After some recent traveling, I’m reminded of one of the things about home that I miss most while away: the gorgeous, classic yet cutting edge New York skyline.
And once again, Youtube poster QUEENSNY121 gives a construction update on what’s probably the most asked about building in the bunch, One World Trade Center – All from Bay Ridge’s own iconic landmark, the 69th Street Pier.
Just another reason to get that old pair of binoculars out of the junk drawer and visit a park this weekend…
Image source: Franco Folini via Flickr.
Suck it up, Slopers.
A new report by the Citizen’s Committee for Children named Bay Ridge the best place to raise a family in the borough of homes and churches.
Meanwhile stroller-centric Park Slope, which has a reputation for child rearing that can sometimes border on both the obsessive and the bizarre, ranked a lowly 15th citywide with Bay Ridge grabbing the 4th place slot, as reported by Simone Weichselbaum for Daily News. On message boards across gentrified North Brooklyn, reliably snark comments suddenly turned butthurt. Continue reading »
This week’s photo, courtesy of David Tan, shows a large rock in the Japanese garden section of the Narrows Botanical Garden, with a spindly winter tree peeking out [or possibly photobombing?] over a bamboo fence.
It was taken on January 19, 2013.
To see more of David’s spellbinding snapshots, please visit his blog at dtanlog.blogspot.com.
Photo credit: Brian Hedden/Bay Ridge Odyssey
[UPDATE] 1/8/13 A Canarsie woman who wishes to remain anonymous reportedly came forward yesterday to Denise Romano at Home Reporter. The source allegedly identified the missing man as her daughter’s boyfriend.
Less than two days into the new year, a man was seen jumping from the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.
The incident occurred at around 4 p.m. on Wednesday, January 2, when witnesses spotted a man stop his car in the right lane of the Staten Island-bound upper level at around the center of the span before leaping off, as reported by Denise Romano for Home Reporter.
The right lane of the upper level was closed for approximately one hour while NYPD Harbor Units and Emergency Services Units searched for the jumper. The man’s identity was not reported by media as it was not known at press time and his condition is likewise a mystery, as police have yet to recover a body.
According to Staten Island Advance, excluding Wednesday’s occurrence, “there have been five suicides on the bridge since December 2011, three thwarted attempts and one person who survived the jump.”
Image source: shinya via Flickr.
A man survived an attempted suicide jump off the Verrazano Bridge late Sunday afternoon, according to a U.S. Coast Guard spokesperson.
“He was in critical condition but alive,” Coast Guard spokesman Charles Rowe told reporter Jillian Jorgensen from Staten Island Advance.
NYPD Harbor Unit officers pulled the man from the 62 degree water between Staten Island and Brooklyn.
An MTA spokesperson also confirmed with reporters that the jumper had been fished out of the Narrows alive. From the Coast Guard station, the man was taken to Staten Island University Hospital, Ocean Breeze.
The man had first been spotted at 5:26 p.m., an NYPD spokesman told the Advance, when he was seen getting out of a parked vehicle on the span’s Upper Level before jumping. NYPD Harbor and Aviation units then began to search the water to find him, the spokesman said.
As part of what has been described since earlier this year as an alarming trend, the Advance writes that there has been five suicides, including at least three thwarted attempts, since December 2011.
Image source: Wikipedia Commons.
Charlie Murphy is known for his laugh-inducing work on television programs such as Chapelle’s Show, Martin, the Boondocks – not to mention movies such as CB4 [Remember Gusto?], Night at the Museum, and Norbit, which he starred in with his brother Eddie. The sultan of standup will be performing for military service men and women as well as their guests [wink, wink] at Fort Hamilton on Saturday, December 1.
As difficult as military life must be at times, I’m considering heading down to the Marine recruitment office in Times Square, because if Charles Q. Murphy is half as funny in person as he is on television then this is sure to be a must-see show.
It all goes down at the Fort Hamilton Theater [101st and Ft. Hamilton Pkwy]. Doors open at 7 p.m. with the show beginning at 8. Public transportation is highly encouraged as the parking is very limited on base. Opening for Murphy will be Freeze Love from Def Comedy Jam.
