Dirty beaches…

 Posted by Nick at 11:13 am  Coney Island
Jul 292010
 

In this boiling hot wave summer hitting the ocean is a good way to cool off… right? A Natural Resources Defense Council’s report found high levels of pollutants at New York State’s beaches in which human and animal feces were found in many locations.  Their study ranks New York state beaches seventh worst in the nation. The NRDC’s took samples from beaches and found harmful bacteria causing infections such as pink eye and dysentery. At Coney Island 0 to 5 percent of samples were over state limits and Rockaway Beach 0 to 9 percent. This is great compared to White Cross Fish Club, Bronx  22%,  Crescent Beach, Nassau County, Long Island 29% and Beachwood Beach West, Ocean County, New Jersey 51%. Have you gotten out of the water and felt sick?

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Fare hikes expected!

 Posted by Nick at 3:17 pm  MTA
Jul 282010
 

MTA board has authorized public hearings on fare and toll hikes that could hit in January as well as layoffs.  Expected is the 30-Day unlimited-ride Metro Card would increase from $89 to $99 and would be limited to 90 trips with an extra $5 for no limits. There could be a $1 fee for new Metro Cards if not using refill option. It costs $0.07 to produce a MTA fare card. The single ride fare would increase to $2.50 for one-way subway rides.  By the way, MTA Chairman Jay Walder is paid $350,000 a year, receives pension payments and a housing allowance.  My recent blog pointed out the story by Greg Mocker of WPIX News that Diana Jones Ritter is starting a new position with the MTA on July 16 to oversee cost-cutting and restructuring at the MTA. She’ll be paid $217,000 a year.  The MTA web site always has other high paying employment positions. What about layoffs at the top not the bottom? What about just making the system not suck? The next you are jammed into a packed subway train and hear “train traffic”, “stalled train”, “late train”, etc…what will you think about fare increases.

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Brooklyn is boiling!!!

 Posted by Nick at 12:06 pm  Weather
Jul 272010
 

The National Weather Service states a “heat wave” is three consecutive days of 90+ degree temperatures. Tough to remember a day that has not hit 90 in July 2010. The temperature has hit triple-digits as well.  Records have been broken in New York City, pools have been overcrowded, beaches flocked to, air conditioners burned out, etc.  So what have you done to keep cool this burning hot summer????

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Around South Blogistan

 Posted by Brian Hedden at 7:00 am  Blogwrap
Jul 262010
 

Needed to recharge the batteries a bit, but Around South Blogistan is now back.

Around South Blogistan is a weekly summary of stories about happenings in southern Brooklyn.

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Brooklyn’s best pizza?

 Posted by Nick at 10:10 am  Brooklyn In Pizzas
Jul 212010
 

According to 10best.com Brooklyn’s best pizza is Di Fara (1424 Avenue J, Brooklyn). The Village Voice (from 2009) has Totonno Pizzeria Napolitano (1524 Neptune Avenue, Brooklyn,) followed by DiFara and continue with 3. Grimaldi’s (19 Old Fulton Street, Brooklyn) 4. Roberta’s (261 Moore Street, Brooklyn) 5. Motorino (319 Graham Avenue, Brooklyn) 6. LaVilla (261 Fifth Avenue, Brooklyn) 7. Luigi’s (686 Fifth Avenue, Brooklyn) 8. Krispy Pizzeria (7112 13th Ave., Brooklyn). Never go topless unless its anchovies.  So who do you think has Brooklyn’s best pizza?

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Thursday: The Beach Boys @ Asser-Levy, Finding Nemo @ Narrows Botanical

 Posted by Brian Hedden at 7:00 am  Bay Ridge, Coney Island, Events, Music
Jul 212010
 

Reminder: The Beach Boys Band (Mike Love, Bruce Johnston, and some random backup dudes) will be playing at Asser-Levy Seaside Park tomorrow night. The concert begins at 7:30pm. AND… Finding Nemo will be the outdoor movie at the Narrows Botanical Garden, starting at sundown. Sorry, no way to be in both places at once – you’ll have to choose one, or the other! Spectators to both are encouraged to bring lawn chairs.

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Wednesday: Artists’ Panel At Tabla Rasa

 Posted by Brian Hedden at 7:00 am  Sunset Park
Jul 202010
 

From a press release sent by Sunset Park’s Tabla Rasa Gallery:

On Wednesday, July 21, starting at 6:30 pm, there will be an artists’ talk and panel discussion led by master printers Sheila Goloborotko and Agnes Murray on the subject of connoisseurship in printmaking and the history of creating the portfolio featured in the “Goloborotko’s Studio 20th Anniversary Edition” portfolio. Artists who created work for the project, Audrey Frank Anastasi, Ramona Candy, Mary Chang, Tami Gold, Robert Golden, Kathleen Hayek, Pearl Rosen, GG Stankiewicz, and Harold Wortsman will share their behind-the-scenes insights and participate in the question & answer session.

This is part of the “Rock Paper Scissors” exhibition at the Tabla Rasa Gallery that runs until August 14. I stopped off at the exhibition’s opening night on my way home from work. It was totally worth the trip. I have no idea what to expect from this panel, but if you haven’t seen the exhibition yet, this might be a good opportunity to go.

The gallery is at 224 48th Street, between 2nd and 3rd Avenues (closer to 2nd, on the south side of the street). R-train to 45th Street.

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Waste Management or more wasted MTA spending?

 Posted by Nick at 10:25 am  MTA
Jul 152010
 

MTA “Budget Restrictions” have caused cancelled or reduced service, route changes, longer wait times, layoffs, booth closings, etc all leading to, if possible, poorer MTA service…all in an effect to save money and close budget gaps.  Commuting for South Brooklyn is terrible. Commuters in Sheepshead Bay, Manhattan Beach, Brighton Beach and Coney Island ride the Q and B subway lines which share 1 track and Coney Island and Bensonhurst no longer have the M line all riders forced on to the D line.

