Caption This Park Slope Photo!

FIPS reader Lori sent in these photos of a scene she stumbled upon outside the Lowe's on 12th Street and 2nd Avenue. She wasn't sure if the possum was playing dead, really dead, or just wasted on Lime-a-Ritas. You've got a lot to work with here, so give us your best captions in the comments.

Time To Help Save The Brooklyn Lyceum...Again

Image via Brooklyn Lyceum

This building has been part of my personal Brooklyn landscape for over 2 decades. When I moved in up the block from the then-crumbling relic in 1992, it was not The Brooklyn Lyceum; it was a boarded-up, gated mystery. “Public Bath No. 7.” Watching the NYC Marathon on 4th Avenue, you could haul yourself up to the landing and hang on to the iron fence for a better view. Other than that, as long as I’d known, it stood unused.

Public Baths in NYC were built as part of a progressive movement to improve the health of poor tenement dwellers. Public Bath No. 7 is one of a very few still standing. It was constructed in 1910, closed in 1937, and landmarked in 1984. And it housed other things on and off in between. Its architect, Raymond F. Almirall, also designed the beautiful little library on the corner of Pacific and 4th Avenue. Don’t tell anyone, but I still have a book I took out there in 1987.

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FIPS CARES: Help Brooklyn Bike Patrol Get New T-Shirts

BBP founder JayRuiz. Image via Facebook

I knew when I heard the Batman ringback tone on the phone of Jay Ruiz that I was going to have a fun conversation.  Jay is The Man behind the Brooklyn Bike Patrol, a free service that escorts female Brooklynites home from train stations, 7 days a week, as well as offering escorts from homes, restaurants etc. Jay started the service in 2011 after a string of attacks on women in Park Slope and nearby neighborhoods. He has been at it since, despite a heart attack that slowed him down for, oh, I dunno, 2 minutes? He is a bundle of energy who eads an all-volunteer effort that has grown in size since its inception.

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A Tale of Two Lobster Rolls

In olden times, the lobster was an abundant, filthy creature fit only for the mouths of the coastal poor & indigent. Over time, as the lands between America's coast got to try lobster for the first time, demand rose, resulting in less lobster & higher prices. Once trashy. Now fancy. A tale of two lobsters, if you will.

In Park Slope, on 5th Ave two blocks in either direction from Union St, there are two different but basically delicious lobster rolls...a tale of two lobster rolls, if you will.

Two blocks south of Union there's Luke's Lobster who, after a slight delay, finally opened two Fridays ago between President & Carroll. Through their Maine-influenced cuisine, they've grown from a food truck to a fourteen location chain spanning three metro areas (NYC, DC, Philly). Contrary to popular belief, their name is not a sly reference to one of the more popular soap opera phalluses of all time.

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Rumorsville: Arecibo Losing Drivers. Owner Demands Higher Percentage.

If you've lived in Park Slope for any length of time, you've used Arecibo car service. Sure, sometimes when that hold music plays too long, you go for Family or Eastern, but Arecibo is usually the go to for most people in the hood. A tipster wrote in with some behind-the-scenes dirt from a former Arecibo driver:

I used Family Car Service a couple weeks ago, and got quite the scoop from my driver, who had recently defected from Arecibo because the Arecibo owner is now demanding 30 percent (rather than 20) from his drivers. He also charged drivers a fee for the new digital dispatch technology he decided to install in the office, on top of having to upgrade from radios to digital consoles in their cars -- at their own expense, of course. Family charges a flat daily or weekly fee -- I can't remember how much -- rather than a percentage, which is apparently now more appealing.

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