Icky in Brooklyn

Holiday Tree Recycling is January 5 & 6 from 10am to 2pm in Propsect Park. Bring your holiday tree to Prospect Park and they'll turn it into mulch for healthy ground cover. Watch your tree go into the chipper and take home some mulch for your yard or garden if ya like. (Plus enjoy hot chocolate - Saturday at Third Street, and Sunday at Park Circle.)

Please remove all decorations from the trees. Mulch will be available at the Third Street entrance through the end of February, and there will be additional supplies at the Wollman Rink for people who want to pick up mulch by car. Co-sponsored by the Park Slope Civic Council and Ocean on the Park organization.

Get on down there and mulch - Third Street & Prospect Park West, and the Park Circle entrance to the Park (intersection of Prospect Park Southwest and Parkside Avenue). Or Volunteer - Help assist people bringing their trees in for recycling, remove ornaments and distribute mulch. Call (718) 965-8960 for details

Don't forget the last few weeks of the Grand Army Plaza Lights, through January 14 - More than 250,000 energy efficient and color-changing LED lights illuminate the tree underneath the Sailors and Soldiers’ Memorial Arch, and the Bailey Fountain at Grand Army Plaza. The festive holiday lighting had been made possible by the Office of the Mayor and the NYC Parks & Recreation Department.





christmas on montague photo courtesy of ystrickler's photostream at flickr.com

From both local and faraway readers, requests for neighborhood photos pass through the Icky Inbox frequently. I don't have the fortitude to carry a camera around (shameful for a blogger, really); but I do have a cell phone. Welcome then to a new Icky feature - Motorola Memories. And don't you think my crappy cell camera adds a charming old-world quality of the neighborhood?






Prospect Park West at the corner of the Circle, and the corner of Windsor Place

Prospect Park and the Prospect Park Alliance provide Brooklynites with a wonderful gift all year long. However, community minded good news is especially good to hear at the holidays. Just before Christmas, 29 new members were inducted into the Prospect Park Youth Council, after completing a three month training course.

In addition, eight former members (now attending college) were inducted into the Alumni Program. The event was held at Prospect Park's historic Picnic House, with many of the members’ family and friends in attendance.



Prospect Park Youth Council Director, Orvil Minott (center front, kneeling) and Youth Council members.

The Prospect Park Youth Council is a youth empowerment leadership program that addresses the needs of both Brooklyn's youth and the Park. Teens interested in learning more about the Prospect Park Youth Council can call the Youth Programs Manager at (718) 854-4901, or stop by the Park’s Youth Resource Center at Bowling Green Cottage at Prospect Park Parade Ground on the corner of Caton and Coney Island Avenues. The Center is open Tuesday through Saturday, 3 - 7 p.m.

In partnership with the City of New York and the community, the Prospect Park Alliance restores, develops, and operates Prospect Park for the enjoyment of all by caring for the natural environment, preserving historic design, and serving the public through facilities and programs. Prospect Park’s 585 acres of meadows, waterfalls, forest, lakes, and athletic facilities comprise a masterwork of urban green space.

photo courtesy of prospect park alliance

Ah, the Holidays. Today was, morning to late afternoon, the second (and final) big shopping day of the Icky Holiday Season. Making an assumption that Retail Rage is better kept far from home, I skipped Windsor Terrace and Park Slope and hit the Heights, Carroll Gardens, and Atlantic for most of the day. My little old driver was sluggish and slow, but for the B67, that was quite apropos.

Down Seventh Avenue to Flatbush (or, "The New Seventh Avenue"), I am always interested in the state of the "Leaf Wall" at the corner of Flatbush and 7th Ave. The progression usually goes like this - Pretty leaves painted on the wall, graffiti, pretty leaves painted on the wall, graffiti. You get the idea. However, as of today, some sort of art installation has sprouted. Couldn't tell if it is photos or clippings, but either way, a Park Slope Wall of Ephemera is growing on the side of the Billiard Parlor building.