The show is for audiences age 18 and older.
There is also an after-party at the Hamilton Lounge, so if you’re a military service member or lucky enough to know a military service member or veteran, try to get those tickets soon because they might go fast.
This event is being sponsored by Fort Hamilton Family & MWR.
The “only New York State licensed and inspected” abortion clinic in Brooklyn closed last month due to pressure from Catholic pro-life protesters.
The clinic’s owner Terry Lazar said she had no choice but to close the Sunset Park facility after anti-abortion activists “drove away doctors and patients,” as reported by Mark Morales of the Daily News.
“It was getting more and more difficult. Doctors were getting harassed and patients were getting harassed,” Lazar told the News. “It was a decision we finally had to make.” Continue reading »
In the continuation of a similar thread, let’s play devil’s advocate to that forgotten borough across the bridge.
When historians write about the tragic side of the Verrazano Bridge’s construction in the 1960s, it’s normally limited to the hundreds of Bay Ridge residents who were displaced from their homes by eminent domain and the all-powerful Robert Moses.
But what about the rural denizens of then-sleepy Staten Island – who would soon have to deal with becoming a sort of suburban Brooklyn exclave?
In the above Youtube Video, jazz composer and Staten Islander Alex Leonard sings a bittersweet bebop ballad from the perspective of the oyster fisherman – many of whom were the descendants of freed black slaves, farmers, and factory worker who called the largely rural island borough home before the great Brooklyn migration brought condos and McMansion-lined cul de sacs.
In the song, Leonard exhorts visitors to take the ferry rather than the colossal, car-centric span. I guess the Staten Island discount bought less goodwill on the island of Shaolin than Brooklynites commonly believe.
From a Southern Brooklyn perspective, one can draw certain parallels between the eradication of Staten Island’s pre-1964 pastoral landscape with the development of bucolic pre-1920s South Brooklyn.
Image source: army.mil.
YOU READ IT HERE FIRST: Yesterday on the 11th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the U.S. Army’s Installation Management Command [IMCOM] issued a press release to announce that the New York Army National Guard anti-terror task force known as Empire Shield will remain in place at Fort Hamilton. Continue reading »
In the early evening hours of October 18, 1988 Police Officer Christopher Hoban, a Xaverian High School graduate, and another narcotics officer arrived at an apartment on West 105th Street in Manhattan to make an undercover drug buy.
Upon entering the apartment things suddenly took a turn for the worse, as the two officers encountered a man who suspected them of being undercover police. In the ensuing struggle, shots were fired – striking and killing one of the suspects, as well as hitting Officer Hoban twice.
Mortally wounded, Officer Hoban was rushed to St. Luke’s Hospital where he died.
The surviving suspects were later sentenced to 25 years to life. Hoban, who had been with the NYPD for four years, was 26 years old.
For the last 24 years, Police Officer Hoban’s alma mater has honored his memory with the Chris Hoban Memorial Run – a five mile race which, according to Home Reporter, “serves as the primary funding of the Hoban Scholarship.” The program offers tuition assistance to sons of New York City police officers who attend the all-boys Catholic high school.
This year’s race will take place on Sunday, September 16, starting at 10:30 a.m.
The course both begins and finishes at Xaverian High School, located on 71st Street and Shore Road. The race runs along the Shore Road Promenade bicycle path and returns via 3rd Avenue.
After the relief of a “nice downhill stretch” on 68th Street, it concludes with a “brief slight incline” up Shore Road to Xaverian High School.
The race also ends with the well regarded Hoban Backyard BBQ and Party – featuring food, beverages, kiddie rides and raffles, as well as music provided by DJ Tommy Tunes and Head Over Heels.
Online Registration closes on September 14, at 8 p.m. Eastern.
You can also register at pre-registration prices on September 15, at Xaverian High School, from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.
Race day entry fees are $15 for Ages for ages 12 and under, $20 for ages 13-19, and $25 for adults 20 and over. Registration takes place from 8:45 a.m. to 9:45 a.m. For more information, please visit hobanrun.org.