Say It Ain't So! Dogs No Longer Allowed At The Gate.

As you may have heard by now, and as Park Slope Stoop reported on Monday, one of our favorite neigborhood bars, The Gate, will  no longer allow patrons to bring their doggies. We asked owner and friend of FIPS, Bobby Gagnon, to give us the scoop: 

So, an anonymous 311 caller reported us to the DOH. The inspector arrived, informing my bartender the call was hours earlier. This is the first I have ever heard of the DOH responding to a complaint same day, especially a non-critical health issue! I have spoken to a couple of insiders who maintain this must have been repeat calls and they finally came out, but that is conjecture. Obviously, the 311 system for businesses can potentially be problematic and outright detrimental if beset with someone with an axe to grind or merely a penchant to harass.  

The inspector issued us a violation, with an order to appear. Under the new letter-grade system we are now on the downward slope (no pun) with the DOH. We will appear, pay the fine as ordered but the presence of dogs henceforth will result in escalating fines, fines per dog present, those dreaded "B"s and (gasp) "C"s and the threat of a DOH shutdown. None of which a small business will survive. The DOH response here reads as zero tolerance and dogs are verboten whether you have a kitchen or not. 

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FIPS CARES: And Did You Know Penn Station Wasn't Always A Dump?

Photo by Aaron Rose courtesy of the MCNY

Little disclaimer: A version of this post ran on Untapped Cities yesterday to commemorate the 51st anniversary of Penn Station's demolition. It also ran to help promote the Kickstarter campaign for my show called The Eternal Space. My hope is that you'll read on and consider backing. We can use all the help we can get even a dollar or five bucks will get us one step closer to our goal. I promise it's a great show involving architecture, photography, NYC history and of course, Penn Station. Oh and we have really cool backer rewards. Check it out! If nothing else look at some of the amazing pics of Penn's demolition we turned up... Ok, onto the post...

51 years ago yesterday, construction crews pulled up to the 33^rd Street entrance to New York City’s Beaux-Arts marvel, Pennsylvania Station with orders to begin its three-year demolition. The station was only 53 years old and covered two full-city blocks, making it the largest indoor public space in the world. The bankrupt Pennsylvania Railroad was forced to sell their air rights prompting the company to move its rail operation down into an ill-conceived basement station barely a third the original station’s size. Any of you who have ever had to travel into or out of the current Penn Station know just what kind of hellhole it can be. 

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Going Once… Going Twice… Lyceum SOLD! To Somebody Who Apparently Has a Better Lawyer Than the Previous Owner

FIPS received an email from the Lyceum announcing that the building had finally been sold at auction, but that “…we hope to get it back as the legal dust settles.” What exactly is this “dust?” How will it settle? This dust has been swirling, Pig-Pen-like, around the Lyceum for like 10 years. Sometimes the dust takes the form of endless, incomprehensible emails from the Lyceum’s owner, Eric Richmond. For example, the most recent one was 900+ words, virtually none of which form sentences that make any sense to me. And it includes a melodramatic turn of phrase that might more likely be applied to the trial of an accused serial killer -- “[Judge] Craig's odd and blinkered decisions and her blatant denial of due process raise chilling concerns” – than to a judge ruling on a real estate case.

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What's Going On With The Key Food on 11th & 5th?

If you know me (which you don't) you know that I am fundamentally opposed to Jo, Brian & Joseph's Key Food on the corner of 11th and 5th.

The employees are categorically surly, I hate that little alcove with the creepy steps where they keep the beer and I find that the shelves are too high for me to do most of my shopping (I can't reach about 80% of the things I would actually want to purchase). I also don't know who Jo, Brian OR Joseph is, but I can tell you that if I were them, I would be embarrassed as heck to have a grocery store named after me. And a tiny shitty one that smells of something terrible yet indistinguishable at that.

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Top Five Reasons Why Park Slope Residents Will Not Get Ebola

via @KoolrPix/Twitter

Unless you've been trapped in a closet for the past 24 hours, you are probably well aware that the first case of Ebola has surfaced in New York City. Long story short, Dr. Craig Spencer, a 33 year old Harlem doctor who who recently treated Ebola victims in Africa while volunteering with Doctors Without Borders, was monitoring his own conidition and immediately called the authorities when he developed a fever on Thursday morning. What's got everybody up in arms are reports that he felt "sluggish" in the preceding days, but still went bowling in Williamsburg on Wednesday night.

Naturally, everyone is all EHRMAGEHRD, I MIGHT GET EBOLA BECAUSE ONE NEW YORKER HAS IT AND HE WENT BOWLING AND TOOK THE SUBWAY AND CALLED AN UBER AND WHY DID HE DO THAT WHEN HE FELT SLUGGISH!!!

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