Author Archives: dailyheights

Underhill Ave. & St. Johns Pl. in the 60s

Atomische just wrote in to Daily Heights : “A visitor to my photo blog posted a long and fascinating comment about what it was like living on my block (Underhill & St. John’s) back in the 1960s.”

Here’s some excerpts: “Wow,,,,I lived on this block when I was a kid..from about 1961 to about 1968 or 69. … the door was never locked … there were beautiful grand stoops with a ton of brickwork and had huge bushes on each side. Inside our hallway vestibule were two huge mirrors facing each other and you could see yourself into infinity. “

“On Underhill Avenue was the famous HERMANS ICE CREAM PARLOR and people came to hang out from all over Brooklyn … MOTOWN was what we listened to on the jukebox mostly and drank Egg Creams. We could buy a pack of cigarettes for 28 cents at the drug store. “

“The rent in those days ran about $100 or $150 a month… the “average” kids lived on the tenament side and the ‘richer” kids lived in one of the three big apt buildings across the street…”

Read the full post on the

That Substitute Mail Lady is a Total Bitch

Photo by Waxy Poetic

Where is good ol’ Peaches when you need her? Why is the mail ending up anywhere but the mailbox? What’s up with that substitute mail lady?
Josh B is one of several PH people to complain on the Prospect Heights Board: “She’s super-short, so she refuses to put any mail in mailboxes she can’t reach. She throws all my mail–bills, checks included–on the floor of my apartment lobby and forces us to sort out the mail for each apartment. We put a tiny ladder (like, three steps) out there for her, but she refuses to use it, saying she could ‘hurt herself.’ ”

What this neighborhood needs is a USPS cloning machine… Anotherdayinbkln writes about Peaches: “she’s so good, she makes me show her my I.D. if I go to my mailbox before she’s done filling them all up.”

No end to Brooklyn mail troubles on the Prospect Heights Message Board 

Shooting at Indigo Blu: What's the Real Story?


The first reports of gunshots at Indigo Blu were posted right here on the Prospect Heights Message Board. Since then, newspaper items have focused on gun-toting landlord Clement Calixte, the 67-year-old “Bible-thumping Brooklyn community activist” and ex-auxiliary cop who police say fatally shot a man in around 1 pm at the Vanderbilt Avenue bar space.

Apparently, the altercation was related to the eviction of tenant Alan Henry, proprietor of Indigo Blu. The guy who got fatally shot was helping Alan prep for the move, it seems.

What was Alan’s role in all this? Did he bring it on himself, so to speak?? The Daily News story certainly didn’t cut him much slack:

“Calixte had been in housing court just hours before trying to get Henry – who allegedly owed $19,000 in back rent – tossed from the building.”

” ‘He was supposed to be evicted today,’ the landlord’s wife said. ‘This is what happens when you have bad tenants.’

Bad tenants? What about Alan’s side of the story? Insuremeeg writes: “Daily News got the story completely wrong… Try as he might, Alan couldn’t make rent because the constant harassment (noise complaint calls to the police, locking him out of his portion of the basement and then shutting off Alan’s lights during a busy night) and he had decided to give up at this location.”

Whatever the truth may be Emily wrote a letter of complaint to the Daily News. The reporter wrote back: “I didn’t write an article sympathetic to the gunman. My editor did…” Well, there’s a smoking gun!
So what exactly caused this altercation anyway? Not sure, but people on the boards say that apparently things were not too placid between Alan and Clement, who repeatedly complained about the noise coming from the bar below the apartment he lived in…

Read the whole backstory on the Prospect Heights Message Board.

Mysterious Underhill Bodega: Under New Management!

wordhooer writes on the Prospect Heights Message Board: “that bodega [The one that has had curiously empty shelves for several years – Ed.] is under new management now, and it’s much better stocked. it has full cases of beer, a new ATM (yes, to replace the one that was stolen when someone SAWED a hole in the wall of the bodega and hauled it out), and all sorts of new food and stuff.
“The new owners also own the bodega on Underhill and Sterling, to give you an idea of the new quality we’re looking at. they also have cigarettes every day, not just on mondays! it’s a vast improvement.

No more empty shelves in the Prospect Heights Message Boards

DH CHALLENGE: Guess the price of this Vanderbilt Ave. Studio


How’s your real estate-fu? Match wits with jgregorie, who asks on the Prospect Heights Message Board: “it’s not my place, but i’m just curious what it would go for. how much would you pay to: A. rent it, B. buy it?”

Hmm… Well, this “bright” 2-room studio is actually in Prospect Heights, unlike most of those apartments “trying to pass”… We’ve got exposed brick (attn sellers: cheaper than sheetrock and the kids love it!); hardwood floors, maintenance of $450/mo, a “decorative” fireplace (pretty!)…

How’s that buyer’s market working for ya – ready to offer less than 200k?

Link: How Much Would You Pay for This Apartment? [Prospect Heights Message Board]

What did the Underhill Ave. Stores Look Like in the 1920s?



Mirabito, originally uploaded by dailyheights.com.

It’s such an odd little island of retail storefronts in an otherwise residential location… and from the looks of this photo that
cbukster just posted on the Prospect Heights Message Board, it was home to at least one amazing shop, at 180 Underhill Ave.

Just take a look at that place. No offense to the current line-up of bodegas and bulletproof Chinese takeaways… but if Mirabito Market was there today, is there anywhere else in Prospect Heights that you would rather shop??

