The View From Argyle Heights

2011-12-24T11:43:00.002-05:00

The View From Argyle Heights:

Attack of the Bed & Breakfasts

byHomeowner Harry (Another in a series ofobservations about life in West Midwood as it is lived today…or maybe not)

There are now 11 Bed &Breakfasts in Victorian Flatbush and eight of them are in West Midwood (seelist). I like to think that’s due to the refreshing winds that blow aloft uphere in Argyle Heights, since we are a staggering 38 feet above sea level. Butit might also have to do with how delightful it is in our neck of the woods,and the entrepreneurial spirit of our citizens. After all, West Midwoodians aredescended from a hearty stock, many of whom wandered down the passes ofProspect Park looking for a better life and detached garages.

ButB&B’s are a fairly recent phenomenon in our Flatbush environs. They startedto spring up almost at the same time that hotels spread from Downtown intoBrownstone Brooklyn and now there are at least seven chain hotels stretchingfrom the Brooklyn Bridge to the South Slope. However, for the traveler on a budget,or those visiting family nearby, or those who prefer the peace and quiet andwarmth of a friendly host, the B&Bs fill an important gap. For instance, mybrother-in-law visits his daughter and three grandchildren on Argyle Road quiteoften and to avoid being underfoot, especially when it’s time to wash thedishes, or to grab some extra sleep after a long drive, what could be moreconvenient than renting a room for two nights around the corner?

Wellenough about my theories. Let’s hear what the innkeepers have to say. I askedeach of them to share with us their experiences but as usual I waited until thelast second to reach out and just when I thought I’d identified the absolutelast B&B out there, another entity would rise up from some far flung cornerof the Web as if to mock my crumby due diligence. Still I managed to convince amajority of these gallant souls to trust that I would not turn this articleinto a reminiscence about my favorite breakfasts over the years, although to behonest, that was basically my first draft, which Laura Givner gently rejectedwith the suggestion: “More people, less biscuits.”

Let’sstart with Susan Lehrer, who opened her Dekoven Suites back in 2002 to staveoff the financial doom of two steep college tuitions. Many of her colleaguesupon first contemplating taking the leap themselves (prompted by empty nests orcrushing mortgages), cited Susan’s enthusiasm, innovation, and willingness tohelp as a major factor in following her into B&B Land.

Openinga B&B takes a lot of effort. There is a ton of insurance required, a steep14.75% tax and other fees are collected by THE MAN, and the work is ceaseless,since those continental breakfasts and fresh sheets just don’t appear magicallyeach morning. By the way, just to work in one breakfast tidbit, Jorin andAlexandra Reddish, who just opened The Isabella on Rugby Road, pointed out tome why continental breakfasts (combos of cereal/pastry/fruit/bread/coffee/juices) are the staple of B&Bs: the insurance will not permit cooking meals for guests. So thatexplains why you’ll never find any omelet addicts wandering our streets.

Andas for the legality of turning one’s house into a B&B, THE MAN appears tohave taken a very sensible stance: as long as it’s not a multiple dwelling, coopor condo, and the establishment does not create a nuisance (e.g., by bookingmembers of the Tea Party and the Socialist Workers’ Party in adjoining rooms),maintains proper insurance and ponies up the taxes and fees, then there is noissue. Susan cited Carolyn Greer with the Brooklyn Tourism office at BoroughHall as a big supporter – she even brings a group of European tour operatorsthrough our neighborhoods each year under the theory that seeing is believing.Indeed, looking at the houses that serve as B&Bs in these parts, it wouldbe hard to find better maintained properties – picture post-cards, one and all.Add to that the wonderful hospitality and warm personalities of the hosts, andfrankly, considering the far-flung ports of call for the visitors they serve,these B&Bs probably do more to promote Brooklyn tourism than any MadisonAvenue campaign ever could (although Don Draper in his prime might have nailedit).

WesternEurope appears to contribute the most foreign bookings -- UK, Scotland, TheIsle of Man, Ireland, Germany, France, Italy, Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway,and Holland were all mentioned (by the way, Bibi and HarryKisoensing of Bibi’s Garden speak Dutch) -- but visitors from China,Russia, Japan, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Mexico, Israel andYemen were also cited as contributing to our local economy, as many innkeepersmentioned the boost local businesses receive from their guests, particularlythe many new eateries along our commercial strips.

Andas for why all these out-of-towners are here gobbling croissants each morning,Rob Seidel of The Loralei estimates about a third of his guests are visitingfamily members, and Trudy Steinfeld at The Blue Porchpoints out that those relatives reside not only in West Midwood, Ditmas Park,Beverly Square West, Fiske Terrace, and Kensington, but in areas farther north,like Park Slope, Williamsburg, and Fort Green. Others are here on business thatcan range from promoting a book, as one recent guest from Nashville told Sue Fishkin and Michael Hurwitz at RugbyGardens, to researching a novel set in 1970’s Brooklyn after checking in toDonna Zaengle’s Emilia’s Retreat. While the rich and famous apparently stillprefer the Hamptons and the Waldorf Astoria, Victorian Flatbush attracts moreof the creative crowd. Rob Seidel hosted the editor of a leading rock musicInternet zine; Susan Lehrer welcomed the first trombonist with the MelbournePhilharmonic; Jorin Reddish recently had a record producer from Germany; andTrudy and Paul Steinfeld have booked journalists, computer scientists, medicalprofessionals, and even one rocket scientist.

Someof the odder reasons for overnight stays included a Manhattanite who told SueFishkin he was going to interview for an important job the next day andabsolutely, positively had to have a quiet place for the night to settle hisnerves! The most improbable guests were three sailors from Amsterdam whoplanned to pilot their flat bottom boat around New York Harbor in June 2009 tocommemorate Henry Hudson’s discovery 400 years earlier. Arriving at JFK withoutreservations, they piled into a cab and asked the driver to take them to ahotel, whereupon they found themselves staring at some dump in the Bronx. Tothe rescue came a little thing called the Internet, where the sailors foundEmilia’s Retreat. Susan Lehrer organized an effort by the local B&Bs a fewyears back to get themselves listed in one place and www.victorianbb.net was the result. Theycan also be found, along with other newcomers on www.bedandbreakfast.com. Perusingthese sites and the individual web pages each of the B&Bs have created orsimply Googling their names brings up links to a lot of fantastic reviews onTripAdvisor.com and other travel boards.

Anyway,when their craft was late in arriving from Holland, the sailors stayed an extratwo weeks thanks to Dekoven Suites squeezing them in, demonstrating anotherimportant feature of these businesses: they are able to cross-refer to othernearby B&Bs when they are booked up. The guests from Holland, led by anintrepid gal named Ingrid, were so grateful for West Midwood’s hospitality thatthey took their hosts on what Donna calls “the most amazing sunset sail aroundthe harbor”. Ingrid has since returned to Dekoven Court, sans boat, with familyin tow and photos of subsequent journeys by the Dutch adventurers show upregularly in the mailbox of Emilia’s Retreat.

Askedto recount favorite memories, it was apparent these entrepreneurs are allwell-matched to be in a people business. Susan Lehrer recalled how theChristmas Blizzard of 2010 enthralled a French family who had never seen snowbefore. Susan outfitted the kids with snow gear and lo and behold, they all returnedin the Spring for a second vacation in West Midwood. What Rob Seidel and LanceTukell cited as most rewarding was “being part of people's important events andexperiences – from weddings to funerals to births.” Sue Fishkin and MichaelHurwitz put it this way: “Our guests all leave an imprint of one kind oranother and you have to open your arms and embrace all of them.”

TheConey Island Cyclones (both the roller coaster and baseball variety),Shakespeare in the Park, Fashion Week, 4th of July Fireworks in the BrooklynBridge Park – these are among the many New York experiences to which ourinnkeepers have introduced their

out-of-towners.But to really crystallize the difference between a stay at the BrooklynMarriott and a Victorian B&B, consider that when guests from England wantedto know what a typical American Thanksgiving Dinner was like, they werewelcomed by three generations of Zaengles, 30 strong, for their 39^th consecutive observance.And finally, Donna recently took a 9 year old German girl trick or treating forthe first time in her life down Glenwood Road. Nothing like starting at thepinnacle of the Halloween experience – the West Midwood Parade.

West Midwood Bed & Breakfasts:

TheLoralei B & B
667 Argyle Road, Brooklyn NY 11230

Hosts: Robert Seidel and Lance Tukell

http://www.loraleinyc.com/

Emilia's Retreat 31 DeKoven Court, Brooklyn NY 11230 Host: Donna Zaengle http://www.emiliasretreat.com/
Dekoven Suites 30 Dekoven Court, Brooklyn NY 11230
Host: Susan Lehrer

http://www.dekovensuites.com/

The Blue Porch Bed & Breakfast 15 Dekoven Court, Brooklyn NY 11230
Host: Trudy Raschkind Steinfeld

http://www.blueporchnyc.com/

Bibi’s Garden Bed & Breakfast 762 Westminster Road, Brooklyn NY 11230
Hosts: Bibi and Harry Kisoensing

http://www.bibisgarden.net/

Honey'sBed & Breakfast
770 Westminster Road, Brooklyn NY 11230
Hosts: Laura & CarlosBerger

http://www.honeysbedandbreakfast.com

Eve's B&B New York
751 Westminster Road, Brooklyn NY 11230

Host: Eva Isman
http://evesplacebnb.com/

The Griffin B & B

32Dekoven Court, Brooklyn NY 11230

Hosts:Joseph Berk and Jeannine Umrigar

http://thegriffinbandb.com/

Ditmas Park Bed & Breakfasts:

Rugby Gardens

317Rugby Road, Brooklyn NY 11226

Hosts: Sue Fishkin & MichaelHurwitz

http://rugbygardens.googlepages.com/

The Isabella At Ditmas Park B & B

557Rugby Road, Brooklyn NY 11230

Hosts:Jorin and Alexandra Reddish

http://theisabellaatditmaspark.com/

Handfinger'sHide-Away
522 Rugby Rd, Brooklyn NY 11226
Host: Merrie Handfinger

http://www.bedandbreakfast.com/ny-brooklyn-handfingershideaway.html

2011-11-19T13:35:00.001-05:00

We Got Letters – Stacks and Stacks of Letters

THE VIEW FROM ARGYLE HEIGHTS by Homeowner Harry (Another ina series of observations about life in West Midwood as it is lived today…ormaybe not)

At the end of my piece for the Summer issue of theNewsletter on the writers of West Midwood (“Reading & Writing & EvenSome Arithmetic”), I urged anyone who I had unintentionally excluded towrite me – bur reiterated that my criterion was a published book listed onAmazon. What follows are the missives I have received via e-mail or postings onhttp://argyleheights.blogspot.com. In order to encourage a free exchange, Ihave protected the identity of those who wished to maintain their anonymity,which was almost everybody. Since thedates didn’t matter, I deleted them for readability.

To: Joe@Enright.com

From: xxcvbrty@aol.com

Subject: Newsletter

Sir, I read your piece with someinterest in as much as I also have a book that was published which you somehowmanaged to miss. In it I present areasoned approach to our economic difficulties and attempt to engage our morefiscally conservative neighbors in a constructive dialogue. It is called Mr.T’s Party: Eat Death & Die! Thank you in advance for your consideration and the $49.99 you willundoubtedly want to remit for the electronic copy of my book I haveattached. Yours, Xxcvbrty

To: xxcvbrty@aol.com

From: Joe@Enright.com

Re: Newsletter

Dear Xxcvbrty, I checked onAmazon.com and your self-published book was not listed. Which is the same reason I couldn’t includemy own book, Flying Saucers and Credit Default Swaps: The Alien Plot to BuyOur Debt, which has sadly still not found a publisher. By the way, I started to read your book andwas somewhat mystified by your insistence that Mr. T of the “A-Team” inspiredthe movement. In fact, it is spelled “Tea”Party, not “T Party”. Otherwise,I found your theory that the “A-Team” TV series somehow caused our economiccrisis somewhat difficult to follow, particularly the part about Mr. T’shaircut.

To: Joe@Enright.com

From: xxcvbrty@aol.com

Re: Newsletter

You can eat death & die too!

The next response I received was from a neighbor who hadordered one of the books discussed in the article but had yet to receive it:

To: Joe@Enright.com

From: vvdwcsuw@hotmail.com

Subject: Where’s My Book?

Look, I’m a patient person. But it’s been a month and I’ve yet toreceive Flying

Saucers and Credit DefaultSwaps: The Alien Plot to Buy Our Debt so I think you owe me a refund. Juststuff it in my mailbox – not my e-mail mailbox but my real Mailbox… Er, you know what Imean. By the way are you related tothat Irish writer, Anne Enright? Shelooks a little like you.

Well, after a little back-and-forth, I managed to straightenthis neighbor out who had somehow ordered my unpublished manuscript fromAmazon, which now has a new shopping category that can be found at www.amazon.com/Upcoming-Books-That-Might-Get-Published-If-the-Writer-Finishes-It-&-Finds-A-Publisher.htm Amazon calls this section “Book Futures”.Interesting. And by the way, AnneEnright, author of the fabulously successful novel, The Gathering, isfrom Dublin, whereas my parents were from Kerry and Limerick. But that didn’t stop me from mailing her arequest for money, claiming to be a long-lost desperate relative. I did the same thing with the ArizonaDiamondbacks rookie pitcher, Barry Enright, figuring he’d be earning millionsin no time, being a major league pitcher and all. But these gambits sort of back-fired. Anne Enright invested her royalties in credit default swaps onbook futures just before the market tanked and Barry Enright was sent down tothe minor leagues in May after letting up five thousand runs in two games. Now they’re both asking me for money onaccount of my blog being so successful and all. Man.

To: Joe@Enright.com

From: pharmacy-in-canada-somewhere@gmail.gov

Subject: You Need Drugs!

The drugs you didn’t order arehere! Just use PayPal to send us largesums of

money. Also, with respect to the Argyle Heights blog, I notice you haveposted

at http://argyleheights.blogspot.com/2007/06/media-adventure-sort-of.html

that New York City hurricane mapwhich shows the flood waters stopping at

Rugby and Glenwood. Could youexpand that to include Canada? Thanks.

