postcard, attached to the mailing, urging Gov. Paterson to ban drilling for natural gas in or near the city's watershed, which risks contaminating our water supply, threatening public health and costing taxpayers billions of dollars to remedy.

Hyer-Spencer notes, in her mailing, that hydrofracking, the drilling method proposed to extract natural gas from New York State's Marcellus Shale, has a scary environmental record. Here are some examples, from a 2009 report, "Uncalculated Risk", published by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer.

• Pennsylvania's Environmental Protection Agency advised against drinking the water from 11 out of 39 wells near hydrofracking sites in Philadelphia after it found they were contaminated by carcinogens.
• In Ohio, investigators found, after a house near a natural gas well blew up, that the explosion was caused when the tap water, pumped full of methane by the pressure from nearby hydrofracking, caught fire.
• In Wyoming, a well dug by hydrofracking was found to be contaminated with benzene -- a toxic chemical that destroys bone marrow and causes anemia and hemorraging -- at 1,500 times the level believed to be safe.
  
• In Alabama, families living near a hydrofacking site found, when they turned on their faucet, that their drinking water had been contaminated by crude petroleum and sulfur.

More on the hydrofracking debate here and here and here.

Hope you remembered to return your postcard.

"White Irish Drinkers" Shoots in Bay Ridge

When a neighbor told me the name of the movie shooting on 5th Avenue a few months back, I thought she must have gotten it wrong.

"White Irish Drinkers?", I said.  "That's so, um, clunky.  Sounds like some kind of slur -- or a demographic."

But, according to the New York Times, that's the name.

Screenwriter John Gray, who created "Ghost Whisperer", spent $600,000 of the money he made from that show to produce the film, a coming-of-age story set in 1970s' Bay Ridge, featuring actors Gray has worked with, including "Crossing Delancey's" Peter Riegart.

Making the film independently represented Gray's decision to choose his own direction, despite the financial risk.

Gray wrote the screenplay and directed the film, now in postproduction.

The article from the New York Times.

More from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.

More from LoHud.

More from the Brooklyn Eagle.

More from the Wall Street Journal.

More from L Magazine.

More from the Daily News.

City Faulted in Gennaro Montello's Death

The Daily News reports that, according to the State Department of Labor, the accident that killed Gennaro Montello a year ago at the Owl's Head Treatment Plant in Bay Ridge was the fault of Montello's employer, the city's Department of Environmental Protection.

According to the DOL report, the DEP, by failing to remove the acknowledged hazard that caused Montello's death, committed a "willful violation".

Montello was killed by a conveyor set up by a private contractor, mounted on rollers. According to the report, the manufacturer warned the DEP, 4 months before Montello was killed, that this created a dangerous condition, but the DEP did nothing.

The DEP has appealed the findings of the report.

At the time of his death, the 45-year-old Montello, who was the father of two teenagers, was working 3 jobs -- and trying for a better job as a glazier.

The article from the Daily News.

Unemployment Hits 17-Year High

In December, according to the New York Times, New York City's unemployment rate went up to 10.6%, a 17-year high -- indicating continued economic volatility.

Last month, for the first time since the recession began 2 years ago, the city's unemployment rate topped the nation's, which is holding steady at 10%.

There were almost 425,000 New Yorkers pounding the pavement for work in December, the highest number in 33 years.

The city shed 2,400 tourism-related jobs last month and, although retail jobs were added, hiring lagged its usual pace.

The article from the New York Times.

Link Roundup

CB 10 faces a proposed 22% budget cut.

Bay Ridge Food Co-op organizers take a tour of the Park Slope Co-op.

Bay Ridge's infamous Terrone brothers appear in court.

Rick Lazio stumps at the Bay Ridge Manor.

Elliot Sefrin publishes "Bay Ridge Before the Bridge".

BK Farmyards advocates backyard farming.

Rally in Gowanus against proposed MTA bus cuts.

Residential real estate sales in Brooklyn up, prices down.

Skylight opens at Williamsburg Savings Bank building.

From Queens Crap via City Noise, 13 lessons I learned in Brooklyn.

Public Advocate Big Bill DiBlasio comes out swinging.

The state Legislature refuses to lift the cap on charter schools.

Joel Klein lifts the city's ban on PTA bake sales -- but only for Haiti.

The New York Times photo wall for the missing in Haiti.

Verizon offers free calls to Haiti.

Tax City

According to the New York Post, the average New York City household will pay up to $2,300 in additional taxes and fees this year.

The city's general sales tax has gone up from 4 to 4.5%, which, combined with the 4% state sales tax and a commuter tax, will add 8.875% to most purchases -- and the city's 4.5% sales tax on clothing over $110 is back.

The Bloomberg administration, on the downlow, has tacked the new 4.5 % sales tax onto our gas and electric bills to raise another $74 million, so, based on a typical Con Ed bill, each New York City household will pay an estimated $28.50 more this month alone.

