Sunday, 1/4, a book reading by Daniel Walker Howe of his Pulitzer Prize–winning book What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848, will be held at the Historic Chapel at Green-Wood Cemetery. Following, a trolley tour will move through the cemetery to the grave sites of notable writers who inspired the era, such as De Witt Clinton (father of the Erie Canal), Samuel F.B. Morse (inventor of the single-wire telegraph) and Peter Cooper (creator of Tom Thumb, the 1st American built steam locomotive)… plus many more famous writers buried in the cemetery. There is a suggested donation of $5 for the reading, and a fee of $20 ($10 for Historic Fund members) for the trolley tour. For more information or to reserve your spot (which is limited), call 718.768.7300 or e-mail info@greenwoodcemetery.org.
–Vaduzuvunt

(Image courtesy of Lost in Brooklyn/Flickr)

[Photo courtesy of Meg Greene]

The photographer says: “During one of mymany sojurnes down 4th Ave I turned a corner and found a set of beautiful cars on the sidewalk. From across the street they appeared to be in pristine condition but upclose I noticed that the tires were flat and the inside was totally emptied out. It was such a contrast from the shiny, scratchless exterior. The biker noticed the car too but probably wouldn’t have traded.”

[Photo courtesy of pixonomy/GL Flickr Pool]

The photographer writes: “It was a winter wonderland in Brooklyn when I got home from work tonight. Guess it snowed all day. I was trapped in my windowless office the whole day. Wish I could have gone out and played in the snow.”

A GL reader sent this to us for GL, but we thought it was so amusing that we posted it on Curbed late yesterday afternoon, figuring a lot of people would get a chuckle out of it. We wrote:

Don’t the holidays bring out the best in people? Let’s take this sign, a photo of which was passed along by a tipster that comes from a building on Union Street in Carroll Gardens between Smith and Hoyt Street. Our tipster notes, “I don’t know which one of my neighbors left it but we had a bunch of packages stolen last week, so even though it’s funny it’s also something of a PSA for the neighborhood.” Another time of the year, the sign would have lacked the short-term forgiveness factor and just said something like eat shit and die painfully.

Amusing in its own bizarre way.

This weekend (12/20 & 12/21) is the start of the first opening of the Artisan Market down at the old Brooklyn Lyceum (on 4th Ave between Union and President) from 11am-7pm. Over 60 local artists and vendors will be selling a vast array of everything you don’t need but would probably love to have or give to someone else. It’s safe and sound indoors (warm), with entertainment and refreshment options.
So, head on down for your last minute shopping (I intend too!), and help support people of your community and make another great open market succeed and grow in our fine borough. For more information, check out the Market’s Site.
–Vaduzuvunt

The full flier after the jump.

[Photos for Gowanus Lounge by E.C. Stephens]

GL Correspondent E.C. Stephens braved the elements and came back with a couple of pics of Fifth Avenue and environs in Park Slope in the snow. Check out the Christmas trees with their coating.

And a few musical selections for a cold and wet weekend:

Friday 12/19/08
BAM Café:
The Fay Victor Ensemble (Jazz) Free!! 10:00pm

Saturday 12/20/08
BAM Café:
Tamaraqs Winter Solstice Hafla (Belly Dancing/ Raqs Sharki) Free!! 10:00pm

Music Hall of Williamsburg:
The Slackers (Ska/Reggae/Rock) $15 Advance/$17 Day of Show, 9:00pm

Southpaw:
The Menahan Street Band, Naomi Shelton & The Gospel Queens (Funk/Gospel/Soul) $14, 9:00pm

Sunday 12/21/08
Barbes:
Stephane Wrembel presents The Django Experiment (Gypsy Jazz) $10, 9:00pm
–Dan Bennis

We have to admit that although we are animal lovers, small, yappy, football sized dogs sometimes give us the urge to punt. But all joking aside, this story from a Park Slope Parents email is a sad one and despite our hatred for puppy mills (they’re basically commercial enterprises which breed dogs in sometimes dispicable conditions and turn them into a disposable commodity) these dogs need a kind heart to to save them from being put down. Here’s the story:

A friend of mine who runs Pug Peke Tzu Rescue in Upstate NY sent this out to me and is hoping that others can help and step up to the plate as well. I am just the messenger- hoping that ANYONE or any rescues can help save some or ALL of these pugs!!!! The point of contact is Tina- here is her note: I have received an email of a pug puppy mill closing they have close to 100 pugs, all ages…please let me know if you can take any and if so how many…any not spoken for will be killed…a couple are coming thurs or fri the rest over the weekend..it is in Lancaster I am going with Kathy to get them..she is with a boston terrier rescue. Let me know ASAP if you can help!!! Tina Spread the Word About: Boxer Angels Rescue www.Boxerangelsrescue.com

The contact email is tinaf0807@gmail.com and there’s more info on the organization involved here as well as all their adoptable pugs. Spread the word and let’s hope they all find a good home. The pug pictured here, by the way, is named Maxine. Come on, Brooklyn, go Pug for the holidays and somebody please take Maxine.