Further down the Avenue and further down my shopping list, fate dealt me a weird coda. For years, I have always wondered about a shop on Flatbush near 5th Avenue called, "The Silver Button." (Its distinguisinhing feature being its doorhandles ... giant silver buttons.) It is a sort of ghetto-chic place, expensive but in a weird strip, in an awful location ... with tons of people going in and out all the time. Odd. Being an avid Conspiracy Theorist, I decided something shady must be going on. If only today ... something shady was going on. Or maybe Bruce Ratner had them evicted. The Marshals showed up in an unmarked car, went inside, ousted everyone in the shop, and secured the door. Bye bye, Silver Button.





It is great fun being a Conspiracy Theorist. Mostly because it provides you with an arsenal of wacky things to say at parties, and certainly, there is a Conspiracy Theory for every occasion. However, dear readers, being a Conspiracy Theorist also tends to make you paranoid. Ergo, I did *not* ask the nice Marshals why they were buttoning up the Silver Button. Probably the best determination, especially considering what happened to Miss Heather this afternoon ...

"It must have been slow at the good ol’ 94th Precinct today. That’s the only reason I can conjure up as to why they saw fit to throw some holiday cheer my direction by detaining me and demanding identification. Was I trespassing? No. Was I loitering? No. Was I dressed in a manner that would be construed as menacing? After demanding to know why I merited their attention - at least three times - I was told “someone reported a suspicious person was in the area taking pictures”. Is taking pictures against the law? Not as far as I know. But the line of questioning the (male) police officer posited to me would certainly suggest it is ..."

As readers might know, Miss H is the Proprietress of one of my favorite blogs, and graces our Brooklyn bandwidth with a great deal of terrific photos and commentary daily. Please visit Miss H over at New York Shitty to hear the conclusion of the story, and to her credit, you'll see some great snaps of area halls that are totally decked.

Lots of totally happening Brooklyn holiday happenings happening in the Borough of Kings this holiday season. Ain't it cool when they're free? Ain't it even cooler when they are free and funky folksy? I'm staying in town for the holidays. Are you staying in town? Check this stuff out ...



Brooklyn's most winning bar, Union Hall, combines Edwardian atmosphere, Sherlock Holmes' library, a fireplace, a music venue, tons of space, bocce, food, and folksy fun into a confection that is served nightly on Union Street just above 5th Ave. The now famous "Union Hall Spelling and Grammar Bee" returns for the holidays on Thursday, December 20 beginning at 8pm. The Holiday Edition is hosted by David Witt. No cover charge. Totally into the scene? Return on Friday, December 21, at 8pm for Dress-Up Karaoke, hosted by Dick Swizzle. Come dressed, perform as your favorite rock star, and win a present! No cover charge. (And happy birthday, Jim!) http://unionhallny.com/



In an exhibit at Prospect Park, "The Quilter's Kitchen" is rockin' the quilt ... Showing off the diverse styles, techniques, patterns, and fabrics they use to tell a story through the traditional art of quilting, Dec. 1 - 30 at the Audubon Center (in the Boathouse) at Prospect Park, Weekends & holidays, 12 - 4 p.m.Curated in partnership with the Brooklyn Quilters Guild. (The Boathouse sports a little café counter with nosh and bevs ... could make for a nice Winter outing!) No admission charge, and cool quilts. And might I add, these ain't your grandma's quilts. http://www.prospectpark.org/



"Giambotta" by Jody Leight

beat the devil/union hall photo courtesy of nevbrown's photostream at flickr.com
boathouse photo courtesy of lab2112's photostream at flickr.com
quilter's kitchen photo courtesy of prospect park alliance.com

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And by the way, this is the Google ad that appeared on this page while I was writing the post. Curious. Maybe it's the combination of Christmas, karaoke, and quilting.

The corner stores are sold out of flour, the fabulous/kitchy over-the-top decorations are up on Windsor Place, I received a rather nasty email about my "Windsor Terrace Eleven," and mostly proudly, Icky was dubbed "The Anti-Smartmom" by a commenter ... it *must* be Christmas!







