Icky in Brooklyn

Sometimes, a blogger is given an item so funny it absolutely needs to be posted, however inappropriate. In that spirit, Ladies and Gentlemen, we present the Defender of the Slope, the Brownstone Avenger, the South Brooklyn Babe of the year ... Superhero SmartMom. (Click to enlarge the image ... it's worth it.)





the editor of the image is anonymous at their request

The People's Republic of Park Slope is known for nothing if not for handcrafted liberal chic. Fire up the ol' search engine and you will find the stuff of New Slope legend ... the faux hippy co-op, yellow umbrellas, the Snowflake "buy local" campaign.

For all the pontificating about the glories of buying local, most Slopers doesn't seem too concerned when it comes right down to brass tax. Seems most won't put their Amex cards where their pie holes are. But really, dear readers, what is life without a B&N discount card and a Half-Caf Caramel Macchiato? I mean honestly, I can live without anything but luxury.



One only need look at the lighted signs of Seventh Avenue to see how much Slopers are willing to sacrifice convenience for "buying local." Park Slope ably supports a Starbucks-down-the-street-from-a-Starbucks, a Rite-Aid, and a Barnes & Noble that has been elevated to the level of Community Center. Deep Slope Doyenne Louise Crawford's own blog bemoans the loss of independent Seventh Avenue Books and hails the bailing out of her beloved Community Bookstore while regularly plugging events (and merchandise) at Barnes & Noble.

Poor Smartmom. Chummy-Wummy Tiny Bookstore didn't have Smartmom's book. That's okay. Smartmom loves Corporate Monster. Corporate Monster is a big monster. Corporate Monster holds author readings to lull Smartmom into submission with a faux sense of local color. Smartmom is easily lulled.



By all accounts, Park Slope's buy-local "Snowflake Night" bombed big, and reeked of do-gooder posturing and public relations. But let's not blame the neighbors completely - the merchants' offers were a joke. Multiple offers for a free dessert, a craft demonstration, or 10% to 15% off are not exactly going to tempt someone out into the freezing rain. Hell, 15% off Park Slope boutique prices wouldn't even bring it down to normal retail.

Even though I don't really need a handmade organic-wool doggy hat, a cruelty-free faux-silk meditiation pillow, or a peacock blue yoga mat made by actual peacocks - thanks for asking. It's the thought that counts.

Clearly, Park Slope doesn't want an ugly sort of horror-movie retail beast like Walmart, but a happy Pete's Dragon sort of beast like B&N is perfectly okay - at the expense of local businesses or not. Here's a tip - If you don't want to lose your small local businesses, start a campaign to locally boycott the chains; not a stupid event in which the hardware store serves hot chocolate until ten.

Or wouldn't that be cute enough? I guess "The Snowflake Boycott" is not very catchy.

Of course, this is not to say that there are not Parksiders practicing what they preach. But it seems for the most part, to paraphrase Kander and Ebb, "If you can fake it there, you can fake it anywhere."



park slope starbucks photo courtesy of lab2112's photostream at flickr.com
twilight photo courtesy of greenbk's photostream at flickr.com

Holiday week greetings and happy Media Monday at Icky!

I recently received a comment from no less than the editor of The Brooklyn Paper, a Mr. Gersh Kuntzman. The comment was public, as was my intended response. As that response turned into more of a story, I thought I would bring it here, to "The Front Page," (as Ben Hecht or Charles MacArthur might say).



First things first - Mr. K of the Brooklyn Papers asks, "What's the beef? I never really get anything specific, just vague, inchoate anger towards us. Why?" Here then is a list, from previous posts, of things I do not like about the Brooklyn Paper (plus a few freebies).

- I do not like your paper's pseudo-suburban, faux-hip(py) agenda.
- I do not like pieces written in third person featuring cutesy-pie names.
- I do not like your self-appointed title and puff-line, "Brooklyn's Real Paper."
- I do not like stories that I have seen elsewhere turning up in your paper.
- I do not like that nary a BP staffer even lives in Brooklyn.
- I do not like your writers and editors inserting sleights on other papers into stories.
- I do not like your ignorance of some neighborhoods while you chase the hot ones.

That should clear things up. I realize that this could turn into a pot-kettle-black issue. However, here's the difference: The Brooklyn Paper is purportedly a newspaper. I am purportedly a blog, one puny little person's opinions.



You have an agenda, Brooklyn Paper. And that agenda is no less specific than the agenda of this blog. It's just different. Only you have advertisers and a particular population to please (a pseudo-suburban one, by the look of a recent award). Perhaps that is the appeal of place-blogs (good ones) - the blogs have no constituency to kowtow to ... they call it like they see it, period.

