Guest Post: The Man From B.R.O.O.K.L.Y.N.

Posted on 2007-05-18 by admin

I received the following from my Dad this afternoon. I asked him for permission to share it here.

APOLOGIA: YOU WILL FIND “I” AND “ME” IN HERE OFTEN. That’s because my wife, who is also from Brooklyn does not agree with my outlook. These are MY opinions and do not mean I am insulting my wife or son or other Brooklynites and THEIR opinions.

I AM FROM BROOKLYN AND PROUD AS PUNCH !

(Nope, that’s not right. How about)

I AM FROM BROOKLYN AND PLEASED AS PUNCH !

(I’m still not getting my point across. Lessee)

I AM FROM BROOKLYN AND HAPPY ABOUT THAT !

I’m gone, by-bye, far away, moved. It took 65 years but no more $500 annual parking ticket budget, sky rats, strange people sleeping in the streets, passersby arguing with themselves and losing. No more rush hour, subway, shoulder to shoulder bustle and bump, “cleaning” windshields, strange green gobs of mucous on the sidewalk.

I was a Great Depression baby, born at home near the intersection of Myrtle and Decatur in Ridgewood. We moved to Queens early in my life but, same thing. Brooklyn was The City, just like Manhattan.

If you were a baseball fan, you had died and gone to Heaven early. A ten cent subway ride took you to the Wonderlands of Yankee Stadium, Ebbets Field and the Polo Grounds. I was not a fan.

No sense belaboring it: it was a nasty Era and life stunk. My Mom made me wear knickers and a beret !

Our electric was more off than on. Fridays were always cod fish cakes and spaghetti (Franco-American) night.

During WWII we also had Meatless Tuesdays. Not that we could afford meat anyway but it makes a good bitching point.

When I was married we managed to move out on “The Island”, first to Nassau county and then Suffolk.

From that point on I tried very hard to protect my kids from the Big Bad City. I didn’t want them to endure what

I had gone through. I was still too much a Dad to realize or even conceive that my kids could think for themselves and make decisions. Wrong again, and not for the first or last time.

My son moved first to Manhattan and eventually to Brooklyn where he has a 100 year old Victorian home.

The daughter is very happy with her family in New Jersey.

The son writes a well received and popular “Blog” about life in Brooklyn, especially gardening.

They’re happy, I’m happy. I miss them but not Brooklyn.

Here is a partial list of things I do miss: American Museum of Natural History; Coney Island Aquarium; MOMA; the Bronx Zoo; hot chestnut vendors; Horn and Hardart’s Automat; Charlotte Russe; Loew’s Valencia Theatre; Tony the Ice Man; Macy’s Christmas windows; Rockefeller Center at Christmas; more. BUT, I could always visit. Oh my: swimming at the St. George hotel with its’ salt water pool and the mirrored ceiling; the Thanksgiving and St. Patrick’s Day parades; Times Square on New Year’s Eve (just once);……..

Had to stop, starting to choke up. Take a deep breath.

OK. I now live in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, selected as my retirement spot after years of study. Been here 15 years. I do very well, thank you. We eat out several times a week. I love it. We have a backyard about 100 feet deep and two football fields long. A stream runs through it at the rear boundary.

We live at the foot of a mountain.

The backyard is visited by a variety of wildlife: squirrels, flying squirrels, several species of rabbit, red foxes, muskrat, wild turkeys, deer, gray fox, ducks, geese and an amazing variety of birds including several hawk species. (They tend to harvest the mourning doves.)

Just a couple of healthy stones throws away is a herd of elk and a pack of red wolves. The gray wolves have not yet been re-released to the wild. The cougars/panthers/mountain lions are gone but you can still find feral pigs, some mixed with European Boars. They hunt them on foot, with spears!

What about bears? They are all around us but have never been seen on our property. Sightings have been made within a half mile. Usually a daily incident in the local papers.

We gotcher streams, creeks, rivers, ponds, lakes and hundreds of waterfalls. Local fishing waters hold all species of trout; bass species include largemouth, smallmouth, spotted, peacock, striped, hybrid.