Well this e-mail had nothing to do with books except thatWest Midwood did suffer a couple of fallen trees from Hurricane Irene and booksultimately are made from trees. Hopefully, the Category 3 storm that wouldsweep waters down Foster Avenue from Jamaica Bay all the way to Rugby Road willalways remain only the hypothetical subject matter of Weather Channel disasterporn.

To: Joe@Enright.com

From: random-insulting-guy@yahoo.com

Subject: Blogs Are So Retro!

Just in case you didn’t get thememo, Blogs are dead, moron. If youcan’t say

it in a 130 character tweet, likeforget about it.

To: random-insulting-guy@yahoo.com

From: Joe@Enright.com

Re: Re: Blogs Are So Retro!

I was impressed by this e-mailbecause you took 130 characters to insult me

when you could have used many, manymore. Maybe you’re addicted to tweeting

and can’t express thoughts thatwould take longer than 130 characters? If so, there is hope at www.un-tweet-my-addiction.com. I understand it’s a 130 step program though,so hang tough.

To: Joe@Enright.com

From: random-insulting-guy@yahoo.com

Re: Re: Blogs Are So Retro!

Eat death & die!

Summer Reading

2011-05-30T15:44:00.004-04:00

The View From Argyle Heights: Reading & Writing & Even Some Arithmetic
by Homeowner Harry (Another in a series of observations about life in West Midwood as it is lived today…or maybe not)

May 13, 2011...The beach and vacations beckon! So it’s time to think about what books we want to take with us. Or in my case, which books I will stuff in my suitcase intending to devour … only to experience the guilt and shame two weeks later as I re-pack them, untouched, for the return trip home, having read nothing longer than a Mets box score.

As I pondered the question of what I should pretend to read this Summer, it occurred to me that we have a number of published writers in our neighborhood and maybe I should seek out their guidance. Then, as it turned out, there were so many, I had to narrow it down to just those inhabitants of our leafy glen with a published book available on Amazon. That bottom line qualification ruled out many with journal articles, blogs and other writing credits. Sadly, it also eliminated me, since my seminal work, Flying Saucers & Credit Default Swaps: The Alien Plot To Buy Our Debt, had to be serialized on www.ufos-and-your-finances.com when space aliens threatened my editor.

Anyway, there are five among us with published books and what a diverse group it is!

Al & Mary Nofi At Omaha Beach, Normandy

ALBERT NOFI, a West Midwoodian for 35 years, has written more than 30 books. Yes, that was three-zero my friends, and not a typo. Amazing? Face it, most of us can’t even name 30 books. Al and his wife, Mary Spencer, were attracted by Westminster Road’s leafy cocoon and diversity in the mid-1970’s, when the Nofi family escaped the urban jungles of West 96th Street while Al was still a teacher in the City’s schools. Al retired as an Assistant Principal and for the past two decades has built an incredible second career as a military historian and analyst. He started out as a war-games designer and then a defense strategist, working with some of the most brilliant tacticians in the country, at the Center for Naval Analyses in Alexandria, Virginia, and then at the Chief of Naval Operations Strategic Studies Group, in Newport, Rhode Island. Somehow he also found time to secure a PhD in military history along the way. People, if we ever declare war on Fiske Terrace, I think Dr. Nofi should be calling the shots.

Al’s latest book, chronicling the U.S. Navy’s strategic thinking in the run-up to World War II, To Train The Fleet For War, was recognized by the U.S. Navy League as one of the best books of the year on naval history. Al has also published books on the Civil War, the Marine Corps and the Spanish-American War. One of his best-received works was on the founding fathers of Texas, The Alamo and the Texas War for Independence, published in 1992. Later that year, Al and Mary lost their daughter Marilyn in a hit and run automobile accident at the age of 24. Marilyn, who had once worked as an editor at Simon & Schuster, is buried in the historic Seminole Indian Scout Cemetery in south-central Texas. Nowadays, the Nofi’s spend most of the year in Austin, Texas, near Mary’s family. Al’s reading habits are of course geared toward military history and as a board member of the New York Military Affairs Symposium, he edits its Newsletter. Al's reading list is heavy on military and ancient history, much of which can be found at http://nymas.org/, a great web site if you're a history buff like me, containing oodles of free podcasts, including Al's marvelously spirited presentation of the US fleet's war games during the 1930's. Amazon Link: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=albert+nofi

DAVID ROSEN also moved to West Midwood from an apartment – in Park Slope – in a quest for more room for his family, arriving in the mid-1990's with his wife Tori and their daughter Sarah. David is a Professor of Anthropology at Fairleigh Dickinson University in Madison, New Jersey and in addition to a PhD from the University of Illinois, he also has practiced law, thanks to a J.D. from Pace Law School. In 2005, years of field research in Sierra Leone, Kenya, Israel and the Palestinian Territories culminated in a very well received study of child soldiers, Armies of the Young: Child Soldiers in War and Terrorism, published by Rutgers University Press and now available in paperback. David’s interest in this subject, on which he has now become a recognized expert, with published articles in the Connecticut Journal of International Law, American Anthropologist, among other journals, originally stemmed from an encounter many years ago with a paramilitary group when he was living in the Kono District of Sierra Leone. This armed contingent, David remembers, “acted like thugs and they all seemed to be quite young; then when civil war broke out in Sierra Leone in 1991, I realized that it was very much these same kinds of kids who were being recruited into the rebel forces".

As for Summer reading, David likes murder mysteries, especially by Ian Rankin who “mostly writes police procedurals set in Edinburgh.” Jacqueline Winspeare (Maisie Dobbs Mysteries), Peter Robinson (Inspector Banks) and spy novelist Alan Furst are also favorite authors. If they haven’t produced any new work, David will look for Israeli novels in translation and in this vein recommends David Grossman’s To the End of the Land. David especially enjoyed Virkram Chandra’s Sacred Games ("a big think novel about an Indian detectives pursuit of a well entrenched mobster"). Jonathan Franzen’s best seller, Freedom, is also recommended. Amazon Link: http://www.amazon.com/Armies-Young-Soldiers-Terrorism-Childhood/dp/0813535689/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1306781426&sr=1-4

BETH DUNFEY, like so many others, emigrated to West Midwood from a Park Slope apartment with her husband Sam Nisson, in search of a spacious, kid-friendly environment. By that time, Beth had already authored BThe PowerPuff Girls Save The Day Sticker Book, using her late grandmother’s name, Ruth N. Carey, as a nom-de-plume. Published by Scholastic, where Beth worked for many years, helping to create the Harry Potter franchise, she is now a freelance editor and full-time mother of Roy, Nora and Tommy. In between bedtime stories and melt-downs, Beth plans to read Let the Great World Spin, by Colum McCann, What I Saw and How I Lied, by Judy Blundell (“a young adult book that's supposed to be great!”) and heartily recommends Freedom, by Jonathan Franzen. Other recent favorites include: A Visit from the Goon Squad, by Jennifer Egan; The Imperfectionists, by Tom Rachman; The Lost City of Z, by David Grann (“a thrilling nonfiction read from a New Yorker staff writer about a man who becomes obsessed with finding an ancient civilization in the Amazon”); Brooklyn, by Colm Toibin; and This Is Where I Leave You, by Jonathan Tropper (“a fun read perfect for the beach”). Beth also recommends these young adult novels: Shiver, by Maggie Stiefvater and The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins (“soon to be a major motion picture!”). Amazon Link: http://www.amazon.com/Powerpuff-Girls-Save-Sticker-Book/dp/0439160154/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1306781263&sr=1-7

PATRICK HOWELL O’NEIL is the only West Midwoodian scribe who was born and raised in Argyle Heights. Patrick’s Starcraft Bible was published in January and has generated a lot of attention in the computer gaming world. In researching the book, I chanced upon more coverage of Patrick on the Internet than all the other four authors combined. Interviews, pictures, long rapturous reviews and even a “coming attraction” trailer for the book with theme music by Hans Zimmer that frankly was so awesome, I immediately downloaded it to my iPod. Patrick’s reading selections have something for everyone and are so well described, I will let them speak for themselves:

“Masters of Doom by David Kushner is the story of how a couple of young talented guys who lacked direction in their early twenties went on to be the artists and programmers and minds behind several of the most important video games of all time, becoming pop culture icons and unimaginably wealthy rock stars with all the good and bad that comes with that. It's a very good book period but is absolutely awesome if you played games in the 80s or 90s.

“A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin is one of the few fantasy franchises I've ever read in full. It started in 1996 and has a new book coming out in July. At this point, it's a genre classic and required reading even if you are raising your nose and rolling your eyes at the thought of reading a fantasy book. It's more of a Machiavellian political thriller than a classic fantasy book. There's less wizards in robes and more sharp tongued politicians with daggers on their person. It's also got an HBO show now but do yourself a favor and read the book that started it first.

“The Road by Cormac McCarthy is a beautiful book about a father and son moving through a gorgeously grim post-apocalyptic landscape, hoping to find anything good at all. It's won a ton of prizes (including a Pulitzer) and is on a million and one best-of-the-decade lists. Don't wait for me to convince you, just read it.”
Amazon Link: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=patrick+howell+oneill&rh=n%3A283155%2Ck%3Apatrick+howell+oneill&ajr=0

EDWARD ROTHSTEIN is the culture critic at large for the New York Times after serving as that paper’s chief music critic for many years. Ed grew up on Avenue N and East 14th Street, and recalls taking a circuitous bike route to Midwood High School just to sample “the charms of this neighborhood”. Friends of his parents (the Brenners) lured Ed and his young family to Argyle Road where Ed and his wife Marilyn have reared three children (Dena, Aaron and Anna) in their now almost empty nest at the crest of Argyle Heights. Ed, a Yale grad with a PhD from the University of Chicago, has won numerous awards for his music criticism and once did graduate work in mathematics at Brandeis, interests which led him to write Emblems of Mind: The Inner Life of Music and Mathematics, named one of the Top 25 Books of 1995 by both Publishers Weekly and The New York Public Library. Reissued in paperback in 2006, Emblems explains why “the connections between math and music are far from accidental”. One of those connections occurs whenever I play guitar since I can often hear audiences mumble that they are “counting the minutes until that noise stops.” Ed also wrote a marvelous essay, "Utopia & Its Discontents", one of the three that comprise the 2003 book, Visions of Utopia published by Oxford University Press. Ed points to the Internet as the latest quasi-Utopia for its more visionary proponents.

As for Summer reading, Ed expressed deep disappointment when informed that Flying Saucers & Credit Default Swaps: The Alien Plot to Buy Our Debt was not available in book form, since it is hard to read Internet stuff on the beach and not get sand all over it. Ed actually prefers audio books these days, which allows him to listen on the subway, in the car, or while e-mailing me late one recent night: “Right now, George Guidall is reading Crime and Punishment into my ears; it is so good I almost dread listening. I might as well recommend him as a good reader (check out audible.com)…I also recommend literate historical spy fiction by Alan Furst and thrillers by Vince Flynn. And then there are some great Dickens readers and...back to work!” Amazon Link: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Edward+rothstein

Finally, my wife Virginia is a member of two Book Groups that meet regularly and I figured she must have some good picks since she reads about two books a week. She left out a stack for me to peruse but I couldn’t get past the watercolor dust covers showing reflective stationery female adults. None depicted UFOs, human zombies or even a single mangled corpse. Of course, I expected as much. Years ago, I tried to join one of her groups, but when I kept suggesting we read The Zombie Plot To Poison Our Food Supply, I got the boot.

Well there you have it. Alert readers will have noticed multiple recommendations for Jonathan Franzen and Alan Furst. All in all, I must admit there are some books I am tempted to stuff in my suitcase – just in case the Mets are mathematically eliminated by mid-July. Particularly that book about that guy looking for a lost civilization on the Amazon web site, where all of West Midwood’s authors may be found as well.

[EDITOR’s NOTE: If you have a published book available on Amazon and were not included in this article, please address your concerned outrage about this or other issues, including zombies, to joe@enright.com (“an ego so big, he needed his own domain”), who can also be found roaming through http://argyleheights.blogspot.com/]

The Strand - My Favorite Book Store

Parking Meter Memories

2010-12-04T18:04:00.000-05:00

November 9, 2010..."Don't follow leaders, watch the parking meters", was playing on my headphones as I got off the subway one very early morning, so, being sleep deprived, I followed Bob Dylan's command and sauntered around West Midwood but no parking meters could I find to watch.

So I widened my search and found some in Fiske Terrace along Avenue H and then on the north side of Foster and, of course, Cortelyou Road was aswim with the ugly metallic monsters. But none in West Midwood. I'm not sure what, if any, significance this has, but there you have it.

During my sIeepy walk, I did see a car with a parking ticket on its windshield, and it set my mind a-wandering...It was back in 1986, and I had just been air-lifted into the Parking Violations Bureau which back then was located on top of the old Wannamaker building in Greenwich Village.

There had been a big BIG scandal involving the letting of very very BIG contracts and one day I found myself in a dusty dark storeroom off of the General Counsel's office. I was looking for an old contract when I suddenly found myself facing a five foot high stack of what appeared to be at first glance stock certificates. But upon closer inspection, they were bench warrants. For motorists who had failed to answer parking summonses.

Parking tickets used to be returnable in criminal court - until the tsunami of more serious crimes led to “decriminalization" of double-parking et al in 1970, with PVB created to process the summonses. But apparently PVB never threw out the bench warrants it had inherited, and there they sat, long past the expiration date of their enforceability.

So I did what any level-headed person would do, I used white-out to erase the name and address on a warrant, typed in the name of my boss and at an appropriately embarrassing time, confronted him with his scofflaw past. The old statute-of-limitations-expired-bench-warrant-switcheroo. Surprisingly, my boss, who had also been dropped into the middle of the mess, got a big kick out of the bench warrant and had it framed as a memento of a bizarre time. After which we had all those old warrants shredded,…Hmmm. I wonder what the statute of limitations is for destroying official government records? If it’s less than 24 years, so long it’s been good to know ya, have a great holiday season and keep watching those meters!

The View From Argyle Heights: And That’s What I Like About West Midwood

2010-12-04T17:57:00.000-05:00

September 12, 2010...Been away from home a lot lately which affords me the opportunity to reflect upon what it is I miss about this neighborhood, apart from sleeping in my own bed. So I reduced my thoughts to a ten best list.