Seem as if it comes down to this, Brooklyn Paper: I don't like you. And that is okey-doke in these United States of America. (I don't like creamed corn or Charo either.) You're perfectly welcome to complain about this blog on your platform just as I complain about you here, and just as del Monte is welcome to dispute my opinion of their corn. Smartmom isn't for everyone. Not everyone likes your paper. I think it sucks. Other people think it sucks. Some people think Andrew Lloyd Webber sucks. Some people think this blog sucks. Big deal.

Although, I have to say - I am surprised that such an important media outlet would bother with puny little us and our puny little blogs. Then again, your paper gets an awful lot of play on the Brooklyn blogs (both friend and foe), and we get a lot of traffic.

As I have absolutely no doubt you've told Smartmom, "Any publicity is good publicity." How about a little blog plugging in the Brooklyn Paper? We've certainly done our duty on this end. Maybe a critical piece on the more incendiary Brooklyn blogs?

No? I thought not.

(newspapers photo coutesy of bondidwhat's photostream at flickr.com)


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MR. KUNTZMAN RESPONDS ...

Mr. K sends a response, stating, "If you're going to abuse, at least get your facts straight." He goes on to mention that "EVERY reporter at The Brooklyn Paper lives in Brooklyn." However, I did not say "reporter." I said "staffer." Perhaps a particular staffer I am aware of has moved from Staten Island to Brooklyn, another has fled Jersey, and freelancers don't count. Mr. K also charges that we "willfully misunderstood what winning a "Newspaper of the Year" award from the Suburban Newspaper Association means." (Don't really care about that - it's just easy to make fun of.) And of course, he urges Icky readers "to judge for themselves what you get from a 'real' newspaper by visiting ..." Sorry, Mr. K. I've brought enough attention to your paper for the day. But good to see you on the Blog Beat at 9:30 on a Sunday evening.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

AS ALWAYS, EXCELLENT RESPONSES FROM READERS ...

"Funny post. Great reaction. Yep, the BP's getting kinda annoying. Especially when it's wet on my stoop. Then it becomes property of the Dept. of Sanitation. The old Post writer's got that Murdoch envy again, as the PS Courier and related papers are owned by News Corp. itself. And yeah, columns written in the third person unless they're talking about infants suck."

"I like the Brooklyn Paper. Where else are you going to get such local newspaper coverage? I agree that BP doesn't cover certain neighborhoods well at all, especially if there aren't a lot of upwardly mobile folk. I didn't like how BP tried to pander to Wal-Mart a couple years ago, trying to get some more of that full page ad moola (I worked for many years in the newspaper industry and it was awfully obvious what Gersh was doing). But with those exceptions, I think they are a very valuable asset to Brooklyn."

"It's Greenpoint, bitch! You're being too hard on Gersh. I know for a fact he had a reporter in the Garden Spot. He (or she) quit after waiting 8 months to get paid. $30 a story."

"The Brooklyn Paper is a weekly. Did you ever notice that a serious news story will appear in the (daily) Brooklyn Eagle (www.brooklyneagle.com) and then a few days later a bastardized version of it comes out in the Brooklyn paper, only with a sensational headline?"

"Time Magazine is a weekly. Did you ever notice that a serious news story will appear in the (daily) New York Times (www.nytimes.com) and then a few days later a bastardized version of it comes out in Time Magazine, only with a sensational headline?" "The New York Post is a daily. Did you ever notice that a serious news story will appear online (news.yahoo.com) and then the next day a bastardized version of it comes out in the Post, only with a sensational headline?' And by the way... 'How about a little blog plugging in the Brooklyn Paper?' Perhaps you should scroll to the bottom of this week's Hot Link email newsletter."

BLOGOTORIAL NOTE - Excellent comments from all (we seriously did post all comments received). On the topic of scrolling to the "the bottom of this week's Hot Link email newsletter," our readers might recall ... I no longer receive it. =)

At the dawn of the twentieth century, servants were a must-have in any respectable Brooklyn brownstone. Perhaps little has changed.





In Brooklyn Eagle classifieds from the early 1900s (even examining several months), the majority of the homes wanting maids, cooks, and "girls" carry a Park Slope or Prospect Heights address ... Bergen, Prospect, Sterling, Lincoln, Dean, etc ... and there are dozens of 'em every day.

Turning to the ads of today, it looks as if little has changed. In current Park Slope real estate listings, remnants of days-gone-by servitude are still used as inducements for potential buyers. A recent Corcoran listing touts a pre-war "two bedroom plus maid's room." Orrichio-Anderson pontificates that a "formal dining room and maid's room represents the ultimate in gracious urban living."

One only has to glance at (but never quote) the Park Slope Parents group, fire up a search engine, or visit ISawYourNanny to bear witness to the large number of domestics working in Park Slope mini-manses nowadays, carrying on the traditions of their Edwardian predecessors.

The working class needs jobs, the gentry needs doing for, and that is all perfectly okey-doke; but let's not fool ourselves into thinking there isn't a gentry - it is just differently defined. No, the class system is not dead in South Brooklyn, and Mrs. Astor's 400 has become the Park Slope 100.