The North Carolina state record for Bluegill sunfish (2 ¾ pounds) was caught in our home county.

Culturally, we miss major league sports. However we have seen Itzaak Perlman, the Lippizaner Stallions, David Copperfield, many operas. We have musical and stage shows, lots of Celtic music and dancing and, as you might expect, tons of Blue Grass. The circus, pow-wows, gem mines. We’re not lacking.

Tennessee, Georgia and South Carolina are within a half hour’s drive.

City lovers would miss the 24 hour lifestyle. We tend to roll up the sidewalks around 9:30 PM.

So, all-in-all, it was a great move. We still visit the son in Flatbush and the daughter in Brick, NJ. We absolutely avoid Long Island at all costs.

There are a few other ties to The City. I still have a plot in Calvary Cemetary. It will go unused.

So, my dear son: revel in your Brooklyn home with your partner. You have chosen, and wisely for you. My plan to protect you was a flop and thank goodness for that.

I am still happy to be FROM Brooklyn. But I have a friend there whom I can visit whenever possible. He opens my eyes to the things I overlooked and broadens my knowledge base and horizons, even at the age of 75.

I am blessed in all things.

A Gardener’s Nightmare: Replacing the roof

Posted on 2007-05-17 by admin

I just got off the phone with our roofer. On Monday they start replacing our roof.

[Cue horror movie music …]

I took this photo in January of 2006. It features the front of our house, which faces West. You can see the front garden area and most of the front gable. The South side of the house has one of the side gabled dormers and a wide, sunny border between the house and the driveway.

In our case, because of the multiple layers of shingles accumulated over the years, “replacing the roof” means tearing off the entire roof, including the original cedar shingles, circa 1900, down to the rafters and furring strips. It also means a big mess on all sides of the house, especially the north and south sides sloping down from the gables.

Here’s an aerial view from the rear/East side of the house, courtesy of Microsoft Live Maps. This gives you a much better idea of the layout and size of the roof. The Flickr photo page has notes explaining the features visible in this photo.

We expect this project to last about a month, give or take. The roofer has promised to build sheds over the gardens to protect them. I hope so, yet I’m not counting on it to save everything and I can live with some damage. We knew when we had the house inspected 2-1/2 years ago before going into contract that we would have to do this. I’ve been holding off for two years on any big gardening plans which would be affected by this job.

The backyard won’t be affected much. I’ll setup a plant refugee camp there for anything which needs to move, including all the containers at the front of the house. I’ve already transplanted some plants from the ground into containers or to beds which are at lower risk of damage. They should be fine for a month.

We’ll see what happens! Watch for periodic updates.

Event, Brooklyn & Queens, 5/19 & 5/20: Compost Giveback

Posted on 2007-05-17 by admin

[Updated 18:15 EDT: Corrected dates!]

The Brooklyn-Queens Compost Giveback continues this Saturday and Sunday, May 19&20 at the Spring Creek Composting site [Google Map]. Blog Widow John and I went last Saturday.

I was not allowed to take pictures at the event. Rumor on the ground was that the property is being examined for development. I took the one photo above before I was told photography was not allowed.

Fortunately, there’s Google and satellites. Check out the piles of compost!

I armed us with two broad-faced shovels, a pitchfork, a plastic bushel-sized bin, and heavy-duty plastic contractor’s bags. We backed up to a rapidly dwindling yet still impressive long row of compost and had at it. The Queens Botanical Garden was on hand to provide advice and literature.

I also picked up two Garden Gourmet composters at $20 a pop. I put one of them together on Sunday. I’ve used Smith & Hawken BioStacks for many years. I’ll come back with a comparative review of the two designs later.

Garden Gourmet (left) and Biostack (right)

Links:

April 4

Good Riddance to Bad Rubbish: Jerry Falwell, 1933-2007

Posted on 2007-05-15 by admin

I just learned that Jerry Falwell is dead at last. And, hopefully, for good. The post title is from, of course, a John Waters film:

Well, good riddance to bad rubbish. – Divine (Harris Glenn Milstead), Female Trouble

All I can add is the last lines from the poem I posted during Blog Against Theocracy:

there isn’t room enough in hell for both of us

you go first

After you, Jer.

via Found in Brooklyn.