10. The cul-de-sac-iness of it all which cuts down on traffic.

9. Quiet Fridays.

8. Neighbors who put your papers on your back porch and watch out for your home.

7. Close to the subway, meaning you don’t need the car for everything.

6. Listening to kids’ squeals when they play in the snow.

5. Quiet Saturdays.

4. Annual Halloween Parade.

3. Annual Progressive Dinner (when I first heard about this event 22 years ago, I thought it was somewhat odd to have a dinner celebrating America’s Progressive Era).

2. Sort of Annual Yard Sale.

1. Did I mention good neighbors?

I Walk Alone...Or Do I?

2010-12-04T17:53:00.001-05:00

October 25, 2009...I'd been working odd hours for weeks, taking trains home at 3am, 5am and the like. Sometimes the Q but usually the F because it seemed to run more frequently then, although it was a longer walk home. The front exit of the F train stop at 18th Ave is at Parkville and McDonald Avenues, a mere half block to Foster. Since McDonald is the equivalent of East 0 Street, walking to Argyle Road, the equivalent of East 13th Street, is almost a mile when you count in the other north-south blocks. However, there are 16 stops from the West 4th Street station in Manhattan to 18th Avenue on the F, vs. 8 stops on the B to Newkirk. Bummer. Especially when there's some crazy dude in your car screaming about the gypsies eating his hair.

Tuning the crazy guy out, I remember when there used to be a freight train that ran along the trolly tracks on McDonald Avenue, underneath the El, until the 1970's. Prior to the El being built around 1920, the grade level service was called the "Culver line". Since I still see signs for the "Culver Local" on F trains, I looked this up and Andrew R. Culver laid track back in the 1870's that ran from Prospect Park West (then called 9th Avenue) and 20th Street, intersecting McDonald at Ditmas Avenue, where it hung a right down to Coney Island. And now nobody knows who Culver was but his name lives on. Well played, Mr. Culver, well played. And there you have it, subway fans.

Anyway, as I was walking along Foster Avenue last night, past the Abu Bakr Mosque where the Blind Sheikh was arrested back in early July 1993 (after plotting to blow up the United Nations, and a few bridges and tunnels), it started to rain. The Abu Bakr is directly across the street from Engine 250, which lost firefighter Michael Ragusa on 9/11, when the Blind Sheikh's associate, UBL, blew up the World Trade Center with human missiles.

It occurred to me that it had been 8 years since 9/11, and 8 years had also passed between the first and second World Trade Center attacks. Back in 1993 my wife had been inside the World Trade Center and in 2001 she and my brother and others I knew had been seriously affected by the next attack. All had survived. Not so the sons of firefighters I had worked with two decades earlier.

Everyone remembers where they were on 9/11, but I tried to recall where I was in 1993 when the press swarmed around the tiny Abu Bakr mosque, where the Sheikh had holed up, trying to avoid the life in prison that awaited him. My son was only 18 months old then. We must have been home, maybe getting ready for family to visit for a 4th of July bar-b-que. I think my next door neighbors, the Rhines, had just moved in. Arthur was a Mets fan. A fellow-sufferer, sweet!

The rain came down harder on Foster Avenue.

When it rains, of course, I can hear them rejoicing at Dawn Dry Cleaners, as the crease disappears on my pants yet again. Oh the joy of being the only person wearing a suit and tie, disembarking from the NYC transit system at 4:30am. Talk about standing out in a crowd.

As I walked along, nearing Seton Place, not far from the 70 Precinct house, where many more memories swirled, my BlackBerry rang -- it was my boss who said I should turn around and come back to the job. As I attempted to talk my boss out of such foolishness, a blind man, tapping the sidewalk with his cane, walking West on Foster (as I walked East toward Argyle Heights) called out to me as he came abreast.

"Please help me!" he implored.

One thing about being on the street at 4:30am in the rain. When somebody yells in your direction, three feet away, to help, there's no way you can ignore it and keep walking, by rationalizing "Oh, he must be calling out to someone else."

I told my boss I'd call back.

"What's the matter?" I asked.

"I need to put my watch on," the blind man pleaded.

"No problem," I replied. He reached out his hand and handed me a watch. He kept that same hand outstretched so I took the watch and strapped it to his left arm.

"My name is Richard," he said. "What's yours?"

"Joe," I said. "Joe Watch-Putter-On-Guy," I said, to cover my embarrassment.

"Thank you, Joe" he said.

"Glad I could help."

When I got a block away I turned around to look back and the blind man was no longer in sight. The mosque and firehouse were both closed tight at this hour. Where could he have gone? Maybe he reversed direction back to Seton Place and then tapped on the 70 Precinct?

Then I wondered, why would a blind man want a wrist watch? It didn't appear to be any different from the watch I was wearing. Maybe it had a special audio component to announce the time? Or maybe the glass cover flipped open so he could feel the hour and second hands?

Or was this a strange portent? Or maybe it didn't happen and I was just sleep-deprived?

Is it later than we think? Does time wait for no none? Or maybe as the Chambers Brothers used to sing, "Time Has Come Today"?

The Attack of The Blogs

2010-04-03T13:12:00.011-04:00

This is a quick survey of Blogs that are written by, or for, folks in our neck of the woods. Some blogs (web + log) may start out as shared on-line diaries bursting with ideas and content, only to peter out as the muse is lost. The blogs here are more focused, however. That’s not to say they will be around forever. Or even for a few months. A number of blogs I used to follow have either folded or stopped adding content. Among them are Eli Kramer’s “Brooklyn Junction”, the Kensington blog (silent for four months) and Flatbush Vegan (moved on to “less greener pastures”). So in another year, this list may be as outdated as VHS tapes.

City Pragmatist

citypragmatist.com
Argyle Road’s favorite son, Alvin Berk, has a wonderful new site that invites discussion on our local governance. While politics can get heated, here the flame simmers at a low level, with the light generated by thoughtful reporting about our civic landscape; no demagoguery or hotheads allowed, thank you very much.

Ditmas Park Blog ditmasparkblog.com

All Victorian Flatbush, all the time. Sign up on the home page by entering your e-mail address and get a daily summary of the past 24 hours of posts. Until the Post, the News or the Times opens a Flatbush Bureau, this is as close as you’re going to get to an almost real-time update on what’s going down in these parts.

Flatbush Gardener
flatbushgardener.blogspot.com
If you have a green thumb (or wish you did), this blog’s for you – beautiful lay-out and photos. Xris doesn’t just write about botany, though. He will often post local stories of interest (like the recent sale of the Loew’s Kings) and his slide shows of holiday lights are always a treat. Also a fantastic list of other Brooklyn and gardening links.
Deep In The Heart of Brooklyn dithob.blogspot.com
Brooklyn day to day with politics and lots of music.

Only The Blog Knows Brooklyn

onlytheblogknowsbrooklyn.com

The Comic Book Guy on “The Simpsons” summed it all up for me when he said: “The best name for a Brooklyn blog ever.” The daily pictures are great and you’re bound to find some excerpt from local bloggers that you’ll want to peruse. (Author also does fabulously funny "Smart Mom" column in Brooklyn Paper.)

Flatbush NYC

flatbushnyc.blogspot.com

A resident of Flatbush Gardens (what used to be the Vanderveer Projects when I hung out there as a kid) shares his droll adventures with spelling-challenged management.

70 Precinct Community Council

70pctcc.blogspot.com

Meeting minutes, useful phone list, schedule of next get-togethers and press of interest.

Times City Room Blog

cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com

I know what you’re thinking – how could this be considered a blog? Well, I don’t care what you call it - it’s got great features and links (including a lot of the blogs I list here). Sadly, by the time you read this, it might not be free any more, unless you have a Times subscription.

Well, that’s enough to get you started. While compiling this list I spent hours wandering around links embedded in these blogs and found a dozen or more sites of interest, particularly some devoted to old or forgotten Brooklyn streets, trains, celebrities and photos, which for some reason I can’t resist.

The most spectacular site for history buffs is the City’s map page, where they have added aerial photographs of the entire City from 1924: gis.nyc.gov/doitt/nycitymap Once at the site, simply click on the camera icon at the top and slide the view from 2008 to 2006 to 1924. In 1924 at the highest magnification, you can see the Glenwood Road bridge, the lack of any structures along stretches of Coney Island Avenue, and a lot of vacant land between Newkirk Avenue and Dorchester Road. Also, the land upon which Brooklyn College would stand was still being cleared, the LIRR freight line looked a lot busier (there was a station and a rail yard at the Junction) and a lot of other interesting sights. Plan on dawdling there for a good hour before resuming your blog quest.

Hopefully by the time I retire the Internet will not have morphed into some sort of FaceBook juke box where our constant updates are sung to each other by Youtube avatars at some astronomical cost, because I’d really like to spend some quality time giving all these sites the time they deserve.

Joe Enright

argyleheights.blogspot.com

TAKING THE PULSE OF THE ZEIT-POLTER-GEIST

2009-11-20T12:15:00.001-05:00

The aging of Baby Boomers has led some of us to a more poignant appreciation of how fleeting indeed is our time to strut upon this stage. Personally, the approach of the Great Beyond has made me more cognizant of an exponential growth in hair coloring products. Plus, I’ve noticed a lot more reality TV shows about ghosts. Just as alien spaceships promised an earlier generation that there would be survival of consciousness after our species' extinction in nuclear winter, watching the pseudo-scientific search for "the undead" helps me cling to the belief that somehow, someway, my hair will survive and remain suitably dark.

There are 20 different non-fiction ghost shows now airing. Not specials – but regularly scheduled programs. 20. Don’t force me to name them. OK, I need a thousand words for this article, so I will: Ghost Hunters, Ghost Hunters International, Ghost Hunters Academy, Destination: Truth, Paranormal State, Extreme Paranormal, Psychic Kids: Children of the Paranormal, Ghost Adventures, Most Haunted, Most Haunted USA, We Live Here In Fear, X-Testers, Ghost Lab, Ghost Stories, Ghostly Encounters, Haunted History, Psychic Investigators, Celebrity Ghost Stories, Dead Famous, and Ghost Trackers.

Most of these series center around intrepid ghost hunters who are filmed on the job late at night in abandoned jails, prisons, and psychiatric hospitals, bathed only in camera light. Frequently there will be excited pointing at weird stuff in the immediate vicinity of the hunter. But alas and alack, neither the nearby camera operators nor the helmet-mounted “head-cams” capture these apparitions in time. Ever. At which point, cut to the ghost hunter looking into the camera to relive that moment just passed, explaining what it was he saw and how perhaps it might turn up on other equipment he brought along, which includes, but is not limited to: video goggles, thermal imaging cameras, portable digital voice recorders, parabolic microphones, electro-magnetic field detectors (aka “K2 meters”) and of course, black and white cameras mounted on one’s head. For a full list, go to ghost-mart.com. The hunted apparitions, much like their space brothers from Zeta Reticuli, have proven to be quite camera shy, however. And yet, equivocal shapes and truly obscure images sometimes do appear, particularly during ratings sweeps.

A less prevalent format features dramatic reenactments intertwined with on camera comments by the real protagonists, who fondly recall their chilling ghostly encounters. New shows in this vein feature unemployed actors and singers, many of whom I thought were dead until I saw them on “Celebrity Ghost Stories,” describing vague shapes they sort of remember in between their stints in rehab. Not surprisingly, this category appears to be on the decline. What’s needed is a countdown show of “The Top 100 Hauntings of All Time.”

The cable stations love these countdown shows because they fill up a lot of air time and once you watch a few minutes you can’t help but wonder what will be the number one computer game of the 1990’s or whether the hula hoop will outrank the slinky among “The Top 100 Toys of The 1950’s”. I remember when the Weather Channel counted down “The Top 100 Weather Stories In History” and some cataclysmic event that wiped out most life on Earth in some former epoch was ranked way behind a long-forgotten cold wave in the northern plains. Usually that happens because they can’t find somebody from 20,000 BC to appear and reminisce about the cataclysm and there’s very little newsreel from that time. But that’s exactly the kind of controversial programming that these tired reenactment series need. Some forward thinking programmers could then follow up with a hybrid, like a countdown of “The Top 100 Songs From The 1980’s About Ghosts.”

As these shows have proliferated, certain niche markets are now being exploited. The creepiest is a show called “Psychic Kids: Children of the Paranormal” in which youngsters who see dead people are told by older mediums and clairvoyants that their gift should be used to do good, and are urged not to appear as guest commentators for ghost count-down shows on other channels.

The most recent trend has been the appearance of moronic provacateurs who have decided to get tough with the undead. In “Ghost Adventures” for instance, Aaron, Zak and Nik run around in video goggles screaming at the spirits to show themselves like real men and then bump into rakes which they claim the ghosts have somehow moved in their path. Zak is very buff and quick to doff his tight tee shirts to show ghost bruises caused by rakes, vowing revenge. For some reason, this show is on the Travel Channel and not the Gardening Network.

“Extreme Paranormal” on the other hand is a sort of hybrid that melds MTV’s “Jackass” with that reality cooking show where the snobby Australian chef yells at the contestants and then throws food at them. In “Extreme,” Shaun, Nathan and Jason invariably start fires, drink poison and bury each other alive just to get the ghosts to come out and play. In “Ghost Lab”, brothers Brad and Barry Klinge visit spots other ghost hunters have investigated and always come away with slightly less equivocal recordings and shapes than their competition. How do they do this? The Klinges look for the reason why the ghosts (which they just can’t seem to capture on film – ever) are haunting a particular place: it has something to do with water. Where there’s a lot of water, you’ll find lots of ghosts nearby, especially surfer ghosts.

But will this ghost boom last or go the way of The Western? Already, one sees disturbing signs of decline: in one week, two shows visited the same sites in Gettysburg. Two others featured The Merchants House at 29 E 4th St, a Washington Square brownstone in The Village. The “Ghost Hunters” episode found no ghosts there, but while unloading the van containing their high tech gear on East 4th Street, a well dressed passer-by non-chalantly picked up one of the head-cams and walked off with it. The “Ghost Hunters” spotted him a few seconds later and gave chase. Amazing how two cameras just happened to be filming the unloading of the van, not an activity usually associated with high drama or ratings. Maybe the camera men were sensitive to impending evil or something, like the “Psychic Kids”.