Although an entire neighborhood cannot be defined by a sweeping generalization, perhaps some of our leafy, liberal brownstone blocks do not fully realize that the glory days of rich-folks-with-household-staff are in current revival.





8th ave brownstones courtesy of wallyg's photostream at flickr.com

The Icky Inbox recently began receiving emails full of (amusingly named) "hot links" from a Mr. Ross at The Brooklyn Paper.

Considering this blog's opinion of The Brooklyn Paper (had Mr. Ross bothered to actually read this blog), and considering this blog's support of others who feel the same, the arrival of his friendly mass email was more than a little surprising. A little bit like walking into Yankee Stadium and shouting "Go, Red Sox!"

Take a look at this blog's October 29th entry, Mr. Ross. It's just a few posts down the page.

We're not fond of cutesy-pie third person names, we're not into your paper's shiny suburban agenda, and we don't want your "hot links." Stop spamming us. The email address listed on this page is not a link. It's text. Therefore, Mr. Ross, you went to some trouble to pointedly add us to your list. We're happy that you deem us so worthy of your award-winning time, but honestly, we don't like you. So stop it.

You'd think you would have learned your lesson over at Miss Heather's.



beef hot links image courtesy of holylandbrand.com

The caption from the 1950s reads, "Where are we to go? One of the families yet to be relocated from the site of the Prospect Expressway is the DePrisco family. Mrs. Angie DePrisco and her three children, Geraldine, 7, Joan, 5, and Ralph, 2, stand in front of their cold water flat at 336 17th St."







The lower photo is the site of the DePrisco's home in 2007 - a disused, gated and locked Community Garden contained within a fairly barren park, in the South Slope. It's just off 7th Ave, edging the side of the Prospect Expressway. Funny thing is, much of the Prospect Expressway is lined with (sometimes nice, sometimes even really nice) vest-pocket parks, especially on the South side of Windsor Terrace. Many are tiny. This one is pretty big. Speaking in the vernacular of the day, "What a dump."

What would Mrs. DePrisco think?

1950s photo courtesy of the Brooklyn Public Library, Brooklyn Collection

I took a walk down to Prospect Park on a fine Friday morning. On the Windsor Terrace/Park Slope border, I found this little bugger on the sidewalk in front of Connecticut Muffin. Poor little squish. Someone was sitting about 18 inches away on the other side of the planter. How'ja like to be the employee that had to clean that up?!

Muffins, anyone?

It does look like a Courtyard Suites, does it not?

All you'd have to do is hang a sign out front. Alas, this is one of the (comparatively) newer condo buildings on Seventh Avenue, just outside WT, in what (it seems) we are now to call "South Slope." Convenient to schools, the 24 hour store, and with a beautiful view of the Prospect Expressway and the Car Wash.



This is right around the corner from The Minerva condos that Brownstoner recently reported on. Check it out.

Evidently, I have need for a new tag ... Public Pissing.

You might remember from a previous entry, I have evidently been pretty naive concerning the pissing going on around me.

Yesterday afternoon, a hipster dad was walking down Prospect Park West with his toddler. It seems Toddles had to pee. Dad walks the todd over to the curb, yanks down his drawers, and assists him in a street piss. I am totally not kidding.

There are so many ways in which this should be wrong, I can't believe one of them did not stick. I mean, hell, isn't peeing directly onto Prospect Park West shameful enough? Facing Holy Name church? With your wanker hanging out onto the avenue? Midday with a Southern Exposure? In front of a Hallmark Store?

An expression comes to mind ... Don't shit where you eat.

Dad promptly put the todd on his shoulders and bounced off down the street. Pissing on the Avenue and a ride on Daddy's shoulders ... now that's what I call an afternoon out.

A constitutional was in order. I decided a nice walk down 8th Avenue into Park Slope would fit the bill. Okay, Hell, I admit it, I went to Barnes & Noble. But it was 9pm on a Sunday and I needed books ... badly! I did manage to resist the urge to buy a flavored latte at Upchucks.

I came out of the store with my green bag of conspicuous consumption in hand, and I rounded the corner onto 6th Street when what to my wondering eyes should appear? A guy pissing in the tree pit, with his wanker hanging out for all to see.

I have to admit, I had mixed emotions. First, I was a little aghast. Then, I decided it was kind of fun. I mean, this was no ordinary hiding-in-an-alley-behind-a-dumpster piss. This piss could very well have been a social statement. A purposeful piss. A piss on a mission. If nothing else, the location was sheer poetry ... 6th Street and 7th Avenue in Park Slope, right outside the huge B&N windows, directly behind the permanently parked ice cream truck, and smack bang across from brand new shiny bazillion dollar Methodist Hospital entrance. You go, pisser.

(Should you wonder about the title of the post, head on over to http://www.newyorkshitty.com/, where the fabulous Heather presides as Dog Shit Queen of Greenpoint.)