The Christmas Tree lot at Holy Name Field




Commerce as Good Cheer at Sondra's




Holy Name, Anchoring the Avenue




As the Man Says, "Up on the housetop ..."

A little church on Eighth Avenue in Park Slope sold its 50x100 foot churchyard, one of the only never-ever built sites in Park Slope. (!) The plot, purchased by New York Property Fund, will soon sport ten condos. Opposed to a glass-and-steel box, the church chose their buyers purposely for their desire to build "in the character of the neighborhood." While the loss of a churchyard is a terrible shame, it is nice to have some assurance that 8th Ave's newest mini-manses will sport more qualilty than the recent rash of South Slope Stucco Shacks.

Only further construction will tell, but if the buyer's other properties (mostly restorations and four-wall retrofits) are any indication, this project looks awfully good. A quality building "in the character of the neighborhood" a block from Prospect Park a few feet from the subway in mid-slope sounds like just what the doctor ordered. Perhaps this will start a trend - new buildings that are actually nice to look at.



I had occasion to grab a view of the site a few weeks ago, and may I say, it is nice to see a local developer living up to their word. Everything in order, gates closed when they should be, permits in place, a spotless construction site, after hours permits in place (although I'm told they haven't really used them much), and special attention being paid to the 1888 building next door - the church building is nicely and properly shored-up and reinforced.

Happy T-Day everyone! With a long hall pass from my school gig, I decided to combine biz with touring, and run all of my errands aboard the MTA Brooklyn buses - a sort of neighborhoods tour. From Windsor Terrace, round about here and there, and to downtown, my chariots were the B69, B75, and B67.




The B69 is relatively pleasant and got me to my errands, but for touring options, the B75 wins hands down. Starting at Greenwood Cemetery, heading down Prospect Park West, Ninth Street and Smith, this sweet ride offers a way-cool tour of Windsor Terrace, Park Slope, Gowanus (my favorite part of the trip), and Cobble Hill.



After being ferried back to Windsor Terrace by the Sweet 75, it was time to commence the second leg of the journey ... the B67 into deep Park Slope, Lincoln and 7th Ave. (I know, sounds daunting - especially with the rep the B67 has.) Suffice it to say, the notoriously-missing-and-late B67, combined with prime-Slope after school kids and nannies ... well, it was a mess. A hot, crowded, snotty, French-speaking mess. I got off ten blocks shy of my Windsor Place stop, and walked. Curiosities and fun facts follow.

1. Why are all these kids little elementary post-todds? Where are the older ones? Burning cars, I guess.
2. Why are they all speaking French? Kids & nannies included. All speaking French. WTF?
3. I saw the yellow umbrellas. They seem small. They are indeed yellow.
4. Why is the Minerva building so incredibly ugly, and who the hell would live there?

It looks like some Alias-themed high security industrial complex. Ah well, no accounting for taste. (Or French.)



(smith street and b69photos courtesy of eisenvater's photostream at flickr.com)

(Perhaps wishful thinking will help.)

The provinces received their first dusting, and we are jealous. Put aside those city-slicker thoughts of slogging-through-slush and stoop-shoveling, and help us conjure the white-stuff via these excellent Brooklyn shorts, from Kitch to Kids. (The artistic and hypnotic Greenpoint entry is a personal favorite!)

The recent new-businesses announced in Windsor Terrace came like a heap of early Christmas presents. Perhaps that's not the case. Of the businesses that started hanging shingles in August, none have opened.

Most folks got their first peek at Enzo's - our rumored new brick oven pizza joint - back in late Summer. Faux rock or not, there was much rejoicing. They never opened. The interior looks near-done, if not done. Inspection problems? Permits? The (now legend) molded cement sign and facade recently got poked and prodded - accompanied by weird sanding marks, scorching, and paint drips.





The much-bemoaned closing of our local pet store came with the news of owner (and colorful neighborhood character) Jackie's death. Good news followed. The other-lady was going to open a new store down the street. A sign went up in the new space! Then, a rather angry message appeared in the old space. And of course, they never opened.





