Celebrating Community
I opened an old friend’s email the other day. It read, “That was a time it was…wasn’t it?” Attached was a copy of the Brooklyn DA’s felony complaint against David Berkowitz, sworn to by Detective John Falotico, dated August 11, 1977. Back then, I was a Brooklyn probation officer again. My first go-round ended on July 1 of 1975, when […]
On Monday, March 19, 1877, over 200 Italian immigrant laborers were laying tracks amidst the chilly woods of Flatbush, just yards beyond the southern boundary of the Village of Parkville – an old dirt trail called Foster Avenue. Many more of their crew had been left a quarter of a mile behind to dig a tunnel under the recently completed […]
In other news I notice the Bike-Nazi-Politicos have proposed eliminating parking for the Not-Really-Affordable-Housing (NRAH) going up in “transit rich zones.” Our new Beep, Antonio Reynoso, leads a cast of nine Brooklyn Council members, including Alexa Avilés (Red Hook/Sunset Park) and Lincoln Restler (Dumbo/Boerum Hill) who sent a letter (penned by Reynoso and Restler but yet to find its way […]
A week before Christmas, when the New York sun is perpetually in your eyes, I was standing in a crowd at the corner of Henry & DeGraw Streets, an intersection that was about to be dedicated to the memory of Mary Crisalli Sansone. While we squinted into the distance waiting for Mayor DeBlasio to show up, it occurred to me […]
On the eve of Christmas Eve, former Mayor deBlasio presented a cardboard check of nearly eleven million dollars to the Director of the Old Stone House in Washington Park. The money, drawn (extorted) from the Gowanus Neighborhood Plan, will pay for rest rooms to be added to the small remaining space on the north end of the building, as well […]
On a cloudy November afternoon, a small crowd gathered at the southeast corner of 7th Avenue and 3rd Street in Park Slope for a street naming event. It was the kind of ceremony I suspect Joe Ferris would have liked. Just family members, close friends and political allies. No press, no podium, no seats, no blocked traffic. Bobby Carroll kicked […]
In 1901 the wealthy John J. Snyder Jr., age 38, wed the wealthy Lillian Emma Rich, age 26, daughter of Theodore Washington Rich, the wealthy former trustee of Bixby & Co, a nationally famous shoe polish firm that became insolvent in 1895. Rich was also an officer of the Flatbush Press Co, which soon became insolvent. But Rich remained rich. […]
When we last left the Dukes, patriarch John Jacob Snyder straddled a hardware empire in a once sleepy Flatbush that was now busting its britches. All thanks to technology. Since 1878 the Brighton railroad, created by Flatbush Dutch potentates to feed northern Brooklyn vacationers from Prospect Park southward to the Dutch Masters’ hotel in Brighton Beach, had been chugging into […]
George was surfing the Internet again. Uh oh. “Enright, I’m sick of your memories, I need some Brooklyn history…Wait, here’s something! It says in this 1946 Times obit that John Jacob Snyder was buried in Green-Wood as the ‘Mayor of Flatbush’ but I never heard of him. See what you can dig up!” “George, if you want some grave-digging, that’ll […]
I first met Roberto “Robby” Jimenez (not his real name) in 1994 when he was a Detective who needed some intel on a sensitive target. Since I knew Brooklyn much better than Robby, a proud son of Union City, New Jersey, he persuaded me to accompany him on some night-time reconnaissance work. Parked in a car for hours on darkened […]