Park Slope: NOT on Shit List for Once

photo by Pondblue via Effed in Park Slope's Flickr Stream

CNN/Money magazine -- or just Money if you're nasty -- put a list together of the "Best-Big-City Neighborhoods" across the country. Using science (list positioning seems arbitrary), Park Slope was the first on the list and the only neighborhood from New York. Wooo-hooo, right? 

This is what they had to say about us:

Our Stats:

• Median household income: $101,000
• Median home value: $854,300
• Typical 2-bedroom rental: $3,000

Our Pros: "Historic brownstones and proximity to 585-acre Prospect Park make this area a favorite of New Yorkers looking to escape Manhattan shoeboxes. The new Barclays Center arena is a close walk but still removed from the heart of the neighborhood. Crime rates are akin to those in the suburbs, and transport options include a 40-minute subway ride to Midtown Manhattan. Locals love the award-winning restaurants, food co-op, farmers' markets, and homegrown bakeries and shops."

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End of an era: Jackie's 5th to close next month

Well, this news came as a total and complete shock. According to The L Magazine, legendary Park Slope dive bar, Jackie's 5th Amendment, will be closing its doors sometime in mid-September. You may recall that last November one of the bartenders there started a petition to secede from Park Slope. As she said then:

Due to the changing nature of the neighborhood and the fact that we are beginning to take offense when potential customers come into the bar, look around them with disdain, and leave, immediately, we the people of Jackie's 5th Amendment at 404 5th Avenue request the permission of the United States Government to peacefully secede from Park Slope and become our own neighborhood, to be tentatively known as "Brooklyn".

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Rockettes in da 'Hood

Image via about-face.orgThe Radio City Rockettes will be kick-lining their way to the Slope on Tuesday, August 13^th.  Nope—Christmas is not coming early this year.  The precision dance company will be hocking “Rox Pops”; not to be confused with Rox’s Pops (a small cake pop company), or Pop Rocks (those delightful candies that make pigeons explode). 

The Rox Pops, which one must assume are an icy shout-out to the long-legged beauties, are a new cranberry-apple ice pop from our favorite ice pop creators, People’s Pops. 

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When Trees Attack: Prospect Park Edition

Image from The Wizard of OzSome dude was walking his dogs in Prospect Park when he was injured by a falling tree limb.  He's now suing the city for Twenty Million Dollars, and I have a few things I'd like to say about this.  Here are those things, presented in bullet points, so that you can digest them more easily. 

• Twenty Million Dollars?  Oh my fucking Zoroaster, what the hell?!?  Did you know that those sanitation workers in New Jersey who split a winning Powerball ticket are only estimated to get 3.5 million, each?  Seriously.
• Twenty Million Dollars?  Dude, what the fuck were your injuries, anyway?  I mean, I'm not saying it wasn't  a serious accident or anything, but for $20 Million, I'm guessing that the tree fell on your dick, and now you can't do secks anymore.  Or maybe it injured you in a way that you can no longer eat bacon.  Something really awful like that.

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FIPS Juicy: Best Stories of the Week

In case you spent all week in shock that Reality Steve was wrong for the first time in 7 years, here's a round-up of juicy FIPS news that graced the pages of our blog this week:

* Daily News Wants to Clean Up The Gowanus with Vaginal Sponges
* Broken Glass, Dual Defecating, & U-Haul Sunsets at Hotel Le Bleu Wedding
* Pie Pops Finally Arrive In Park Slope!
* [FIPS Was There...] Obsolete Cineman at Freddy's
* FIPS Cares: Help a FIPS Writer Find a Place to Live
* Mayoral Race Heats Up With DeBlasio Non-Scandal