Event, Sunday, May 20: PLG = Plants, Leaves, Green!

Posted on 2007-05-14 by admin

Across the Park (ATP) announced today that residents and friends of Prospect Lefferts Gardens can get their green on next Sunday, May 20. The spruce up for Lincoln Road between Ocean and Flatbush Avenues is organized by Prospect Lefferts United for Services (PLUS). See their posting for details.

I was amused to see that the poster announces that the after party will be held at Meytex Lounge, whose facade was recently described as scary in New York Press. ATP goes on to note that it’s scheduled for an exterior sprucing up of its own.

Blogfest Coverage

Posted on 2007-05-14 by admin

Update 2010.01.03: Removed all links to the old Gowanus Lounge domain, which has since been appropriated by some parasitic commercial site.

To highlight coverage of last Thursday’s Blogfest, I’ve moved all the links from my original post to this one and organized it by media. I’ll continue to keep this up to date as I learn about more.

Video

Brooklyn Roundtable (Episode airing 9pm 5/18 will include a video montage from the Blogfest and interviews with OTBKB, BrownStoner, and No Land Grab. Update: I was in the montage!)
cruxy (I’m in this one, though not identified. They pan across me at the open mic before they move on to one-on-one interviews with attendees at the reception.)
NewsChannel4

Audio

(Watch this space)

Photos, mostly

Flickr (multiple contributors)
Brit in Brooklyn
Dope on the Slope (includes a heavily processed image of moi)
Gowanus Lounge (link defunct)
A Test Of Will

You can also look at my Flickr set of photos from the evening.

Words, mostly

Ovenbird, Seiurus aurocapillus

Posted on 2007-05-13 by admin

At 4:30 this afternoon, I photographed another “life bird” for me, this time while I was sitting in the backyard garden: an Ovenbird, Seiurus aurocappilus.

These are the best from about 35 shots I took in rapid succession. I tried to adjust the color for a truer representation, or at least consistency. I need some better software tools for that, I think. Exposure in the backyard ranges from full shade, to dappled leafy shade, to full sun. And my little visitor ranged through all of it. Most of the shots were ruined due to camera shake, ie: photographer shake. Others were blurred by the motion of the bird itself; in the shade, the shutter speed was too slow to freeze its motion.

In the mixed native plant border, that’s a cinnamon fern behind, and the stem of a Turk’s Cap Lily in front. You can see the orange patch on the crown, a key for this species.

Here’s the original, full-frame shot showing more of the border. The blurry thing on the right is a wooden planter I’d just finished planting with a female Winterberry, Ilex verticillata.

Rear view, also showing the orange patch on the crown.

The ovenbird visited me for less than five minutes. It started out in our back neighbor’s cherry tree, where I couldn’t get a good shot and lost sight of it. I thought it flew off.

I was surprised to then see the bird on the ground, beneath one of our Adirondack chairs, about six feet from me. It wandered around the backyard. You can see much of the in-progress gardening clutter around the bird: a bin holding compost, a bag of leaves, and so on. It didn’t seem to be probing the ground. Maybe it was just checking out the neighborhood.

I take this as a good sign. My plan for the backyard is to recreate a woodland opening. I’ve been building up a collection of native shrubs, wildflowers and ferns. The past two weekends I’ve been reorganizing the space, clearing beds, and planting things which have been sitting in containers all this time. I’m starting to recreate the layered foliage structure of a clearing in an Eastern woodland. I feel like the ovenbird showed up as if to say: Getting warmer.

Event, June 10: 2007 Victorian Flatbush House Tour

Posted on 2007-05-12 by admin

Update 2007.06.11: See my photos from the tour.

210 Rugby Road, Prospect Park South Historic District, Victorian Flatbush, Brooklyn, New York

I just learned from Living in Victorian Flatbush, the blog of real estate broker Mary Kay Gallagher and company, that you can now buy tickets for the Flatbush Development Corporation‘s 2007 Victorian Flatbush House Tour.

