There are a couple of events at Prospect Park next week that we think are worth checking out. First up, on Wednesday, August 4, there's a free screening of The Olmsted Legacy: America’s Urban Parks at the Celebrate Brooklyn Bandshell (enter the Park at 9th Street and Prospect Park West), at 8 pm. This one hour documentary, which features Prospect Park, examines the formation of America’s first great city parks and the visionary role of Frederick Law Olmsted, the urban planner and landscape architect responsible for so much of the great work done in the late 19th century.
 Then, on Sunday, August 8, Elizabeth Mitchell is performing at 4 pm, also at the bandshell. Mitchell bears the distinction of being the only artist performing children's music whose records I have bought more than once. She plays mostly traditional folk songs, with a few rock and other modern ditties thrown in for good measure, but even the new stuff has a classic, no-frills Smithsonian Folkways kind-of-sound. (You can hear samples of my favorite LP here from Amazon.) We played her records over and over for my son when he was an infant and he responded by calming down even when his tuneless mother sang them.
 A new issue of the Lefferts Manor Echo is out now. You can pick it up at K-Dog or save paper copies by downloading it here ( pdf file). Features in this issue include the local response to Haiti, an article on the Lefferts Montesorri School earning "green" certification, and profiles of local residents Stephen Hall (science writer) and Deborah Mutnick (documentarian).
The Times has been showing the love for PLG lately: today we've got the second feel-good article on our neighborhood in a week. " The Rutland Road Readers" focuses on a group of women, all on the same block, who formed a book club. Among the 16 women members are a special education teacher, an administrator for visiting nurse services, a television producer, a costume designer, a lawyer, stay-at-home moms, widows, newlyweds and grandmothers. At 63, Sheryl Foster is the oldest member; she has lived on the block since 1984. Emma Straub, 30, is the youngest.
“When I describe the book club to other people, they look at me like I’m from Mars,” said Ms. Straub, a writer. “I grew up on the Upper West Side and didn’t know more than a handful of people. After a month on the block, I know everybody.”
You can read the rest here.
 I don't know if this appeared in today's paper or if it will appear in the Real Estate section over the weekend, but the New York Times feature on PLG is already online - and includes a quote from my coblogger/wife, Carrie.
It is a pretty straightforward promo piece about a gentrifying neighborhood. Nice people, proximity to nice things (Prospect Park and the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens), good housing stock, and wait a second... a scoop! One project now going up is in a busy section. A company called Park
Tower secured permits in June to build a 24-story, 88-unit building next
to the Prospect Park subway stop at 510 Flatbush Avenue.
The old Lincoln Road tower is back again! The last I had heard, the project was essentially dead due to the general economic malaise in the city. In part this may be because the address for the L-shaped lot is not "27 Lincoln Road," as we'd always assumed because that was the building that got torn down, but rather "510 Flatbush Avenue." It may not be a real scoop, however. I don't see any permits filed after 2008 for either address on the Department of Buildings website - though it is possible that the filings haven't yet made their way online.
The real estate prices cited in the article seem a bit high to me. A local who works for Corcoran is quoted estimating that "... single-family houses range widely, from around $700,000 up to $1.3
million. Two-family houses ... cost around $900,000 — more if
they are in the historic district, and less if they are smaller or need
more work..." This seems high in July 2010 despite knowing that there have, in fact, been sales in that price range because of the limited sales going on in the neighborhood in general.
In any event, the article shines a nice light on our little hamlet and quotes people I know and like. I'll stop picking nits now.
Image via Benjamin Norman for The New York Times
Residents of 125/135 Hawthorne, a coop apartment building between Bedford and Rogers (closer to Bedford) is holding a tag sale this Saturday. Clothes, books, DVDs, kitchen stuff, and the usual stoop sale fare will be purchaseable from 10 am to 8 pm -- though I'm guessing that whoever voted to have the tag sale run until 8 pm has never done a summer tag sale before (after 2 hours selling knick-knacks in the heat, you want to kill yourself).
Come on down!
Walking up Flatbush toward Empire, you spot a woman naked from the waist
down, sitting on a park bench and lifting one of her buttocks as
she wipes off excess urine. Do you:
a) Avoid making eye contact, steering clear of the wet sidewalk surrounding her, and continue onward
b) Stare at her, mouth agape, in disbelief
c) Offer her toilet tissue in an effort to teach your toddler son good manners
d) Do nothing, but blog about it later.
 That's right: kids under 12 ride (and, in the case of my son, scream bloody murder) for free at the Prospect Park Carousel, throughout August. You've got Astoria Federal Savings to thank for this one.
We've just heard from the Department of Transportation that in order for the DOT to put a planting bed in as part of the traffic calming project at Empire/Ocean/Flatbush, they need to find a group (or a dedicated, responsible individual) willing to take care of the plants. If no one steps forward, the DOT will have to put concrete in instead. THIS JUST IN: The freshly
formed Washington Avenue Greening Committee (WAG), headed up by Alex Exley, has stepped up to the
plate to oversee the planting. Major thanks these fine residents!
 The best thing about having locals who work in the media is that the media notices your neighborhood. So it is today as the New York Times has a feature on Kings County Nurseries written by new Hawthorne Street resident Sam Dolnick.
A stalwart in the neighborhood, Kings County Nurseries has been at 625 New York Avenue between Fenimore and Rutland (gmap) for 55 years. The article tracks the changes in what the Merola family has sold as the neighborhood has changed around it, from Italian to Caribbean to the current wave of gentrification. (I know it is tempting to say that I am using a euphemism for white but I don't know how my Asian friends would feel about this honorary whiteness.) Earlier this Spring, Kings County generously sold discounted barrels for the Hawthorne Street block beautification project. And while we're talking about discounts, if you go to their website you can print out a coupon for 10% off of purchases over $20. Now get outside and plant something. (You should wait until Fall - unless you want what you plant to die. -- Ed.)
If you're on the block of Hawthorne between Flatbush and Bedford, you are cordially invited to the next block association meeting, this Thursday, 7 pm, at the Church of the Evangel (on Bedford, between Hawthorne and Fenimore). We're going to be planning the September block party. Come one, come all!
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