New York City homeowners will pay 7% more in property taxes this year, which landlords will likely pass on to their tenants in the form of rent hikes. The average property-tax bill for a single-family home in Brooklyn will jump by an estimated $184.  Condo owners can expect to pay an estimated $71 more.

Families with kids in college face a 15% CUNY tuition increase, up from $4,000 to $4,600, as of last September.  At CUNY community colleges, the increase is 13.4%, up from $2,500 to $3,175. Another 2% tuition hike is in the works.

Tuition at SUNY has gone up from $4,660 to $5,070 since last year.

The state Legislature has hiked more than 50 state taxes and fees to generate an additional $8 billion in revenues this fiscal year.

State taxes on utilities, health insurers and car-insurance companies have also been increased --  and will be passed down to consumers.

The article from the New York Post. 

Photo courtesy of Forgotten New York

Flotsam and Jetsam

Shore Road Promenade embankment on a blissfully sunny Martin Luther King Day,

Simone Dinnerstein Signed by Sony

Brooklyn's Simone Dinnerstein, called "the Gen X pianist's pianist” has been signed exclusively by Sony Classical.

Her international following grew out of the remarkable success of her privately-financed recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations. Released in 2007, it ranked No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard Classical Chart in its first week of sales and was named to "Best of 2007" lists by The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and The New Yorker.

Dinnerstein’s first album for Sony Classical will be announced in spring 2010.

In her native Park Slope, Dinnerstein has founded Neighborhood Concerts at P.S. 321, where her son goes to school and her husband teaches fifth grade. The concerts feature musicians Dinnerstein has admired and collaborated with during her career, donating their time and talent to benefit the P.T.A.

Dinnerstein is a graduate of The Juilliard School, where she was a student of Peter Serkin.

For more information, visit the website.

T.C. Boyle at Powerhouse Arena

Prolific author T.C. Boyle, on tour for his latest book, "The Tortilla Curtain", will give a reading on Friday, January 29 at 7 PM at the Powerhouse Arena, 37 Main Street in DUMBO.

For more information, call 718-666-3049.

RSVP to wildchild@powerhousearena.com.

Boyle will read, discuss and sign "Wild Child", his new collection of short stories, and the new paperback edition of "The Women".

"Wild Child", a collection of 14 stories, has been described as having "astonishing range and imaginative muscle".  The collection includes Boyle's "moving and magical" retelling of the story of Victor, the feral boy captured naked in the forests of Napoleonic France.

The stories showcase the mischievous humor and social consciousness that have made Boyle one of the most acclaimed writers of our time.

Boyle, who describes himself as "a ham", says he reads because he loves to remind his audiences that literature is alive, fun and entertaining.

"Garden City's Penn Station"

New York City's Landmarks Conservation Commission may be quixotic, but the city at least has a landmarks law.  In suburban towns lacking landmark laws, beautiful historic buildings -- even those listed in the National Register of Historic Places -- lack any protection.

Case-in-point is 130-year-old St. Paul’s School, closed in 1991, in affluent Long Island suburb Garden City.

Nearly 20 years after the village of Garden City acquired St. Paul's and its surrounding athletic fields, it is planning to tear down the 4-story red brick school, with its spires and gargoyles, its slate roof and keystoned windows, and its Harry Potter Gothic charm.

The village has not been able to decide what to do with the High Victorian Gothic building, listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

To local preservationists, what is happening to St. Pauls' underscores the predicament of historic buildings in suburban towns.

In the United States, the legal power to designate landmarks defaults to local municipalities.  Federal and state governments, which can take private property by eminent domain, have no power to preserve historic buildings.  Because Garden City has no local landmark ordinance, St. Paul's cannot be legally protected.

Thousands of significant buildings in New York City's suburbs, including the deteriorating former Woolworth estate in Glen Cove and master architect Eero Saarinen's Bell Labs in Holmdel, N.J., are exposed to demolition.  Each village must determine whether to protect its landmark buildings, and many resist landmarking because they don't want to restrict property owners.

The recession, according to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, has not helped the situation, because there is now less money available to restore and maintain old buildings -- making demolition-by-neglect more likely.

Garden City, founded by Alexander Turney Stewart in 1869, was always upscale, filled with graceful Victorian homes.  But the village has lost several of its historic buildings, including McKim, Mead and White's Garden City Hotel and St. Mary’s School for Girls.

St. Paul’s school, built by Stewart’s widow in his honor, was supposed to be different.

In 1993, the village bought the school from the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island as part of a 48-acre parcel for $7.25 million, and a committee was formed to come up with a plan for the school.

The building needed work -- tens of millions of dollars of work.  Some village leaders grumbled that taxpayers would not or could not pay for it. The village rejected proposals to use the building as a library, as a town hall or as a high school, preferring to consider private uses.  This angered local residents, shut out of the discussion, who felt that the building should be put to public use.

As the bickering continued, the building continued to deteriorate.  In 2003, the Preservation League of New York State listed the endangered school on its “Seven to Save” list.