The house featured in the photograph on FDC’s House Tour page is 210 Rugby Road. I hope this means it’s on the tour this year. This is in the Prospect Park South Historic District, and it’s one of my favorites. At the top of this post is one of my photographs of this house. It’s a perfect Queen Anne Victorian, with a turret and wrap-around porch. It’s also visible from Beverly Road, so I pass it nearly twice every weekday going to and from the subway.

One change this year is that the tour starts out at Temple Beth Emeth at the corner of Church Avenue and Marlborough Road. This is on the north edge of the Prospect Park South Historic District. The past two years, the starting point has been the Flatbush-Tompkins Congregational Church in the Ditmas Park Historic District.

I’m disappointed in two more changes for this year’s tour:

There are only 12 houses on the tour this year. This is fewer than last year, which was fewer still than the year before. I don’t know if this is a trend, or what this signifies for the long-term viability of the tours.
The past two years have been House & Garden Tours. This year, apparently, no gardens are on the tour. Surely there are gardeners willing to open their spaces to visitors. Maybe the audiences for garden and house tours are simply too incompatible.

Corrected subway directions: As of 5/16, the subway directions on FDC’s Web site are still incorrect. I contacted them by email and they’re in the process of updating their materials.

Take the Q train to CHURCH AVENUE, not Beverley Road (or Beverly, both spellings are used). Exit at the Church Avenue (south) end of the station. The start of the tour, Temple Beth Emeth, is on Church Avenue at the corner of Marlborough Road, just three streets West of the station. (Marlborough Road is the same as East 15th Street.)

You can walk 2-1/2 blocks North to Church Avenue from Beverley Road to get there. It’s just a longer walk. On the other hand, it’s also a prettier walk, since you walk through the Prospect Park Historic District. Take your pick!

The Liberty Elm Project

Posted on 2007-05-11 by admin

Update 2007.05.29: Cornell University does not recommend Liberty Elm because:

‘Liberty’ is highly susceptibility to elm yellows and is not recommended due to variability of resistance to Dutch elm disease.
– American Elm Cultivars (PDF), Recommended Urban Trees, Cornell Urban Horticulture Institute

Their top choices for American Elm Cultivars are “Valley Forge” and “New Harmony”, both of which they rate “resistant” to Elm Yellows and Elm leaf beetle, in addition to resistance to DED.

At last night’s 2nd Annual Brooklyn Blogfest, one of the highlights for me was getting interviewed by Dope on the Slope. He had some great gardening questions for me, and I hope I did them justice.

One thing I got wrong, though, was in response to his question about the American Elm, Ulmus americana. He mentioned that Home Despot is selling American Elms resistant to Dutch Elm Disease (DED). I responded that, although there are hybrids which are resistant, they’re not fully American Elms.

I Was Wrong

The Liberty elm is not a hybrid. ERI’s [Elm Research Institute] American Liberty elm is actually a group of six genetically different cultivars. All six look like classic, old fashioned American elms. …
– About the American Liberty Elm

DED is caused by at least three fungi strains: Ophiostoma (Ceratocystis) ulmi, O. himal-ulmi, and O. novo-ulmi. At least two species of bark beetles – the native elm bark beetle, Hylurgopinus rufipes, and the European elm bark beetle, Scolytus multistriatus – serve as vectors for infection. American Elms, which used to be premier street trees across the country, were devastated by the disease since it reached U.S. shores on imported lumber in 1928. European Elms have been similarly affected.

The Liberty Elm, or American Liberty Elm, is the outcome of a decades-long research and breeding program to develop a strain of American Elm, developed only from American Elms, reliably resistant to DED. These are not inter-specific hybrids. They have been developed from survivors collected and propagated from across the country. The resulting plants are propagated vegetatively for distribution.

Genetic differences provide diversity. Having six cultivars in the series is insurance against all the elms being wiped out by any disease or problem, even one that might show up in the future. ERI mixes all six cultivars in its shipments.