Anyway, before the craze peters out, I hope the “Ghost Adventuring Hunters” respond to my e-mail asking them to investigate my garage. Two cars died right at the entrance. And the stopped-up drain always provides a big pool of water. Plus, there’s a lot of rakes in there to step on.

PS For a good laugh, take a look at http://current.com/items/91251941_i-aint-afraid-of-no-ghost-shows.htm or http://www.hulu.com/watch/104473/infomania-i-aint-afraid-of-no-ghost-shows#s-p3-sr-i1

Yard Sales and Lost Patrols

2009-05-23T17:10:00.000-04:00

The View From Argyle Heights

(Another in a series of observations about life in West Midwood as it is lived today…or maybe not)

What Linda Howell describes as the “almost annual” West Midwood Yard Sale took place on Sunday, April 26th, and what a sale it was. Record warmth bathed the neighborhood as bargain-hunters swarmed our streets from mid-morning to late afternoon to scoop up remnants from all our attics, garages and closets. Kudos to Marilyn Cuff, Robert Seidel, Loreli Coutts and others for organizing this event that helped to revive West Midwood’s sagging economy.

Virginia and I did some desultory wandering through the crowds but opted to hit the beach at Rockaway for most of the afternoon since our junk was so hideous, it would have scared off buyers from continuing down the block. We did manage to participate in a way by lending our tables to Henry and Anthony Finkel, which brought back memories of many yard sales of yore wherein Henry and our son James would spend hours selling Pokemon and Magic cards and then, experiencing sellers’ remorse, proceed to buy them back from other neighborhood kids at a net loss. But it was all great fun.

In response to a solicitation on West Midwood Online, the most bizarre yard sale story involved an elderly gentleman who asked more than one neighbor to use the bathroom. Once admitted, he would ensconce himself in the house and make numerous calls on his cell phone until the exasperated hosts would have to insist on his leaving.

By far the most expensive item on display that day was the Levy residence on Argyle Road where the late John & Janet Levy raised a family. The Sunday open house staged by Mary Kay Gallagher coincided with the yard sale and as I watched others wander in to take a look, I recalled big John Levy bounding across the street that September day 21 years ago to welcome us to the neighborhood and then signing me up to participate in the “Neighborhood Patrol” shortly thereafter. I also remembered Janet telling me about the son of the first owner of our house, reportedly a scion of the Wrigley gum fortune, who, in the 1950’s, she would see praying on his knees near the second floor bedroom window. And I also remembered that ice-cold Sunday when I squeezed into Alvin Burke’s car to attend the memorial service for John some 15 years ago.

I seem to recall sitting next to Dave Knapp at the service. Dave and I were “partners” in the anti-crime patrol organized by John. Although "patrol" might be too strong a word. We were given a walkie-talkie that weighed 10 pounds
and a flashing amber light we stuck on the roof of my old Datsun, powered by a chord we plugged into the cigarette lighter. Then we drove up and down every West Midwood street over and over again talking about all the things that men talk about if they’re stuck in a car together for three hours crawling along at 10mph, wishing they were home watching a ball game, ignoring furious tail-gaters anxious to pass them.

Dave, a gentle and generous man who passed away last year, talked a lot about his daughter and his beloved wife, Rivoli. One night, as Dave described his stint in the Army during the Korean War, a woman ran out in front of our car on Westminster Road yelling that somebody had tried to rob her.

“Call the base,” said Dave, as he calmed the woman.

I picked up the walkie-talkie.

“West Midwood to Base. Over.” Silence. I repeated my call. More silence.

I kept calling until finally, after what seemed like minutes, I heard:

“Base to West Midwood. Sorry. Was just chatting with some officers here at the
70th Precinct. What is your status? Over.”

I related we had just interrupted a robbery. The reply was swift and authoritative:

“West Midwood, call 911. Over”

“Base, this is West Midwood. Did you just tell me to call 911? Over.”

“Affirmative, West Midwood. Call 911. Over”

“Base, you sit within shouting distance of the desk sergeant at the 70 Precinct. Why don’t you just tell him to send a patrol car instead of my calling 911?”

No reply. Then: “West Midwood, you didn’t say ‘Over’. Over”.

My response as I recall cannot be repeated in a family newsletter but suffice it to say that I was being asked, in a time before any of us had cell phones, to find a pay phone and call 911 because there was no “linkage” between the community patrol and the police other than the base station for the walkie-talkie just happened to be located on the first floor of the 70 Precinct on Lawrence Street. I think we drove the lady home and she called 911 herself, by which time the attempted robber was probably already on parole for a subsequent crime.

After that, Dave and I used the walkie-talkie as a prop, occasionally faking conversations with the base (“West Midwood to Base, our vehicle is being pulled by a tractor beam into a huge circular craft hovering over the cut! Is it OK if you call 911 for us?”)

Ah, memories. Although we couldn’t help that woman on Westminster that night, Dave would always say: “That swirling light probably keeps some werewolves away, Joe.” That it did, Dave, old friend, that it did. Rest in peace.

West Midwood OnLine: An Historical Perspective

2009-03-27T21:46:00.000-04:00

As I write these words, in mid-February, it’s been six weeks since the West Midwood e-mail discussion group got underway. In this day and age, that’s practically two careers and a few bail-outs already, so I thought I’d take a nostalgic look back at some of the highlights, lowlights and trends we have observed so far.

First, 97 e-mail addresses participate, a fair sampling, but nowhere near the number of residences here. If you don’t have access, read the President’s Message in this issue or just send an e-mail to joe@enright.com or argyleheights@gmail.com asking to join. So far, 17 of the 97 subscribers have posted messages and many more have commented on those posts. The posting that garnered the most replies was the one that somebody started on New Year’s Day about re-naming West Midwood as Argyle Heights. 40 outraged citizens responded and search parties were launched but thanks to an alert neighbor’s tip, the author was able to slip away into the night again. “Patronizing Local Merchants” by Alison Morea resulted in 24 messages about local eateries but mostly about Hot Bagels in Newkirk Plaza. Tamara Hartman’s February 10th inquiry about the new construction at Newkirk Plaza generated 16 replies, and replies to the replies, etc. “The FDC Dinner” on March 12th honoring Len and Carole Grau and Al and Alison’s Midwood Martial Arts, announced by Linda Howell, led to eight replies. And “Mulchfest” by Linda Howell elicited seven comments about mulch, which I thought frankly was a little bit too sexy for a neighborhood e-mail group.

All in all, there has been an average of one new conversation every couple of days and as you can see, the topics that most energize recipients are about our neighborhood or mulch. This is fortunate because the discussion group is titled “West Midwood OnLine”. Imagine the disappointment if we talked about Soho all the time. Staying this focused does not always happen. I once belonged to a Yahoo group called “Space Aliens Are Taking Over New Hampshire” and the discussion kept veering off kilter into things like why the Aztecs invented the vacation. Which would lead others to insist that it was really the Incas or that prehistoric dogs flew space ships. So, despite the absence of any regular reporting about things happening in our neck of the woods, at least we now have a way we can share news and events right away AND THEN GOSSIP ABOUT THEM as long as we want. We are truly blessed. And for this we all have Linda Howell, our community president, to thank, who insisted I do it or else she would let people know about that Soho discussion group I started about zombies.

West Paterson Un-Westernizes!

2009-01-01T21:33:00.000-05:00

Today, January 1, 2009, West Paterson, New Jersey, officially became Woodland Park. From the AP Wire: "City fathers in the Passaic County town ... expect the move will increase property values by removing the association with Paterson, its gritty industrial neighbor. The name change follows a narrowly passed November referendum in which voters approved the change by 25 votes. Officials said residents don't need to change their addresses for bills. The borough plans to implement the name change gradually, to spread out the cost of paying for new signs. Workers have placed new logos on municipal vehicles."

The key phrase in the story is obvious: "[T]he move will increase property values." The mayor, Pat Lepore, was quoted as saying after the election: ""Let’s remember that West Paterson is a great town. Woodland Park will be the same great town West Paterson was. We'll just be a lot richer is all."

West Midwood could just as easily become Argyle Heights or Glenwood Ridge or Westminster Park or Rugby Fields. We would just have to bribe a few dozen well placed officials -- way less than New Jersey. Plus, there are no signs to change. Although the name of the West Midwood discussion group and the newsletter and the web site would have to be heavily edited...Oh well, just a thought as we embark on a New Year...

My wife says I have way too much time on my hands and should go back to work tomorrow, but I say that way lies madness!! Why, there's still 37 football games left to watch this weekend.

Election Day 2008

2008-12-05T14:51:00.000-05:00

I was outside the polling place at PS 217 on Newkirk Avenue about 6:15am. The line was already two deep down the stairs out to the street. As I waited in the pre-dawn darkness, off in the distance we could hear a loud deep male voice shouting, but we could not make out what he was saying. Something about "president"… Then we could hear "Barack Obama! First black president!!" Finally, he emerged, riding slowly, weaving back and forth from one side of Newkirk Avenue to the other, calling out LOUDLY to each passer-by: "Barack Obama elected first black president!! Hello brother! Barack Obama first black president!!" It was a young guy riding a mountain bike. We made eye contact: "Hey big guy! Barack Obama elected first black president!!"

A young woman behind me chided the booming voice: "He ain’t elected yet!" The bike rider slowed and answered quickly: "You right.” Then in a softer voice that could only be heard on Coney Island Avenue: “Everybody entitled to their opinion." And then he suddenly thundered:

"BARACK OBAMA!!" Lights flicked on in the apartment houses across the street.

"BARACK OBAMA IN THE HOOD!!" He paused. "That sounds good. I'm goin’ with that," he said to himself but still so loud somebody on the line asked me: “Where’s he going with this?”

And then, off he peddled in a voice that pierced the pre-dawn quiet for a block in every direction:
"BARACK OBAMA IN THE HOOD!! Bein’ elected first black president today!!"

"BARACK OBAMA IN THE HOOD!! Bein’ elected first black president today!!" He traveled four blocks, toward the B train, calling out to one and all, before we could no longer make out his voice.

The same female who had chided the young man sighed. "Looks like John McCain has sunk to a new low," she said.

"I think there might be some undecided voters in that apartment house over there who might have just swung over to the McCain camp" I said.

No sooner had I spoken then "the voice" started to grow louder again. A middle-aged man shouted out from an open window: "Hey! Shut up!"

"BARACK OBAMA IN THE HOOD!! Bein’ elected first black president today!!" came the reply.

"Hey! Shut the freak up!" came another, younger voice.

Me and my line mate looked at each other and laughed. I had to get to work, so I drifted off the line and voted later that night, about 8:20pm. No lines then. I stepped behind the curtain, clicked down the black button over the lone candidate I was voting for, cranked the lever, and I was outta there. On the walk home, I recalled a phrase I had heard earlier on the A train: “Rosa Parks sat, so Dr. King could march, so Obama could run, so America could soar.” Not bad, maybe just add at the beginning: “Jackie Robinson slid, and…”

At home, after listening to Obama’s speech ("It's been a long time coming, but tonight…change has come”), I got ready for bed, and remembered an old Sam Cooke song:

"I was born by the river in a little tent, and just like that river, I've been running ever since. It’s been a long time coming, but I know a change is gonna come...There were times when I thought I could not last too long, but now I think I'm able to carry on. It's been a long time coming, but I know a change is gonna come oh yes it will."

“A Change Is Gonna Come” was the flip side of “Shake”, a much bigger hit, but it still cracked the Top 40 in January 1965. Sam wrote the song in May 1963, after he spoke with sit-in demonstrators in Durham, North Carolina while on tour there, and maybe added a verse (that was edited out of the single) when he was arrested in October 1963 in Shreveport, Louisiana for disturbing the peace by trying to register at a “whites only” motel (“I go to the movie and I go downtown…Somebody’s tellin’ me don’t you hang around”). He didn’t record the song until January 1964 and didn’t release it until December of that year. There are many different versions of this song, from Otis Redding to The Band, from Solomon Burke to the Neville Brothers, from Aretha Franklin to Bobby Womack, and even Bob Dylan, whose “Blowin’ In The Wind” convinced Sam that “protest” song-writing could be popular, singing it at the Apollo in 2004 (www.songsofsamcooke.com/DylanChange.wma). But the original will always be the greatest, because it features what the others don’t have: one of the most beautiful voices to ever bless this planet (www.rollingstone.com/news/story/6595857/a_change_is_gonna_come has a link to 25 free listens via Rhapsody).

Anyway, “A Change is Gonna Come” was Sam Cooke’s last record – legend has it that it was being pressed for release the day he died. But as I drifted off to sleep, I couldn’t help but think that somewhere, somehow, Sam Cooke had a mighty big smile on his face.

Sam Cooke

Ripped From The Headlines... (2008)

2008-05-18T21:53:00.000-04:00

On March 16th, the New York Times published a full-page story on Victorian Flatbush, stirred by the imminent designation of Midwood Park and Fiske Terrace as historic districts. Indeed a few days later the City's Landmarks Preservation Commission announced that those two areas "East of the tracks" (or East of Eden if you regard West Midwood as heaven on Earth) would be joining already-designated Ditmas Park, Prospect Park South and Albemarle-Kenmore Terrace in architectural Valhalla.

The article, entitled "Peaked Roofs, Crossed Fingers" (egads!), had a little blurb about each of the six remaining Flatbush neighborhoods not yet designated and an accompanying map contributed by Mary Kay Gallagher and Ron Schweiger (hence it was accurate for a change). As for West Midwood, there was acknowledgment that we shared the same developer (Thomas Benton Ackerson), and the same "verdant look" as our eastern block neighbors, but it said that we had never submitted an official request for landmarking, noting that "maintaining a home under the commission's standards" might be too costly for us to afford. Huh? Whatever their standards, I’m sure they’re way less expensive than my wife, aka “Honey, let’s take another mortgage and re-do the basement”. Trust me. Anyway, it is somewhat annoying that three of the eleven Victorian Flatbush neighborhoods embed the word “Midwood” in their names when none of them are actually located there. Adoption of “Argyle Heights” would help dispel some of this confusion rampant among tourists and reporters alike, while raising our property values 20%. Just a thought....

