Video of Snow Friday 1/3/14

Storm Slams East Coast, Leaving a Trail of Havoc - NYTimes.com

Sledding, Hot Cocoa, Snowball Fights & More At Prospect Park's Snow Day On Saturday | Kensington BK

From Kensington BK
Sledding, Hot Cocoa, Snowball Fights & More At Prospect Park's Snow Day On Saturday | Kensington BK

If you haven’t already, it’s time to dig those sleds out! NYC Parks has announced that Saturday, January 4, is an official Snow Day.

Kids (and kids at heart) are invited out to Prospect Park for “supervised safe sledding (there will be sleds available at each snow day site), snowman building contests, best snow angel contests, friendly snowball fights, music, and complimentary hot chocolate.”

The fun takes place from 11am to 3pm near the Tennis House (enter at 9th Street and head toward the Long Meadow). For more information, including other Snow Day locations around the city, visit the NYC Parks website.

Sledding, Hot Cocoa, Snowball Fights & More At Prospect Park's Snow Day On Saturday | Kensington BK

From Kensington BK
Sledding, Hot Cocoa, Snowball Fights & More At Prospect Park's Snow Day On Saturday | Kensington BK

 If you haven’t already, it’s time to dig those sleds out! NYC Parks has announced that Saturday, January 4, is an official Snow Day. Kids (and kids at heart) are invited out to Prospect Park for “supervised safe sledding (there will be sleds available at each snow day site), snowman building contests, best snow angel contests, friendly snowball fights, music, and complimentary hot chocolate.” The fun takes place from 11am to 3pm near the Tennis House (enter at 9th Street and head toward the Long Meadow). For more information, including other Snow Day locations around the city, visit the NYC Parks website.

Polar Bear Club takes annual icy plunge at Coney Island

Polar Bear Club takes annual icy plunge at Coney Island - NY Daily News



Around 2,500 intrepid swimmers took a dip in the 41-degree ocean at Coney Island Wednesday as part of the annual Polar Bear Club dip

Polar Bear Club takes annual icy plunge at Coney Island

Polar Bear Club takes annual icy plunge at Coney Island - NY Daily News

Around 2,500 intrepid swimmers took a dip in the 41-degree ocean at Coney Island Wednesday as part of the annual Polar Bear Club dip

Brownstone and North Brooklyn Home Prices Shoot Up, Report Shows

Brownstone and North Brooklyn Home Prices Shoot Up, Report Shows - Boerum Hill - DNAinfo.com New York

(Excerpt)
"The ever-shrinking pool of Brooklyn listings pushed prices up more than 13 percent in the fourth quarter of 2013 from the year before, according to a report from Ideal Properties released Friday.
From Park Slope and Prospect Heights to Greenpoint and Williamsburg, bidding wars were pervasive, with nearly 62 percent of homes selling at or above asking prices"

Banning horse-drawn carriages an early focus for New York's new mayor

Banning horse-drawn carriages an early focus for New York's new mayor - CBS News (Click for video)

For generations of tourists, and even some residents, taking a ride on a horse-drawn carriage through Central Park has been a key part of their New York City experience, along with watching a Broadway show and ice skating in Rockefeller Center.

Those days -- as far as the carriage ride goes -- may soon be coming to an end.

New York's new Mayor Bill de Blasio says he will make good on a campaign promise to shutter what he considers to be a cruel industry, a view backed by animal rights groups. The drivers of the 200 or so carriages that have meandered around the country's first landscaped public park are crying foul and one prominent horse veterinarian has said he found the horses to be well treated.

How de Blasio, who was inaugurated as New York City's 109th mayor earlier this week, handles this issue may offer some hints on how he handles economic issues. Tourism is big business for the city, which attracted more than 52 million visitors who spent about $37 billion in 2012, the latest year where data is available, according to the city.

Related story: NYC at war over Mayor De Blasio's ban on horse-drawn carriages

Some observers question his prioritization of the horse carriage issues. "De Blasio is starting his term as dictator by dictating," writes Judson Phillips in the conservative Washington Times. "He is dictating a group of people out of their jobs. These are the iconic horse drawn carriages in New York."