The old Western Union space has fared a little better, with the big yellow sign coming down quickly, a tailor already open and pastry & meatpie shop planned. The tailor(ess) zipped open in a flash, and it's a cute little shop. There's always a nice dress in the window. There was a burst of work on the DUB Pies side, but not much activity lately. (Though we really can't complain - it's only been a few weeks.)





In meat pie trivia, few of us can anticipate such a shop without seriously flahing back to the plot of Sweeney Todd. (Wouldn't THAT be a great addition to the neighborhood?!) Inserting the word "Brooklyn" into Sondheim's lyrics has provided hours of enjoyment. Meanwhile, we're keeping that to ourselves ... DUB Pies has surely heard all the Sweeney Todd jokes they care to.

Still, I'm putting all my wishing chips in the meat pie column. If you can't get excited about meat pies, what can you get excited about?





pasties photo courtesy of andrew d miller's photostream at flickr.com

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A MINOR LATE EDITION UPDATE - Something is happening over at the old Universal Video space, although the guys working on clearing it out could not tell me what. Seems like they are clearing out the retail space for a new tenant ... and it seems like someone forgot to leave the key to the basement hatch.

Every Gotham renter has his or her own individual non-negotiables when it comes to renting a New York City habitat - closet space, shopping nearby, ceiling height, hell ... working plumbing. (The list significantly expands and contracts, directly proportional to how much we can afford per month in rent.)

Most New Yorkers can offer some great apartment horror stories. My particular tale involves an apartment with no insulation, no front door, electricity that frequently went out, a broken boiler, and the apartment on the other side of the wall operating as a flophouse. (And this apartment was obtained though a broker.) It was also a three-avenue walk to the R train, or a eleven block walk to the F.

I quickly realized that one of my particulars (besides basic dignity) is "close to transportation." I think this Windsor Terrace home qualifies ...

I've been having trouble with some neighborhood terminology lately.

I've noticed a lot of jabber about Windsor Terrace being "the new Park Slope," along with the word "gentrification" getting tossed about.

Yes, the condo-construction sandboxes on the Southeast side are seeing a large infusion of "young, urban, professionals," however, Windsor Terrace remains a pretty diverse place (even among new home buyers), and a proud working class neighborhood.

WT's Wikipedia entry mentions "a recent influx of yuppies as a result of gentrification." What is there to gentrify? Who are these gentrifying yuppies? The bi-racial couple down the block who recently bought a house to raise their child? The gay working-class couples? The African-American family on the opposite side of the street? Our large home-owning Latino population? The ex-hippes? The tradesmen that have inherited their homes?

Although I can't speak for the sellers of the just-minutes-old listing pictured below, I suspect that all walks of life and ethnicities will continue to be welcome (and present) on our blocks. My neighbor and I are a few decades apart in age, differ majorly when it comes to politics, and are polar opposities on the liberal/conservative charts.

But as he says, "Everybody is welcome, as long as they're good neighbors."



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AS ALWAYS, EXCELLENT COMMENTS FROM THE NEIGHBORHOOD ...

Annon writes, "i agree - windsor terrace has been trashed by snobby perk slopers as "white trash" cuz some of the residents happen to be republicans, with flags on their homes, etc. and although i'm a proud liberal i actually prefer the diversity (ethnic, political, age, etc) that we have here...much more than being surrounded by a homogeneous super-lib, super-PC crowd a few blocks north/west, which many times comes off as pretty phony ... without sounding too corny, i think windsor terrace is a lot more "real" brooklyn than many other hoods, especially the ones that were only recently discovered."

And no, you can't go to the dance with Park Slope.

The NYC Dept of Education recently graded each of its own individual schools - each school's performance receiving a mark, A through F, just like its students. The bad news? Windsor Terrace's PS 154 is pretty near flunking.

