News off the Blogs: Parrot Residency Expands

According to a Gowanus Lounge post today, the famous wild-parrot population has expanded recently -- into new territory and new kinds of parrots in one fell swoop. I concur that the new parrot does not look like the pictures I've seen of monk parrots (the kind that have been building nests near Brooklyn College). And this is the first I've heard of parrots loose in Carroll Gardens.

Duly Noted: The Battle of Brooklyn

Today is the 232nd anniversary of the Battle of Brooklyn, also called the Battle of Long Island. (It's a little busy here at the office today so I won't go into detail, but I bookmarked the following a while ago.)

Further Reading:
Barnet Schecter, The Battle for New York, and
David McCullough, 1776.

Links:
"Battle of Long Island" on Wikipedia
Articles can also be found here and here.

Sidebar:
Gowanus Lounge reports on a possible location of a burial ground from this battle. See post for details.

News off the Blogs: Battle of Brooklyn stuff

Gowanus Lounge has a pair of posts about events to commemorate the Battle of Brooklyn (also called the Battle of Long Island). One post lists a bunch of events; a second post appeared this week with information about further events at The Old Stone House.

More information about the Battle of Brooklyn/Long Island can be found on Wikipedia, GL's post the first also posted this link about the battle.

Duly Noted: the Wonder Wheel and another pair of 8's

According to a post on the Gowanus Lounge, the Wonder Wheel, the famous ferris wheel in Coney Island, turns 88. This double-8 day is in addition to that other event of the day -- the start of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

Sign Gone Missing

Earlier this afternoon, I noticed that the post office on Seventh Avenue between Second and Third Streets in Park Slope is missing its sign. The most likely reason I can come up with is that it's being replaced, but personally, I'd much rather they used the money they're spending on a sign to clean up the interior.

Duly Noted and/or News off the Blogs: More on the Birthday Bridge Festivities

Gowanus Lounge has several more posts about this weekend's bridge festivities. These include two posts about the fireworks Thursday night, one containing a video, and another containing a photo gallery. It's a bit late in the day for the post about today's events to be of much use, but keep your eyes peeled for tomorrow's (and possibly Monday's).

Also posted are an account of the actual opening, 125 years ago today, and a special "Brooklinks" post which, like the post you are reading now, contains links to other Bridge-party links.

Though not specific to the bridge which bears the borough's name, another post mentions that Brooklyn has, apparently, shrunk.

Duly Noted: Happy 125th birthday, Brooklyn Bridge

Just a quick post, to point out that there are celebrations this weekend for the 125th birthday of the Brooklyn Bridge, kicking off tonight with a concert featuring (of course) the Brooklyn Philharmonic. Festivities also include films, walking tours, and other lectures and performances.

Further links:
* Gowanus Lounge included several bridge links in today's edition of their "Brooklinks" column.
* The New York Times has an website includes this article about the bridge (which includes the link I posted in the first paragraph).
* And there is a Wikipedia article about the bridge. But you already knew that.

News off the Blogs: Quick update on Ikea story

Yesterday, in the Red Hook Ikea Special, one of the links mentioned sunken barges.

Today, The Gowanus Lounge has posted art. See it at "Fun With Boats: Sunken Red Hook Barges."

News off the Blogs: Red Hook Ikea Special

Today's Gowanus Lounge posts finally showed up on my reader, including three about the Ikea that's eventually coming to Red Hook. From what it looks like, either 1) somebody screwed up massively, 2) several people screwed up with remarkable timing, and/or 3) somebody really wants to pull a fast one on us. The current multi-mess largely boils down to a failure to notify appropriate local organizations with enough time to respond, with a fair amount of questionable sense of historic preservation thrown in.


Posts from The Gowanas Lounge:

• "Did the Army Corp Notify the Local Community Board About Ikea's Permit Request?"
• "Ikea Roundup: Sunken Barges, Blue-and-Yellow Paint"
• "Ikea Applies for Ferry Dock Permit as It Severs Red Hook Piers"

News off the Blogs: Brooklyn Photos edition

There are two posts of Brooklyn photos today on the Brit in Brooklyn blog.

I'm not sure if the first of the two was taken in Brooklyn, but given the sign on the front of the facade shown, I'm not too certain how necessary the rest of the building was.

The second post has two photos of the main branch of the Brooklyn Public Library, with a short architectural-history note.

News off the Blogs

If you're wondering why so much of my News off the Blogs posts contain so much from The Gowanus Lounge, there's a simple reason for it: TGL posts so dang much. I've weeded things down a bit since my last News off the Blogs, and still have nine posts from today and yesterday. That said, here's some more stuff.

Yesterday's "Brooklinks" post includes the following:
* A historic Bensonhurst cemetary needs a little caring for (especially compared with other equally historic cemetaries like Green-Wood), according to a New York Times article.
* The Great Umbrella Experiment continues to gain notice in another New York Times article.

Today's "Brooklinks" post includes:
* A really old (as in 1873) map of Flatbush, posted on the Flatbush Gardiner's blog.
* The DEP did the large-scale equivalent of spraying Lysol to cover up a nasty odor, reported by the New York Daily News.
* Several links to snow stuff, which for space reasons I won't repost here.

More snow pictures can be found on the post "Ah, Brooklyn's First Snow".

Anyone looking to adopt a dog ought to take a look at this post.

There are three photos of the sky over Williamsburg, which are worth taking a look at. They are posted individually:
* Part 1.
* Part 2.
* Part 3.

Photos: It must be December

Yesterday, it was bitterly cold. Bitterly cold. Despite this, I took this picture:


We even woke up to snow this morning. Compare the picture above to these I took today:

News off the Blogs

Two days' worth of "Brooklinks" posts on The Gowanus Lounge produced a pair of links between them that I'll repeat here.

Yesterday's edition included a link demonstrating that congestion pricing really ain't so bad for those of us in Brooklyn.

Today's edition included a reference to another blog's post. Brooklyn's famous parrots. Here's one source for more info.

Photo: Park Slope, Late Fall

Park Slope, Late Fall
Originally uploaded by The Loopweaver

I've been quieter than usual today, so perhaps it's time for another foliage photo. I took this one over the weekend and finally got around to uploading it yesterday. It promptly got a comment: so promptly, in fact, that the uploader was still thinking, and hadn't registered that the photo was fully uploaded.

But I would have liked this shot, even if someone hadn't commented so quickly.

News off the Blogs

It's been quiet this morning, so I'll just forward this tidbit:

In an entry subtitled "Queens Kitten Defects to Greenpoint," The Gowanus Lounge reports that the "Queensboro Kitten" - found wandering the 59th Street Bridge earlier this month - has been adopted. TGL quoted a longer New York Shitty post, which includes photos and a link to the announcement of the kitty's being found.

Today's Brooklinks post has a few entries I find of moderate interest, but a really nice photo.

News off the Blogs: Good News for Brooklyn

Among the items in a recent "Brooklinks" post, The Gowanus Lounge posted two I thought I'd forward.

The first item originates off a Bay Ridge Blog post yesterday: several trees were recently planted to replace ones lost in this summer's tornado. (Yes, we actually had one of those in Brooklyn, remember?)

The second item comes from a newspaper, rather than a blog. The Daily News reports that Brooklyn residents had the best vocabularies in a test administered in Times Square, beating all four of the other boroughs and a special "tourist" category.