Tag Archives: Brooklyn

Brightening Up the Boardwalk

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4.27.2004 Gretchen Mol in Coney Island filming a TV movie, “The Ballad of Bettie Page.”

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Now these are the sort of attractions that make me want to constantly rediscover Coney Island; they’d even be more thrilling than my annual ride on the Cyclone.

Brooklyn New York Baby Boomers and Everyone Who Loves Brooklyn

King of Kings and Hipsters

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“If you know that I am an unbeliever, then you know me better than I do myself. I may be an unbeliever, but I am an unbeliever who has a nostalgia for a belief.”– Pier Paolo Pasolini

Hosanna in the Highest. Brooklyn’s Catholic Diocese has now outdone itself in the field of  marketing by giving a new age spin to that miracle-spinning virtuoso from Bethlehem. Meet the 21st century’s new and improved Jesus Christ …re-resurrected as the original hipster.

As Katie McDonough at Salon notes, Jesus “was a carpenter, and craftsmanship is big in Brooklyn right now.” Not to mention that he famously turned water into wine, “which is very do-it-yourself and kind of locavore-ish.” And don’t forget the beard: http://bit.ly/ZTjp20

The Diocese was somewhat embarrassed that the ad was released unintentionally, appropriately perhaps, on April 1 (April Fools’ Day, of course). But since it’s gone to such groovy extremes, why should that matter anymore? Here in Park Slope, everyday seems like April Fools Day bordering on Halloween.

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Jesus: The ‘original hipster’?–The Week

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Judas at the Plate?

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LITERALLY GIVING AWAY THE PLATE!
4.18.1958 – Dodger president Walter O’Malley presents the home plate of Ebbets Field, signed by all the Dodger players, to Mayor Norris Poulson during welcoming ceremonies at City Hall in L.A.

The Brooklyn Dodgers were gone before I was old enough to appreciate such fun and games. However, I soon learned of the legendarily treacherous deal that O’Malley had struck, moving the team to Los Angeles. Whenever the conversation amongst the “older kids” would turn to the departed Dodgers, the name O’Malley was sure to follow; the conversation quickly taking a more “linguistically colorful” turn. Many considered burning O’Malley in effigy if not in actuality. In those days, you felt as though you knew O’Malley and the Brooklyn Dodgers all your life…whether or not you knew them at all.

But Walter O’Malley was arguably no better or worse than many other baseball moguls that preceded or followed him. To be fair, he didn’t just pack up the team and high tail it out of town like a thief in the night. Ebbets Field was in a serious state of neglect and disrepair; by the 1950s, the place was practically falling apart. In spite of the fans’ nostalgic love and devotion, the Dodgers couldn’t pack the house even during the heat of a pennant race. In short, the team was losing money.

After gaining ownership of the Dodgers in 1950, O’Malley was planning to build a more attractive, more accessible, ballpark for the team somewhere in Brooklyn. But the all-powerful Robert Moses, in his role as New York City Construction Coordinator, squelched O’Malley’s ambitions.

Moses decreed that the Dodgers’ new ballpark would be a city-built, city-owned stadium in Flushing Meadows, Queens (site of the future NY Mets’ Shea Stadium); a take-it-or-leave-it deal. Deprived of an adequate locale in Brooklyn for his team (through the contrivances of Moses, it’s suspected), O’Malley went into his infamous Goodbye, Brooklyn-Hello, LA mode. The rest is often inaccurate history, pointless controversy and, of course, charming nostalgia.

photo:  New York Baby Boomers and Everyone Who Loves Brooklyn

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Cutting the Battery Ribbon

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Battery Tunnel Opening, Ribbon Cutting by a boy wearing a [Brooklyn] Dodgers Cap

Brooklyn Borough President Robert F. Wagner (photo right: future Mayor of NYC) alongside unidentified man and boy (no, that’s not Jerry “Beaver” Mathers, but probably Wagner’s son, Bobbie).

By the way, Robert Moses, the omnipotent King of the Roadways, envisioned a bridge not a tunnel when he commenced the Brooklyn-Battery project. Needless to say, a bridge here would’ve been terribly awkward as well as terribly unsightly.

via Old Images of New York

Prospective Sheep at Prospect Park

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Meet Arthur and Brooklyn, the two new babydoll lambs at the Prospect Park Zoo.  This brother and sister pair was born last month and they’ve just learned how to prance. It’s going to be a long spring for their watchful mother, Ginger.

Photo by Julie Larsen Maher ©WCS

via New York Aquarium-Facebook

They are absolutely adorable creatures. Nevertheless, I still (albeit rather guiltily) enjoyed the lamb chops I had for dinner last night. Sorry Arthur, Brooklyn, and Mama Ginger…it’s the inherent caveman gourmand in me that conjures up this accustomed carte du jour.

Illuminative Unity Amid Darkness

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In New York, messages of hope and encouragement were projected along the side of the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The messages, photos of which were featured on blogs across the Web, read “Brooklyn Loves New York” and a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that.”

via Yahoo! News

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Elephant Hoofing at Dumbo

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Dancing elephants — along with clowns and unicyclists — paid a visit to [DUMBO] Brooklyn Wednesday.

See more photos here: http://bit.ly/YrSoTL

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