Paul Moses, friend and colleague, has written a wonderfully researched and presented history of St. Francis of Assisi, who previously existed (for many here in Brooklyn) only as a parish and a school.
St. Francis of Assisi School, in fact, sits over there on Lincoln Rd. near [...]
Councilman Al Vann says he's trying to lift a burden from shoulders of homeowners threatened with city water liens.
There are 600 one-, two- and three-family homes in Bedford Stuyvesant that are on the lien sale list, out of 9,000 city-wide. This is according to figures from the [...]
Mark Winston Griffith (photo) points out that more than 70 percent of voters in the Democratic primary voted for someone other than Al Vann, the incumbent Councilman.
That fact helped convinced Griffith that he could take on Vann and win in the general election this November.
Yes, Vann [...]
All summer long, residents of Bed-Stuy -- those fascinated by the presence of half a dozen challengers to an incumbent -- were wondering if it would happen.
Whether [...]I remember some months ago, I was on Flatbush Avenue, crossing the street toward the vegetable market near Maple St.
I saw several Black young men lined up, hands behind backs, as guys in plain clothes, obviously cops, searched them. I shrugged and [...]
But the truth is that in my own wanderings through Bed-Stuy, many long-time residents have been saying that they hardly never see Al Vann, that he doesn't seem to care about what happens on their block.
And I write these words as one who, years back, was in awe of Vann's [...]Housing activist Mark Winston Griffith picked up momentum over the past few days with key endorsements.
First, the Rev. Al Sharpton criticized incumbent Al Vann for going with Mayor Mike Bloomberg on the extension of term limits, which allowed the mayor and other council incumbents, including Vann, [...]Just click on any of the photos below to read the candidate's message. Messages are actually transcripts from videos, though I don't find the videos on the city's Voters Guide site, just audio clips. Whatever. Anyway, the candidates are, clockwise, beginning top left: Robert E. Cornegy (red tie), Jr.;' [...]
[Photo is of demonstrators, said to be teens under 16 years old, picketing outside the office of "Tish" (Letitia) James, activist Councilmember in Fort Greene.]
http://www.deliahunley-adossa.org/
This will be heating up this week in the run-up to the primary elections. Tish James' seat appears safe but she' [...]A couple of years ago I was riding my bike along the route of the West Indian parade, and I was struck by the (okay, relative) tepidness of the event.
Granted, the music was loud and the beat was jumping. But there was something about the presence of so many police [...]
So who exactly is this fellow, Eugene Myrick, who was trying to beat Marty Markowitz in the Democratic primary?
Strange that we heard so little about him until he was kicked off the ballot, after Marty's lawyer argued that Myrick did not have enough valid signatures on [...]The Jefferson Avenue block association, headed by the dynamic President Altovise Fleary, will be hosting a block party on Saturday, Aug. 1st.
The day will be dedicated to the memory of a deceased resident of the block, the Hon. Bertram L. Baker, who in 1948 became the [...]
Saw this video of an interview Peter Eisner of World Focus did with hip hoppers in Cuba.
"My fight is deep like Shaka Zulu's," they rap in Spanish. (For non-Spanish speaker, the video clip has English subtitles.)
Peter was my introduction to reporting in Latin America, you might say, having hired me back' [...]
[photo of Cambridge police sergeant James Crowley taken by Christopher Evans of the Boston Herald.]
So now it's come down to a police officer, having racially profiled and arrested one of the nation's leading black scholars -- for breaking into his own house! -- is refusing [...]
Part of me doesn't really want to do this.
I suppose the Cambridge Police Department, more so than Harvard University, should really bear the brunt of our anger (or angry humor, as the case may be).
But this video, by a fellow speaking loudly and hilariously about Harvard's [...]
Henry Louis Gates, whom we knew as "Skip" back in Yale days, was arrested by Cambridge Mass. police for breaking into his own house.
Yes, that's right.
It makes sense only if you consider that Gates is black and -- according to some black professors up there -- [...]
Lots of folks along Lewis Avenue and in Downtown Brooklyn -- not to mention at her alma maters Harvard Law and Oberlin College -- are pouring toasts and celebrating.
Bedford-Stuyvesant's Jacqueline Berrien was named on Thursday by President Barack Obama to be chair of the Equal Employment [...]
He was raised in Central Bedford-Stuyvesant, over on Putnam Avenue, as I recall.
Many may not know much of Bill Thompson's Bed-Stuy roots, and, indeed, it's not like he's been bellowing it from the roof.This person on the right is Gerry Esposito. He's running for City Council in the 34th Councilmanic District that covers Williamsburg, Bushwick, Greenpoint and Ridgewood.