The Times reports that grading is complicated, and that these things are, to a degree, subjective. However, most schools in the city received As and Bs. PS 154 received a D. As our parents might have been heard to say, "If you got a D, I'm sure you did something to deserve it."

That's it, young man. No more condo sales until your grades improve! And I don't want to catch you hanging out with Tribeca. Her grades are good, but she's a slut.



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SOME GREAT COMMENTS, from other folks in the area ...
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The NYC board of Ed screws up pretty much everything it touches. Now they've come up with this grading system that by their own admission is difficult to explain and complex and we're supposed to believe they've gotten it exactly right and these scores are an accurate assessment of a school's merit. Nonsense. I'm sure that if the "grading process" were looked at carefully and thoroughly, it would be found to be the flawed mess we're used to from the B of E. OTOH, maybe the bad grade will scare away all the displaced Park Slopers and I'll actually be able to afford an apartment here again.

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"Please dont spread the myth that these "grades" mean that 154 is doing bad. It is a deceptive grading system.

This is how the school grades generally worked:

Improving School: Year 1 - Kids score: 40 out of 100 on a standardized test (meaning they are doing horrible) Year 2 - Kids score: 50 out of 100 on standarized test (meaning kids had 25% improvement - but of course are still doing horrible) School gets an A for the 25% improvement (ignoring the fact that the kids are doing horrible)

Already Good School: Year 1 - Kids score: 85 out of 100 on a standardized test (meaning they are doing pretty good) Year 2 - Kids score: 90 out of 100 on standarized test (meaning kids had 6% improvement - but of course are still doing very good) School gets an B for the 6% improvement (ignoring the fact that the kids are doing really well)"

I was just thinking, my youths would probably last a lot longer if they were waterproofed.

As I took a morning walk today, I noticed a shirt-and-tie guy standing talking to a few of the old-timers about real estate. (That was all I caught.) On my way back and around the corner, another shirt-and-tie was talking to a different old-timer around the block. I heard things like, "Oh, this house is going to my kids," and then, "Well if you ever change your mind," with a card being handed.

I think they have figured out that the older folks hang out on the stoops in the morning. Are we being invaded by obituary-reading-row-house-chasers?! Ah well, let's bring down our blood pressure with some of the more serene sights and sounds of the neighborhood from this week.

Happy Halloween from Terrifying Windsor Terrace!






















A few of these beasts have told me their bigger
and more-frightening twins lived over in Greenpoint.
Seriously scary, and wicked cool. Check out the coverage
in my pal Miss Heather's 'hood.

Would you believe that Alanis Morissette, Al Pacino, Madonna, Ed Harris, Lily Tomlin, and Michael J. Fox have all spent significant time in Windsor Terrace?

In the spirit of dressing-up, fun, and a good ol' fashioned Brooklyn Halloween, we proudly present - the Windsor Terrace Hollywood Tour.

Sydney Lumet's "Dog Day Afternoon" was shot on Prospect Park West between 17th & 18th Streets. It centers around a bank robbery, based on actual events. The real-life bank was located at 450 Avenue P. However, the now-condo building on Prospect Park West - once a mattress factory - stood in for the Al Pacino film.

CORRECTION - A neighbor tells us - "I love your pix of the neighborhood... one minor correction, the building between 17th and 18th street on PPW, now condos, was an old paint factory, not a mattress factory. Love your blog!"



If you check the movie out, you can catch a few shots looking South on Prospect Park West, with Bishop Ford High School and the Expressway bridge, telltale in the background.



The Jack Nicholson/Helen Hunt film, "As Good as it Gets" was a more recent Windsor Terrace claim to big-screen fame. The pub shots were done at the one-and-only Farrell's, a Windsor Terrace institution since 1933. Farrell's was also featured in the Ed Harris film "Pollock."



The early morning bakery scene was done out on the corner of the Avenue, the mob of kids running down the street to catch the cab was a group of third-graders from Holy Name, and a supporting character was played by a very solid actor that any respectable WT resident knows well, at least on sight ... Helen Hunt's house was played by my favorite house in the neighborhood, pictured here in 1928, and 2007.