–E.C. Stephens

Arise Collective, in partnership with the Bed-Stuy Campaign Against Hunger, is presenting a “Drive for the Stuy,” a fundraiser event this Friday, December 19th, 7:00pm – 11:30pm, at the St. Phillips Episcopal Church (334 MacDonough St.) in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. “Drive for the Stuy is a food and clothing drive event that will feature an evening of live hip-hop, dancing, spoken word, live grafitti, and a silent auction. Hosted by Toni Blackman: United States Hip Hop Ambassador.” Cost is free with 3 cans of food or coat donation, $7 without. All proceeds go to Bed Stuy Campaign Against Hunger. For more information and to see the extensive line up of Djs and performers click here.

—E.C. Stephens

Here’s this week’s regular food thing from the good people at Eat It: The Brooklyn Food Blog, who check out Lobo on Court Street and find that it’s barfalicious:

Having just over an hour before our movie at Cobble Hill Cinemas, we decided to try Lobo, (218 Court St., between Baltic St. & Warren St., 718-858-7739) the Tex-Mex place on Court St. that’s been there for a few years now. It used to house my favorite neighborhood brunch place (Harvest) – that and the grey, used-to-be-white pillows in the window have kept me away. I don’t think I’ll be back any time soon.

Now, I’m rarely very critical of a restaurant, it’s not the perspective I normally take. It’s just that there were a number of areas in which Lobo went very wrong and contributed to the whole experience being quite a disappointment. The Margaritas were very good, and I might even go back to sit at the bar for a drink and some chips, because the service was nice & friendly, and the main room downstairs is very cozy and appealing in a Tex-Mex way. But the food…

I ordered the Vegetarian Mix Combination which was described as coming with a Portobello Mushroom Burrito (a small burrito), a Cheese Enchilada topped with Spinach Sauce and a Bean & Cheese Chalupa. The burrito tasted like dishwater, very funky and bad, a terrible thing to do to a Portobello. The Enchilada was mediocre, but had no spinach anywhere near it. Instead it was topped with huge chunks of green pepper and tomato, WTF? The beans also coagulated almost immediately, which didn’t make me want to eat them. ~sigh~ For more, click here!

Yes, friends, the snow is falling in Brooklyn. You read it on GL first. And in case you don’t believe us, here is photographic evidence.

There’s nothing like a little Snow Job to get your holidays started and Public Assembly (the former Galapagos on N. 6 Street in the Burg) is doing it up right with free chicken & waffles from 8 – 9pm and an open bar of Red Bull and Vodka from 9 – 10pm. Spinning the tunes will be an all female cast of Djs: Jasmine Solano, Monica Sharp and DJ Vida and “live artwork” courtesy of Ladi Dotie and Danielle Mastriani. You get all this plus free entrance with RSVP. No need to thank us, just save us a chicken wing ok? Good day for a snow job too, as it turns out.

—E.C. Stephens

(RIP Deep Throat, Mark Felt, American Hero)

· Three Patients Found Dead a Brooklyn Nursing Home [NYT]
· One Cop Murder Suspect Acquitted [NYP]
· Could Gehry Get His Architects Back? [AYR]
· Fulton Finally Gets Its Business District [Brownstoner]
· Mill Basin Christmas Lights [GerritsenBeach.Net]
· Revere Sugar Refinery Lives. In an Oil Painting [Lost City]
· Want a Voice? Think About Applying to CB6 [PMFA]
· Bare Bones Winter Park [AYITP]
· Go Visit Lola Staar in Union Square [Kinetic Carnival]
· Bay Ridge Greenmarket Holiday Celebration [BVIB]

Holy fucking guacamole. GL’s Chief Correspondent E.C. Stephens has made one of the most bizarre food discoveries in Park Slope in recent memory. It’s a little thing, really, dealing with a restaurant that many rank as mediocre. Yet it is truly, truly strange. Remember how Maria’s Mexican Bistro morphed into Mercado Social? That would have been in the glorious days of mid-October. Well, now, it’s morphed back to Maria’s. Talk about having an identity crisis. If this restaurant were a person it would be treated for having a serious personality disorder. WTF? Ms. Stephens writes: “Maria’s has some serious identity issues. Why not put all the money you wasted on changing signs and advertising by adding some beans and rice to your pathetic taco plate! and put out on the free chips and salsa already!” Anybody have any thoughts on this bit ‘o weirdness, other than this has serious doom written all over it?