He's a boomer (came of age during the '60s and attended Brooklyn Tech) but he seems to be using the Internet' [...]If you are in danger of foreclosure, or you know someone who is, or you just want to make sure you never fall into that danger, attend this session being held in Bedford Stuyvesant on Tuesday, July 14th.
Counsellors will be on hand to give advice, free [...]
This has to be one of my favorite storefront windows.
It sits there boldly on Court Street just south of Schermerhorn in Downtown, brazenly advertising the way insurance companies discriminate against car owners in Brooklyn.
[Click image to enlarge it, by the way.]
New York City already has the highest [...]
In some ways it pained me to write that headline, because I've been trying my eye at video-making lately.
And I know I will never create a video with the beauty and durability of Ozier Muhammad's photographs.
But that's okay, really. Not only is Ozier a friend of many' [...]
The race for the City Council seat in Bed-Stuy (the 36th District) is one for the books.
Some half dozen challengers are trying to unseat incumbent Al Vann. And they are taking this all very seriously, turning deaf ears to the (here) oft repeated truism that incumbents [...]
[caption: l-r, Bed-Stuy's historic Patricia F. Robinson Music School; Patricia Robinson; City Council candidate Robert E. Cornegy, Jr.]
Patricia F. Robinson embodies the cultural history of the wonderful place called Bedford-Stuyvesant. Her mother, as you will hear in the' [...]
About five years ago, after leaving a job and giving up the company phone, I decided to get my own cell phone from Verizon.
I went first to a Verizon store on Seventh Avenue in Park Slope.
The guy there told me you had to sign up for a [...]
This is a Barack Obama speech that should go down in history, for its declaration of the evils committed over the past decade by credit card companies, banks and, yes, Verizon and various telephone companies as well.
Who thinks that those Verizon bills -- and the bills [...]
Fort Greene Park at sunset is a beautiful place.
Then again, so is it beautiful during the day, now as it was a hundred years ago.New York's junior Senator Kirsten Gillibrand [left] tells New York magazine that she loves journalists and journalism and that she, in fact, would have been a journalist had law not been her first passion.
Then came the disclosure that gave pause:
"Did I tell'" [...]
Host Frantz Cayo, president of the Stuyvesant Heights Parents Association, clearly stated the purpose of the June 6 candidates forum.
"We wanted to allow them to be able to present themselves, and allow you to get to know them," Cayo [standing in photo] told the dozens of attendees [...]
It all began without any sense of impending controversy.
The president of the New York Association of Black Journalists, Gary Anthony Ramsay, sent a notice out on the organization's listserv, saying NYABJ would be hosting an event sponsored by the News Corp.
The June 24 event would honor [...]
Five candidates hoping to beat incumbent Al Vann and become Bed-Stuy's next City Councilmember kept their hope alive on Saturday.
They appeared at Brownstone Books and summarized their positions, essentially introducing themselves to those who showed up for the early morning event.It is a welcome occurrence that -- in this interesting political and economic climate -- this blog is alongside other Central Brooklynites doing Web 2.0 writing and broadcasting.
Take Norman Graham [photo], for instance.Charlie Rangel has to be full of anger and frustration these days.
He's a born fighter and accustomed to winning.It may turn out that Michael Bloomberg's undoing will be his arrogance, his increasingly apparent disdain for those who toil by salary and happen to ask questions he doesn't like.
In the controversial panel exchange in which she said appellate judges set policy for the country, Judge Sonia Sotomayor said something much more important.
Important for me, important for journalism.
Sotomayor said that clear, strong writing is the best indicator that an applicant will make a successful clerk [...]
So we've arrived finally at the point where the incumbent in the 36th Councilmanic District, Al Vann, relieves the watching world of its suffocating suspense.
He wants another four years.The first sign that the Bronx terror case was hype and bluster came on day one, when suspect David Williams was photographed with his pants hanging down his butt.
Ray Kelly and even Michael Bloomberg must know that no Muslim, not even a wannabe Muslim, would dress [...]
This Memorial Day, as President Barack Obama paid tribute to those who have fallen in battle, I could not help but think of my father, Wilfred Howell, deceased, who was one of the first black marines and served in the Pacific in World War II.
(See previous [...]Assemblyman Nick Perry said he's pleased that a bill he first introduced in 2000 is on the verge of becoming law.
The bill in question would ban what Perry calls the "barbaric practice" of shackling state prisoners who are giving birth.Lea Webb is the first African American elected to the City Council in Bhinghamton, in upstate New York.