Harvey Keitel, Madonna, Michael J. Fox, Lily Tomlin, and a long list of 1990s and perennial stars headlined "Blue in the Face" and "Smoke," both partially filmed at the recently defunct Western Union on Prospect Park West.



In the music department, Alanis Morissette filmed her 1995 video for "One Hand In My Pocket" right on the strip - Prospect Park West between Windsor and 16th. It features the neighborhood pretty well (and tired or not, I like the song.)



Not bad for a sleepy little neighborhood where nothing happens, eh?


1928 photo courtesy of the brooklyn public library, brooklyn collection

I stopped over at The Brooklyn Paper today to follow the hubbub on Chalkgate.

So silly. Maybe the city should outlaw "Mary Poppins," and other similarly incendiary chalk-drawing influenced childrens' films. Stop that bad influence right in its tracks. There's much good reporting on this - Check it out on the excellently reported Gowanus Lounge. But, I digress. This is actually not what I found odd about the report in the Brooklyn Paper.

I came across this nugget in Editor Gersh Kunztman's story about the recent chalk artist arrest: "While we’re not surprised that the sergeant was reading Brooklyn’s real newspaper ..." And then I noticed that another employee of The Brooklyn Paper was referring to it as "Brooklyn's Real Paper" elsewhere.

You mean just like "The Daily News" is Manhattan's "actual" paper, or The New York Times is midtown's "absolute" paper? Way to promote the McBranding of Brooklyn. As for surreptitiously demeaning the other papers - really bad form.

Brooklyn's "real" newspaper?

As Poppins might say, "That's a piecrust promise. Easily made, easily broken."

Signs are up in the windows of the old Western Union space on Prospect Park West ... no toddler emporiums or McRestaurants are headed this way just yet. Both are local businesses, and both look pretty interesting.

The corner space is going to be occupied by Down Under Bakery (Dub) Pies. Their original store is in Redhook at 193 Columbia Street. Their website mentions they were established 2003 and are "proud to be the first specialty bakery to bring the authentic New Zealand-Australian experience — the culturally iconic meat pie — to New York City." Looks like they will also be offering coffee and desserts ... both of which make me very happy.

The space next door will be occupied by a tailor, and the shop is already being set up, complete with a dress in the window. Pretty cool. The building has been painted a more pleasing green, and we're looking forward to the grand openings. Welcome to the neighborhood!



By the way, I wonder what ever happened to Enzo's? We've been looking for this place to open since the end of August.

There is a series of small parks in Windsor Terrace along the South side of the Prospect Expressway. Some don't even have names, the chain usually being referred to as "the expressway parks" or "those skinny parks."

The tiny green spaces were clearly meant to ease neighborhood pain when blocks of homes were town down for the new highway in the 1950s. (I know, I know - I'm on a roll with the expressway thing lately.) Nonetheless, they are nice to have. They're almost comical - nearly hidden little green pockets sandwiched into odd spaces wherever they'll fit.

Starting from the West near Bishop Ford High School, our inaugural stop is also perhaps the most curious - a little art deco sitting area, looking decidedly pre-1950s and very WPA. It sticks out into the shoulder of the expressway. Seems as if the city went to a great deal of trouble to build around this vintage 1930s terrace, perhaps saved at the neighborhood's behest.



Thomas J. Cuite park (with columns echoing the deco theme?) is the next stop downhill, named for a Windsor Terrace resident who was vice-chairman and majority leader of the New York City Council. Cuite's corner includes a charming playground, and is particularly strong is the flora department.



A walkway heads downhill against the expressway, leading to a quiet street, and a very nice benches-and-ivy area near Seeley Street. It's surprisingly quiet, and there are a few cool old school signs and stolen views of old-fashioned backyards and alleys. The public space here is very well taken care of by residents and Parks staff alike.



On the same stretch, is the Little-Park-That-Cried. It doesn't serve much of a purpose. Nice to have the space, but it seems to exist mostly to connect its brother parks on either side. Poor little thing doesn't even have a name, just "Park."