On February 3rd, the Times ran another Sunday story, complete with color photo, about the coming of Pomme De Terre "at the corner of Argyle Road and Newkirk Avenue amid countless bodegas and Chinese takeout joints...and a harsh yellow crime scene tape." The Times reporter noted that on a Sunday morning, in the hour before church goers arise and night revelers have drunk themselves insensible, somebody from East 10th Street shot somebody from Rugby Road on the same corner. The story title ("Betting on Cuisine To Marginalize Crime" -- double egads!!), seemed to suggest that fancy French eats in this crime ravaged locale was kind of iffy, but hey, good luck with that, Jim Mammary.

Too bad the same reporter hadn't attended the community meeting just two weeks before in the Mormon Church on Argyle Road with Inspector Thomas Harris of the 70 Precinct. The Inspector gave a great presentation, then answered questions for an hour, ranging from early morning raccoon sightings to mini-lovers lanes on side streets off Rugby Ridge. He told us that although crime had not been vanquished along Newkirk Avenue as much as it had elsewhere, the strip was still plenty safe, with new businesses springing up. So he decided to dramatically increase the visible police presence in the area -- by planting the flag, he thought he could help spur the revitalization even more. A shooting at 6am on a Sunday morning involving two young men who knew each other does not make the location the little house on the prairie.

By the way, the Pomme-de-Terre intersection, where Argyle Road starts its rapid ascent toward the Summit of Argyle Heights near Avenue H, was identified as "Ditmas Park" by The Times, not Ditmas Park West. Tsk, tsk. But, in a dramatic reversal, both of these stories failed to use "hardscrabble" to describe our neighborhood, hitherto the Times' favorite word for our environs....

A decidedly more upbeat take on Flatbush appeared in the free "AM New York" daily paper on May 8th. A lot of straphangers I know prefer this slim publication to the Daily News, which has become almost unreadable since it dumbed itself down to the level of the NY Post and its "New Terror Horror Sex Hostage Ring" exclusives, although frankly "AM" had me with "free". Their long spread on "Flatbush" featured a photo of the food stand at the western portal to the Heights on Foster and Coney Island Avenue and led with a quote from Argyle Heightsian Alvin Berk, who said that Flatbush “boundaries expand and contract in the minds of residents. It's a state of mind." Perfect! And instead of finding profundity in crime scene tapes, "AM New York" got the story right with: "The French bistro, Pomme de Terre, recently planted a stake here, signaling to the rest of Flatbush that Newkirk is ready for its photo opp."...

Speaking of states of mind and the like, I'd like to report that "Argyle Heights" is finally starting to gain some traction. First an old friend, Bob, who recently retired to Brattleboro, Vermont, mailed a post card from the land of maple syrup addressed to me at "Argyle Heights, NY 11230" -- and the card appeared in my mailbox two days later. Just as "Miracle on 34th Street" used the mail to prove the existence of Santa Claus, may I point out that if the U.S. government delivers a letter to a destination, mustn't it then perforce exist? Also, in March, a reminiscence about Bob Dylan I wrote to the author of the popular blog, “RightWingBob”, was acknowledged as originating from "Joe of Argyle Heights, Brooklyn" (it was also posted on the site www.newstin.co.uk/tag/uk/48598143 for those who might think I make this stuff up). So there you have it, further de facto proof of the existence of Argyle Heights....

Once we throw off our "West Midwood" colonial shackles in favor of the much more lucrative "Argyle Heights", I think we need to address the issue of Hiawatha Avenue, now known by its ghastly drab industrial-age name of "Avenue H". Hiawatha Avenue (or Avenue Health, given the many health-related businesses which have sprung up west of the Q station) could one day be a stop on a Circumferential Subway, a project the MTA revived on March 3rd in its State of the MTA annual report. The "cut", which runs from the 65th Street Bay Ridge Army Terminal through Bensonhurst, Borough Park, Argyle Heights, the Junction, Canarsie, East New York and then on through Queens up to Flushing and eventually into the Bronx, intersects with the R, D, M, N, F, Q, 2, 5, L and 3 lines in Brooklyn alone.

While the cut's present single track runs two freight trains a day, pulled by the New York and Atlantic Railway's distinctive green locomotives, much of the right-of-way in the Brooklyn section was previously designated for use by the City back in the 1950’s as part of the "Cross-Brooklyn Expressway". That was one “planning” disaster that, thank the Lord, never came to pass, otherwise, Argyle Heights might have become an exit ramp. In fact, many homes along the cut would have been taken by the State, which had envisioned an eight-lane highway connecting the Gowanus to the Nassau Expressway. In 1969, Mayor John Lindsay announced an even more grandiose vision for the cut, a "Linear City" that would have included a commuter line running alongside the highway, through a multi-level tunnel, with parks, housing, and schools above it (www.nycroads.com/roads/cross-brooklyn). Even Robert Moses opposed that one -- he thought the commuter line would discourage the use of cars. A true visionary.

A circumferential rail line, however, could probably be accomplished with no additional "taking" by the State, although I was surprised to learn that those two measly freight runs each day prevent 100,000 truck trips a year through Brooklyn. In fact, the annual traffic on the line has increased from 7,000 to 20,000 freight cars since 2005 and there is now renewed interest in making the cut a super freight line. But that might require raising all the bridges over the cut. So said a partially completed 2004 study by the City's Economic Development Corporation of a Cross-Harbor Tunnel freight-only line that would originate in Jersey City and terminate in Maspeth, Queens. Mayor Bloomberg vetoed the idea in 2005 after Maspeth went crazy and everybody thought the Tunnel was dead. But in October of last year, the City agreed to hand-off the project to the Port Authority and Congressman Jerry Nadler, who has championed the Cross-Harbor idea for a decade, promised Federal funding for new environmental/ feasibility studies by the PA. Well, now, this could get complicated.

What would be relatively easy to achieve, if the circumferential subway wins out, is a connection with the Q line, since an existing station (Hiawatha Avenue!), is directly above the cut - all that would be needed to connect the two lines are stairways and a perpetually broken escalator, of which the MTA has plenty. Anyway, the current estimate for this to occur -- even if it beats out the Cross-Harbor Tunnel proposal, gets a green light by the MTA, is funded, and hurdles community opposition -- is so far in the future that only our great-great-grand-children might have a shot at actually getting to JFK and LaGuardia by mass transit without going through Manhattan. Of course, by then, the cut might be waterfront property, what with rising sea levels and all....So forget I even mentioned it, and for now, let's just enjoy the absence of our hardscrabble-ness.

PS This just in! Victorian Flatbush ranked as one of the "Top 12" neighborhoods in the US by "This Old House" http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/photos/0,,20207579_20472644,00.html

Me and FUF (2007)

2007-11-23T12:46:00.000-05:00

The View From Argyle Heights
by Homeowner Harry (Another in a series of observations about life in West Midwood as it is lived today…or maybe not)

Before going on vacation in August, I decided to get my car checked out for the 300 mile trip to Cape Cod. The inspiration for this was my next door neighbor Arthur Rhine, who rushed out of his house in pajamas one morning shouting “Where’s the explosion!?!” Then he saw me behind the wheel of my 1995 Mercury Sable and relaxed: “Thank God, it’s just your old jalopy.” At that exact moment, perhaps startled by the commotion, the engine died and I found myself at a dead stop in the middle of Argyle Road. I put the car in neutral, and ever so slowly, much to my amazement, it started inching forward, rolling down Argyle Road. So I guess it’s true, we are on a hill here. As I neared the corner of Glenwood, I turned the ignition and…it started up and off we went again, me and good ol’ FUF.

My car has a lot of names. To my neighbors who haven’t yet lost their hearing, it’s “That Wreck”. To tow truck operators covering Park Slope, it’s called “Come to Papa!” But to me and my family, it’s always been “FUF” – those are the first three letters of the license plate – and we have grown fond of FUF over the years. We couldn’t afford to put him out to pasture just yet, especially with all those law suits by the contractors we fired during our home renovations about to go to trial. But I needed a new repair shop because my old mechanic recently retired to Boca Raton based partially on the money he made fixing FUF – or as he called it, “KA-CHING!”.

So many repair shops to choose from and so little time before vacation was upon us, what was I to do? Well, I did what most men do these days when they face a major decision: first I watched TV to relax, then I fell asleep. But over the next few days, refreshed and energized, I canvassed family, friends and neighbors for recommendations and one pattern began to emerge: nobody I knew had a car as old as mine. Depressed, I began idly surfing the Internet and as I checked my email, I noticed a lot of messages from the Flatbush Development Corp’s discussion group, “FDConline” (to join, just send a blank email to fdconline-subscribe@yahoogroups.com).

The discussion of the day centered around the latest intelligence from credible sources overlooking Courtelyou Road: was that somebody moving something into an empty store rumored to become Connecticut Muffin? And what about those workmen who just entered the Cornerstone? Hmmmm…Maybe I could ask for help from these folks - they seemed to have their fingers on the pulse of the neighborhood after all. Well, so much thinking hurt my head so I headed back to the TV and blessed sleep. When my wife and son shook me awake to ask about the car repair, I realized the time had come for action. So, sitting down at my keyboard, I tried to imagine a message that would elicit immediate enthusiastic responses, explaining how attached I was to FUF and the noises it made and such but in the end, I went with the minimalist approach: “Anybody Know A Good Auto Mechanic?”

I received 10 replies, some of which sadly I can not print in a family newsletter. But there were only two establishments that garnered multiple recommendations, so I decided to try both of them: Superior Care at 3rd Ave & 19th Street in Park Slope, 718-768-0622; and Sal’s at 1834 Utica Avenue between Avenue J & K, 718-377-5728. Would you believe it? Neither of them recommended doing anything about the noise FUF made – both attributed the racket to the catalytic converter, which was fairly new, and assessed that one of the internal filters had come loose. They felt the noise might just go away on its own (which it did, as soon as I got to Cape Cod) and aside from a oil change I asked for at one joint and a new water pump at the other (both very reasonably priced), neither tried to sell me a repair I didn’t need. Amazing. I recommend both of these places – call to make an appointment first because being honest is popular these days.

As I write this, the holiday season is upon us and FUF is still going strong, although she does get a little noisy from time to time. When that happens, I just put FUF in neutral and roll down Argyle Heights, hoping that this small gesture on my part will in its own meager way, help to slow global warming.

The August 2003 Blackout

2007-06-16T17:51:00.000-04:00

10 Things We Did During The Blackout (2003)

by James Enright

1. Crossed Coney Island Avenue without getting hit by cars.

2. Turned on my Playstation then realized it wouldn't work without electricity (duh!)

3. Had Sarah & Anthony & Henry & Isaac over to eat up all the melting ice cream--a pint apiece!

4. Lit a lot of candles.

5. Played charades by candlelight.

6. Laid in the driveway with my dad when it got dark and watched the stars.

7. Walked down to the cut and back with a flashlight.

8. Listened to people walking by on the street late at night when there was no noise.

9. Turned on the TV out of habit then realized it wouldn't work (duh...again).

10. Watched a lot of people listening to the news on their car radio.

Halloween Through The Years (2000-2008)

2007-06-16T17:31:00.000-04:00

HALLOWEEN, 2001

By Homeowner Harry

Last year I wrote a little fluffy codicil to my wife Virginia’s article in which I joked that the parade was an accurate predictor of weather and market trends. Well, I made all that up of course. But watching the parade this year, I felt that is was a very important step on the road back to fighting fear. Inspector Coan remarked that there was NOTHING else happening in the 70 Pct. that night -- many other planned activities had been cancelled, what with the anthrax attacks so much on everyone's mind.

“You guys are the only ones going forward.”

I’m glad we did.

I remember most vividly standing with Joe Lerner on his front porch, as we watched our sons Jesse and James, dressed in full ghoulish regalia, gleefully distributing great gobs of candy to hordes of youngsters. Across the street, a “mood lamp” in the 2nd floor window of an otherwise dark house kept changing its color, lending an eerie glow to the street.
It was the Lerners’ first Halloween since Marilyn passed away.

As I looked at the glowing lamp, Jesse mentioned that the person who lived on the first floor, beneath that lamp, had also died. I heard Joe sigh. Then he reached in to the bag of goodies and declared: “OK, you guys, here comes the next batch of kids!”

The Lerners moved forward and Joe chided a non-customed teen to get with the program. Jesse complemented a young ghost on his outfit as he dropped a bunch of lollipops in his pumpkin-pail.

It was Halloween in West Midwood. Hey, let’s do it again next year!

========================

Halloween - A Husband's Perspective (2005)

By Homeowner Harry

I am writing this at a U.S. Marine base after speaking to my wife, Virginia, about the first West Midwood Halloween parade I have missed since 1988. She says it went well despite my absence, but I know she's just putting a good face on her disappointment. What a trooper. Of course, with me not there to take charge of the candy distribution, I'm sure some kids were bitterly disappointed.

"Mommy," I can hear them complaining, "That grumpy man wasn't here this year to give me my candy. Instead a nice lady answered the door."

Oh well, life has its little ups and downs. But to give you an idea of just how long it's been since I missed a West Midwood Halloween, in 1988 the Internet was still a toddler, yet to be discovered by normal people. In fact, most folks didn't use personal computers at all back then, probably because laptops weighed 200 pounds and caused severe back spasms. Also, the Y2K Bug was 12 years away from becoming a non-event, DOS was the most popular software program, kids were more likely to play ball than video games and houses in Victorian Flatbush sold for a third of their current value. On a personal note, 17 years ago we had just moved from Park Slope, borrowing money from people we sat next to in the 4th grade in order to close on our first house.

We knew absolutely nobody in the neighborhood, but the September weekend we moved in, I recall Melanie Oeser rang our bell with a bottle of wine and a goodie basket as we were in the middle of wall-papering something or other. I don't remember much else after she arrived, aside from some dim recollection that Virginia was very cross with me later just because I had guzzled the entire bottle while she gave Melanie a tour (FYI, wall-papering leads to severe thirst).

Anyway, I digressed I think. The point here is that of all the events in our neighborhood, Halloween is the one I enjoy the most...All those wonderful children, all those proud parents and all that excess candy I managed to squirrel away when nobody was looking...How I will miss it!

