See how it just kind of, uh, ends? That's what makes it a bay, not a canal.
Every community has its quirks, and discovering new ones always gives me a little kick. Even if it is small.
The latest discovery I made was on a recent bike ride with reader Eitan K. We were talking about the Bay when Eitan dropped a little Russian knowledge bomb on me. Our Eastern European comrades call Sheepshead Bay the “Canal.”
By no stretch of the imagination is Sheepshead Bay a canal. Canals are artificial waterways made to connect two bodies of water, usually for shipping and transportation purposes. What we have in Sheepshead Bay is… a bay. Duh.
So the misnomer intrigued me. Just as when I lived in New Jersey, I wanted to know what a “Benny” is (explanation: rich people, usually from New York, who come to the beach during the summer. Benny is short for Benjamin Franklin, whose face is on the $100 bill) or why natives always called going to the beach going “down the shore” (explanation: they’re retards).
So, I put the Sheepshead Bites machinery into action, and solicited help from our Russian-American readers.
This one comes in by way of Queens Crapper, who wrote the perfect blurb:
I like how the reporter and newscasters act like this is something that no one knew about and haven’t been doing for centuries…
I have a lot of nasty things to say about these people and the attitude that Southern Brooklyn is some uncharted wasteland waiting to be explored by Manhattan douchebags. But, well, the diplomatic side of me says I should keep it to myself and instead be grateful that one of our local industries got some good publicity. Let’s just hope it brings some clients down to Sheepshead Bay’s beleaguered fishermen.
I used to see this a lot growing up. Fish hanging, gruesome and decomposed in the summer sun, nailed to the pier’s pilings. So when BrooklynQ put it on his site, WhiteTrashBBQ, I went down to the piers to get my own photo. But no luck. They were gone. It appears the Parks Department – or some authority – asks the fishermen not to do this anymore.
But it is an age-old tradition for fisherman. Thinking maybe it had some cool story to it – a good luck charm, maybe, or warding off the evil spirits of tinier fish – I began asking around. While the truth is far less supernatural, it’s still pretty cool. Fishermen tack their catches to the pilings so customers know what they’re catching. According to one local fisherman hanging out in front of Captain Dave’s boat, Sheepshead Bay once resembled the aquatic version of the pass to Golgotha, with crucified catches on every piling of every pier.
I heard about your blog/website from a friend of mine and wanted to share the picture I took this past Sunday morning. I watched the sunrise from the footbridge off of Shore Blvd, between Dover and Exeter after a long night of partying and it was definitely a perfect ending/beginning to my day. I just wanted to share how beautiful it looked with everybody.
Police and Coast Guard vessels converged on a cruise boat before a late night party on Friday, July 9. The boat was a Stamford, Connecticut, vessel named Annabel Lee, stationed that night on Pier 1, but never before seen in Sheepshead Bay.
NYPD officials on the scene declined to comment, and the party eventually went forward. But we’ve heard that they were likely cited for liquor license violations.
In the above video, you can see party promoters carrying liquor onto the ship just before an NYPD vessel came alongside it. The NYPD boat docked at Pier 2, where a number of officers unloaded and met on the sidewalk. They then entered the Annabel Lee just minutes after 11:00 p.m. and stayed on board for approximately an hour. Plainclothes detectives came on board at around 11:30, and a Coast Guard vessel stayed next to the cruise boat the entire time.
Old postcards with photos of our neighborhood turn up on eBay fairly often, and subsequently show up in my Google Alerts. There’s usually very little information about the postcards – the one above, for example, is undated with no mention of the publisher or photographer (notice, please, how few houses there are on Shore Boulevard). But after I see them on eBay, those photos are never to be seen again as they usually can’t be found online. From now on, I’ll be posting them here for posterity. Enjoy.
The management company responsible for The Breakers condominium development only just started the uncertain process to construct a private marina, but they’ve been marketing the fantasy slips for nearly a year.
Wilk Real Estate, which represents The Breakers at 3128 Emmons Avenue, posted the above YouTube video in October 2009. The problem is that they hadn’t yet started the complex approval process to have it constructed, raising the question of whether or not they’ve been misleading residents.
Gothamist dug up 14 old Life Magazine photos of Brooklyn from 1943. Among them was this shot of Sheepshead Bay. It makes me long for an irregular shaped watefront, naturally-hemmed, instead of our cold, sterile bulkheads and cement piers. Can anyone figure out the location? If I had to guess, I’d say this is over by Knapp Street, and that’s Gerritsen Beach in the background. But what do I know?
Representatives of several community groups testified in front of Community Board 15 about their concerns to a proposed private marina development in Sheepshead Bay. The board unanimously agreed to send a letter of objection to relevant agencies urging further study.
The marina will be part of The Breakers, a 75-unit luxury condominium development at 3128 Emmons Avenue, the site of the former Palm Shore Club. It’ll feature 23 boat slips that the developer said is for the use of residents only. The pierhead-line would extend 94-feet from the bulkhead-line.
Below is a video of the three speakers who objected to the plans. The speakers, in order of appearance, are Jerry Borell, former commodore of Miramar Yacht Club; Kathleen Higgins, a member of Miramar Yacht Club; and Laura LaPlant, speaking on behalf of Kathy Flynn, president of the Sheepshead Bay/Plumb Beach Civic Association.