Greenwood Playground features play equipment, basketball courts and softball fields, restrooms, and lots of sitting space. Greenwood is the largest in the band of parks that line the Prospect. This section first opened to the public on December 19, 1935, as one of hundreds of WPA-era playgrounds commissioned throughout the city. The monument at the park's entrance remembers 47 neighborhood men who died in the U.S. Army and Navy during World War I.



The Windsor Terrace Methodist Church (and Greenwood Avenue) bordered the park on the north side until 1954.

It's an unusual-day-in-the-neighborhood in Windsor Terrace.

The Sovereign Segways are out shilling for our newest neighborhood bank, manned by guys in identical red shirts, making the neighborhood look eerily like a Furturama episode. If you're not familiar with the Segway, it's a sort of self-propelled stand-on scooter. Our local genus is fitted with mini-billboards for Sovereign Bank, and carry uniformed guys armed with handouts.





As I turned away from the Segways and rounded the corner for home, a man in a butcher's apron asked if I wanted to buy some steaks. He called from across the intersection, apron-a-flapping in the Autumn wind, calling, "Hey, guy!" and following me across the street. No steaks were purchased.

My old-timer neighbor asked "Did he try to sell you steaks? It could be horse meat."

In the days before television, and in Brooklyn especially, there was a theater (or five) in every neighborhood. Although the neighborhood South of Park Slope did not boast any 4,000 seat gems, when movies were King, Windsor Terrace had its share of smaller neighborhood venues.

The Venus Theater still stands, however battered, having just barely clearing the Prospect Expressway's wrecking ball. The building dates to 1906, but by 1957 the screen was down and the Venus served as an American Legion Hall. Later an Elk's Lodge, and finally racking up numerous violations, the building was recently for sale. Pictured is the Venus Theater in 2007, and a 1928 photo of Vanderbilt Street with the Venus visible at left.





265 Prospect Park West is rumored to have been a movie theater, but the anecdotal evidence is lost to the ages. I am doubtful, especially with a few much larger theatres a few blocks away. The building dates to 1914, and if not a proper theater, in the 1930s it is listed as a cabaret. By 1942 it had acquired a pool room. Today, it houses a church.



Just out of our Windsor Terrace purview, but nearby, the Minerva Theater stood at Seventh Avenue and Fourteenth Street. Built as the Palace, it then became the Armory Theater, and finally the Minerva. Pictured below, the building still stands today, as one of the weirdest buildings on Seventh Avenue.



1928's Sanders Theater is not really lost, and that's a good thing. It was re-opened as a multiplex in the 1990s. At Prospect Park West and Fifteenth Street, it is now the nine-screen "Pavilion." Knowing that it originally sat over one-thousand five hundred people, it feels a little silly to be sitting in the 56-seat version. But when you have a movie theater in the neighborhood, you don't complain too much. And the big space up in the old balcony is pretty cool. Pictured is the current incarnation, The Pavilion.



minerva photo courtesy of kencta's photostream at flickr.com

Needing some snaps of Prospect Avenue for a post later in the week, I decided to combine pleasure with pleasure and check out Windsor Terrace's own Crossroads Cafe. (Prospect Ave & Reeve Pl, right above the Fort Hamilton stop on the F.) My destination was chosen partially out of culinary ennui ... I am growing weary of the food on Prospect Park West.



Crossroads is a great little coffee shop with a little bit of neighborhood grill thrown in. Cafe au lait and pastries are on the menu (and today, mushroom quiche), but egg-and-cheese-on-a-roll or a great ham-and-cheese (all made with quality goods) can be readily had. However, the thing that immediately stands out is the staff. I think I might have even had a religious experience. Here's why: In an ever-growing world of I-don't-care-if-you-shop-here-or-not, I have really come to appreciate a staff like Crossroads' - friendly, helpful, and genuinely interested.

