I’m madder than a bowling ball that just got three strikes in a row and is now being asked to do it all over again over the fact that something I helped save 25 years ago is going to have to be saved again — by yours truly!
Look, you all know the ol’Screecher fought the good fight to save the Moody house years ago, back when my kids went to PS 212 and my lovely wife Sharon and I were very active in the PTA.
Back then, schools were naming themselves for their surrounding neighborhoods and landmarks, so PS 95 became the Gravesend School, PS 101 became the Verrazano School, PS 97 became the Highlawn School, PS 128 became the Bensonhurst School, PS 177 became the Marlboro School and so on and so forth ad infinitum.
Sharon’s job was to find unique names that had great historical significance. She came up with Lady Deborah Moody, the founder of Gravesend who set up the grid pattern for its streets, opened the first library in America, and made Gravesend one of the five towns of Brooklyn (even during a time when she spoke English and everyone around her spoke Dutchlish), making her an individual far before her time! Don’t forget Lady Moody was there before New Amsterdam was bought for 24 bucks from the locals. But that’s a story in itself!
The house that dates back to the 1600s has never been landmarked, and its previous owner opposed a designation, fearing nobody would buy it from her if it were granted protected status. That was before she sold the property in 2005 to its present owners for $610,000. Now, it’s back on the market for almost $900,000, with the caveat that the land it sits on can be developed!
And that’s what’s causing the bitter buzz now in Gravesend. Ad hoc community groups are forming to protest the removal of the house’s protective status that would allow it to be demolished; asking everyone to write, phone, and contact their elected officials to intervene with the Landmarks Commission to keep Lady Moody’s house intact!
Let’s make sure it gets properly landmarked, lest we lose it!
Now’s the point in the column where I make a left turn without signaling in a desperate attempt to meet my word count. In last week’s column we raved about the Chinese dinner we gorged ourselves with at our favorite Chinese Restaurant in Somerset, New Jersey. Naturally, we’ve been getting calls and e-mails asking for its address. So without further Googling, here it is: Hunan Delight Chinese Restaurant at 1020 Easton Ave, Somerset, New Jersey. Go and enjoy! And for the love of goodness, resist the urge to eat at the Wendy’s across the street! (Although I love a good Frosty and a triple with cheese!)
UPDATE: Try as we did (and we did try and try, and try), Sharon and I could not get to Pat Singer’s Brighton Jubilee this past Sunday, because of the car service not being able to send a car from its location. Maybe I should start using the Goober! Unfortunately we missed calling Access-A-Ride by 10 minutes and we were locked out on Saturday. So early Sunday morning I started calling car services to see if they could get me over there, but it was impossible and we decided to have dinner locally at a place where Tornado could take me and we would meet at the restaurant instead.
I chose L&B’s Spumoni Garden and, as usual, it was a winner choice. Sharon and Wendy were talking non-stop, while buttering what amounted to four loaves of the delicious bread. We ate square pizzas cut in fours, then we ordered a Caesar salad, followed by a dozen baked clams. Sharon had two and I ate 10, but would you believe she took home the lemony bread crumbs? All our orders came with spaghetti with meat sauce. My main dish was veal Napoleon drenched in cognac, amidst assorted vegetables with artichokes. Wendy had a shrimp dish and sharon gobbled up her chicken arreganata. We ended with Spumoni for me, soft custard for Sharon, and Wendy was too full for any dessert.
A good burp was had by all.
Screech at you next week!
