It’s My Park Day For Shore Road, Owl’s Head Parks Is On For May 4

By on April 17, 2013  Miscellaneous
Apr 172013
 
Source: Shore Road Parks Conservancy

Source: Shore Road Parks Conservancy

New York’s citywide twice-annual volunteer cleanup event, It’s My Park Day, will take place this spring on Saturday, May 4. The Shore Road Parks Conservancy is participating, and is encouraging people to show up at one of its workgroups in six locations throughout the Shore Road and Owl’s Head Parks.

Volunteers are invited to help with activities, which include painting, planting, weeding, sweeping, raking, handling sign-in sheets, tools and refreshments.

No experience is necessary, nor is advance signup (though groups are encouraged to email info@shoreroadparks.org). Just show up at:

  • Owls Head Park at Shore Road – 11am – 2pm
  • Narrows Botanical Garden – 10am – 1pm
  • The flagpole at 81st Street – 9am – 12pm
  • 87th Street entrance – 9am – 1pm
  • The gazebo at 91st Street – 9am – 12pm
  • 97th Street entrance – 10am – 1pm

Have fun!

VIDEO: Sailing Under The Verrazano On A Cruise Ship

By on July 24, 2012  Miscellaneous
Jul 242012
 

After fishing off Brooklyn’s south shore on party boats, you become acquainted with the way bridges appear – and sound – from underneath.

One thing I’ve never had the chance to do is glimpse the Verrazano from a cruise ship, and I don’t mean Circleline. I’m talking about seeing the Verrazano from the upper deck of a colossal ocean liner as it sails from New York Bay to some sunny Caribbean locale, or maybe on the first leg of a trans-Atlantic adventure.

In the above video, passengers aboard the Caribbean Princess cruise ship pass beneath the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge on August 4, 2009.

According to the video’s description, the cruise’s ports of call were West End, Bermuda; San Juan, Puerto Rico; Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, USA Virgin Islands; and Grand Turk, Turks and Caicos Islands. The ship departed from, and later returned to, the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal in Red Hook.

Apologies: A Blog Publisher Tries Some Much Needed Humble Pie

By on July 23, 2012  Miscellaneous
Jul 232012
 

This is pecan pie. I love pecan pie, but what I really need to be eating is humble pie. Photo: Flickr user stu_spivack

Sometimes, I can be a real dick. And I’m sorry about that. I really am.

I’m going to try and stop that. My new personal goal for the past few months: to become a much less judgmental person while holding on to my world-class cynicism. I think cynicism is funny. In the right dosage, it can put the little hypocrisies of life in perspective. I would consider The Daily Show, born more than anything else out of a cynicism for biased and/or lazy journalism, to be a prime example of that.

And I’m totally fine continuing to pass judgements on the big stuff – I’ll always be a pro-honesty, kindness, tolerance, social justice and an anti-victim-blaming, racism, warmongering, and hypocrisy kind of person.

Judging the little stuff that doesn’t have any real impact on me or anyone else, that’s the kind of stuff I’m trying to rid my soul of. I’d like to think I’m doing a decent job, considering where I’m coming from, but sometimes I still have lapses.

I’ve had plenty of lapses, really, but there are a couple of egregious mistakes in particular that I would now like to walk back. Continue reading »

Happy Ramadan!

By on July 20, 2012  Miscellaneous
Jul 202012
 

Pide (Image source: pocketcultures via Flickr).

Ramadan, which is is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, began last night.

According to Wikipedia, fasting during the month of Ramadan is one of the Five Pillars of Islam. Ramadan is observed by Muslims during the entire lunar month by the same name; which is spent fasting from dawn to sunset.

This year Ramadan ends on the evening of Saturday, August 18, at which point the month of Shawwal starts, beginning with the “Festival of Breaking Fast” or `Eid ul-Fitr.

Bay Ridge Odyssey would like to wish all of our readers a happy and healthy Ramadan. Ramadan Kareem!

Meet Ulysses: Official Plant Of The Bay Ridge Odyssey Blog

By on April 16, 2012  Miscellaneous
Apr 162012
 

I followed through on a threat that I made a couple of weeks ago in discussing the Bay Ridge Festival of the Arts – I bought a plant at the festival’s spring plant sale benefiting the Guild For Exceptional Children. On the surface, you may not think that constitutes much of a threat, unless you have seen what happens to plants in my care. They die. Horribly.

Once, growing up, I managed to let a cactus die. More recently, I grew/tortured the Charlie Brown Christmas tree of tomato plants, with a small, sad little tomato making the whole thing droop like that Charles Schultz icon.

But I swore to you that this little plant will be cared for. This little plant will thrive. Accomplish great things! Readers: I want you to meet Ulysses, the new Official Plant of the Bay Ridge Odyssey Blog.