Only 28 years old, she's making a name for herself taking on progressive causes, one after the other.Sharonnie Perry [photo] is a blend of activist and insider, and her allegiance is to her community, the place where she was raised, where she has worked and where she is now unemployed.
Her status among the unpaid gives her a curious mix of feelings these days, as [...]
There they are, another flock of hacks, waiting to fly off after the next prey.
That would be, of course, the reliable (if not necessarily secret) source who will feed said hacks (old raunchy term, by the way, for reporters) the same measly bits of information.This seems to be a web site that's worth checking out, again and again.
Especially if you're a concerned citizen and want to know where public money in your community is going.Tremaine Wright, an attorney and owner of Common Grounds café in Bedford Stuyvesant, formally announced that she's running for the City Council seat currently occupied by Al Vann.
Vann has held elective office in Bed-Stuy for 35 years; but now at least a dozen residents have expressed interest [...]
Two candidates for Bed-Stuy's City Council seat went at it with (verbal) guns firing.
The duel led one of the candidates, Mark Winston Griffith, to say that if the nastiness continued there would be little chance to defeat incumbent Al Vann.Would be very interesting to hear various City Council candidates in Bed Stuy speak about Ray Kelly.
One of the police chief's weak points -- taken together with police conduct during the presidential convention several years ago when they detained protesters -- has been the stop and [...]
On a video produced by Bed-Stuy independent filmmaker Norman Graham, two of the candidates challenging incumbent Al Vann offered sketches of themselves, hoping to win over Bed-Stuy residents who get to watch the show.
Relations between the two candidates, Mark Winston Griffith [photo, [...]
It is extremely notable that one of the challengers in the 36th District Councilmanic race is turning to You Tube to get his messages to the public.
This means that Bed-Stuy is coming of age as it experiences one of the most interesting moments in its recent [...]By Paul Moses
(Professor of Journalism, Brooklyn College)
It is looking increasingly as if Sen. Malcolm Smith will give in and allow tolls on the East River bridges -- provided the misery is spread to taxi riders, who would have to pay a $1 surcharge.
Everyone acts as [...]
This past weekend's gathering of alumnae of the great Girls High School (may it rest in peace) proved something:
That graduates of Girls High, which closed in 1968 and was to merge with the current Boys and Girls High School, remain FOREVER YOUNG.
On hand Saturday was 1932 graduate [...]
The special issue of City Limits magazine, the public policy publication that is mostly online these days, treats a very pertinent topic:
The state of the City Council.
It's a nice read, all 31 pages of it, and it takes us inside the days of several Councilmembers who [...]
As part of a "Know the Facts, Don't Lose Your Home" campaign, a coalition of community assistance groups will be meeting with homeowners tonight (Tuesday, April 21) at Boys and Girls High School.
At issue are the tax and water liens that are affecting thousands of cash-strapped homeowners throughout the city,' [...]
Bed-Stuy Councilman Al Vann is taking on an issue he says is hurting many thousands of low- and moderate-income homeowners: tax and water liens.
"There are over 9,000 Class 1 properties (one to three family homes) on the lien sale list today . . . " [...]
Weiss & Son, plumbers on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn Heights, has an interesting way of dealing with inquiries from Bed-Stuy.
Just say no, seems to be the company's motto.One of the pleasures of a Sunday -- or a Saturday, for that matter -- is visiting the dog run at Washington Square Park.
Generally the K-9 crew is all smiles.Will police brass take action against the officer seen in this video?
That seems to be the standout question, whether Ray Kelly himself or other officials will act against the police officer filmed beating a young man (toward the end of the short clip) whose only "crime" seemed to be yelling [...]
Now comes news that Mayor Michael Bloomberg, he of considerable wealth, held a fund-raiser for embattled Queens City Council candidate and incumbent James [...]
Next Wednesday (April 15th), some of the nation's best journalists will be discussing whether the American press is missing the real story when it comes to politics and finance.
The event, sponsored by Long Island University, is a chance for the public to see and hear the [...]
FreePress advocates are encouraging folks to write Congress demanding it pass the Local Community Radio Act.
"This important bill will open our airwaves to more Low Power FM radio stations across the country, and bring diversity of news, views and music to your radio dial," FreePress.net says [...]
Saquan Jones has been burning with energy and ambition, and what he is striving for, he says, is a chance to show that adversity can be turned into victory.
Raised in the Queesbridge Housing Project by a single mom, he now is one of those seeking to [...]