In December of last year, residents vetoed a developer’s plan to convert the school into rental apartments, voting instead to tear down it down -- and save about $100,000 a year in maintenance costs.

An environmental review, and a vote on whether to pay $6 million for the demolition, are pending.

The article from the New York Times.

Preservationists Win Battle to Landmark Church

Last week, the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the West Park Presbyterian Church at Amsterdam Avenue and 86th Street in Manhattan a local landmark.

The 116-year-old church is regarded as one of New York’s finest examples of Romanesque Revival religious architecture.

Preservationists waged a 20-year battle to landmark the church, now no longer in use.

LPC chair Robert B. Tierney called the church, with its deep red sandstone cladding, broad round-arch openings and soaring tower, the "architectural touchstone" of the neighborhood, saying that it endowed its Upper West Side corner with an unmistakable sense of place -- as Bay Ridge's now-demolished Green Church once did the corner of Ovington and Fourth Avenues.

The LPC designated 5 other landmarks last week, including an Italian Renaissance-style commercial building at 311 Broadway between Duane and Thomas Streets; the Dollar Savings Bank’s former headquarters on Third Avenue in the Bronx; the Classical Revival Ridgewood Theater on Myrtle Avenue in Queens; the Victorian Eclectic P.S. 66 in Richmond Hills, Queens; and the Greek Revival-style Mary and David Burger House in Stapleton, Staten Island.

But West Park Presbyterian was the hottest preservation controversy among the newly-designated buildings.  For years, preservationists had battled with congregants who virulently opposed landmarking the church, claiming it would impose a crushing financial burden on the congregation and restrict the church's religious mission.  But in the case of West Park, unlike the Green Church, that rhetoric failed.

In 2007, the congregation tried to develop air rights into a 21-story apartment tower  in order to increase its endowment and pay for renovations.  The community wasn't having it.  The plan collapsed under fierce opposition -- just as the recession arrived.

West Park's congregation had dwindled to just a few dozen by the time it closed. The remaining congregants go to nearby Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew.

The article from the New York Times.

Immigrants an Economic Force

Crain's New York Business reports that immigrants were responsible for a 61% increase in the city's gross product between 2000 to 2008.  Last year, $215 billion in economic activity  —nearly 1/3 of the city's gross product -- came from immigrant labor.

The number of immigrants in the city's workforce rose by 68%, and their wages by 39%, between 2000 to 2008.

As of last year, 36% of the city's population and 43% of its workforce -- everything from doctors and nurses to cab drivers and construction workers -- were immigrants.

These figures do not even consider the city's undocumented workers and its underground economy.

Between 2000 and 2007, New York City neighborhoods with the highest concentrations of immigrants -- mostly in Brooklyn and Queens -- grew faster economically than the rest of the city.  Median household income for immigrant families nearly doubled from 1990 to 2007, resulting in a doubling of the number of  immigrants who own their own homes.  Sixty percent of the city's homeowners are now foreign-born.

Immigrants are more likely to be of prime working age and to work a broader range of jobs than their U.S. born counterparts. The city's 1.9 million immigrant workers may account for 87% of taxi drivers, 83% of maids and 79% of food preparation workers, but they also make up 55% of registered nurses, 46% of physicians and surgeons and 21% of elementary and middle school teachers.

The article from Crain's New York.

Happening in Bay Ridge

Saturday, January 23:  screening of "The Fading Footprints of America," a Norwegian documentary film in English, at Our Saviour's Church, at 80th Street and 4th Avenue in Bay Ridge, at 2 PM. The film tells the story of the southern Norwegians who emigrated to America in the 50s and 60s and later returned, bringing American culture and customs with them. This film explores how America influenced these people and communities to which they returned. Admission is $10, with coffee and cake reception to follow. For more information, contact Victoria Hofmo, 718-748-5950; victoriahofmo@aol.com

Sunday, February 7 2010:  Fastelavn - Danish Mardi Gras, at the Danish Athletic Club at 735 65th Street in Bay Ridge, from 3 to 7PM.  Costumes are encouraged.  There will be traditional games, such as the barrel game depicted above, and delicious Danish food -- with cream buns for dessert.  Ellen Lindstrom will provide traditional Scandinavian music.  The all inclusive price for adults is $25; ages 7-17, $15; under 7, $10. For reservations or additional information, contact Victoria Hofmo, 718-748-5950; victoriahofmo@aol.com

Note:  due to the winter weather, the Fastelavn event has been postponed to Febuary 28, at the same time and location.

Sunday, April 18:  indoor flea market at Bay Ridge Jewish Center, 4th Avenue and 81st Street in Bay Ridge, from 9 AM to 4 PM.  Great finds; new and used items; toys;  jewelry; household items; collectibles; Mother's Day Gifts. Free Admission.  Refreshments. If you're a seller, you can rent a table for $35. Call Susan at 718-836-3103 or e-mail brjc11209@aol.com to reserve.

More local events from Bay Ridge.net