Who Gives A Shit: Large Scale Events in Prospect Park

Photo credit: Henry Stewart for bkmag.comWe've heard the complaints about the ruined nethermead in the past, after Googa Mooga, and now it's happening again in the wake of last week's Nick Day of Play. According to the Brooklyn Paper: 

“They did a number on the Nethermead yet again,” said Prospect Lefferts-Gardens resident Noel Hefele, adding that the field is back to looking as it did after the two-day Great GoogaMooga music fest left parts of the parkfenced off for nearly the entire summer.

Park lovers said that the hordes of Nickelodeon fans playing sports, jumping rope, and rocking out to pop bands, along with the equipment brought in to support it all, tore up the turf majorly and that the repeat destruction represents a brush-off of everyday park users by the people in charge.

“It is so disheartening after events like these to see the blatant disregard for our backyard,” said Randi Lass of Windsor Terrace, who regularly volunteers to cleanup the green space. “I thought after GoogaMooga perhaps they learned a lesson about the scale of events in Prospect Park.”

Click to read more ...

Is beet closed for good?

Yesterday, an eagle-eyed South Sloper sent us this message about South Slope's popular Thai restaurant:

I walk past beet regularly to/from the subway. For the last week (or more) the restaurant has had their gate down. I wasn't a huge fan of the atmosphere inside the restaurant, but I LOVED me some chicken pad Thai and chive cakes. Regardless, I'm emailing to ask you/let you know that their gates are still down. No activity whatsoever near or around this establishment. Last night, I was walking home from the subway and decided to call beet's number just to see if there was any sort of message to customers. The line was disconnected. Any info? This was my go-to cheap Thai take-out place! I am so bummed!

We tried calling and got the same "this number is no longer in service" message, their website is kaput, and Seamless says beet is not currently open. It's not looking like they'll be turning the beet around anytime soon.

P-Stew's Wedded Park Slope Bliss

pic via New York Daily News

Just read this and tell me it doesn't make you salivate:

Are you sure you don’t need a sweatshirt?” Sir Patrick Stewart asks as he tucks into his own gray hoodie. The actor, of Star Trek: The Next Generation and X-Men fame, is seated on the roof of his Park Slope duplex drinking Champagne. His wife, the singer Sunny Ozell, sits nearby. “Cheers, big ears,” she toasts. The two wed a week earlier at a ceremony in Lake Tahoe. Sir Ian McKellen, Stewart’s longtime friend and co-star in an upcoming Broadway repertoire of Harold Pinter’s No Man’s Land and Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, served as the officiant. Guests included the entire crew of the Starship Enterprise.

I mean, big hearts in my eyes right now. Can we have a moment to break down why this is awesome?

Click to read more ...

[FIPS WAS THERE...] Brooklyn Book Festival

Image via tinhouse.comOkay, so there’s something innately awkward and irritating about convention-style booths.  Are you obligated to make small talk with the guy behind the table before taking a pen?  Are those free-looking gifts really free?  Is it okay to throw away all the brochures you collected as soon as you get home or do you have to shove them in your junk drawer for six months first? 

Inherent conference issues aside, Sunday’s Brooklyn Book Festival was a gorgeous success.  Over 200 booths were scattered around Borough Hall and Columbus Park.  There were booths for literary magazines (Tin House, The Paris Review, A Public Space), booths for small presses (Bellevue Literary Press, Soho Press), booths for bookstores (the Strand, the Community Bookstore, powerHouse Arena), and booths for industrious, self-promoting authors (Theresa Varela, Pink Maxwell, Rosemary Harris).

Click to read more ...

Rumorsville: Jonathan Safran Foer Could Be leaving Park Slope

photo credit: Chris Maluszynski /MOMENT

A friend o'FIPS just told us that Jonathan Safran Foer is putting his 2nd Street Brownstone on the market for $15 million. This would beat the $14 million asking price for 45 Montgomery Place, announced just last week. JSF and his equally literary wife, Nicole Krauss, purchased their home in 2005 for about $6 million, which seemed pretty batshit crazy at the time. Word on the street is that they already own another home in Cobble Hill. 

What do you think? Would you be extremely sad, and incredibly bummed out if JSF is outta here?