Lakeside, a New Skating Rink in Prospect Park

Lakeside, a New Skating Rink in Prospect Park : The New Yorker

JANUARY 2, 2014
A SKATING RINK GROWS IN BROOKLYN
POSTED BY ALEXANDRA LANGE

The last few weeks of Michael Bloomberg’s third term were a marathon of ribbon cuttings, as the Mayor opened pedestrian plazas, recycling facilities, and future tech campuses right up until December 23rd. The most seasonal event was the opening of Lakeside, a seventy-five-thousand-square-foot ice-skating facility in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, just in time for Christmas. Lakeside, designed by Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects and officially known as the Samuel J. and Ethel LeFrak Center at Lakeside, replaces the late, unlamented Wollman Rink, and is the first major building added to the park since the end of the nineteenth century. That long pause proves to have been a smart one: the emphasis of twenty-first-century architecture on sustainability and materials dovetails nicely with Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux’s artful, artificially-constructed park landscape. Lakeside, a significant work of plain, bold contemporary design, makes perfect sense in Prospect Park by combining that old sensibility with new bluntness. The curves of its two rinks echo the park’s swoops and lawns, while its rectangular roof stands out like a billboard.

The architects chose a parking lot installed during the twentieth century as their site, taking out a minimum number of trees and restoring naturalistic planning that had been overrun by asphalt. Wollman Rink sat over part of the park’s original lake and absorbed the romantically named Music Island, a hillock surrounded by water from which bands once played. Christian Zimmerman, Prospect Park’s lead landscape architect for twenty-three years, coördinated with the architects and engineered the restoration of the lake, where the island is an island again.

Promoting Universal Pre-K

Post by Friends of Ocean Parkway.

NYC Hazards: Winter Weather Health Tips

NYC Hazards: Winter Weather Health Tips

Click the link above to get good information for managing in this very cold blast of winter.

End of line for horse-drawn carriages in NYC?

Wouldn't it be cool to have these carriages sharing the bike path with our biking friends?  

End of line for horse-drawn carriages in NYC? - New York News (click link for video)

NEW YORK (MYFOXNY) -
Some tourists just love New York City's horses that draw the Victorian-style carriages. During the holiday season a steady stream of tourists takes the expensive, but iconic horse carriage ride through Central Park.But probably not for long. Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio reiterated his position on what he calls animal cruelty. He said his administration will shut down the industry.
Some tourists we spoke to seem dismayed.
But animal-rights activists, who backed candidate de Blasio for mayor, are overjoyed.
When de Blasio becomes mayor Wednesday he cannot declare horse carriage rides illegal. But a bill is before the City Council. If the council passes the bill and de Blasio signs it, it could close down the horse carriage industry.
Carriage drivers and owners made a public request of the new mayor: come meet with us and the horses and see where they live and how they are treated.
No word from the de Blasio camp. The mayor-elect has suggested that old-style electric cars could replace the carriages. That would mean no pollution and no horses.

PRESS CONFERENCE 12/30/13 11AM: Boardwalk Community Garden, Coney Island: Bulldozed. Community Outrage!

PRESS CONFERENCE 12/30/13 11AM: Boardwalk Community Garden, Coney Island: Bulldozed. Community Outrage!

PRESS CONFERENCE 12/30/13 11AM: Boardwalk Community Garden, Coney Island: Bulldozed. Community Outrage!

by AZIZ DEHKAN on DECEMBER 29, 2013

December 29, 2013

For Immediate Release Contact: Aziz Dehkan, Executive Director, New York City Community Gardens Coalition (NYCCGC) — 973-222-5413   eighty20group@gmail.com

Boardwalk Community Garden, Coney Island: Bulldozed. Community Outrage!

Speakers include leaders of Boardwalk Garden, Coney Island Community leaders and  the NYC Community Garden Coalition

When and Where: Monday, December 30, 11 a.m., 2071 22^nd Street, between Surf Avenue and the Boardwalk, Coney Island, Brooklyn, NY. Subway: F/N/D/Q, last stop

Brooklyn, NY – On Monday, December 30 at 11 a.m., a Press Conference will feature individuals whose long-standing community garden was bulldozed on 12/28/13 by iStar Development. At issue is whether the developer and the NYC government agencies that manage NYC parks have followed proper legal procedures for permitting this pre-dawn bulldozing to take place.