=======================================

Halloween, Casey & The Heights (2004)

By Homeowner Harry

Halloween warm enough for ya this year was it? Somewhere along about the 402nd visitor of the evening, I remarked to my neighbor Harriett Rhine that it hadn’t rained on Halloween in 10 years. And we were paying the price for it again with all these enormous bags of candy, dispensed to endless hordes of goblins and ghouls. Harriett then sagely reminded me that I had written about weather and Halloween in the 2000 Winter edition of the West Midwood Newsletter and inquired as to what NEW topic I would be addressing this time. Well, Harriett, I was quick to point out, I didn’t mention back then that weather for any past date can be researched at http://www.erh.noaa.gov/okx/climate.html and that www.weatherunderground.com was another kewl site if you were a weather buff like me who likes to seek theories about bark growth as it relates to presaging severe winters. You could look it up, as Casey Stengel used to say.

Speaking of Stengel, he started playing pro ball with the Brooklyn Dodgers (“They brought me up to the Brooklyn Dodgers, which at that time was in Brooklyn”), where he was a platoon outfielder for the borough’s first pennant winner in 1916, at the recently opened Ebbets Field, distinguishing himself by secreting a bird under his cap, or taking a flashlight to the outfield to give the umps a hint that they should call the game due to darkness. After he stopped playing, Casey bounced from one coaching or managerial job to another until in 1949 at the age of 58 he became the Yankees manager and then proceeded to win 5 world series in a row and 10 pennants in 12 years, although somebody once said that a tree sloth could have won pennants with that team. Later, at age 71, Casey became the first manager of the New York Mets, where he set the record, in 1962, for the most defeats in one season accumulated by any team in any sport on any level, including other star systems. When Casey, who was fond of taking naps on the bench during games, was asked before the season why the Mets drafted a catcher as their first selection in the expansion draft that created the club, he seemed to indicate reduced expectations were in order when he replied: “You’ve got to have a catcher or they’ll be too many passed balls.”

As it turned out, the Mets catcher that year was so stupid that when he called a pitch, he had to look at how many fingers he was putting down -- otherwise he’d forget. When the Mets traded their catcher to a pennant-contender that year, they were promised “a player to be named later.” Well, the catcher played terribly for his new team, which lost the pennant. So they sent the catcher back to the Mets as “the player to be named later” to complete the deal. To my knowledge, that has never happened before or since – ask the folks at www.retrosheet.org -- a great site for reliving past baseball seasons.

Stengel had a mean streak in him and no less an authority than Jackie Robinson thought he was a racist, but there’s no denying Casey had a way with words. My favorite quote? The time he summoned Yankee outfielder Bob Cerv into his office and, reluctant to anger the massively muscled Cerv, gently observed: “Nobody knows this yet, but of the two of us sittin’ here right now, only one of us has just been traded to Kansas City for a left fielder.”

Speaking of the importance of words, it has occurred to me lately that most of West Midwood sits on a slight incline – stand on the corner of Argyle and Glenwood and look North if you doubt me. The ascent starts at about Dorchester and rises to its full majesty just before Avenue H. Given this happenstance of topography, I wonder whether we should consider changing the name of our enclave here to ARGYLE HEIGHTS? I understand this might be met with some negative reaction by folks on other blocks, but we could work on that – perhaps Glenwood Heights would be less jarring since we could still retain the “wood” from West Midwood and maybe even salvage some existing neighborhood stuff by crossing out the “West” and writing over the “Mid” with “Glen” and then appending “Heights”. Studies show that property values rise by as much as 20% when you have a “Heights” in your address and there appears to be no qualifying commission to measure what exactly qualifies as a “Heights” and what doesn’t. Besides, aren’t we sick of defining our wood in relation to other woods? All I know is that we get more snow on this block than they get down near Dorchester and there’s only one explanation for that that makes any sense to me: our distance above sea level up here. In fact, when my son and I saw “The Day After Tomorrow” this Summer (at the Kent of course – love those new seats), we both thought that if a tidal wave were to hit New York, we would likely be spared up here on Argyle Heights. Heck, we might even have ocean-front property at that point.

Well, gotta go now, the wind is howling up here on the Heights – time to get that fireplace cranked up and round up the sheep. See you next Halloween! And don’t shovel too much at once!!

Men In Black (Alvin & Joe) Sighting in Argyle Heights
(Photo: Harriet Rhine)

========================

Neighborhood Notes (2004)

by Homeowner Harry

Virginia Waters reports that over the last two years she has completely renovated her home. New roof and gutters, landscaping, in-ground sprinklers and converting from oil to gas heat were all finished in 2003. This year the entire house, inside and out has been re-plastered, painted and the floors sanded. 20 new windows as well as a gas fireplace were installed and the plumbing and electrical work included heating the enclosed front porch. The biggest job was a complete gutting of the kitchen with new oak floors, wainscotted cabinets and granite counters. The last touch has been redecorating the living room and bedrooms. Virginia would be happy to share the names of contractors and her assessment of their work with anyone planning on doing similar work.

Joe, Virginia’s husband, after 30 years in various law enforcement jobs, has moved on to a new federal position and delayed his retirement another 30 years to help pay for all the stuff in the preceding paragraph. He has in fact started to refer to the renovated home as “The Money Pit Atop Argyle Heights”. He is willing to share with fellow home owners the best strategies to employ when you are entertaining 10 guests with no kitchen or living room. “That new joint, Picket Fences, is good,” says Joe, “although you could also hit the Cornerstone Bar if you have any money left -- and don’t forget to have some hard hats handy for the guests to wear during the post-meal aperitifs back at your place.”

========================================
Report From Outpost 715: Halloween 2002

By Homeowner Harry

They came in droves. They came in dribs. They came in drabs. But mostly they just kept coming. We had over 400 costumed visitors on Argyle Road this Halloween. All races, creeds and ethnicities were represented, united in a common lust for candy. Well they came to the right spot. While the rest of my family gallivanted around the neighborhood, I steeled myself, waiting for the onslaught of those hungry hordes and at the same time, resolved to document every last handout for posterity. With a pencil and note pad propped next to the bags of tootsie rolls and lollipops, I furiously dispensed sweets and counted heads. On and on they came. Slow at first, then as the parade broke up and the kids got down to serious doorbell ringing, I could barely keep up. Relentless groups of lions and draculas and undead ghouls and princesses.

When Cinderella's Coach parked near the driveway outside, the damn burst and like bees to honey, the goblins took all we had and then some. But I stood tall, grabbing some Three Musketeers I was holding in reserve, then rationing my dwindling supply. At a desperate moment, I yelled to Harriet Rhine manning the neighboring outpost:

"I'm running out! Throw me some ammo!"

Harriet yelled back: "What are you talking about?"

Oh.

"I meant Butterfingers! Throw me some..."

Just then reinforcements arrived --my son James and his pal Henry Finkel from Glenwood Rd dipped into their stash of freshly harvested goodies to keep the oncoming swarm of kids at bay. And then, just like that, it was over. After 7:30pm, an occasional stray ghost would wander along, we'd scrounge up a lollipop and they'd be on their way. By 8:30pm, we were mopping up, harvesting spent candy casings, and wondering how we survived.

Halloween in Flatbush. Hey, I got an idea--let's do it again next year too!

Trick or Treaters by Half Hour
5:30pm - 6:00pm..........21
6:00pm - 6:30pm.........131
6:30pm - 7:00pm.........175
7:00pm - 7:30pm..........96
7:30pm - 8:00pm...........8
8:00pm - 8:30pm...........6

====================

HALLOWEEN Y2K

By Homeowner Harry

The West Midwood Halloween Parade, if interpreted correctly, is an accurate harbinger of meteorological, cultural and market trends. For instance, did you know that the last time it rained on Halloween in these parts was 1991–when “The Perfect Storm” drenched the Northeast? Wow, what a storm–they should make a movie about it. Anyway, the energy level in the neighborhood and the turnout of little goblins was off this year – the conventional wisdom attributed it to all the Fall excitement and late sport nights in New York, which had taken their toll on everyone. After all, the parade occurred 5 days after the Subway Series ended and a scant 24 hours after the ticker tape parade honoring the Yankees.

But I believe the major reason for the decline in paraders was the Dow Jones downturn which began earlier this year. In years when the market has declined year to date compared to the preceding Halloween, the number of trick or treaters decline as well. Last Fall, when the market was at its peak, the record-setting number of trick-or-treaters who rang my doorbell (N = 345) dispelled all fears in my mind of the dreaded impending Y2K Crisis. And indeed, there was no disaster. So the downturn this year could mean we’re in for a hard Winter since the last time we had a double digit October 31st visitor fall-off was 1995...And the snowiest Winter in West Midwood annals ensued.

Nonetheless, I still managed to dispense candy to 236 doorbell pushing children from 5pm to 9pm this year and that ain’t hay. I also enjoyed hanging out with next door neighbor Harriet Rhine part of the time, listening to her repartee with teenage tricksters who showed up without costumes.

“Hey! Where’s your costume?” she’d ask. “I guess you left it in the cleaners, huh?”

“Ah, give me a break, lady, I don’t need no stinky costume” came their reply.

Then Harriet would deposit Baby Ruth’s in their plastic bags, they’d smile a “Thanks!” and all was right with the world.

Ah yes, Halloween. Let’s do it again next year!

ANNIVERSARY HALLOWEEN PARADE 2008 by Virginia Waters

Another perfect evening, another record turn-out for the Glenwood Road gathering-parade-trick-or-treat fest! Many people volunteered to help put on this year’s event which could not have happened without them. The same group of people generously helps out year after year. Joe Enright created the flyer. Tables were generously lent by Joanne Finkel, Linda Howell and Lisa Mislowack. Kai Lui set up our lights

Barbara Schweitzer, as usual, brought all the supplies – apple juice, cups, etc. Om Agrawal, Joanne Finkel, Carol Grau, Leonore Max and Linda Howell manned the tables and did the clean up. Len Grau made an emergency apple juice run for us.

A special guest again this year was Barbara Auerbach, the librarian at 217, dressed as the Man with the Yellow Hat accompanied by Curious George. The younger kids really enjoyed playing with George and talking to Barbara.

Leading the parade this year as usual was (ex-West Midwooder) Ernst Mohammed, assisted by Joel Siegel from Ditmas Park West with his trumpet. It was a great musical lead off.

The local 70th Precinct did a fine job of providing police protection. Deputy Inspector Ralph Monteforte, Chief Executive Officer Captain Peter Venice as well as Community Affairs Officer Dominick Scotto and a number of other officers made sure that everything was running like clockwork, which it was.

Many people graciously donated cupcakes, donuts and cookies for kids of all ages.

The Grimes/Hooker family continued their tradition of having the most elaborately decorated house in the neighborhood. This year’s theme was When Robots Rule the World which was lit up in red letters on their front porch. As usual Noel MacFetrick helped with the decorations. The voice activated robots included Martina and Emily Grimes, Fran and Eliana Marzullo and Noel MacFetrich. Other noteworthy revelers were Marty Gilbert as Sarah Palin, Eileen Thornton as Marilyn Monroe and her husband Patrick as Joe DiMaggio.

There was no rain and the weather was warm at it has been amazingly for the last dozen years. It is great when the weather is so mild and everyone can sit out on their front porches. Thanks to the many homeowners who decorated their homes and gave out candy to the hundreds of trick or treaters. Thanks one and all for your assistance in again making West Midwood’s Halloween festivities the best ever this year.

=================================================

HALLOWEEN PARADE 2007

Another perfect evening, another record turn-out for the Glenwood Road gathering-parade-trick-or-treat fest! Many people volunteered to help put on this year’s event which could not have happened without them. The same group of people generously helps out year after year. Joe Enright created the flyer. Tables were generously lent by Ellen Bilofsky and Lisa Mislowack. Kai Lui set up our great new lights. This was the first year of not switching our clocks back to day light savings time so we got to gather while it was light and march in the dark.

Barbara Schweitzer, as usual, brought all the supplies – apple juice, cups, etc. Om Agrawal, Joanne Finkel (dressed as a witch), Kathy Soffer and Linda Howell (assisted by her son Patrick) manned the tables and did the clean up. Om’s son Quantum was Superman and Anthony Finkel was a priest who was escorted by a sleazily dressed secretary who was in need of reforming.

A special guest this year was Barbara Auerbach, the librarian at 217, dressed as Emily Elizabeth, who brought a huge stuffed Clifford the Big Red Dog. The younger kids really enjoyed patting Clifford and talking to Barbara.

Leading the parade this year as usual was (ex-West Midwooder) Ernst Mohammed, “the Big Chief”, with his drum. He brought along two new associates this year, Dave Wexl, “the Little Flutist” and Joel Siegel, “the Spy Boy”, who played the trumpet. It was a great musical lead off.

The local 70th Precinct did a fine job of providing police protection and Inspector Thomas Harris himself checked in to make sure that everything was running like clockwork, which it was.

Many people graciously donated cupcakes, donuts and cookies for kids of all ages. My favorite part of manning the tables is when a kid comes up and asks how much the food costs. The look on his/her face when I say it is all free makes me realize how special the event is.

The Grimes/Hooker family continued their tradition of having the most elaborately decorated house in the neighborhood. This year’s theme was the Really Reckless Rodeo. Martina was a reckless rodeo star who died while trying to tame a horse and Joe was a cowhand . Alana and Emily were dead rodeo stars and Eiliana was a rodeo star who was still alive. Noel MacFetrich as usual did the decorations on the porch while Martina did the scary hanging rodeo corpses.

Besides the Grimes/Hookers there were a number of houses with notable decorations
in the neighborhood this year. The Langenaus had a front porch shadow box theatre with jack-o-lanterns and ghosts. Ethan was a ghost and Andrew was a Ninja turtle. Leigh and Jim Mamary at 1409 Glenwood created a “Halloween Wonderland” on their front porch with cobwebs, candy corn lighting, carved pumpkins, hanging skeltons and scarecrows and witches.

Barbara Schwietzer had a great graveyard in her front yard. There was an amazing strobe light on Rubgy Road. The Rosens had a witches table with a boiling cauldron of witches brew on the front porch. The Rosen’s front yard was decorated with lights, cobwebs, and skeletons in a Haloween tableau. Sara looked very attractive as Dracula’s first wife and her friend Ariel came attired as a Midwood student. The Thorntons front porch on Argyle Road had numerous carved pumpkins, hanging ghosts and skeletons, cobwebs, and blinking lights. Eileen and Maria had costumes adorned with amazing exotic hats.

