August 19, 2010: Congressman Anthony Weiner puts his Brooklyn Tech High School yearbook photo as his Twitter account’s profile image.
August 20, 2010: Internet trolls, irreverent commenters and snarky bloggers die and go to comedy heaven. Simultaneously, Jennifer Gray and Janis Ian find relevance again. Briefly.
August 21, 2010: Weiner has more Twitter followers than Ashton Kutcher.
[Weiner's Twitter account - Daily Politics via Daily Intel]
Oh, would you look at that. An uptick in Felony Assault. Finally something different, eh?
CompStat reports are produced by the New York Police Department on a weekly basis. We summarize the week’s statistics for the 61st Precinct reports every Friday. The 61st Precinct is the police command responsible for Sheepshead Bay, Gravesend, Kings Highway, Homecrest, Madison, Manhattan Beach, and Gerritsen Beach.
Source: newyork.cbslocal.com
A Belt Parkway motorcycle accident this morning has left an NYPD officer hospitalized.
The on-duty officer was riding a department motorcycle in the westbound lanes of the parkway when he collided with a car near Knapp Street, according to CBS 2.
The officer suffered a broken arm, but was conscious and alert after the accident. He was taken to Lutheran Medical Center and is in stable condition.
A photo of the lost dog, now named Bringle
So, before I begin, let me point out that there is some serious information in this post regarding the lost dog we told you about yesterday, and you should read past my idiocy to get there.
First, the idiocy. I received the following message from reader David Z.:
I think I found the brindle dog, he definitely fits your description of him. He answers to jaguar and he keeps asking for Diego (perhaps that’s the owner’s name)
He is also a bit aggressive so I am keeping my distance, if you touch his ear he growls at you.
Do you think they are offering a reward???? I can go get bong at the sex shop if they are ;)
Jokes aside, if David had indeed found the dog I’m now naming “Bringle,” he could buy plenty of bongs.
Why? Just a few minutes after I got David’s message I stepped outside and a frantic-looking woman was stopping at every house on the block, and giving out fliers to anyone who’d take them. She also posted them on utility poles. Lo and behold, the fliers were for Bringle [pictured above; no, not the jaguar... way up there].
The woman seemed very upset and I truly hope she finds her dog. The fliers say there’s a $1,000 reward, so there’s something in it for you if you find him. Call (917) 279-7942 with any information. And if you ever lose your dog, cat, panda or star-nosed mole and want to get the word out, let us know.
A c.1896 lantern slide, courtesy of Joseph Ditta. It's the earliest known photo of the plot.
There’s a certain lexical contortion that must be performed when writing a headline to celebrate the anniversary of a historic cemetery. I began the headline with “Happy Birthday,” then figured “happy” was not appropriate. So I went with “morbid.” But then “birthday” sounded way off, so I changed it to “deathday,” but nothing seemed right about that. So I went with “anniversary.”
Although language may bar my ability to create a proper phrase to capture the day, it doesn’t stop facts from being facts. Yesterday marked the 360th anniversary of the first recorded burial in the town of Gravesend – and possibly within the current confines of the Gravesend Cemetery, according to Gravesend historian Joseph Ditta.
(Read our August 2009 Q&A with Ditta about Gravesend’s history and preservation.)
The burial of the unnamed infant son of William Wilkins took place on August 18, 1650. This first interment occurred seven years after Gravesend was settled by former English subjects under Lady Deborah Moody on land granted to them by the Dutch governor of New Amsterdam. It took eight more years for the graveyard to take on more officious boundaries, when a resident offered 20 guilders – Dutch gold coins – to fence in the southwest corner of the village, which constituted the cemetery.
But if you go today, don’t expect to see the Wilkins baby’s tombstone. The earliest surviving stone marker is marked 1724, and the oldest legible stone dates to 1768. Still, that’s mighty old.
And speaking of going today, your opportunity is coming. Locals are lucky to have the knowledgeable (and eminently friendly) Joe Ditta presenting a pre-Halloween tour of the area on Sunday, October 24 at 11:00 a.m.
The tour will cover more than 250 years of the cemetery’s history, and is filled with all the intrigue reflective of the city’s twisted growth. Hear about murder-suicides, possible poisonings, and the warped burials of Coney Island sideshow freaks.
The tour is being given in conjunction with the Salt Marsh Alliance (based in Marine Park) and its resident History Club. (For information, see http://www.saltmarshalliance.org/ or call 718-421-2021.) Also, check out the Facebook fan page for Ditta’s book, Gravesend, Brooklyn, and the tour’s event invitation.
The original version of this article said the settlers were Quakers. This is incorrect. Lady Moody was an Anabaptist.
This really has very little to do with neighborhood news, but sometimes these things irk me. And I have a soapbox. So I’ll abuse it.
On Monday, we told you about Lance Stephenson, the former Lincoln High School basketball star and Indiana Pacers rookie that tossed his girlfriend down some stairs. At the end of the article, we had to ask, “Do you think the New York Post would’ve repeatedly referred to Jasmine Williams as Stephenson’s ‘baby mama’ if he were not black?” Well, our question fell on deaf ears, as they published at least four more reports using the arguably racist term.
Now we’ve got more eyebrow-raising reporting, as the fawning sportswriters over at the Daily News forget just who it is that’s the victim. They questioned Sebastian Telfair, another Lincoln H.S. basketball alum, about advice for Stephenson to overcome the apparent hurdles of his abusive, shithead nature.