If you're on the Holy Name end of the neighborhood, take a walk East. This place is great.

photo courtesy of www.cafe-crossroads.com

Windsor Terrace loves to decorate for the holidays. The Halloween contenders are just starting to crawl out of WT basements ... like this awesome old-school scarecrow! Those are veggies on his shirt.

No parking on Prospect Park West on Wednesday. Hungry-Man is coming.





According to Pinnacle Foods Group, "Prior to 1973 the frozen dinner consumer, particularly men, was faced with a dilemma. Frozen dinners offered convenient, great-tasting meals but the portions were too small for the hearty appetite ... With the help of NFL star Mean Joe Greene as a spokesman, Hungry-Man has become an American icon and an important part of America’s freezer for almost 35 years."

However, we must all set aside our visions of vintage 1970s commercials being filmed on the block. There's a new Hungry-Man in town, and Wednesday's lack of parking will come to us via "Hungry Man Inc.," a production company based in Manhattan. Previous projects have included spots for AOL, Gatorade, and Toyota. And why isn't there a permit number on this thing? It's been left blank.

What I wouldn't give for a Salisbury Steak Dinner right about now.




Hungry-Man image courtesy of Pinnacle Foods Group

The borders of Park Slope and its slightly-less-contested neighbors (Windsor Terrace, Gowanus, Sunset Park, and Prospect Heights) are always a lively topic. Add in the seemingly newly-named Greenwood Heights and South Slope, and you've got a debate on your hands. I'm a curious sort. I decided to do some digging.

I've always considered Park Slope, by definition, to be the-slope-on-the-side-of-the-park, Grand Army Plaza to 15th Street - sloping down to Gowanus. I was wrong. (Historically, at least.)

1890s Brooklyn Eagle items often refer to "the Park Slope" as the block immediately off the park (Prospect Park West). The rest of the neighborhood is repeatedly cited as ... Prospect Heights. (I'm not kidding.) Mirroring that, the church at Eighth Ave and 10th Street was originally named Prospect Heights Presbyterian. Prospect Heights Boys' School was at 51 Seventh Ave. There is record of a law suit to stop a stable from being built in Prospect Heights at Seventh Avenue and Union Street. Check out this notice about a concert by the Prospect Heights Choral Society.



So where does that leave the neighborhood on the other side of Flatbush, currently called Prospect Heights? It was was also Prospect Heights. This photo from the 1940s features holiday carolers at the (still kicking) Prospect Heights High School at 883 Classon.



On the flip-side, an early 1900s newspaper article reports a public water problem. One of the offending water samples was collected from Sixth Avenue near Berkeley... in Park Slope. Seems our ancestors were not as picky about their neighborhood monikers as we are today. Or maybe they were just as conflicted.

On the front-lines of neighbor neighborhoods, tiny Windsor Terrace has seemingly always been Windsor Terrace. At the dawn of the Twentieth Century, a scandalous Brooklyn Eagle article (about a young couple's elopement) quotes the girl's suffering Dad as a resident of Seeley Street in Windsor Terrace.



The Greenwood Baptist Church has stood watch at Seventh Avenue and Sixth Street for decades. Twelve blocks to the southwest, believe it or not, the name "Greenwood Heights" is not a new concept. Over one-hundred years ago, the Greenwood Heights Reformed Church was built at 609 45th Street, in what we would today consider Sunset Park ... but back then, Sunset Park was Bay Ridge.



In the early Twentieth Century, Sunset Park was not specifically a whole neighborhood ... just a park. The name "Sunset Park" grew up with the neighborhood around the public space. The actual park grew too, as pointed out in this Brooklyn Eagle article from September of 1902.



Of course, neighborhoods change, colloquialisms change with them, and our neighborhood names are not a governed, legal issue. (Except for Historic Districts, I guess.) Were I a little more idealistic and a lot more political, I'd suggest a movement called "Brooklyn Without Borders." But I'm not. I just like looking at old newspapers.

All photos and Brooklyn Eagle clippings
courtesy of the Brooklyn Public Library, Brooklyn Collection.