Although Lynda and Graham Clifford still have not moved into their house on Argyle Road they came out again to celebrate Halloween in their new neighborhood and distribute candy to kids. They promised to be moved in by next Halloween. Beth Dunfey had her mother come in from Boston and her brother from Willamsburg to join in the festivities. Although two year old Roy was sick, his two month old sister Nora celebrated her first West Midwood Halloween by sitting on the front porch and watching the revelers. Many of Roy’s friends from other parts of Flatbush came to share in our parade.

There was no rain and the weather was warm at it has been for the last few years. It is great when the weather is so mild and everyone can sit out on their front porches. Dawn and Sandy Weiss even set up a table on their front sidewalk to ease candy distribution.

Thanks to the many homeowners who decorated their homes and gave out candy to the
hundreds of trick or treaters. Thanks one and all for your assistance in again making West Midwood’s Halloween festivities the best ever this year.

Halloween in West Midwood (or Argyle Heights as my husband Joe Enright calls it) always makes me say “What a Great Neighborhood.” Next year is our 25th annual parade. Please give me suggestions on how we can make it even more special next year.

Virginia Waters

===================================================

West Midwood Centennial & The Internet (2002)

2007-06-16T16:49:00.000-04:00

The View From Argyle Heights

by Homeowner Harry

While waiting for the D train one day, admiring the trees hanging over the edges of the local tracks down near Dekoven Court, and how they swayed with each passing express, I thought: “I should write about this for the newsletter.” That was 8 years ago. Then last night I saw a solicitation for articles in the newsletter. So I called up editor Laura Givner and told her about the trees-swaying-over-the-cut incident.

After an uncomfortable silence, Laura advised me to try and work some other stuff in. And so I came up with an idea to do a “West-Midwood-History-on-The-Internet-Extravaganza-Type-Situation” while at the same time providing some Internet tips. Sort of an “old-meets- somewhat-new” angle, get it?

First, to see some 1908 photos of the neighborhood I put on line, point your browser to: http://HomeTown.aol.com/WestMidwoodHx/MyHomePage/Index.html

TIP: If you put your mouse on this page of the newsletter and click on the web address right above this Tip, it won’t take you to the site -- you actually need to have that address on a computer screen, not on paper, before you click on it. Pressing the newsletter against a computer screen and then clicking won’t work either (unless, of course, as my son James just advised, you are imbued with super powers in which case please use your power to combat crime in the neighborhood, not to open stupid web sites).

OK, so now that we’re on the Internet, let’s see what Google can tell us about the history of the 700 block of Argyle Road. In particular, let’s concentrate on my address, 715…Nothing…Oh well, let’s try the Givner’s home across the street at 716…Nothing again….Hmmm…This Internet thing ain’t working…Let’s try the Rhine’s residence at 721. Harriet and Arthur are out barbecuing some burgers while I type this – little do they know I’m Google-ing their address right now…I got a hit!!! TIP: Google doesn’t work unless you can physically observe occupants of an address at the same time.

The Internet reference to 721 Argyle Road appears at http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~blkyn/Newspaper/BSU/1918.RR.Accident.html in a special edition of the Brooklyn Standard, published a couple of days after Halloween in 1918. It covered the famous Malbone Street train wreck on the Brooklyn Rapid Transit (BRT). 97 passengers died and 100 more were injured when a train derailed as it entered a tunnel East of the Prospect Park station on the Franklin Shuttle. It was the 2nd worst wreck in U.S. history; it bankrupted the BRT--ushering in the BMT to replace it; and Malbone Street was renamed Empire Blvd to rid itself of the ignominious association to the disaster. But perhaps most importantly, it proved that the Internet is not always a complete waste of time.

The headline you see below is a sidebar to the main story and strikes me as being decidedly post-modern in its syntax…Or maybe I’m just being too analytical:

B.R.T. WRECK - BROOKLYN
Brooklyn Standard Union
2 November 1918

WILLIS PORTER NOT KILLED; SOME OF THOSE WHO WERE

The mortality list of the B.R.T. disaster bears the name of William PORTER, Argyle Road. The only PORTER listed on Argyle road is Willis D. PORTER, of 721 Argyle Road. Willis D. PORTER is alive and well and returned home Friday night on the train immediately preceding the one that was wrecked. Mrs. PORTER when seen, says a claim agent from the B.R.T. has already been at her home trying to make an adjustment.

This clipping raises more questions than it answers. First, how did Willis Porter’s name get on that “mortality list”? Was there an Internet back then that has since been lost to history? And that “claim agent” who was “trying to make an adjustment” within a day of the crash – was he under the impression that Mr. Porter was dead? Or was he trying to head off a “mental anguish, pain and suffering” law suit because Porter was almost in the wreck? Or am I being way too modern here myself? In any event, I can’t believe that insurance adjuster responded so quickly – I’m still waiting for a visit on our 1993 bathroom ceiling cave-in.

One can only wonder what happened to the Porters after poor Willis had suffered what is technically called a “newspaper death.” (TIP: That’s a term I just made up, so don’t Google it.) Did he develop a fear of the Brighton line which impelled him to ride the Flatbush IRT train instead? That would have been difficult since the IRT hadn’t made it to Flatbush yet. Maybe he walked to work instead? Did he try to drown his anxiety in booze? We’ll never know unless a fellow reader steps forward with the answer. E-mail me at argyleheights@gmail.com please. TIP: Use a computer to send the e-mail (unless, of course, the super powers thing, yadda yadda).

The next on-line reference to 721 Argyle Road occurs in the 1930 Census -- released in detail last year by the Feds and now all over the Internet (for a price of course – try www.ancestry.com or any number of other genealogy sites). TIP: To find any block in our neighborhood, you will need to know that West Midwood in 1930 was located in the 2nd Assembly District – that was only 432 re-districtings ago according to my wife, who is also my paid political advisor, ie, she pays me not to vote. Also, the census refers to Argyle as East 13th, Glenwood as Ave G, and the “D” as the “Q”. For each house on the block you select, you’ll find lots of juicy stuff, which is why I guess they didn’t make it public until now.

OK, let’s take a look at 721...Hmmm...The Porters are gone. In their place, we have “The Farbigers”. Well, you can kiss whatever continuity I had going here good-bye.

Paul R. Farbriger, age 44, was the “Head of Household”, Elsie W. Farbriger, also age 44, was the wife and they had 3 daughters in the home: Charlotte (14), Elsie M. (13) and Norma (8). Mr. Farbriger emigrated from Germany and became a citizen the same year he married Elsie in Pennsylvania -- 1918. The family lived in Pennsylvania, the wife’s native state, until moving to Argyle Road sometime between 1919 and 1922, since the youngest child was born here. By 1930, Farbriger owned his own “import business” in New York, which is kind of a vague occupation if you ask me.

My guess is that the Porter’s actually died in the Malbone disaster, the victims of shoddy journalism, or else his wife brained him, buried him in the cellar and ran off with their insurance settlement (or maybe with just the adjuster). Either way, it seems the Malbone disaster must have played some role, given how quickly thereafter the house passed to the Fabriger’s. Well it’s more than a guess, actually because I just channeled with some gnarly aliens from Zeta Reticuli, and they confirmed my hypothesis -- the wife did it (TIP: Space aliens are better at detective work than “CSI”, which is really far-fetched.)

Returning to Earth for a minute, the final piece of census data says the Farbriger house had an estimated value of $20,000. I checked out all of this information with the Rhines, anxious to learn what they had found out about their home over the years. They didn’t know the Porters or the Farbrigers and no old skeletons were unearthed when they re-did their basement. In fact, Arthur & Harriet scoffed at the census, claiming their house is worth way more than 20k.

They bought it in 1992 from the Kaplans, only 7 years after the Kaplan’s had bought it from the Valentino’s, who lived there for at least 10 years. To fill in the gap between 1930 and 1975, I’d have to go down to the county registrar in Brooklyn Borough Hall and look up the block and lot. TIP: There’s no way to get to Borough Hall on the Internet and you have to go through a metal detector to look up the deeds, so leave your guns at home.

However, after 1992, we do find a final mention of 721 Argyle in an AOL Membership Profile that appears to belong to the Rhine boys:

“JeSSe aNd JuLIaN rule! Representin’ West Midwood and all my homies! Word up – 721 is DA BOMB”

West Midwood Centennial Stuff, Part Deux

Well, the response to the first centennial piece on page 3 above was so overwhelming, that I’ve been asked to do another one, except this time I’m supposed to have more history and less space aliens.

Returning to the Malbone Street wreck, West Midwood actually suffered two fatalities: Floyd G. Ten Broeck of 1421 Glenwood Rd, present home of the Chertoff family, and Emily Coady of 682 Argyle Rd, now the Mester house. The story in the Standard on 11/2/18 read:

“F. G. Ten Broeck was born in Elmira forty-six years ago and was a graduate of Cornell, class of '95. For seventeen years he had been chief engineer of the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company, Astor Building, Manhattan. He is survived by a widow, Anne; his father, William R.; two daughters, Delphine and Adria, and two sons, David and William, who sailed for France last Thursday. Funeral services will be held to-morrow at 3 P.M. at his late home. Interment will be at Elmira.”

Unfortunately, we have no census data for that home from 1930. But we did find this happy note on line from the Brooklyn Daily Standard Union:

“MARRIAGE 9 May 1929…PARSELL, Richard (age) 29 (of) 60 W. 58th St. (and) BROCCK, Adria (age) 21 (of) 1421 Glenwood Rd.”

So the Broeck’s (or the Brocck’s depending on which news story you believe) hung on to their home despite the sudden death of their bread winner and Adria, only 10 when she lost her dad, wed a guy who lived right off Central Park, so he must have been loaded. Not bad.

Unfortunately, there was no happy ending I could find for the other death (again from the Nov 18th, 1918 Brooklyn Standard story):

Girl Chums Die Together.
Another case of two girl chums meeting their death in the wreck, came to light with the identification of Miss Ethel CLIFFORD, of 485 Argyle Road, and Ms. Emily COADY, of 682 Argyle road. The girls were sitting side by side in the second car of the train when the crash came. Both were killed instantly. The two had been chums for years, went to school together and worked in the same office.

In reading through the list of the Malbone Street dead--most of whom lived South of the Park--one couldn’t help but be reminded of similar lists published after the attack on 9/11, which claimed West Midwood’s own Patrice Paz, who lived right across the street from where the Ten Broeck’s originally resided. For 100 years, West Midwoodians have piled, day after day into Manhattan-bound trains and returned home to our kids, our parents, our neighbors, and our leafy cocoon. Every now and again, however, some of us have not come home, our journey cut short by sudden illness, sudden accidents or sudden terror. So every now and then take a moment to notice those trees drooping over those tracks – I don’t think we’ll have to worry about the MTA doing any pruning anytime soon. Again, that has to be a guess since Laura told me the Space Aliens are “definitely out.”

Wheh! That’s a lot of research for just a few houses. Only about 125 to go, so I should be finished by the next centennial. Assuming I don’t get caught in the Malbone Disaster, Part Deux. TIP: If you hear something like that, don’t believe it unless you read it on the Internet.

House Tour Type Situation (2006)

2007-06-16T16:31:00.000-04:00

The View From Argyle Heights by Homeowner Harry
Another in a series of observations about life in West Midwood as it is lived today…or maybe not

June 4, 2006. Well, the Victorian Flatbush House Tour is next Sunday and here I am cleaning the house to make it presentable to the hordes of strangers who will descend from the heart of the empire to marvel about the adaptation of life in such cruel habitats. I speak from experience since I have been through this before. Mingling with the tourists gives you a truer appreciation of what they’re really thinking after they’ve given you the usual “Nice house” comment and pass out of earshot …

“Nice porch if you overlook that hideous sofa.”

“Do people actually sit out here? People on the street can actually see you! What’s to stop them from starting a conversation and then maybe rob you and shoot you or maybe just kill you and rape you?”

“Hmmm. With so many windows, where’s your privacy? And oh look – that drape is way too mauve.”

“My God! There’s no air conditioner in this bedroom. I think I’m gonna be sick!”

“How can they live so far away from Park Slope? Do police even patrol out here?”

But, of course, that was back when crime was so high scientists were still struggling to invent some means to count it, which of course led to the discovery of the Personal Computer. Speaking of which, I just Google’d recent house tours in Brooklyn and came up with some pretty good reasons why we should NOT have volunteered our house for this gig again:

"…It’s increasingly difficult to persuade homeowners to put their houses on these tours since there's no longer a need to ‘recruit’ new homeowners to Brooklyn and new owners are more protective of their privacy…and as websites like this demonstrate, the level of criticism of the houses on display is pretty high -- many owners are saying they just don't want to expose themselves to such a negative experience." Source: http://brownstoner.com/brownstoner/archives/2006/05/park_slope_hous.html

Oh. My. God. We put our house on this same tour about 15 years ago, when “internet” meant a mass of spider webs. I never stopped to realize that NOW, not only will snobby people examine our house up close and personal, but many will then rush home to complain about the nouveau-garishness of it all to the entire world.

Another anonymous web poster in Park Slope even impugned the motives of home-owners who volunteer for such events: “I don't understand why a homeowner would want to put there (SIC) place on a house tour with people tromping through your place and potentially scoping it out to steal something or break in later. Must be for vanity reasons.”

Well, there you have it. House tour hosters are not only garish but vain-glorious and thrill-seeking robber-darers. They got me nailed. Truth be told, however, the reason we decided to do this was to help out the Flatbush Development Corporation, which annually honors the best among us, including the Givners, Judy Brandwein, Alvin Berke, and Ladder 147 & Engine 281 - “Da Pride A Flatbush” (unexpected visitors to our smoky kitchen not so long ago). That, plus my wife is very house proud, and who wouldn’t be, especially after spending a zillion dollars of our hard-earned money to renovate this joint. Also, I figured that as long as we were scheduled to be on this tour, it would prevent Virginia from implementing new renovation projects that would continue to impact my beer money fund.

Little did I realize that the tour itself would become a project. For instance, chamber musicians are made available to play in your home during the day. But our piano is out of tune. Having some Brooklyn Philharmonic dude play a badly tuned piano? “Surely you jest,” suggested the FDC representative. Ka-ching! Also, the rugs hadn’t been thoroughly cleaned in 6 months. Ka-ching! Some new floral arrangements for the front and side gardens? Ka-ching! Ka-ching!

