Tag Archives: News

Flatbush Facts: Brooklyn’s Noisiest ‘Hood

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It makes a body proud. Flatbush is Brooklyn’s noisiest neighborhood, measured by the number of noise complaints to 311.

[In Flatbush] 2,058 noise complaints were made to the city’s 311 hotline from July 1 to Nov. 20. Williamsburg fell just three complaints behind, followed by Bushwick and Brownsville.
– Flatbush tops loudest in Brooklyn, NY Daily news, December 11, 2007

This year, DEP complaints in Brooklyn surged by approximately 23%, from 3,914 to 5,101 calls, officials said. Citywide, there were more than 135,589 complaints in the nearly five-month period – about a 25% hike over the same period in 2006.

Brooklyn’s top noise culprit is construction-related din, which is handled by the DEP and clocked in at 2,300 complaints.

Other pesky rackets plaguing the borough include … barking dogs, which annoyed Brooklynites enough for them to dial 311 1,263 times from July until last week. Ice cream truck jingles drew 261 complaints and loud music spurred 119 calls. Car noises, including honking horns and alarms, also made the top-10 list of complaints for the borough.

Links

Air & Noise, DEP

TODAY: Imagine Flatbush 2030 on the Brian Lehrer Show

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UPDATE: The podcast is available from WNYC’s Web site, or through the widget below.

I just learned of this a few minutes ago. Today on the Brian Lehrer Show:

Susan Siegel, outgoing executive director of the Flatbush Development Corporation (FDC)and Zenobia McNally, local resident and business owner and Eve Baron, director of The Municipal Art Society Planning Center and the project manager for Imagine Flatbush 2030, discuss their efforts to create a community-directed development plan for Brooklyn’s Flatbush neighborhood.

The Brian Lehrer Show airs weekdays at 10AM on 93.9 FM and AM 820 and Tuesdays through Saturdays at 1AM on AM 820. The call-in number is 212-433-9692 (or 212 433 WNYC).

Related Posts

The Albemarle Road Pedestrian Bridge, November 25
Imagine Flatbush 2030, November 20

Links

Making Jane Jacobs Proud in Flatbush, The Brian Lehrer Show
Imagine Flatbush 2030, Municipal Art Society

Celebrating 50 Years of Carbon Dioxide (Measurement)

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Monthly Mean CO2 for the Past 50 Years. Credit: NOAA
Mauna Loa, Hawaii Monthly Mean CO2 for the Past 50 Years

This simple graph of the Mauna Loa Carbon Dioxide Record documents a 0.53 percent or two parts per million per year increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide since 1958. This gas alone is responsible for 63 percent of the warming attributable to all greenhouse gases according to NOAA’s Earth System Research Lab.

Fifty years ago the U.S. Weather Bureau, predecessor of NOAA’s National Weather Service, helped sponsor a young scientist from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography to begin tracking carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere at two of the planet’s most remote and pristine sites: the South Pole and the summit of the Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii. This week NOAA, Scripps, the World Meteorological Organization, and other organizations will celebrate the half-century anniversary of the global record of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere—often referred to as the “Keeling Curve” in honor of that young scientist, Charles David Keeling.
– NOAA Celebrates 50-Year Carbon Dioxide Record

NOAA’s Mauna Loa, Hawaii CO2 Monitoring Station. Credit: NOAANOAA's Mauna Loa, Hawaii CO2 Monitoring Station

Carbon dioxide is the most important of the greenhouse gases produced by humans and very likely responsible for the observed rise in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century. The Mauna Loa and South Pole data were the first to show the rate of CO2 buildup in the atmosphere. In 1974, NOAA began tracking greenhouse gases worldwide and continued global observations as the planet warmed rapidly over the past few decades.