Ulysses is a geranium. I know this because the person who sold it said so, not because of any ability I have to identify plants. Amazing how the ability to recite all of the Doctor’s time-traveling companions since Sarah Jane Smith without Googling them doesn’t translate into the ability to tell a geranium from… some other kind of plant. It’s not a relative of uranium, that’s all I’m really sure of.

I named Ulysses because I thought it would be cool if a web site called Odyssey had a mascot named Ulysses. I also did it in the hopes that personalizing him would make me less likely to allow him to die.

Maybe when he’s older and a little more grown up (he’s supposed to be transferred to a bigger pot in about a month), he can come out to parties and meet the readers of the site. Until then, you can follow Ulysses on our Facebook page. He has his own photo album. You can Like the page here.

After my birthday: some personal thoughts about blogging

By on March 20, 2012  Miscellaneous
Mar 202012
 

My birthday was last week. So I took some liberties with the posting schedule. It was my original intention to post articles on Monday, Wednesday, and maybe Tuesday, and take off Thursday and Friday (just as I did in my day job). Turns out, the “maybe Tuesday” plan was the only one that fell into place.

There’s a blog I follow for my college alma mater’s athletic programs. The guy who publishes it is a bit like me. Loves the subject matter, genuinely loves to write about it, but also has a day job and a family, so when time gets tight, blogging time gets squeezed out. At which point, he’ll apologize for the radio silence, as if we would ever hold it against him for having a fulfilling life outside of the Internet.

It’s days like this that I completely understand where his apologetic sense comes from.

Believe me, if I could make a day job out of Bay Ridge Odyssey, I’d love to spend the day canvassing the neighborhood, and writing about it and posting photos several times a day. Even as a hobbyist, I’m proud of a number of articles I’ve put up here in the past couple of months. As one example, I’m glad to have written about the cabaret license for the Amnesia nightclub before any of the newspapers – even their online editions – and I’m proud to have written an in-depth follow-up that hasn’t been repeated anywhere else to date. That sort of work is really exciting to me. And I wish I could do more. I’m trying – I want to, and I want to get there someday. The sooner, the better.

Until I do, I’ll always be a little sheepish and apologetic over the times I end up taking a week off. So…

Dear Readers,

Sorry for disappearing.

A note for Bensonhurst readers

By on February 7, 2012  Miscellaneous
Feb 072012
 

While we used to cover all of southern Brooklyn, there are three neighborhoods we wrote about more than others: Bay Ridge, Coney Island, and Bensonhurst.

I still expect to be writing a little bit about Coney Island amusement area during the summer, inasmuch as it is interesting to the rest of us. But it’s been pretty obvious for the past three months that I wouldn’t be writing as much about Bensonhurst as we used to. It will still happen occasionally, but not that often.

If you want to keep up with Bensonhurst, you need to start reading the Bensonhurst Bean if you haven’t already. This is published by Ned Berke, who is also the driving force behind Sheepshead Bites, and penned by the excellent Joe Teutonico.

If you’re looking for your Bensonhurst news fix, the Bean is the site to start reading.

(Of course, if you’re like me, there’s room in your heart for both the Bean and the Odyssey. As it should be.)

Obscure Brooklyn Website To Drop-Kick “Southie” From It’s Name If Giants Beat Patriots In Superbowl (Again)

By on February 1, 2012  Miscellaneous
Feb 012012
 
If the name invokes the wrong city, then at least the baseball script used in the site's standard wordmark plays up to a tired stereotype of our own making. (Sort of.)

If the name invokes the wrong city, then at least the baseball script used in the site’s standard wordmark plays up to a tired stereotype of our own making. (Sort of.)

On Wednesday, the publisher of BK Southie – a little-known local-interest web site covering Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights, and southern Brooklyn as a whole, and NOT South Boston – announced that he would rename the site to remove the reference to “Southie” if the New York Giants defeat the New England Patriots in Superbowl XLVI this Sunday evening.

The publisher is not from Boston and has never lived in Boston. He’s not entirely sure what he was thinking when he named the site in the first place. Maybe he had just Netflicked The Departed at the time. He doesn’t remember; we may never know. He regretted his decision after an e-mail interaction with a South Boston cab company and has since apologized. (Apologized to Brooklyn, that is. Not to Boston.)

He doesn’t want to put down Boston (too much) as he appreciates the positive contribution that Boston and its surrounding towns have made in his life, including, but not limited to, (1) his first wife, (2) Denis Leary, and (3) a cool band called Splashdown that never made it big, but gave its keyboard player to Guitar Hero and Rock Band.

The publisher has visited the Boston area a few times, and particularly enjoyed the neighborhood surrounding Harvard, in spite of the fact that it surrounds Harvard. But as far as referencing a Boston neighborhood in the name of a Brooklyn-bound web site, he knows he should have kept the chocolate out of the peanut butter.

If the New York Giants defeat the New England Patriots this Sunday, he’ll take that as the cue to choose a Brooklyn-y and not Boston-y name for the site.

If not, he’ll be looking for some other cue.