The NYCCGC has introduced documents clearly showing that the Boardwalk Community Garden is Mapped Parkland – which means that the community garden is entitled to very stringent environmental law protections against real estate development.

NYCCGC asserts that the City is not following its own rules that govern the review process of the environmental impact assessment. In November, the City moved to change those rules in such a way that could adversely impact all community gardens. By deceptively lowering the bar, it is likely to become easier to bulldoze other existing community gardens much like what took place at 5 a.m. on December 28^th.

Recent prior talks had suggested the developer would offer gardeners alternative sites for transplanting their garden. But the pre-dawn demolition demonstrated that the developer had no such intent. While the Boardwalk Community Garden has been destroyed, the will of the people perseveres.

This is a call for NYC policies that protect the hard work and dedication of community gardeners. We urge that the incoming mayor (Bill de Blasio), the new Brooklyn borough president (Eric Adams) and all the elected officials find a proper solution for this illegal occupation of a garden on designated NYC parkland. Public parkland destroyed by a corporation without any input from the community will not stand. The community is seeking a win-win solution to re-establishing their 16-year-old garden.

Only the ghosts remain of the Boardwalk Community Garden in Coney Island

Only the ghosts remain of the Boardwalk Community Garden in Coney Island

Renovated Ocean Parkway bicycle/pedestrian path opens.

The fences and barriers are gone and the section of Ocean Parkway from the Belt Parkway to Brighton Beach Avenue is now open for bike riding and walking (just a small area still still has tree protectors).  But now it can be enjoyed for all and bike riders should be especially pleased with a repaved path and the end to sharing the the service roadway with cars heading down to the beach.  The sign that announced the completion day as the summer of 2014 has been removed and we're glad the city has decided to complete the project way ahead of schedule.
Now the next project on the west mall should be the  bike path from Avenue O to Avenue X with a particularly hazardous stretch between Avenue V and Avenue X. Hope our new couccil members, Mark Treyger of the 47th district, and Chaim Deutsch, of the 48th district, will support an immediate resumption of the completion of the Ocean Parkway malls that suddenly stopped a few years ago.

City bulldozes community garden in dead of night

City bulldozes community garden in dead of night | New York Post

What the cluck?

A developer bulldozed a beloved community garden in Coney Island on Saturday to make way for an amphitheater — uprooting 20 chickens on a decades-old plot that survived Hurricane Sandy.

Construction workers entered the Boardwalk Garden under the cover of darkness and chucked tools and wheelbarrows, along with farm fowl and a colony of feral cats, activists say.

The chickens were placed in pet carriers on the sidewalk and the felines were left fending for themselves.

“They destroyed life!” fumed tearful volunteer Elena Voitsenko, 60, a Russian immigrant who told The Post she’ll take in the birds until they find a new home.

“‎I came to America to escape from the communist regime,” she added. “This is more than the communist regime! They came at 4 in the morning.”

Workers razed the sprawling, 70,000-square-foot garden on West 22nd Street about a week after the City Council approved plans to convert the empty Childs Restaurant and its adjacent land into a 5,000-seat venue.

Modal Trigger

THAT’S FOWL! After the overnight demolition, chickens who had lived at the garden were crated and set out on the sidewalk.

Modal Trigger

What the garden once looked like.

The $53 million project was trumpeted by outgoing Borough President Marty Markowitz, who tried previously to build a controversial amphitheater in Asser Levy Park in 2009.

Under the new plan, the city will buy the Childs building from iStar Financial and turn it into a restaurant and concert venue. The adjacent garden is slated to become a seating area.

The community board voted against the project in September, and locals have railed against turning the historic property into a noisy venue.

“The community does not want this amphitheater built on this land . . . but the city went ahead with this anyway,” said Yury Openzik, ‎34. “I’m heartbroken, not only for myself, but for the elderly people that were gardening here every day.”

Throughout Saturday, volunteers recovered their belongings after workers knocked down plots for tomatoes, cabbage, zucchinis and other vegetables.

Residents say they’ve run the garden since the 1980s.

The city Economic Development Corp., which is spearheading the project, referred questions to the borough president. Markowitz’s office did not respond to requests for comment.

But Mark Cottingham, a consultant for the project, said the urban farm was decommissioned in 2004 and was operating illegally.