This came in from Park Slope yesterday afternoon and tells us that (surprise) the slimy energy scammers that have been working their asses off all over Brooklyn trying to rip people off are still out there: “A male-and-female team of IDT Energy reps just rang our door bell (Thursday, 2 p.m.). I told them to hit the road, and immediately sent a message of warning to our block association.” [GL Inbox]

What else are you going to do on a day when snow, sleet and whatever are threatening than turn to funny ass photos of bizarre signs. For instance, this one submitted by a GL reader who writes, “I walk my dog by it every day and it never fails to crack me up. It’s on Hicks Street in Carroll Gardens.”

What can we say about this building at 365 Union Avenue designed by the King of Brooklyn Architects Robert Scarano except that it fills our hearts with light to see such a fucking black building. Especially during the holidays. Of course, next year, if anyone buys a condo in the Prince of Darkness or rents and apartment, there will be holiday lights that will contrast against the soul sucking blackness that has been plopped onto the Williamsburg streetscape. The philosophical question is: is this better than an abandoned construction site, for which Union Avenue on the other side of the BQE shall become famous? There’s still time for the developer to hang a huge brightly lit wreath from this architectural act of violence.

Want to be a member of Community Board 6? The application deadline is January 1, 2009. This comes from CORD, which does spectacular work as a watchdog–a classic, effective, grassroots, pain-in-the-ass one (and we say this with respect because calling grassroots people a pain in the ass is the highest compliment that one can pay them:

Please consider serving our community by submitting a New Member Application Community for Community Board 6 to the offices of our Borough President Marty Markowitz and to our Councilman Bill DeBlasio. The deadline is in a few short weeks! (January 1, 2009). Learn more about Community Board 6 and find this application at http://brooklyn-usa.org/Pages/Community_Board/getinvolved.htm CB 6 covers: Red Hook, Carroll Gardens , Park Slope, Gowanus, and Cobble Hill. If you have questions please write us at cgcord@gmail.com

A bit more about what our beloved Community Boards do, ahead.

There is so much need in Brooklyn amidst a lot of affluence, that it does our hearts good to see giving. The borough president who likes everybody to call him Marty took part in handing out hundreds of toys that were donated at this year’s annual Borough Hall Toy Drive.

Many Brooklyn-based service organizations, including churches, youth groups, and women’s shelters, received an incredible selection of new toys donated by scores of individuals and corporate sponsors

So yay – everyone’s getting into the spirit of do-gooding this year.
–Vaduzuvunt

[Photo courtesy of megunski/flickr]

GL Correspondent Meg Greene says of Brooklyn’s readiness for snow–yes we can. She writes: “The plows have been set out on 2nd Ave in anticipation of a heavy snowfall. So far we’ve just had light dustings but these have been ready to go on the sanitation trucks since Thanksgiving.”

Not that you need us to tell you this, but we’re in the mood: “The New York City Department of Transportation (DOT) in conjunction with the Department of Sanitation (DSNY) today announced the suspension of Alternate Side Parking (ASP) regulations citywide for Friday, December 19 to facilitate snow removal. However, parking meters will remain in effect throughout the City.”–GL Inbox

The Friends of Sunset Park along with the staff of the Sunset Park Recreation Center will hold their 4th Annual Trees Lighting Ceremony this Friday, December 19th, at 6:00 p.m.

LET’S PAUSE FOR A MOMENT AND CELEBRATE COMMUNITY AS WE SING FESTIVE SONGS, BRIGHTEN OUR BEAUTIFUL PARK AND SHARE HOT COCOA AND COOKIES IN THE REC CENTER, AFTERWARDS.

You can enter the park at 5th Avenue and 41st Street, 43rd Street and 44th Street. All will meet at the Pine Tree near the 41st St. steps and then proceed to light two trees on route to the Recreation Center. All are welcome! For more information call 718.437.1413 or email friendsofsunsetpark@yahoo.com
—E.C. Stephens

[Photo courtesy of Miss Heather]

Here’s one from S. 3 Street in Wiliamsburg. Always nice.

[Photo courtesy of New York Shitty]

This beauty and pubic safety hazard is 61 Huron Street in Greenpoint. It will ultimately end up (perhaps) as a six story building with 15 units. Curiously, the original application on the property was submitted by the King of Brooklyn Architects Robert Scarano in 2000. The current architect is based in Astoria. There’s a partial work order on this shitshow, resulting from the initial (brilliantly worded) complaint that “CLR STS ACROSS FROM THE ABOVE LOCATION, CONSTRUCTION SITEFACADE JUST CRUSHED ON TO THE SIDEWALK AND STREET.” The only work allowed is to protect adjacent property and to, uh, fix the freaking fence. Note to DOB: The stinking fence is on the sidewalk and the site is wide open. You might want to send one of your inspectors over to write more violations that will be ignored because you have no effective enforcement system. Excellent work and a shining example of how the new and effective “reorganization” has so improved public safety.