SHEEPSHEAD BAY'S ONLY INDEPENDENT NEWS BLOG

Congressman Anthony Weiner is hosting a Town Hall Meeting on healthcare reform this Tuesday evening, September 1, at 7:30 p.m. Kingsborough Community College is hosting the Q&A-style event, and everyone ought to come out, find out more, and voice their opinions on such an important issue to our country.

The event is free, obviously, and takes place at KCC’s Performing Arts Center, which seats 500. It’s a five minute walk from the campus’s entrance, and free parking is available behind the venue.

I’ll be there, but not as a journalist; I’m going as a resident in full support of universal healthcare. If anyone wants to meet up  before or after, e-mail me.

When: September 1 @ 7:30 p.m.
Where: Kingsborough Community College’s Performing Arts Center

Denis Hamill, columnist for the Daily News, wrote an exceptional obituary last week honoring Jacqueline Randazzo Page, who died unexpectedly on August 13.

Here’s an excerpt, but we strongly recommend you read the entire article:

Even at her wake, she was a Brooklyn character.

Jackie Randazzo Page – the lady who ruled over Randazzo’s Clam Bar on Emmons Ave. in Sheepshead Bay like Queen Neptune – lay in repose in her coffin, a thin, almost sarcastic smile on her always-Fra Diablo lips, facing a life-size floral slot machine with three 7′s in the windows and a 6-foot floral arrangement of a bright red lobster like the neon one that has reflected from the storied eatery across the night waters of Sheepshead Bay for five decades.

“My mother was my business partner and my best buddy,” said Jackie’s son Paul Randazzo, 51, who stood in the rear of the Marine Park Funeral Home, bewildered like a fighter refusing to believe he’d just been KOd. “She was 69. And I mean a young 69! My mom was good for another 20 years, and so this hasn’t hit me yet.”

…

Paul says Jackie was a big softie. But she could also be tough.

“She had big Brooklyn b—s,” he says. “She’d fight anybody – girls, guys, me! She took s–t from nobody. She’d call me in the mornings if I overslept, cursing me out, ‘Get down to the store!’ She went through three husbands because she never let anybody get over on her. If you tried to get over on her, she’d roll on the sidewalk with you. If you were loyal to her, she’d die for you. The chef and staff at Randazzo’s are as upset as the family about my mom.”

…

In the end, Jacqueline Randazzo Page, who had a heart as big as Brooklyn, couldn’t stop the bleeding of her own heart.

“The thing I’ll miss most is her calling me in the morning and screaming for me to get down to Randazzo’s,” says Paul. “Which is what I’ll be doing alone now. But as long as Randazzo’s is open for business on Emmons Ave., my mother will still be alive and kickin’ in Brooklyn.”

What started out as an informal outdoor meeting on the grounds of the Sheepshead/Nostrand Housing buildings compound has morphed into an annual reunion.

Organizers of the two-day gathering to be held this weekend, James and Stacey Leigh, are the energetic brains behind the barbeque. Anyone who has lived in the housing complex is always welcome and many who have moved out of the area (or even the state) make a trip back just to attend the reunion.

The event is an organized, but informal one held every last weekend in August. Signs and barbeque grills are usually brought out around 12 p.m. on Saturday. Many who live in the complex  lend a helping hand, bringing out food and getting things ready for all the out-of-towners.

On both days, everyone parties with a DJ, reminisces, and plays games — especially basketball. By the end of the night on Saturday things turn sober and names from the Memorial Wall are read out loud.

Here are the details for this weekend:

The 11th Annual Sheepshead-Nostrand Houses’ Old-Timer’s Day 2009 Sheepshead-Nostrand Housing Complex
Avenue V and Batchelder Street
Dolgan Park and the “Swing Park”
Saturday & Sunday, August 29 – 30, 2009
from 12 p.m. until the evening, both days

The event is planned rain or shine, although certain activities may change, due to the weather.

Check the official website for contact information and pictures of past events.

Gene Berardelli, City Council candidate for the 46th District, has gone Hollywood. The Plumb Beach Republican vying for Democratic Councilman Lew Fidler’s seat to represent Sheepshead Bay, Gerritsen Beach, and Canarsie, has produced a video for NBC New York’s online video voter guide. In it, he says the overturning of term limits was a “rude wake up call” and makes his case for voters. Among the achievements he highlights are his efforts to downzone parts of Sheepshead Bay and organizing the community to make Brigham Street Park a reality.

Kudos to NBC New York for producing these video voter guides. It’s good to see that they haven’t ignored the Republican opposition altogether (we’re lookin’ at you, Courier-Life).

Other videos of interest:

Lew Fidler, City Council #46
Derek Sacerdote, City Council #46
Mark D’Ottavio, Borough President
Marty Markowitz, Borough President
Eugene Myrick, Borough President

Here at L & B Spumoni Gardens (2725 86th Street), I get dragged out in the late hours to carry cleaning supplies. While I’m lugging around buckets and mops, these late night customers come in to grab their Sicilian slices as if it’s their life-saving fix. But there are those one or two pizza snobs I hear saying things like, “This pizza sauce tastes like Prego from the bottle.”