Well, there seems to be considerable political energy building in Bed-Stuy, early into the election season.
The primary is almost six months away and already folks are tossing their hats into the ring, like in the olden, olden days.
Names that have come up are Mark Winston [...]
[Click here to learn about the Andria Hall Communications Scholarship and here to obtain a scholarship application form.]
It's been nearly four months since Andria Hall [photo, left, with me, her friend and colleague], an Emmy Award-winning newscaster whose career included stints at [...]
Here is Tremaine Wright, one of the declared candidates for the City Council seat occupied by Al Vann.
An attorney and businesswoman, she argues that residents of Bedford-Stuyvesant are buoyed by the "change" that Barack Obama brought to Washington, and that they want to see and feel [...]
Yes, it's curious but the measure known as the Dow Jones index seems often to move against the interests of the American people, or, more precisely, the interests of the average working person.
And here it is again, the Dow, jumping upwards and causing financial news commentators [...]
One of Twitters most salient features is turning out to be widespread identify theft by Twitter users.
From many reports so far, the so-called micro blogging service is not taking the complaints about the abuses very seriously.
Like the money changers on Wall Street who led us into [...]
Frantz Cayo [pictured here with his three-and-a-half year-old daughter Gabrielle] wants to make it clear that he has not yet selected his choice to be Councilmember for the beautiful and historic community known as Bedford-Stuyvesant.
But Cayo, president of the Stuyvesant Heights Parents Association, says he was [...]
As we're jotting this down, Robert E. Cornegy, Jr. was slated to be holding a crime prevention workshop that featured officers from the 81st and 79th precincts.
Please, anyone who was able to attend, send thoughts on how things went.
Father of six children -- Robert E Cornegy' [...]
Mark Winston Griffith [pictured here with You Know Who] says he's raised beaucoup de dough and that he's the candidate who can beat longtime elected official Al Vann.
In a recent press release, Griffith's folks says he's collected $75,000, an accomplishment that has "cemented his position as" [...]
Police have been setting up checkpoints along Flatbush Avenue near Empire Boulevard, as well as farther east along Utica Avenue, in a policy that is upsetting some locals.
The stop-and-checks have been continuing even though a number of neighborhood officials, notably State Senator Eric Adams (himself a [...]
Yes, many New Yorkers may soon find themselves to be like Charlie in the old Kingston Trio song, "The Man Who Never Returned."
That song, which I used to sing whenever I rode the Boston MTA, recalls the time when a fare hike shook Boston and its [...]Okay, it's really a ticket rather than a token, but the point is clear -- that public transportation fares have soared in New York, and are continuing to zoom skyward.
How many times two and a half cents is two dollars and fifty cents?
Go ask your kid [...]
Markowitz Statement on MTA Vote Approving Rate Hikes and Service Cuts
I am extremely disappointed that today, against the best interests of hardworking New Yorkers, the MTA Board approved its draconian budget imposing steep fare hikes and severe service cuts. I am flabbergasted that the state legislature, after [...]
By Paul Moses
Journalism Professor, Brooklyn College
The New York Times story on transit riders who oppose putting tolls on the East River bridges reminds me of those stories in which puzzled liberal reporters go out to the Bible Belt and try to figure out why the folks [...]
Okay now,
Let's forget about the Dow,
And think back to the days,
When we earned with a plow.
Celeste Lacy Davis is asking neighbors and all interested persons to show up at the upcoming Landmarks hearing and support Ocean Park's bid to become an historic district.
Celeste Lacy Davis wrote a letter to Flatbush neighbors and others, saying, among other things:
"On Tuesday, March 24th,'" [...]
Okay, I had time and the guitar was sitting there, so I got carried away.
[...]It's shaping up as a really exciting contest, the race for Public Advocate.
Vying are some of the most interesting and energetic public figures in the city.
And a group at CUNY Law School is hosting [...]
The word today is that Murdoch is buying The Brooklyn Paper, a development that stunned a number of loyal Brooklynites.
Truth be told, there were a good number (a majority, actually, according to an unofficial cable TV survey) who felt this was a good thing, that Murdoch would [...]
Ah, the ice skaters were out there, smiling and rolling along. And they weren't the slightest bit cold.
Winter, you see, was bidding farewell with a warm smile.
This was the penultimate weekend at Prospect Park's popular Wollman rink, and end-of-winter revelers were out in force, there and' [...]
Brooklyn District Attorney Charles J. Hynes [photo, left, making announcement] is set to go after some of the dirtiest humans strolling the borough, or the earth, for that matter.
