July 3, 2008 / News / The Stoop

The Kitchen Sink

The Brooklyn Paper

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Boroughwide: Our pal, Elizabeth Scholtz, director emeritus of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, just received a lifetime achievement award from the American Public Gardens Association. That’s nice. Now if only she could use that green thumb of hers to help Brooklyn Bridge Park get done on time and on budget. …

Speaking of green, the Department of Sanitation just handed out its Golden Apple awards for innovative recycling programs to students at PS 15 in Red Hook, PS 230 (the Doris Cohen School) in Kensington, PS 46 in Fort Greene, and the Brooklyn School for Collaborative Studies in Cobble Hill. Guess the city didn’t get the memo about how the Cohen School has changed its name to the Clarence Mackenzie School, to honor that 12-year-old Civil War victim rather than the legendary 1970s volunteer. …

Bensonhurst: Eternally jolly Carmine Santa Maria — best known as Bensonhurst’s official Kris Kringle — wants you to learn ballroom dancing at one of his free classes. Admit it, you’ve always wanted to take dancing lessons from Santa. Classes are Tuesdays at 3 pm at IS 96 at 99 Avenue P, between W. 12th and W. 13th streets. …

Cobble Hill: Our nursing friend, Faith Somme-Burges, has been taking care of locals for 45 years — and finally Long Island College Hospital honored her service last week. The beleaguered medical center not only praised Faith, but earned our coveted “Handout Photo of the Week” award for sending not only a current shot of Faith, but a photo from her old nursing school days — how about those white caps they made nurses wear back then! It just goes to show that stiff collars and frilly hats can’t stop a professional from doing her job. …

Ditmas Park: The Brooklyn Paper’s house band, Life in a Blender, headlined this year’s Brooklyn Woodstock at Gil Shuster’s East 19th Street house on June 28, helping raise thousands of dollars for medical research. Long-time festival organizer Shuster also tied the knot at the event, making the show live up to its namesake’s motto, “Peace, love and music.” …

Park Slope: Ran into our pal Michael Cairl at a fundraiser for would-be Councilman Gary Reilly on Monday night and he said that the Park Slope Civic Council is working on shutting down Seventh and Fifth avenues during summer weekends — much like Montague Street and Bedford Avenue are doing. Cairl didn’t think the details would be worked out this year, so lovers of Italian-style piazzas will likely be forced to say “Wait ’til next year!” like latter-day Dodger fans. …

Squirrels in the neighborhood are getting more and more emboldened. Our shutterbug Julie Rosenberg said she turned her back for a minute the other day and a squirrel was sitting on her kitchen table finishing off her daughter’s breakfast cereal. …

Our Chinese food source is angry at the new Red Hot Szechuan. Naturally, everyone is happy to see the Seventh Avenue mainstay back in business, but the lunch specials are deceiving. Though it says that each meal comes with soup and rice, if you follow the small print and pay the extra 85 cents for an egg roll, you no longer get the soup! That ain’t right. …

Our friends at the North Flatbush Avenue Business Improvement District held their annual meeting on June 18 and selected a new board of directors. And the winners are: Regina Cahill, Alison Houtte, Lina Fang, Michael Pintchik, Mathew Pintchik, Greg Yerman, Henry Weinstein, Diane Alison, Chris King, Joe Orr and Sharon Davidson. Congrats to all. Now, about that pothole in front of the Key Food… Williamsburg: Our filmic pal, Kevan Tucker, just won “best director” at the Brooklyn International Film Festival. We knew he’d win, given that he filmed his newspaper-themed movie, “The Unidentified,” at The Brooklyn Paper’s DUMBO offices. That said, we’d rather work for our editor than Tucker’s ornery boss. …

Our pals from Southpaw settled on a name for the North Sixth Street venue formerly known as Galapagos. The new club, which is between Wythe and Kent Avenues, will be called Public Assembly. We can't say we love the new name, but it's better than the former mayo factory's tentative title: The Other Music Hall of Williamsburg. …

Boerum Hill: Man, did you see the write up that our pal Alan Fleishman got in the New York Blade the other day (What? You don’t read the Blade?). The newspaper praised the district leader everything from his work with three city comptrollers to publicly denouncing Geraldine Ferraro in 1998 for refusing to vote to decriminalize sodomy in Washington, D.C. Fleishman is running unopposed for re-election to the insider political seat. In fact, he recently told The Brooklyn Paper’s Politicrasher columnist that he’s running only against “my better judgement.” …

Bay Ridge: Congressional candidate Steve Harrison, a local lawyer, shuffled his campaign staff last week after campaign manager Laura Sword resigned. Now Gregg Collett, previously a Deutsche Bank director and campaign staffer has taken over Harrison’s race against Staten Island Councilman Mike McMahon for the Democratic nomination. …

Last week, our buddies at the preeminent Ridge message board bayridgetalk.com were lauded for their role in busting a 93rd Street drug den. Six days later, they were back doing they do best — posting photos of topless women. It’s a tough job, but somebody’s gotta do it! …

Gowanus: Don’t hold your breath waiting for the so-called Public Place development along the Gowanus Canal — a proposed mini-village of 774 dwellings, open space and shops on the contaminated site of a former gas plant. At a presentation of the plans last Thursday to Community Board 6, a representative from the Hudson Companies said it could be 10 years before the cleanup and construction are finished. …

Brooklyn Heights: The results are in from the café at the so-called “Pop-up Park” on Pier 1, overlooking the Brooklyn Bridge and the New York City Waterfalls installation: The Brooklyn Paper has heard that female patrons who stop by for a nosh and a quaff have displayed an overwhelming preference for the Belgian-white style Blue Moon beer. Go figure.

©2008 The Brooklyn Paper