June 6, 2006: Saw Howard Givner out front cutting his hedges and wandered over to ask if he was interested in a bunch of prose for the next newsletter. He asked me if was going to write about the space aliens again. Hmmmm…Hadn’t thought about them in connection with house tours…an excellent opportunity for them to “blend in” with the humans and take notes…But no, I’ll save that for next time. “OK,” said Howard, “then we’re interested.”

June 10, 2006: The big day is tomorrow. A brochure from FDC arrived with a nice write-up about our house. Unfortunately, there is nothing in it about the best house getting a prize. Which is frankly what I think is needed to get more folks to volunteer. “A free month’s mortgage for the house voted best on the Tour!” You’d have to beat people off with a stick! Anyway, I decided to do some research on the web sites for Victorian Flatbush neighborhood associations and it seems WestMidwood.org is the best. Prospect Park South’s is “coming soon” while Beverly Square West has a couple of pages on a commercial site filled with ads. My wife wants me to clean the windows rather than conduct this vital research, so I had to cut short my investigations, but you can go to www.fdconline.org/links.html and see for yourself. Missing from the FDC list is a new addition, www.ditmas-park.info, which looks like it might contend with ours some day in the distant future…but not now. BE PROUD, Argyle Heights-ers (Heights-ians? Height-ites?), BE VERY PROUD - and thank Paul Steinfeld, web designer extraordinaire.

June 11, 2006: Well, the day dawned beautiful and clear (James wasn’t up to see it, because he was downloading sheet music advertised on the Beverly Square West web site until all hours). There were over 150 visitors and they were all happy to have full run of the house. I told them that since we had no valuables in the house, it was not a problem. One visitor asked why this neighborhood is called West Midwood. I told him we were thinking of changing it to Rugby Ridge or Argyle Heights or Westminster Hill or Glenwood Glade or...He looked at me blankly, then asked: “Is it because you’re west of some woods?”

June 12, 2006: There was a neighborhood meeting at the Church tonight and Virginia was the designated attendee for our household. She said there was some informal discussion about the original name of Avenue H (“Hiawatha or Hawthorne Avenue”?) but she also heard that some folks are upset about my crazy idea to change the name of the neighborhood…Well, I have more on that, but it will have to wait until the next issue because I’ve run out of room. Time to take a stroll and catch the evening breeze as it wafts over me, here atop Argyle Heights.

A Media Adventure. Sort Of. (2006)

2007-06-16T16:24:00.002-04:00

The View From Argyle Heights

by Homeowner Harry

Another in a series of observations about life in West Midwood as it is lived today...or maybe not...

Back in March we got a letter from our insurance carrier, who shall remain nameless in somebody else’s column, but in this one, they’re called Allstate. Their letter reminisced about what a crumby year it had been for the insurance industry and all, what with Katrina and stuff, and, oh by the way, we’re canceling your homeowner’s insurance. Apparently we lived on the wrong side of the Allegheny Mountains. Well, word got around and our teenage son has a lot of influential friends in this town, so pretty soon, I’m pulling my car over one night, blocking some guy’s driveway on Stratford Road while trying to have a conversation with a New York Times reporter.

“How did you get this number?” I demanded.

“Your wife gave it to me. She also asked me to tell you if you could pick up some juice on the way hone, she’d appreciate it.”

“Did she say whether it was cranberry juice or orange juice? She drinks both you know.”

“Er, listen, I hate to change the topic but we’re going to press in five minutes with a hard-hitting expose about the insurance industry and I need your help with some trenchant one-liners I’d write myself except they have to be from real people. Can you help?”

Then I sprang it on him: “Look, Tony, I’ll give you some nice quotes, sure. But you can do me a big favor here. When you mention that I’m a homeowner, please give a nod to our Argyle Heights neighborhood here, OK? I mean, some old-timers still refer to it by its Dutch imperialistic name, ‘Vest Midwout’, but more progressive types all say ‘Argyle Heights’, of course.”

Tony sounded amenable. “Sure, sure, no problem.” So the interview proceeded nicely and a few minutes later I was in Key Food on Foster Avenue buying a lot of juice, grateful that eventually our house would get the needed valuation boost it so richly deserved since studies show “Heights” is worth a cool 25k alone if it’s in your neighborhood’s name and …Then the cell rang again.

“Joe, we have a big problem with this story.” It was Tony the reporter again and he sounded terribly frazzled. “My editor can’t find ‘Argyle Heights’ on the map! Plus, he says he’s lived on the Upper East Side all his life and he’s never heard of Vest Midwout either!!”

The result of all this was the next day, on Friday, March 6th, the Times expose hit the stands but it must have shifted its focus in the minute after I was interviewed. Now it zeroed in on Victorian Flatbush’s vulnerability to a Katrina-like catastrophe because we lived down-slope from the raging, tsunami-breeding waters of Prospect Park Lake. The piece - “Allstate to Pare Home Policies in Storm-Prone Parts of Region” - had my brilliant comment ("We're inland, so it would take quite a tidal wave to reach us"), then went downhill in a hurry with: “But his Flatbush house is near the Prospect Park lake and, according to the city's Office of Emergency Management, is only a block away from a surge zone during a major hurricane.”
www.rmi.gsu.edu/rmi/faculty/klein/RMI_3500/Readings/Other/AllstateParesPoliciesNY.htm

So I guess the moral here is: the Times doesn’t have a map big enough to show West Midwood (much less Argyle Heights) and the map they do use has mislabeled the Atlantic Ocean as Prospect Park Lake. In the meantime, we moved on and got a good deal on homeowner’s insurance from Hartford (applying a discount from AARP, we are paying less than we did to Allstate). Then in June, the phone rang again and it was an Associated Press reporter who was doing – you guessed it – a hard-hitting expose on the insurance industry. She had seen my name in the Times and…I cut her off and explained how the Times got everything wrong.

“Really?” She sounded excited.

“Sure”, I said. “First of all, I live in Argyle Heights, not Flatbush, and second, Prospect Park Lake ain’t exactly Lake Pontchartrain.”

Silence. “Excuse me”, the reporter said, “But I’m from New Orleans and we’re not interested in your issues, we’re interested in the Allstate angle.”

So this time it was personal. Being a good Source, I gave her a lot of sarcastic one-liners which nevertheless reflected an amazing sensitivity for the people of New Orleans and how Brooklyn is really like New Orleans North and…Well, the net-net was a story that appeared Monday, June 12th (“Insurance Limbo Slows Katrina Fixes”) about how Katrina victimized homeowners in the Big Easy, sure, but the insurance industry was itself victimized by rising re-insurance rates, and was merely passing the cost along and blah blah…Once again, Argyle Heights didn’t make the final cut. Instead there was a general line about how Allstate “canceled 30,000 policies in coastal counties of New York, including Brooklyn, even though a major hurricane has not hit there since 1938.” (Source: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-06-11-katrina_x.htm).

It looked to me like this story about the cancellation of our insurance kept going in the wrong direction. Instead of focusing on the heartache and disappointment of Argyle Heightsians, it was getting distracted by 30,000 other New Yorkers and a few million on the Gulf Coast. And there I thought the matter would end, until one night I found myself out with my buddies in some Manhattan watering hole on the way to find some cranberry juice when the phone rang.

It was a producer for the Comedy Channel’s “Daily Show With Jon Stewart” and they wanted to do a spot on Allstate’s canceling our policy.

YES! Now Argyle Heights would get the recognition it deserved without any censorship or “Flatbush” equivocations. Of course, first I had to get permission from my employer (“Sure, just don’t tell them who you work for and try not to do it in a bar for a change”) and then I had to clear it with my co-workers for the day the Daily Show wanted to do it (“Yeah, right, like you’re going to be on The Daily Show and monkeys fly out of our butts”).

Then the next week the "Daily Show" called.

"Sorry, but we're going with Homeowner Hank instead of you." I complained mightily, of course, since I wanted the satisfaction of sticking it to The Man.

"But, Joe" the producer pointed out, "you own an expensive home and your opinion is sought by the newspaper of record; face it: YOU are The Man."

Oh. The producer did ask if I would pretend to be an Allstate broker or spokesperson since they couldn't get anybody but I turned that down because the lines were dumb ("At Allstate, distance to the ocean is only one of two or three variables we use to decide policy renewal; the other is distance to Prospect Park and your son’s clout with the New York Times").

Well, on August 1st, the segment aired on “The Daily Show” and the Victorian Flatbush homeowner turned out to be our own westmidwood.org web site maestro, Paul Steinfeld (obviously these new media and visual media types stick together)! The reporter for "The Daily Show" was Jason Jones and the piece was called "Brooklyn Dodgers" (you can still find the clip at www.comedycentral.com/shows/the_daily_show/videos/most_recent/index.jhtml?start=225).

Funniest moment:

JONES: Steinfeld, don't you realize that Allstate is actually sending you a message here that your home is about to be swallowed up in some gigantic catastrophe and that you're basically doomed?

STEINFELD: This neighborhood hasn't been under water for at least 10,000 years as far as geologists can determine!

JONES: So that's a yes, you are doomed.

Another funny bit was when Jones attempted to interview Allstate but they refused because he answered "Yes" to these items on their obviously fictitious "Interview Risk Assessment Questionnaire":

* Do you take statements made to you out of context?
* Have you ever been a real pain in the butt while doing an interview?
* Do you hum TV theme songs while your interview subject tries to answer questions?

The insurance industry spokesperson they did manage to get on camera was asked: "If it's ‘Allstate’, shouldn't they insure all of the state?"

The spokesperson stared at Jones blankly and if you looked hard enough, you could discern a dawning awareness that "The Daily Show" might not actually be a real news show.

Thank you, space alien friends, for re-arranging time and space so I did not appear on this show and get publicly humiliated about the Argyle Heights thing. I get enough humiliation when I shoot hoops with my son James. With or without his hot shot New York Times contacts.

PS FYI, there’s another West Midwood friendly web page out there which is at
http://livinginvictorianflatbush.blogspot.com/search/label/West%20Midwood

Reprinted with permission of The West Midwood Community NewsLetter (Pursuant to stipulation with respect to the “Back Dues Settlement Agreement, Joe, You Weasel”)

The View From Argyle Heights: Movies (2007)

2007-06-16T13:56:00.000-04:00

The View From Argyle Heights
by Homeowner Harry

Another in a series of observations about life in West Midwood as it is lived today...or maybe not...

On February 25th, “The Departed” won the Academy Award for Best Picture. As Argyle Heightsians are well aware, that movie featured an August 2005 “shoot” on Dekoven Court. However, most Argyle Heightsers probably missed another feature movie that included a scene shot in our neighborhood six months earlier - “The Protocols of Zion” - a documentary about anti-Semitism. Marc Levin, the director/narrator, interviewed his father, Alan Levin, in front of what appears to be Rob and Lance’s “Loralei”, at 667 Argyle Road. Shot at twilight on a snowy Winter night, Alan, who was born in 1926, discusses how he was tormented by the Irish kids who used to live on that block when he passed by as a school boy in the 1930’s. The camera looks North over Alan’s shoulder toward Foster Avenue as he recounts his memories of a harsher time.

As I was writing these notes, Howard and Laura Givner dropped off a clipping from a 1935 issue of the Cornell Alumni News which reported that Samuel Dalsimer, Class of 1930, was working for a small advertising company in Times Square and living at 716 Argyle Road, Brooklyn – which eventually was to become the Givner homestead. I did a little digging to see what else I could learn about this former Heights-ite and in a 1943 issue of the same alumni newsletter, I learned Dalsimer had been appointed vice-president of a large advertising company. In 1952, Dalsimer wrote to compliment “Commentary” magazine about an article it had just published about the blacklisting then rampant in radio and TV, but now, apparently, Dalsimer was living in Manhattan. By December 1964 Dalsimer had joined Grey Advertising and five years later, the American Jewish Year Book noted that Samuel Dalsimer was the National Chairman of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith. Finally, an NAACP archive site lists Dalsimer as a “principal correspondent” in the 1969 Freedom Fund and Awards Dinner, along with most political notables of the day, including Nixon, Rockefeller, Javits, Lindsay, etc. So, while young Alan Levin was being pummeled in front of Rob and Lance’s house by Irish bullies because he was Jewish, a block away, the future president of the Anti-Defamation League was working his way up the corporate ladder to success. And, a few months after Levin’s reminiscence, another
movie is filmed around the block, about a bunch of Irish toughs in Boston who mostly beat each other up. Life can be very confusing.

Dekoven Court was also the site for a segment on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show”, filmed last July, featuring Paul Steinfeld. During the recent “Progressive Dinner,” the Steinfelds graciously threw open their beautiful home to hordes of socializing Heightsers and I had a chance to chat with Paul at length about his experience. He recalled it was the hottest day of the year, the air conditioner was not working, and the interview conducted by Jason Jones was interminable. One of the questions apparently cut from the final show was: “If The Departed had a fight with The Daily Show, who would win?” Apparently, the answer was Godzilla (“It was a trick question”).

As a result of his appearance, Paul now is part of The Internet Movie
Database, the 2,354,819th entry (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2354819">www.imdb.com/name/nm2354819)!

The topic of the Daily Show segment was the wave of cancellations of home owners insurance which has swept through coastal counties in the wake of Katrina. You might want to check out the “New York City Hurricane Evacuation Map” and better yet, the “Hurricane Evacuation Zone Finder”, available on the City’s Office of Emergency Management (OEM) website at http://gis.nyc.gov/oem/he/index.htm. Simply type in your address and a little map appears of the surrounding area, letting you know whether you will be affected by the storm surge of a hurricane. Unfortunately, large swaths of Brooklyn would experience flooding in the event of a major hurricane, while those living on Mount Argyle and along its summit would, of course, be spared, owing to its being some 25 feet above sea level. The OEM map, showing the impact of a major hurricane on New York City, found its way into the Sunday Times on March 11th as a large front page color spread in the Real Estate section. The Times assessment was that despite all the doom and gloom, now was a good time to buy real estate, pretty much anywhere, particularly if you’re rich. The last major hurricane to hit New York occurred in 1938. Before that, it was 1893. I suppose you could say we’re due. So keep that web site handy.