But those people who eat the orange sherbet vanilla swirl ice cream cones and spumoni just seem to go on and on. “Mmmm, yummy.” Lick, lick, lick. “This cone is delicious.” Slather, slather, slather. “Tastes just like a Creamsicle.” Slurp, slurp, slurp.  I have to just sit there and listen to this junk all the time. Someone licks a little too hard, the cone drops to the floor. Porters roll me out with the mop and pail to clean that gunk up. People, it’s a soft-serve cone. Take it easy, will you?

L & B doesn’t feed this workhorse shopping cart even the pizza crust crumbs. I so wish I could be back at Babies-R-Us over at 8973 Bay Parkway, where those ‘preggo’ customers know what’s important in life and handle me like a baby. They love to drape me with a delicate, cotton, newborn layette — just the way a cutie, plastic shopping cart ought to be treated.

They use a code name for me in these Bensonhurst concrete “gardens” — so, just ask for Lil’ L & B. That’s ‘L’ for lavender and ‘B’ for baby. Just don’t tell them that you’re here to rescue me, or they might not bring me out of the slop room.

The small fleet of Verizon trucks on Avenue Y around East 13th Street and East 14th Street will continue working in the area for as long as a month, according to one worker on the scene. The trucks first appeared a little over a week ago, and they are replacing a faulty telephone cable that stopped working. The Verizon employee said he expects the work to go on for another three or four weeks and residents in the area may experience inconsistencies in their phone service. Around 2 p.m. today, there were six vehicles spread around the two intersections. They were working in an open manhole near Avenue Y and East 14th Street, and set up a large blue tent and additional equipment near a manhole on East 13th Street (pictured above).

We’ve received word that an armed robbery occurred at the Staples at 1880 Coney Island Avenue (between Avenue O and Avenue P). Hostages were held for a short period. The robbery happened around 11 a.m. and, to our knowledge, has so far been resolved without anyone being harmed. We have no further information at this time.

This weekend’s storms may have been an inconvenience for most of us, but it provided some great footage on Friday, and gave the opportunity for rainbow sightings on Sunday. A reader named Clare sent this photo in, taken at 6 a.m. on East 19th street, looking west. Pot o’ gold for anyone who spots the leprechaun!

With the announcements of the free summer concerts happening around Southern Brooklyn, one series got lost in the shuffle — the swing shuffle, that is.

New York City Council Member for the 47th District, Domenic Recchia, Jr., also hosts concerts at Asser Levy Park. Like the Thursday night Seaside concerts, the Tuesday night concerts are a lot of fun. But the Tuesday night version is on a much (much, much) smaller scale than the Thursday counterpart.

The events listing encourages attendees to “come early so you can get a seat near the front.” Actually, based on last week’s turnout for the MAS Swing Band on August 18, it’s pretty safe to say that you can come as late as you want and still get a seat close to the bandshell.

The season is drawing to a close, but tonight the Latin-influenced Funk, Jazz, and R & B group, the Brawner Brothers Band is scheduled to perform. Tuesday, August 25, would have been the last event for the summer, but inclement weather this past July 21 caused the performance of Kenny Vance and The Planotones to be postponed until September 1, 2009. Consider that a bonus performance.

At the Tuesday concerts there are no posted signs or warnings about not taking pictures, so when the M.A.S. Swing Music band’s namesake, Marie Stack, invited everyone up to be added to the mailing list, it seemed like a perfect opportunity to get a close-up of the conductor, Dave Bennett, in action.

The 16-piece band (the band might have been minus a few performers that evening) entertained the appreciative crowd with Jazz and Swing classics like Gene Krupa’s “Sing, Sing, Sing“. There were a few couples taking advantage of the live entertainment by dancing on the concrete near the bandshell.

This summer the following performances were also scheduled: George Gee Swing Orchestra; Alessandra Guercio; Rhapsody Players “Mostly Motown”; Eddie & The Starlites; and the Ray Rivera Jazz Sextet. So, keep the Asser Levy Park Tuesday lineup in mind for next year and shuffle  on over tonight to see the Brawner Brothers Band and next week to see one of the founding members of Jay and the Americans — the band that brought “This Magic Moment” to gold record status.

I was sitting on the Sheepshead Bay train station platform late last week, when I overheard a conversation between a young Russian-American girl and a non-Russian friend she was showing around. The girl, black-haired and loud-talking, was telling the visitor that Sheepshead Bay was where all the “cool Americanized Russians live,” as opposed to Brighton Beach, which is “packed with babushkas.” A raised eyebrow from the man was all the girl needed to spur her to explain: “You know, babushkas, the old, miserable Russian women who sit in the sun complaining about the heat.” Here, I smirked.

I’m not Russian, so I was curious to hear from our Russian readers: is Sheepshead Bay known in the Russian community as where the cool Russians are? How has this shaped our neighborhood? What makes it cooler to Russians?