Links

Mauna Loa Carbon Dioxide Record
Mauna Loa Observatories
Earth System Research Lab

To the New York Post, we’re all just Brooklyn, anyway

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I was startled to read on Ditmas Park Blog just a few minutes ago that a man had been murdered Monday night around the corner from me. They quoted what was reported in the New York Post:

A suspect was busted after fatally stabbing a man on a Kensington [sic] street, police said yesterday. The 29-year-old suspect, whose name was not immediately released, knifed the 26-year-old man in the chest at Westminster Road and Slocum Place at 10 p.m. Monday. The victim, whose name was withheld pending family notification, was rushed to Methodist Hospital, where he died. Police busted the assailant, who suffered minor injuries in the fight. Charges were pending.
– New York Post NYPD Daily Blotter, November 14, 2007

This is almost not even wrong. They got the ages and night of the attack correct, but that’s it.

Going through my feeds, I saw that The Brooklyn Paper reported it today:

An East New York man was stabbed and killed on 12th Street on Monday night after an argument with another man, who was later arrested for the crime, cops said. Police said William Rosario, 26, succumbed to a single stab wound in the chest in the 10 pm incident between Fifth and Sixth avenues. He was taken to New York Methodist Hospital, but was dead on arrival. It’s unclear what sparked the dispute. Police said they arrested the suspect, who also needed treatment for “minor injuries he received during the dispute.” The arrested man, 29, was charged with manslaughter and criminal possession of a weapon — the knife, which was recovered at the scene.
– A man is stabbed to death, The Brooklyn Paper, November 17, 2007 [issue date; it was on their Web site as of 11/15]

Then I learned from Brooklynonometry that the Daily News had reported it first, giving the same location as The Brooklyn Paper, and identifying the neighborhood correctly:

A 26-year-old man was stabbed to death after a fight in front of a Park Slope home, police said. The victim – whose family has not been notified of his death – was fighting with Antonio Bruno, 29, on 12th St., between 5th and 6th Avenues, at 8 p.m. Monday, a police source said. The victim was stabbed once in the chest and taken to Methodist Hospital where he died of his wound a short time later. Police responding to the scene arrested Bruno and found a knife at the scene. Bruno, who was treated at the same Brooklyn hospital for minor injuries, has a lengthy rap sheet dotted with drug arrests, the police source said. Charges against Bruno are pending, officials said.
– Man stabbed to death in Park Slope street fight, New York Daily News, November 13, 2007

As if I needed a reminder that the New York Post is not even suitable for wiping my @$$.

NYC OEM recommends cash donations for California Wildfire Relief

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Via email:

The NYC Office of Emergency Management urges residents who wish to help those affected by the California wildfires to make cash donations to disaster relief organizations.

A list of organizations collecting donations can be found at National Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (NVOAD) Network For Good. The American Red Cross, the Salvation Army, Catholic Charities USA, and the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City are also accepting donations for wildfire relief.

Why make cash donations?

  • Relief agencies will often spend cash in the disaster area, helping the local economy get back on its feet.
  • Cash donations help avoid the costly and time-consuming process of collecting, packing, transporting, storing, and distributing donated goods.
  • Cash donations allow relief agencies to make purchases that meet victims’ precise needs.
  • Cash donations to recognized relief organizations are tax deductible.

Images: Fires in Southern California

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Update 2007.10.24: NASA continues to publish updated satellite imagery of the fires and the natural phenomena driving them. Check the sidebar of their page for “Other Images for this Event”.

By Wednesday morning, 600,000 people had been displaced by the fires. By the afternoon, CNN upped the estimate to over 900,000.

Image acquired 2007.10.22 13:55 PDT

Watching the news this morning before going to work, I was shocked to hear that a quarter of a million people – 250,000 – have been displaced by the fires in California. This satellite image, taken less than 24 hours ago, provides some sense of the scale of what’s going on there.

