The View From Argyle Heights:
-Gold is discovered in the freight train cut, creating full occupancy in all our B & Bs, and forcing the West Midwood Martial Arts & Family Fitness Center to schedule night classes to accommodate the new crowd, who will quickly be called “The Cut Diggers”.
-Avenue H is allowed to revert to Hiawatha Avenue, its original name before THE MAN homogenized it.
-A stationary NYPD post is created outside my house and manned 24/7.
-The Ox Cart keeps their delicious lamb lasagna on the menu.
-That leak in the flashing of my side window that has plagued me for 25 years, despite the efforts of 12 different roofers and an exorcist, experiences a spontaneous remission.
-I stop getting robo-calls from politicians and Congress wakes up and smells the coffee.
-The West Midwood Halloween Parade is renamed the “Cut Gathering Thing” to keep it more low key so I could possibly have some left-over candy for once.
-The NYC Landmarks Commission marks our land.
-The R train resumes service to/from Manhattan earlier than November 2014.
-A reality TV series is created which revolves around the constant struggle of a courageous blogger to change West Midwood to Argyle Heights, and in the first episode wards off vigilantes from Wuthering Westminster Hills intent on branding their unpronounceable name on the neighborhood.
-A No Parking sign is erected at the northeast corner of Westminster & Avenue H to make left turns safer.
-The Kent Theater decides to have a marathon of Brooklyn movies:
The French Connection - that marvelous car chase under the El on New Utrecht Ave was originally edited with “Black Magic Woman” by Santana on the soundtrack per director William Freidkin.
Smoke - filmed in Windsor Terrace, and the Slope, screenplay/direction by Brooklyn’s own Paul Auster, starring Harvey Keitel who grew up in Brighton Beach, with Giancarlo Esposito, an honorary Brooklynite thanks to all the Spike Lee “joints” he graced.
Saturday Night Fever – “Stayin’ Alive” on 86th Street with the Bee Gees singing “We can try to understand/The New York Times effect on man” (I always thought the lyric was "the New York Times don't make a man" until the Internet came along).
On The Waterfront - filmed in Hoboken but the script, and the feel, said Red Hook.
Annie Hall - the Coney Island scenes.
Three Days of The Condor and Moonstruck - Brooklyn Heights.
Heaven Help Us - screenplay by Charles Purpura, who taught at NYU until his death in 2005, a classmate of mine at St. Augustine on Park Place in the Slope, long closed by the time this movie appeared, which memorialized for all time the highs and lows of a small all-boys Catholic high school in 1965, our senior year.
The Purple Rose of Cairo - filmed inside the Kent during its renovation.
The Squid & The Whale - there's even a shot of Rite Aid on Newkirk.
Sophie's Choice - the Albemarle Road scenes.
The Chosen - filmed on my Carroll Street block in 1980 - I got up early one morning to get the paper off the front steps in my boxers and I see Hassidim talking on the sidewalk in front of a 1945 Studebaker and a 1947 Oldsmobile… Suddenly an exasperated voice cries “Cut!” - I would have been in that movie if THE MAN hadn't edited me out.
-A nice 10 inch snowstorm that shuts everything down for a day, with flakes that are fluffy, not wet, making it easy to shovel. And an even bigger snowstorm during the Super Bowl in East Rutherford, New Jersey, on February 2nd, turning the game into a laugh fest and a no-brainer about taking the next day off.
-Peace on Earth, especially on Argyle Heights, with good will towards men. And women too.
Holiday Wishes
By Homeowner Harry (Another in a series of observations about life in West Midwood as it is lived today…or maybe not)
-Avenue H is allowed to revert to Hiawatha Avenue, its original name before THE MAN homogenized it.
-A stationary NYPD post is created outside my house and manned 24/7.
-The Ox Cart keeps their delicious lamb lasagna on the menu.
-That leak in the flashing of my side window that has plagued me for 25 years, despite the efforts of 12 different roofers and an exorcist, experiences a spontaneous remission.
-I stop getting robo-calls from politicians and Congress wakes up and smells the coffee.
-The West Midwood Halloween Parade is renamed the “Cut Gathering Thing” to keep it more low key so I could possibly have some left-over candy for once.
-The NYC Landmarks Commission marks our land.
-The R train resumes service to/from Manhattan earlier than November 2014.
-A reality TV series is created which revolves around the constant struggle of a courageous blogger to change West Midwood to Argyle Heights, and in the first episode wards off vigilantes from Wuthering Westminster Hills intent on branding their unpronounceable name on the neighborhood.
-A No Parking sign is erected at the northeast corner of Westminster & Avenue H to make left turns safer.
-The Kent Theater decides to have a marathon of Brooklyn movies:
Smoke - filmed in Windsor Terrace, and the Slope, screenplay/direction by Brooklyn’s own Paul Auster, starring Harvey Keitel who grew up in Brighton Beach, with Giancarlo Esposito, an honorary Brooklynite thanks to all the Spike Lee “joints” he graced.
Saturday Night Fever – “Stayin’ Alive” on 86th Street with the Bee Gees singing “We can try to understand/The New York Times effect on man” (I always thought the lyric was "the New York Times don't make a man" until the Internet came along).
On The Waterfront - filmed in Hoboken but the script, and the feel, said Red Hook.
Annie Hall - the Coney Island scenes.
Three Days of The Condor and Moonstruck - Brooklyn Heights.
Heaven Help Us - screenplay by Charles Purpura, who taught at NYU until his death in 2005, a classmate of mine at St. Augustine on Park Place in the Slope, long closed by the time this movie appeared, which memorialized for all time the highs and lows of a small all-boys Catholic high school in 1965, our senior year.
The Squid & The Whale - there's even a shot of Rite Aid on Newkirk.
Sophie's Choice - the Albemarle Road scenes.
-A nice 10 inch snowstorm that shuts everything down for a day, with flakes that are fluffy, not wet, making it easy to shovel. And an even bigger snowstorm during the Super Bowl in East Rutherford, New Jersey, on February 2nd, turning the game into a laugh fest and a no-brainer about taking the next day off.
