Archive for the 'just brooklyn' Category
Ready for the Tour?
April 26th, 2010
For the fifty first time (!) Park Slope Civic Council is hosting the neighborhood’s House Tour.
And of course, we can’t help ourselves. We’re ready to binge on the area’s remarkable architecture and design. You’d think we’d have had enough of looking at properties…
Perfect treat for people downright addicted to their community and its housing stock.
On the menu: Neo-Tudors, Romanesque Revivals, Queen Annes, French Neo-Grecs, Neo-Classical, Neo-Renaissance, Italianate Neo-Grec.
When: 12:00 PM – 5:00 PM SUNDAY, MAY 16
Where: Starting Point: Poly Prep Lower School
Seen a Bat Lately?
July 29th, 2009
Thank you, Prospect Park Alliance volunteers and program coordinators, for making our dusk this Tuesday, July 28, a memorable one! First, we learn some trivia about invasive tree species, then we cool off by the Dog Beach, then we get served on a platter to the local (innumerable!) mosquito population, then we SEE BATS!!!
We learn that the bats we’re seeing are most likely of the little brown variety (Myotis lucifugus). Many a myth is dispelled. Bats are not blind. Bats see very well, day, or night. They don’t fly into your hair (unless on a quest for a mosquito hidden in your frizzy). They don’t drink your blood. They don’t turn into humanoid bloodthirsty creatures. They live up to 30 years! They can eat up to 1,000 mosquitoes (or other insects) in an hour! Nursing female bats may eat up to 110% of their body weight… each night. Roughly 25% of all mammal species on our planet are… really!?… bats (there are nearly 1,200 species of bats out there – that fact in itself a testimony to the crucially important role these little creatures play in our ecosystem!)
WATCHING bats fly is fascinating – they seem to constantly change their mind as to direction and speed. But HEARING bats is simply magical! Thanks to the Prospect Park Alliance and their volunteer tour guide Paul Keim, we get to hear the world of bats. Paul holds his bat detector (device that converts bats’ echolocation ultrasound signals to frequencies us humans can hear!) up in the air, his machine producing clicking sounds whenever a bat is near.
Apparently each and every bat has its own, unique ultrasonic call – and Paul seems to be able to explain a host of nuances in sounds we hear these lovely mammals produce… by way of Paul’s bat detector.
Paul also has a Beanie Baby-like bat toy (which he says was given to him by his daughter the first time he started doing the bat tours) that he uses to explain to the youngest in our group of bat watchers how bats hang upside down… Paul’s Q&A with the youngest in the group also produces a memorable “We (humans) can’t hang upside down for long because if we did our heads would explode.”
Paul’s machine clicks, and makes buzzing sounds every time a bat catches an insect. We all cheer for the bats – and we hear quite a few buzzes.
“An Evening with the Bats,” Prospect Park, July 28
Enter at 9th Street and Prospect Park West, 718.965.8965; save the (next) date: August 4. Free for Prospect Park Alliance members.
Chronicles of an Ideal Intern
July 28th, 2009
Café Regular du Nord
In my pursuit of neighborly destinations, I decide that getting to know my immediate neighbors might be just what the neighborhood doctor ordered. I walk straight into the new coffee shop that just opened in the building also occupied by Ideal Properties. Ideal is on the corner, and this little neighbor of theirs protrudes out of the building’s Berkeley Place facade.
Café Regular du Nord is the name. I’m not so sure, from the get-go, if anything is regular about this brand new – however mignon – addition to Park Slope’s enviable list of coffee shops. And I’m not sure if regular is what they hope each one of their patrons becomes. But I presume I’m sure about “du Nord” clearly drawing the passerby’s attention to the Café Regular’s presence in Park Slope North.
Either way, Café Regular’s original incarnation (du Sud?) is on Park Slope’s Eleventh Street. Having spotted the little store, just recently vacated by Zuzu Petals, Café Regular’s owner Richard realized that the area simply needed a new café.
It seems that the café’s miniature size works to its advantage, emphasizing its comfortable feel. Adequately scaled tables and chairs, carefully grouped outside the café, lend this place an almost Mediterranean sense of ease and a definite allusion to instant joie de vivre. Ah, I just know that Ideal’s agents would love nothing more than to have enough time during this crazy rental season to sit down and enjoy their coffee, simply taking delight in letting the time slowly pass them by on this oddly memorable, baronial, tree-lined street.
Richard tells me he knew he made the right choice, because the people in the neighborhood have been nothing but super friendly. I feel totally comfortable talking with Richard and his staff and I delight in the fact that I have found it!!!! I have found the place where I am going to be a regular (pun intended). This is where I’ll be buying my morning coffee, yeay!
Jackie the Intern Over and Out
Save the Date: Brooklyn Pride 2009
May 24th, 2009
Fun, fun, fun!!! The time has come for this year’s celebration of Brooklyn’s LGBT community… We look forward to mingling with the colorful floats, bands, and marchers @ Brooklyn Pride 2009.
Saturday, June 13, 7:30 pm. Meet @
(Bartel Pritchard Circle), wrap-up at Lincoln Place and 7th Avenue.
Brooklyn Pride: 718.928.3320
See you there!