In what seemed like the blink of an eye, wildfires ignited in the paper-dry, drought-stricken vegetation of Southern California over the weekend of October 20, 2007, and exploded into massive infernos that forced hundreds of thousands of people to evacuate their communities. Driven by Santa Ana winds, fires grew thousands of acres in just one to two days. The fires sped down from the mountains into the outskirts of coastal cities, including San Diego. Dozens of homes have burned to the ground, and at least one person has died, according to local news reports. Several of the fires were burning completely out of control as of October 22.
…
The drought in the Southwest throughout summer 2007 has been “extreme” according to the categories used by the U.S. Drought Monitor. Dry vegetation and Santa Ana winds, which can reach hurricane force as they race downslope from the deserts of the Great Basin and through narrow mountain passes, are often a devastating combination in Southern California. According to the Incident Management Situation Report [PDF] from the National Interagency Fire Center for October 22, Santa Ana winds were expected to continue through Wednesday.

– Fires in Southern California, NASA Earth Observatory

Links
California Fire News (Blog)
CNN Coverage
NASA: Fires in Southern California

Flatbush Viewed from Afar

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It’s an odd feeling, to see yourself – or my neighborhood, in this case – described by a stranger. In today’s edition of the English-language Malaysian newspaper The Star, their “State Side” columnist Foo Yee Ping takes a look at Flatbush.

Kosher meat is widely available. One tour agency arranges for travel on Emirates, Etihad, Kuwait, Qatar and Gulf airlines.

There is a mosque, too. And there is a “yeshivah” (Orthodox Jewish school), just a five-minute walk away.

Nearby, a sign outside a barbershop proclaims: “We speak English, Russian, Urdu and Yiddish.”

Welcome to Flatbush, a neighbourhood in Brooklyn presenting a New York City seldom seen on celluloid.

– No clash of cultures here, State Side with Foo Yee Ping

From my home here in far Western Flatbush, I hear both sabbath sirens and muezzin’s calls to prayers. But they’re coming from our neighbors in Kensington.

One of those interviewed in the article is Mohammad Razvi, who was one of the dozen or so candidates for our City Council seat earlier this year.

Carolina Silverbell: One of a Million

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Just the thought of Mike Bloomberg and Bette Midler together makes me giddy.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and New York Restoration Project (NYRP) Founder Bette Midler today launched the Million Trees NYC initiative to plant and care for one million trees throughout the five boroughs in the next decade. The Mayor and Ms. Midler planted a street tree in the Morrisania section of the Bronx – a neighborhood with too few trees and high rates of asthma – and declared the Carolina Silverbell to be the first of one million trees.
– Press release, Tuesday, October 9, 2007

And if not for the much-needed rain tonight, we could see that the Empire State Building is lit green to note today’s kickoff.

Not once do they mention the botanical name of the tree, Halesia carolina. It’s a lovely, graceful tree. I don’t know how it fares as a street tree in NYC. It’s native to the southeastern United States. It’s in the Styracaceae, the Storax or Snowball family.

The nomenclature for this genus seems confused. Wikipedia lists H. carolina as a synonym for H. tetraptera, but the USDA Plants database identifies the latter as a different species, the mountain silverbell, with two subspecies. I’ll defer to USDA Plants as the authority.

None of the four species of Halesia are native to New York state. According to the Atlas of the New York Flora Association, both H. carolina and H. tetraptera are known as escapes in the wild.

The Parks Department will receive nearly $400 million over the next ten years to plant 600,000 public trees by reforesting 2,000 acres of existing parkland and lining New York City streets with trees. The City’s partners, including non-profit and community organizations, businesses, developers and everyday New Yorkers will plant the remaining 400,000 trees.

There are many ways to get involved in Million Trees NYC:

  • plant a tree in your yard;
  • join a volunteer group planting trees in parks and on public land;
  • request that the City plant street trees on your block;
  • learn how to water, mulch, and prune trees;
  • educate other New Yorkers on the importance of our urban forest; and
  • become an advocate for planting trees.

Each request for a street tree will trigger an evaluation of the suggested site by a Parks department inspector. Considerations such as electrical wires, underground utilities, light posts and building entrances will be part of the inspection. If it is possible to plant a tree in the site requested, a tree planting contractor will be assigned to plant the tree in the next possible planting season, in either the spring or fall.

