DailyHeights

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 

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.

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

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]

Mud Sling Alert! It was called an “Open Letter to Landlords”, but Young Snitch’s recent post on the Prospect Heights Message Board was more like a perversion of those words on the Statue Of Liberty: “Don’t rent to yuppies, to frat boys, to investment bankers yearning to breathe free…”

Should landlords have the responsiblity–nay, obligation–to pick WHICH newbies get to gentrify Brooklyn? Even if it was legal to do so? If Snitch had his way, Prospect Heights landlords would cherry pick artistic types, and wouldn’t rent to “anyone that was in a frat or sorority … anyone who wears black pants, a blue shirt and a gold tie to work … anyone who gushes about the opening of a sushi restaurant on Franklin, without at least considering that every new business catering to recent arrivals ratchets up the cycle of neighborhood replacement … anyone who works in equity trading, i-banking or finance in general…”

Nobody wants to see Brooklyn’s tres-cool nooks and crannies turn into Upper Blandhattan… But maybe even pierced tongues should get held once in a while. Whether you think the treatise is spot-on or arrogant, it certainly struck a chord. People hating and defending their neighbors are going at it now Go watch mud get slung on the Prospect Heights Message Boards!

 

 EastofFlatbush linked to a streetsblog article stating the DOT has synched  the crosswalk signs on the corner of Flatbush Avenue between the Brooklyn Public Library and Prospect Park. Until recently, people crossing the busy intersection were forced to wait on a concrete island that bisects the avenue. At the prompting of the surrounding community, the DOT has finally coordinated both traffic lights, allowing pedestrians to cross in one pass. In addition, the DOT has extended the red light by 20 seconds, giving pedestrians more “walk” time. This is welcome change that has been met with enthusiasm on the Prospect Heights message board.

Rob Witherwax of Prospect Heights states in the article:

“Momentous news, people: this morning I crossed the entire width of Flatbush Avenue, from the Library to the Park, in one movement – without waiting on the island, without running across, and without disobeying traffic laws. I know, it sounds ridiculous, but it happened. The crosswalk signs, from the library to the island and from the island to the Park, turned ‘walk’ at the same time. I was astounded, and the woman alongside of me audibly gasped.” 

Chefsgirl06 agrees. “That’s an amazing accomplishment. No sarcasm intended. I’ve dealt with that hazard for over 30 years. Now I can enhance my literacy without running for my life. It’s the little things that keep me happy.”

 

Photo by streetsblog.

According a streetsblog link posted to the PHMB by Laura B , Forest City Ratner will now expand it’s (proposed) Atlantic Yards project to include a large suburban-style parking lots aimed at providing an 944 parking spaces for those visiting the soon-to-be-built Nets arena. Forest City Ratner states the lot is “temporary” and will only be in place until 2016, when residential construction is slated to begin (ironically, to replace the buildings that will be torn down to build the lot) . In addition, two more “temporary” lots are planned, replacing existing buildings along Atlantic Avenue between Carlton and 6th Avenue. In total, there will be an estimated 3,600 parking spots created by all three lots, located directly above Brooklyn’s largest public transportation hub: the Atlantic Avenue subway station and LIRR.

Critics worry that if FCR’s project doesn’t go through or economic conditions change before construction begins, Prospect Heights may end up with a not-so-temporary patch of asphalt three times the size of Fairway in Red Hook. Brooklynspeaks also points out that “The more parking provided, the more people will chose to drive – and the more traffic created,” which would exacerbate conditions on an already congested Flatbush Avenue and increase traffic along surrouding residential streets.

Worst of all (according to rogersma), Ratner will charge his own construction workers to park. How’s that for chutzpah?

Cobwebs, spiders, and jack-o-lanterns aren’t making kids wet their pants anymore– so thank goodness for St. Ann’s Hellhouse with it’s mock-up of Evangelical church haunted houses that peddle fear better than FOX News! This month’s terror level? Orange! How festive. Getting knocked up in high school is horrifying! Oh, the pure evil of homosexuals! Oh, the LOL.

Has anyone checked this out yet? Don’t be a halloweenie. Get in on the discussion of local haunts before the gig is up and you’re picking miniature Butterfingers out of your upper molars.

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

Cyclists. Joggers. Dog-Owners. Dog-haters. Religious Zealots. Stroller Gangs. Barbequers. The apparently not-so-rare Public Urinators and Defacators.(Whoa.)

This recent Brooklyn Papers article. says it all:

“If the park is increasingly a battleground, it’s no surprise, given how many different constituent groups — from runners to sunbathers, softball players to soft-ice-cream eaters — are using the emerald expanse … The arrival of wireless Internet access two weeks ago may mean the emergence of an entirely new user-group … A trip to the park on any day shows that Brooklynites are a territorial — and irritable — bunch.”

It’s Civil War in Prospect Park, which is laden with characters who just can’t seem to get along (or play Bob Dylan on their guitars without inducing earshot wide cringing).

Whose petition are you signing? Should there be off-leash kid hours? Can we put small dogs on the Hibachi and use religious pamphlets for charcoal? Work it out on the P-Heights message boards.