We speak of the low-lifes who prey on poor and vulnerable homeowners, getting them to take out loans [...]
Nineteen artworks [see example below, right] by Sharon Bourke [photo, left] can be viewed (and purchased) for the balance of this month in Mélange, a three-person art exhibition at the Graphic Eye Gallery, 402 Main Street, Port Washington, L.I.
Sharon's abstract paintings, both acrylic on canvas and digital,' [...]
Robert Guskind, who stamped his name and his neighborhood on the great map of Brooklyn blogging, is dead.
Guskind's Gowanus Louge site had been mysteriously down for days and just earlier today Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn had wondered, "What Happened to Gowanus Lounge?")
Guskind had apparently been through much personal turmoil, says [...]
Well, to the extent that Murdoch has anything to do with big undertakings of his papers, this one puts him squarely in the Obama camp.
Latest Wall Street Journal/NBC poll shows that those surveyed are pleased with what their new president is doing, beating ex President [...]
Police said they were searching for this man, identified as Keith Phoenix, who was caught on video as he paid a toll on the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge.
Twenty minutes earlier, Phoenix is said to have fatally beaten Jose Sucuzhanay, an immigrant from Ecuador, with a [...]State NAACP head Hazel Dukes [photo] said on New York 1 this evening that New York Post owner Rupert Murdoch was refusing to fire editor Col Allan over an allegedly racist cartoon in the newspaper.
The cartoon, created by artiste Sean Delonas and vetted by editor-in-chief Allan, [...]
Attention grows, the discussion widens, all around the wild cartoon that (in the minds of many) says that Barack Obama is a chimpanzee who needs to be shot.
On the yes side there is the following argument: That New York Post owner Rupert Murdoch is a power lover who wants to be in with Barack Obama.
Not that Obama himself has been complaining about the cartoon in question here -- the one from a few [...]
The New York Post is apologizing to some, and bashing others.
But the controversy over the cartoon by Sean Delonas -- which some say compares President Barack Obama to a chimpanzee and suggests his assassination -- seems likely to generate ongoing anger and controversy.
And the Rev. Al [...]
The cartoon controversy continues.
In fact, some are betting The New York Post is secretly regretting the publication of Sean Delonas' cartoon, which depicted police shooting and killing a chimpanzee and then making (what many say was) a snickering comparison of the dead chimp with Barack Obama.
At' [...]
Sean Delonas earns a living spewing hate dressed up in cartoons.
Given that his creations appear in The New York Post, there's a certain logic there.
For no other publication has a reputation for being -- so regularly -- disrespectful of the city's darker people.
What's really strange in [...]
This city has gone through enormous changes in the past twenty five years, and the changes are reflected in the composition of the police department, which mirrors the diversity of the city considerably more than does, say, the Fire Department, which remains overwhelmingly male and white.
But [...]
For years she was a peripatetic fixture of the Manor, strolling Midwood Street and stopping now and then to exchange brief words with others of passing acquaintance.
There was a warmth about her, a sensitivity, a vulnerability.
Surely few others knew it, but lost-looking Estelle Bennett had been [...]
This is one for the books, or, rather, for the video archives.
The spokesperson for Virginia Congressman Eric Cantor, Whip of the House Republicans, sent out an email that is surely one of the most embarrassing missives (or whatever the word for a video version is) ever released on the Hill.
Done [...]
It's about money, Walter Isaacson of Time magazine says, offering his cure for the ills of the news business.
Maybe that goes without saying, but we journalists have been hung up for so long on the non-material side of what we do (pursuit of truth, fairness and objectivity and all that) that now [...]
Twenty eight years ago seems like a century, especially if you've spent that time in the newspaper business.
For years there were many who chaffed and hurt under the leadership of then Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
Time and again his police officers would ride through certain neighborhoods, stopping and questioning young men, often without real cause, generally Black and Latino men.
Then came that night when four [...]
There's been much bluff and bluster in the press of late about Gov. David Paterson, so much of it that the uninitiated might expect an indictment to be forthcoming.
But an indictment for what? the naive New Yorker might fairly ask.
Might the crime be using one's public [...]
Fast as the speed of sound, the Obama White House put up its new website, replacing names and faces of the Bush administration, whose term now seems to have ended eons ago.
But much more than the names and faces have changed.
This is the dawning of a [...]
First of all, let's make it clear that King of Brooklyn is not Marty Markowitz but rather Rep. Peter King, who (granted) seems so far removed from the concerns of Brooklynites that the association must be puzzling and irritating to some.
But the fact is that while' [...]
