Trick or Treat!

Since I wasn't able to do much this year for Halloween due to it being midterm season I decided to treat myself by attending the Haunted NYC: Gravesend Cemetery event hosted by the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation this past Sunday. Located on Gravesend Neck Road and McDonald Avenue Gravesend Cemetery is one of the oldest cemeteries in New York City and it is never open to the public so it sounded like a great idea to get a tour of it, even if it was at night time. I arrived prepared with a flashlight at 7:00 pm sharp and was greeted by a large crowd of about fifty people all waiting to get inside. Word had sure gotten around about the event! The park ranger in charge was already there and was busy getting everyone to sign in. When this was done she opened the gates without much ceremony and we followed her to the center of the cemetery. The actual cemetery is not very big but since it is not crowded with occupants (or at least gravestones) it was quite easy to walk around without tripping on anything. The ranger let us to the center and once we had all surrounded her in a circle she proceeded to flip through some printed pages for quite some time looking for a story to tell... This was no tour of the graveyard but rather a ghost story telling hour which would have been fine except the ranger tended to read the stories as if she was in class giving a book report. Maybe she should have rehearsed her stories in advance. Needless to say once the excitement of being in a cemetery at night had worn off the event didn't have much else to offer. Bored, I started to flash the light at the gravestones curious to see if I would recognize some historical names. Being nightime and having poor eye sight I started moving away from the crowd to get a closer read. Unfortunately there was no hint of any ghostly apparitions and most of the gravestones I approached had been wiped clean by the elements. I did see next to a stone that someone had left their lighter behind. After about ten minutes of this there was one angry ranger (who in all fairness had asked people not to wander off) who told me and several other people who had followed in my footsteps that we had to leave. And that was that.

Reeling in the neighbors

I just spoke to a friend who is considering moving to Gravesend for the cheap rents. My plan of luring people to the neighborhood is finally working! Well it probably won't work on the friend who actually found a cheap one bedroom in lower Manhattan after making a deal with the devil.

Dang!

From New York Magazine's Intelligencer:

"Gravesend: Sears Tower co-owner Joseph Cayre just sold his home here, an enclave of rich Syrian Jews, for $10 million, the second-highest price ever for a Brooklyn crib."

I am not afraid of getting priced out of Gravesend since I literally live on the wrong side of the tracks. It is the east side of the F train that has all the fancy mansions. Since I live on the west side I am safe. For now anyways.

Lookit What I Found

Lady Deborah Moody. A discourse delivered before the New York Historical Society, May 1880, by James W. Gerard.

http://dlxs2.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=nys;cc=nys;view=toc;subview=short;idno=nys001 (You might have to copy and paste rather than click to view it)

James W. Gerard, a U.S. diplomat and ambassador was very taken with Lady Moody. At least I hope I have the right guy. Anyways I have not uploaded the file yet but as soon I have some free time this should make for some interesting reading. (Yes I am dork)

Best Comfort Food Ever?

Chinese takeout of course. Last night (I don't get to see Gravesend much in the daylight) I was walking home resigned to eating whatever I could find in the fridge for dinner when I passed by the Tasty House a Chinese Italian Restaurant on 253 Avenue U (between Mc.Donald Ave. and W. 4th St which was still open at 10:30 pm. The place was actually pretty clean and busy making takeout orders. My Brocoli with Garlic Sauce dinner lived up to the restaurant's name too. Not much was offered in the way of Italian, all the dishes basically were something with spaghetti. Oh yeah they had mozzarella sticks too.

Big Apple Academy

Interesting article in the Daily News today about this Russian-American private school in Gravesend that attracts students from as far away as Queens and Staten Island: http://www.nydailynews.com/boroughs/brooklyn/2007/10/16/2007-10-16_distance_no_object_for_russian_students.html. The article says that the curriculum is modeled after that of Soviet schools and that even the school lunches are Russian. I still shudder at the memory of those chewy hot dogs and crusty pizzas I had to swallow down in elementary school. Another important factor is that the parents of the kids that attend want their children to know the language and their culture. Good for them. This school is just another answer to our crappy public school curriculum. Being the daughter of immigrants I was always reminded of how schools in other countries are better and now that I work with kids I can't help but agree. On the other hand I am a child of the public school system in New York City and I think I turned out okay. It would have been nice though to have been able to learn to appreciate my cultural roots. I can't begin to tell you how much time I wasted trying to be as "American," as I could be.

F is for Fast

Since it sometimes takes me a long time to get home on weekend nights I am usually the first one to leave parties. That was the case last night but lo and behold it only took me half an hour to get home on the F train. I usually don't take the F because it makes all local stops in the city as well as Brooklyn, which means that there are like 20 stops before it gets to Avenue U. But last night it was on a roll. Shame on you train D and N!

L&B Spumoni Gardens

As the pizza I had for lunch at work sits in a gooey mass in my stomach I think longingly of L&B Spumoni Gardens and their classic Sicilian slices. The restaurant is right on the border between Bensonhurst and Gravesend and its worth mentioning. I know people who live in Jersey and make the trip just for their pizza and their awesome Italian ices. The restaurant has been in existence since 1939 and it is still owned by the same family. The more I talk about it the more I regret my choice of lunch today... Here is their website: www.spumonigardens.com/

Gravesend in The Godfather

But enough moping. GravesEndofBklyn got its very first comment the other day and it came with an interesting tip. According to the post (which can be read in the comments section of "She is a dangerous woemen.") the houses on East 5th between Avenue S and T were used as a backdrop for some scenes in The Godfather. Thank you Nephele. I will take some shots as soon as I can.

No Place Like Home?

When I started this post I'd hoped to become better acquainted with my neighborhood but these past couple of weeks the idea seems like a joke. So much of my time is spent in other boroughs. I am getting to know the MTA train system better than the streets around Avenue U. It is so frustrating when your whole life is centered away from where you sleep. I guess that is what is so great about the city. You are only a couple of blocks from everything else...

The lure of 7-Eleven

Well no matter how delicious slushies are, anything that is DayGlo can't be good. But this post isn't about the food at 7-Eleven it is about the people that the food attracts. When the store first opened (about six months ago?) on my block I was grateful to have that orange, green, and red awning illuminate my path home. I no longer had to half run/walk out of the train and down a dark and deserted block. However now that knowledge of the place has spread it has become the fave hangout spot for lots of different people. The late night drunks who mistake the corner for a bar. Whoever the person is who is just going to go in for a minute and leaves their car parked right on the corner, nearly on the sidewalk. Then there are the teenagers who somehow get a thrill of standing in front of the store into the wee hours of the morning. (I wonder why they don't hang out in the nearby park?) But mostly I just feel bad for them because I remember not having anywhere to hang out either. Do I sound old? Should I even care? After all I do always get home without incident. (Knock on wood). And a late night snack never hurt anyone.

The City

I always found it strange how Brooklyn is part of NYC and yet whenever someone says they are going to Manhattan they say: "I am going to The City." Now I say it too and it makes me feel as if I live way out in the suburbs. But then I remember my three lifelines to NYC: the D, N, and F lines nearby. And if I find myself a bit hungry after a long midnight train ride home? Why there is the 24 hour 7-Eleven and Dunkin' Donuts nearby. Nothing to it.