Links

Halesia carolina (USDA Plants Database)
Million Trees NYC Web site (also in the sidebar under Links > NYC)
New York Restoration Project (Bette Midler’s joint, also in the sidebar)

Related Posts

April 22: 1M Trees in 10 Years

News: IUCN Releases 2007 Red List of Endangered Species

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Blog Widow John has a hard time watching any nature shows. We go “awwww” for the first 45 minutes at cute furry, feathery, scaly critters. Then they bring you down with “But time is running out …”

I hope he doesn’t read this.

Gland, Switzerland, 12 September, 2007, World Conservation Union (IUCN) – Life on Earth is disappearing fast and will continue to do so unless urgent action is taken, according to the 2007 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
– IUCN Press Release, September 12: Extinction Crisis Escalates

One in four mammals, one in eight birds, one third of all amphibians and 70% of the world’s assessed plants on the 2007 IUCN Red List are in jeopardy.

There are now 41,415 species on the IUCN Red List and 16,306 of them are threatened with extinction, up from 16,118 last year. The total number of extinct species has reached 785 and a further 65 are only found in captivity or in cultivation.

o The number of threatened species is increasing across almost all the major taxonomic groups.
o Most threatened birds, mammals and amphibians are located on the tropical continents – the regions that contain the tropical broadleaf forests which are believed to harbour the majority of the Earth’s terrestrial and freshwater species.
o Of the countries assessed, Australia, Brazil, China and Mexico hold particularly large numbers of threatened species.
o Estimates vary greatly, but current extinction rates are at least 100-1,000 times higher than natural background rates.
o The vast majority of extinctions since 1500 AD have occurred on oceanic islands, but over the last 20 years, continental extinctions have become as common as island extinctions.

There are now 12,043 plants on the IUCN Red List, with 8,447 listed as threatened. The Woolly-stalked Begonia (Begonia eiromischa) is the only species to have been declared extinct this year. This Malaysian herb is only known from collections made in 1886 and 1898 on Penang Island. Extensive searches of nearby forests have failed to reveal any specimens in the last 100 years.

The Wild Apricot (Armeniaca vulgaris), from central Asia, has been assessed and added to the IUCN Red List for the first time, classified as Endangered. The species is a direct ancestor of plants that are widely cultivated in many countries around the world, but its population is dwindling as it loses habitat to tourist developments and is exploited for wood, food and genetic material.

Links:

IUCN 2007 Red List Home Page
Fact Sheet

Brooklyn Blogging Highlighted in the NY Times

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I’ve never seen or heard the word “Bloglyn” before this:

In the past year, the word Bloglyn has been cropping up a lot, a reflection of the fact that Brooklyn, particularly brownstone Brooklyn, has emerged as possibly the center of the placeblog world. Web forums serve as virtual town hall meetings (complete with hecklers), and bloggers peer with equal interest at controversial development projects, restaurant openings and the most minute of neighborhood minutiae.
– Cracker-Barrel 2.0

Most of the article is about Louise Crawford, Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn, and the Blogfest back in May. In addition to other heavy hitters, the article mentions a couple of specific neighborhood blogs. There is only the briefest mention of the Blogade, and not by name:

… as the newest members of the community introduced themselves [at the Blogfest new blogger shoutout], there was a conspicuous lack of representation from less gentrified neighborhoods. No Brownsville. No East New York. No Canarsie. To remedy this, several bloggers, including Ms. Crawford, have organized a series of blogger socials, the first of which took place last month in Flatbush, to encourage networking and, as she put it, to “take the show on the road” to underblogged neighborhoods.

And the next of which will be in Greenpoint on July 22, which the article omits. Nor did the article include any of the hundreds of photographs taken by the Times photographer at the Flatbush Blogade event.

I wasn’t interviewed for the article. I provided some info by email on myself and my blog. Flatbush Gardener is listed as one of eleven in a sidebar of “a few but by no means all of the Brooklyn blogs.” I have 137 listings in the “Brooklyn” category of my Bloglines feeds, so no, by no means all.