Diana Jones Ritter is starting a new position with the MTA on July 16 to oversee cost-cutting and restructuring at the Metropolitan Transit Authority; according to one report, she’ll be paid $217,000. The MTA press release praised Jones Ritter’s background. An ongoing story by PIX 11 News reporter Greg Mocker on the nightly 10PM news has pointed out that the release did include one glaring mistake:

It said “she is accountable for an $8 billion budget” when in fact the Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities (OMRDD) budget is about half that  just over $4 billion.

Mocker quickly discovered there was plenty the MTA didn’t say about Jones Ritter.

Most glaring was a June 2010 investigation of OMRDD by the New York Senate Task Force on Government Efficiency. The report cited millions of dollars in wasteful spending on overtime, housing, and poor cost containment by the OMRDD… Another eye-opening report came from New York’s State Inspector General. It found “apparent nepotism and undue influence in employment practices at the OMRDD New York City Office’s Fiscal Unit.

…In response to a flurry of questions from Mocker about Jones Ritter, the MTA issued this… “Diana Jones Ritter was selected for the job after an extensive internal and external search. An exhaustive check of her background and references reaffirmed her excellent credentials and track record. Governor Paterson played no role in her hiring, nor did the activities of her husband. We are very confident that she is more than qualified.”

So what do you think of this MTA hire?

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Siren Festival: Who’s on first, What’s on second, and Holy F*ck’s on at eight

 Posted by Brian Hedden at 8:00 am  Coney Island, Events, Music
Jul 152010
 

Stephanie11229 contributed to this article. Her complete Siren Festival preview – with more videos and more commentary – is available at her rock-n-roll blog, Hope For Yesterday. She’ll tell you which bands are worth looking out for, whereas you’ll find I’ll tell you which bands are easy targets for a sarcastic blogger.

The Siren Festival – the two-stage, all-day music rock-out organized by The Village Voice – will be this Saturday, July 17 in Coney Island. This is the day thousands of hippie kid North Brooklynites pretend to notice Coney Island and South Brooklyn for something other than the beach and the Cyclone. It’s also one of the few times South Brooklyn gets to enjoy bands playing original music that didn’t have their heyday in the 1970s (sorry, Aretha).

Matt & Kim take top billing on the Main Stage (W. 10th Street between the Cyclone and Luna Park). This Williamsburg keyboard-and-percussion duo is the band crush du jour of North Brooklyn’s Hipster class. And that’s not at all meant as an insult. (Yes, it is.) (No it’s not.) (Yes. Yes, it is.) But we can’t hate them because they’re the proud parents of a baby boy! girl! album!.. They made an album together and compared it to childbirth – oy vey!

Continue reading »

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Where are South Brooklyn’s softball leagues?

 Posted by Brian Hedden at 7:00 am  Adult Rec Sports
Jul 152010
 

I’m totally ripping off a page from the excellent Capitol Region web site, All Over Albany, because this is a topic I’ve had in the back of my mind since the snow was knee-deep to a tall blogger. One of their readers writes:

A friend of mine would really like to get involved with a softball league that’s fun and not too competitive. He’s not a bad player but he’s afraid he’s not good enough to be welcomed by some of the more competitive leagues out there. Also, he’s gotten the impression that without an “in,” he won’t be able to find an opening.

Any ideas?

An excellent question, and one I’d like to have answered for South Brooklyn. I’ve seen listings on Craigslist for occasional empty spots in competitive leagues. I have no idea where to find general sign-up info, though, either for these competitive leagues, or more casual and co-ed leagues. And it isn’t for lack of looking around.

In the past couple of years, I’ve signed up for touch football with Zog Sports. Most of their games are on Randall’s Island (220 teams last fall), but they have a league of 8-16 teams that plays at Brooklyn Tech’s football field off Atlantic Avenue. I love it, and I’m looking forward to the fall season. But even though I’ve met a lot of fantastic people through Zog – including a few that hail from Bay Ridge and Sheepshead Bay – I wouldn’t mind doing something that’s a little closer to my home and neighbors here.

A few months ago, I asked both Zog Sports and the NYC Social Sports Club – two of the City’s leading organizers of adult softball, basketball, soccer, and touch football social leagues – about any possible plans they had for starting leagues in southern Brooklyn – specifically, to ballfields in Bay Ridge, Dyker Beach Park and Marine Park (and also the multi-purpose field between MCU Park and the Boardwalk). For varying reasons, the short answer is no. Zog says that they’ve looked into areas in southern Brooklyn, but are focusing on building out their North Brooklyn base first – which makes sense, if you think about the 220-teams-to-16 disparity between their “Manhattan” league and its Brooklyn counterpart.

The NYCSSC was even more specific. “We offered leagues in Brooklyn years ago, but the simple math of it is that Manhattan leagues do much better,” Matt Archambault wrote to me in February. “And I’m not talking just ‘more than there.’  Attendance is always an issue in leagues like ours.  And when the games aren’t offered right near the place where players work, they don’t show up often at all.  Our Brooklyn leagues ended up being a glorified pickup game, trying to form teams out of those who showed up.”

But hey – just because the Manhattan-based organizations aren’t doing anything here doesn’t mean it’s isn’t happening. Right?

Do you know of any softball, touch football, or soccer leagues in southern Brooklyn, either casual or competitive? Do you have information on team and individual signups, either for this summer or for fall ball? Do you have any pictures of the teams in action you would like to share? We would love to hear from you! Please drop me a line at tips@bksouthie.com.

P.S. We’ll even take tips on southern Brooklyn kickball leagues, if such things exist here.

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