The story starts like this: “Salvatore and Mary Mirabito, my great grandfather and grandmother, came to America in the late 1800’s from the small town of Salerno on the west coast of Italy…” More…

cbukster has a direct personal connection to the photo. His father was part of the Mirabito family and worked as a delivery boy, “taking packages on bicycle to the once majestic apartments on Eastern Parkway, gathering tips of nickels along the way for his trouble. Soon this delivery boy, Gil, Jr., would look toward the future and begin to imagine his own path in this world. Thanks dad.”

…Waiting for the “before/after” remix to appear on the Prospect Heights Message Board

Are You a Croc Hole?

What is the latest battle in the War for the Flyness of Prospect Heights? It’s not PH pedestrians vs the inexorable northward march of Park Slope strollers… sushi vs beef patties… or even $2.50 mini-cupcakes vs $15 manicures. It’s about normal footwear vs. overly casual fashion in the form of unisex plastic shoes with Swiss cheese holes.

Now that “Prospect Heights Ladies” have taken liftandcut’s advice to chill with the tight tapered pants, PHers are taking aim at footwear that, granted, may seem pretty cheap at $35 a pop, notes The Manolo, “until one realizes that they are manufactured out of the plastic rings used to hold the packs of six. Not the good value at half the price.”

If Crocs are a symptom, then the true disease may be comfort obsession, borne by our Park Slope neighbors to the south. Here is Erikka’s take: “PS has the least fashionable footwear per capita outside Burlington, Vermont. What is up with all this hippie ‘off the couch and out on the street’ shit?! People still wear those shoes from the 90’s that have velcro straps all over them–that shit wasn’t cool when ravers wore it…”

Erikka continues: “Don’t even get me started on the clogs–walking around with your cla-CLOMP, cla-CLOMPs like some sort of displaced yuppie Dutchman. And all those earth mother, various-shades-of-poop-brown recycled-everything sandals are the definition of ‘boner killer’. What is this obsession with comfort and being comfortable all the time? If god wanted you to be comfortable 24/7 he would have made you with marshmallows for feet. Take those hideous orange boats off your feet and put on some grown-up shoes!”

Um… OK. But let’s be fair. Judging from the sentiments expressed on the Prospect Heights Message Board, we are far from presenting a united front of hatin’ on comfort shoes: “Bring on the crocs and their bright, happy colors,” parrothead says. Likewise, VeggieQueen says she wears them exclusively in the garden because the dirt washes off so easily: “I’d love to wear them out in public, but i don’t dare… they are pretty ugly. My pair is dark brown… not neon puke green, or psycho clockwork orange.”

“I don’t think people are grasping the gravity of this struggle,” says young snitch, our resident Ayatollah of fashion. “In a neighborhood at the tipping point, we must cast fist-sized stones at infidels who seek to plunge Prospect Heights into a Park Slopian zeitgeist of ugly footwear, Cornell sweatshirts, faces dusted with cupcake crumbs, and general unflyness. wearing a messenger bag does not mean you’re ballllllliiiiin’.

Nice one, Ayatollah. What type of burka is most appropriate when one is rocking fake bapes? As homeowner implores: “could you PLEASE, PLEASE tell all the guys stylin’ around the bodega that patent leather belongs only on little girls’ Mary Janes? You can’t roll on me and try to eyeball me with patent leather high-tops. It’s not fly. Especially when your patent leather is blue or red.”

More helpful fashion tips on the Prospect Heights Message Board

Apple Harvest Time in Prospect Heights!


Thanks very much to mishmosh for sending in this photo, which she calls a “slightly less depressing counterpart” to the bricked-in building on Dean Street, just down the block.

“Folks emerged from the church down the street this morning, and gathered ’round this unlikely apple tree. I picked one! The texture was better suited for baking or salads, but it was surprisingly sweet. A tree grows in Brooklyn, indeed.”

Comments on the Prospect Heights Message Board (Brooklynian.com)

What's up with 540 St. Marks Avenue?

We just got an e-mail from RazorApple, who he wants to know what the deal is with 540 St. Marks Ave.: “I’m curious after seeing this stripped car about 50 feet away from where the glass tower is supposedly going up.”

RazorApple sees this hunk-a-junk as a direct affront to the gentrification creeping westward from Prospect Heights… he calls it “a reminder that the 16-story glass tower planned a few doors down at 540 St. Marks Ave. may be a very difficult sell.” Really? In any case, things at 540 seem to be dragging on. A commenter on RazorApple’s blog say that they’ve been “pushing sand around” for at least a year now.

Read clues, rumors, damn lies, and the occasional factoid on the Crown Heights Message Board

Your Prospect Heights Utopia

near 459 Dean St, originally uploaded by threecee.

What are you looking for in your Prospect Heights Utopia? The wish list grows:

– A reasonable selection of vegan dog bakeries
– Stroller-only sidewalks
– All weedspots turned into hemp sandal emporiums
– Any non-baked foodstuffs should also be available in smoothie form
– Washington avenue turned into a kitten run (sweaters required)
– A curfue for all the thugs
– A spell check feature
– A Corfu for all the Greek thugs
– Bodegas that sell yarn, bubble tea, and ponies
– A space for womyn to congregate and synchronize menstruation while performing modern dance
– More section 8 housing
– 5 or 6 methadone clinics
– A gun shop
– A strip joint
– A 50-foot high, impenetrable brick wall to protect us from gentrification
– A huge sports complex surrounded by a couple dozen high-end skyscraper condos
What will you wish for on the Prospect Heights Message Board?