During the research phase for all these new elms, they were challenged with injections of the Dutch Elm Disease (DED) fungus in controlled tests. But the American Liberty elm is now long past the experiment stages, and at this point it has been through the additional test of growing in public locations around the country for over 18 years, where it has been exposed naturally to DED fungus where it may occur in those environments.

There is no known American elm variety that can be called entirely immune to DED. The American Liberty elm is resistant to DED, and its resistance has a strong record. In the 18 years since the tree’s introduction, ERI has confirmed less than 100 cases of DED among the 250,000 elms it has sent out.

– About the American Liberty Elm

Cornell University notes other DED-resistant cultivars available, including ‘Princeton’, ‘Independence’, ‘Valley Forge’, ‘New Harmony’ and ‘Jefferson’. They also note all of these elms are susceptible to Elm Yellows and should not be used where that disease occurs.

Any of you gardeners out there have any knowledge about these trees? Do you know of any growing in your area?

The 2nd Annual Brooklyn Blogfest, for real

Posted on 2007-05-11 by admin

[2007.05.23: Moved Back in the Day to its own post.]
[2007.05.13 23:50 EDT: Moved all links to their own post.]
[2007.05.13 10:50 EDT: Added still more links and link to video.]
[2007.05.12 04:00 EDT: Added several more links.]
[2007.05.11 23:30 EDT: Updated links, and wrote Back in the Day.]
[2007.05.11 20:00 EDT: Added one photo of me, and link love to other blogfest participants writing about the event.]
[2007.05.11 16:36 EDT: Added some photos.]

It was a great event. I was too exhausted, achy, and feverish when I got home to write anything last night. I’ll be coming back tonight to write more. A couple of quick notes now.

Update 2007.05.11 23:30 EDT: I’m back. Only minor edits and links added to what I wrote earlier today. Some possibly closing thoughts here.

Back in the Day

[2007.05.23: Moved Back in the Day to its own post.]

Present Day

Ye Olde Stone House

I met lots of my fellow Brooklynites and bloggers. I am terrible with names and faces and, well, people, mostly, so if I met you or gave you a card, please leave a comment below to slap me a reminder! A special shout out to my neighbors Brenda of Crazy Stable, and Anne of Sustainable Flatbush, both of whom I met for the first time last night.

Our host(ess) for the evening, Louise Crawford, Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn, keeping time with the broom

Robert Guskind, Gowanus Lounge

Steve Johnson, outside.in

Lumi Michelle Rolley, No Land Grab

Jonathan Butler, Brownstoner

Norman Oder, Atlantic Yards Report

Eleanor Traubman, Creative Times

Despite enduring a root canal from the dentist earlier in the day, my partner tuffed it out and accompanied me to the blogfest. His name tag read “Blog Widow” and he found others last night with whom to commiserate. He said “You’re famous” based on the response I received at the open mic. And here I’d thought it was my natural charisma, wit and charm. Or, if not, that the response I received was for “Flatbush” more than me. Represent.

News12 Reporter Heather Abraham recording her voice-overs outside the Old Stone House before the doors opened.

NewsChannel4 Van outside the dog run in J.J. Byrne Park.

News12 Brooklyn, Brooklyn Independent Television (BIT), and NewsChannel4 (NYC NBC affiliate) were in the house. (A very crowded and cozy Old Stone House, it was.) BIT interviewed me on-camera along with several others at the end of the evening to get our reactions. And Dope on the Slope conducted a probing and humorous digital audio interview with me. (Note: I wasn’t serious about hoping the Bradford Pears just planted on Cortelyou Road would die soon so they could be replaced. But I bet they will expire before our mortgage does.)

Battle Diorama inside Old Stone House

Update 16:36 EDT: BIT airs at 8:30pm this evening on BCAT (Brooklyn Community Access Television). I hope to try and catch it to see if I made any face time.

Update 19:45 EDT: And here is the man behind the blog, yours truly, Flatbush Gardener. Thanks to the blogfest participants who dared risk their lenses against my visage.

Flatbush Gardener, present day
Credit: Robert Guskind, Gowanus Lounge

Link Love

All the links now have their own post.