SHEEPSHEAD BAY'S ONLY INDEPENDENT NEWS BLOG

Mickey Rose (far left) at his wedding to his wife Judith. Woody Allen and actress Louise Lasser pictured on the right. Source: nytimes.com

Mickey Rose and Woody Allen met in an art class at Midwood High School more than 60 years ago, starting a lifelong friendship and collaboration that included some of Woody’s most hilarious films. Rose died over the weekend at the age of 77 from colon cancer, according to a report by The New York Times.

Rose, along with Allen, was one of America’s preeminent comedy writers. For years he wrote jokes for Johnny Carson during his Tonight Show run. Michael Barrie, who worked on Carson’s venerable talk show, which ran for 30 years from 1962 to 1992, said that Rose was “a comedy writer’s comedy writer.”

With Allen, Rose helped write “What’s Up Tiger Lily?” (1966), “Take the Money and Run” (1969) and “Bananas” (1971); all early classics from the era when Allen wasn’t yet known for more cerebral films.

Former NYC Mayor, Edward I. Koch, 1924-2013. Source: adam.luis.amengual / Flickr

Of all the elected officials I have known personally — with the exception of former Congressman Stephen Solarz for whom I once performed an internship during his first term as assemblyman for the 45th Assembly District — I’ve had the most personal contact with our former mayor, Ed Koch.

My First Encounter

It was 1969. One year before my college internship with Solarz. Unsurprisingly, I chose transportation as my topic for a political science school paper at Hunter College, where I did my undergraduate work. I wanted to write about what the federal government was doing to improve mass transit and someone suggested I see the local congressman whose office was located on Second Avenue, in the upper seventies. I was skeptical of obtaining any information because I did not reside in the “silk stocking” district, as the Upper East Side was then called. I was told that the congressman’s name was Ed Koch, a name I had never heard before. I was told he was active in introducing legislation to help mass transit and that’s why I should see him.

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Barry Deustch in His Dr. Sherlock Litter Alter-Ego, Photo Via Facebook

Barry Deutsch, a local Sheepshead Bay man and former Presidential Candidate, passed away last month at the age of 66, according to a report by Brooklyn Daily.

Deutsch, a former lawyer with a Brooklyn-based practice, ran for President of the United States in 1992, receiving 26 votes in the New Hampshire primary. He ran on a platform that railed against the outsourcing of US jobs, particularly the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

After his failed bid for Commander-in-Chief, Deutsch carried on his crusade to protect American jobs, creating alter-ego Dr. Sherlock Litter, a bizarre sloganeering pitch-man who managed to star in one video before his untimely death.

According to Brooklyn Daily, Deustch’s living situation was also out of the ordinary. Apparently, Deutsch spent most of his time lounging on a cleaned up spot on the otherwise garbage-strewn Plumb Beach. Deutsch insisted he was not homeless.

“It’s my tax-free summer beach jungle hide-a-way paradise,” Deutsch told Brooklyn Daily. In passing, Deutsch leaves behind his carved out Plumb Beach spot, a cat and three older siblings.

Source: papertiger.org

Famed Brooklyn author Sol Yurick passed away at the age of 87 this past Saturday according to the New York Daily News. Yurick is most famous for writing The Warriors, a 1965 novel – and, later, cult move – about a Brooklyn gang viciously battling their way through the borough on their way home to Coney Island.

The movie grew into a huge cult success in years subsequent to its release. earning a 94 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Yurick, born to working class Jewish immigrants in the Bronx in 1925, made Brooklyn his home when he moved to Park Slope in 1958. He worked as a social investigator for the Department of Welfare, observing the rhythms of the streets and underclasses that informed the vibrancy of his writing.

Yurick moved to Prospect-Lefferts Gardens in 1985 where he lived for the rest of his life. He is survived by his wife Adrienne and his daughter Susanna.

Stella Angel with her daughter (center) and neighborhood girls in front of their Sheepshead Bay Road storefront.

Click to enlarge.

When Arielle Angel’s grandmother, Stella, passed away, she wrote the obituary. Angel, a Brooklyn-based writer, didn’t plan for a home for the obituary. It was written for family and close friends. When the obituary landed in our inbox, it found a home.

Stella Angel lived in Sheepshead Bay. She owned and operated a local grocery with her husband, David Angel here. She raised a family at East 6th Street and Avenue Z because her own extended family, the Rosas, all lived within walking distance.

Their store, Bay Food Market, was bought from a guy named Mario. No one seems to recall his last name now.

It stood across the street from Dan’s Supreme, a larger supermarket that could have put the mom-and-pop bodega out of business. Instead, the two groceries competed for customers. For years, the Angels engaged in price wars and forewent but little profit. They almost always set their closing time an hour later than Dan’s.

My grandmother, Stella Angel, who lived and worked in Sheepshead Bay from the time of her immigration to the United States in 1952 until her retirement in the early 1980s, died in her sleep last Saturday morning. She was 93-years-old.

She was born Stella Rosa in Salonika, Greece, in 1920, the middle child of five in a middle-class family. Like all of the Rosa men, her father was a butcher. Salonika was a unique Jewish community; its members were descendants of those who had fled the Spanish Inquisition, and they still kept a medieval dialect of Spanish called Ladino as their language.

Keep reading Arielle’s touching obituary