Telfair says the Indiana Pacers rookie can bounce back as long as he owns up to his actions.
“He has to understand that it’s a mistake he made, and the quicker he gets over it, the better off he’ll be in life,” Telfair told the Daily News Wednesday evening at the Most Precious Blood community center in Gravesend, Brooklyn, where he treated nearly 150 kids and coaches from his 3T Family basketball tournament to trophies, food and refreshments. “Sometimes we go through things, we make mistakes and we dwell on it for too long. I hope he knows (Sunday’s incident) doesn’t make who he is as a person. He’s going to show his character as a good person, which I know he is. He’ll be all right.”
…
“It’s an unfortunate situation, but this isn’t the first obstacle he’s had to jump over,” Telfair said. “I’m sure he’ll get through it and come out strong. He has a lot of talent and with the opportunity, he’ll be able to do great things for himself.”
Wouldn’t “Stop beating your girlfriend” be better advice? This isn’t just one mistake Stephenson made. It’s just the one he got caught on. Family friends said Williams has been the victim of his temper before.
Daily News’ reporting almost left me feeling bad – sympathetic even – for this douchebag. How will he ever bounce back from this cosmic tragedy baring down on his life and career? How?!
Oh, then I remembered this maggot is the one that caused his own problems, and he physically hurt someone else in doing it. And he still gets to walk away with his $1.5 million contract.
Boo. F’ing. Hoo.
Shopping cart in search of a locksmith to let him back into his home. (Photo courtesy of Stefanee Rivera))
A reader, Stefanee Rivera, sent us this photograph of a lost shopping cart and gave us the background story.
This poor little guy was found early Saturday morning seeking assistance from the locksmith inside. Apparently he got locked out of his house (Walbaum’s) and couldn’t find a neighbor to help. He wandered over to the locksmith on Ave. X and Ocean Ave. for some help getting back inside. The nice locksmith who works there called his parents and told them he was waiting for them at the shop. They said they would be “right over” to pick him up. However, according to the locksmith, at 3:45PM, the lonely little shopping cart was still there waiting for his mom and dad. I suggested he call the Administration for Shopping Cart Services (ASCS) if they hadn’t come to pick him up by closing time.
Hearing the news that the shopping complex where the Waldbaum’s store is located has been sold for $10 million, may have made him a little nervous about his family’s future.
I know, I know – I did a postcard yesterday. They don’t really come in that often, but when they do I try to get them up right away before they disappear into Internet limbo.
No date is given on the card by the eBay seller. However, there is this entirely useless description that I find amusing: “We specialize in BETTER cards from all five boroughs of NYC consisting of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Staten Island, The Bronx and those Long Island communities that constitute Queens County.” (emphasis added)
Yeah, screw Queens.
A similar angle of the beach is given in this 1903 photograph, which we first showed you in the article about Manhattan Beach’s history with fireworks (and is original from a Daily News profile). You can see just how nitty-gritty that purty building in the background of the postcard actually looked.
From Courier-Life:
A crew of thieves with a birds-eye view of Sheepshead Bay broke into two stores last week.
Workers at Viva, which is on Sheepshead Bay Road between Jerome and Voorhies avenues, said someone cut through the roof on Aug. 11 and removed an undisclosed amount of cash from the register. Workers said that thieves entered the store the same way on Aug. 4.
On Aug. 9 thieves made it to the roof of the Leah Discount, which is on Nostrand Avenue between Avenues T and U, and tunneled their way inside, taking $950 in cash, police said.
Looks like local business owners need to start considering ways to make their rooftops more secure. Any ideas?
Here’s another burglary report from this week’s blotter:
A woman spotted two thieves breaking into her Sheepshead Bay home on Aug. 12.
The woman said that she was sitting in a rear bedroom in her Avenue Y home, which is between E. 11th and E. 12th streets, at 9:45 pm when she heard a noise and saw a beam from a flashlight pass by her door.
She went to investigate and found two thieves in her alleyway. They had just left the home through a kitchen window after stealing her laptop computer, police said.
I spied this lovely flier taped to the Redbox machine at the 7-11 on Coney Island Avenue at Kathleen Court. So, first off, if anyone has seen this dog, give a call, eh?
But concern for the dog or its owner wasn’t my first thought – perhaps revealing some deep flaw of personal character. Instead I said to myself, “What the heck is bringle?!”
Honestly. I didn’t know. That bothered me more than the idea that some little kid could be shattered over her lost pup. She could’ve been raised by that friggin’ thing, and now would be totally destitute, bawling her little sparkling eyes out like a proud member of the Lindsey Lohan generation.
But all that mattered to me is this mysterious word, “bringle.” If a real word, it would be my favorite. It sounds musical, and leaps out from between lips. Its pops with energy and spirit. No, it bringles with energy and spirit.
It’s an awesome word, but I have no idea what it means. Do you?
I Googled it, and other than a particularly nasty definition in the Urban Dictionary (far too nasty to link to), I couldn’t find anything. I even tried to find out if it was some Russian word that meant, like, brown or something. That would make sense, right?
This dog is brindle patterned, not bringle. Source: Wikimedia Commons
Well, I think they meant brindle. Which is another word I’d never heard before. But – thank you, Wikipedia – it is apparently a coloring pattern in animals, sometimes described as “tiger striped,” but more subtle. Check out that photo to the right.
Anyway, why am I wasting time and space on this little topic? Because there’s a freakin’ lost dog, people!
Have you seen it around? It looks like a tiger, but more subtle!
If you know anything, give the number a bringle.
