Jacques Cortelyou, the 17th-century creator of Manhattan’s first map, called the Castello Plan, was also a real estate developer. He would be pleased with the attractive dining scene that has evolved along the street bearing his name. One of Cortelyou Road’s most appealing additions is this wine bar named after his famous survey.
The menu guides you through a series of delicious small plates. Start with a bright seasonal salad: sweet, chive-strewn potatoes ($5); cucumbers in crème-fraîche dill dressing ($5); or shredded cabbage, tossed in sesame oil and pickled ginger ($7).
A meander through the very good Italian charcuterie includes fiery coppa, earthy wild boar cacciatorini and a fennel-enriched soppressata (1 for $6; 3 for $15; 5 for $24).
Except for the lusty rabbit and truffled yam open-faced sandwich ($12), most of the entrees are petite and carefully composed: a stack of duck confit with tart apples would be an improvement on Thanksgiving’s main course ($11); a “cake” of chilled crab meat is nearly overwhelmed by its sweet-salty tobiko topping ($9).
Even better are the crostini ($7 each), particularly the fat smoked sprats and boiled quail eggs on toasts slathered in turmeric mayonnaise. Greasy, bold and comforting, it is great food for the quirky, fun wine list on which a dangerously quaffable txakoli and an oaky, chilled blend of carignan and grenache share billing with an Austrian rosé that is steely and as green as wheat-grass juice….
This Thursday, July 22nd
7pm, $8
Rockwood Music Hall – Stage 2 (The newer Rockwood, next door to the original)
196 Allen Street (btw E Houston & Stanton)
The Traffic Calming block party gets written up by the NY Post. If you haven’t filled out the pedestrian survey of conditions at Cortelyou and Stratford, please do so now!
Speaking of Politics, Courier Life has rounded up the contestants for the September Primaries, and here is what they say about ours:
State Senate
21st District (Flatbush): State Sen. Kevin Parker is due to go on trial for assaulting a New York Post photographer any week now and if convicted he could lose his Senate seat. To boot he only has a measly $16,997 to run a campaign. Despite all that, few are breaking down the door to take his seat. His only challenger is Wellington Sharpe, a longtime Flatbush activist who can’t seem to shake his political bug — he lost a run for Council in 2001, a push for the state Senate in 2002, a three-way race against Parker in 2004, and a second City Council run in 2007.
But, in the end this may be personal, Sharpe claims Parker assaulted him in the past — big surprise — although nothing about the clash was ever reported to the police.
State Assembly
42nd District (Flatbush, Midwood): Assemblywoman Rhoda Jacobs, a 32-year incumbent who is also collecting her state pension because she’s retired — at least on paper — will be facing former high school teacher and longtime community activist Michele Adolphe.
A 10 foot tall basketball hoop in its 300 pound water filled base has disappeared out of a driveway on E17th Street in broad daylight (between 3-4pm yesterday). It must have been quite a sight to see it rolling down the street somewhere in the vicinity of Ditmas and Dorchester, so the neighbor hopes someone will have spotted it and may know of its new location? Or at least the direction it was heading in …
UPDATE: The basketball hoop is home. ”My husband drove around and found our hoop on E 19 between Cortelyou and Dorchester. He grabbed a friend and rolled it home where we are chaining it up and painting our name and address on it.”
Anyone care to dispute that the neighborhood seems to need more basketball hoops and places to play sports?
This tree branch fell about a week ago, and is still blocking pedestrian passage in front of 1620 Ditmas Avenue, near E17th Street, serving as a reminder that we are surrounded by some very beautiful and very old trees.
Neighbors in Kensington report that the City has a Trees & Sidewalks program, whereby sidewalks damaged by the roots of curbside trees will be repaired free of charge by the Department of Parks & Recreation.
Here is what you can do if you feel that you know a tree (or a sidewalk) in need - Submit a Forestry Service Request. This is what the NYC Parks Department website says:
Below, you can:
Report a damaged or dead tree
Request a new street tree
Notify Parks of illegal tree damage
Submit a report of potentially hazardous trees or branches*
Let us know about an undesirable root, sewer, or sidewalk condition
All requests sent to Parks are given direct attention and will be resolved as soon as possible.
Need to check the status of your request? Call 311 or visit 311 Online.
Please note: All forestry-related service requests can be submitted above except wood debris removal requests.
Parks picks up wood debris generated from private property in certain areas because of the Asian longhorned beetle. The Asian longhorned beetle is an invasive pest that destroys trees. Currently, the only effective means to control the beetle is to remove infested trees and destroy them by chipping or burning the wood. The beetle has been discovered in parts of Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island. As a result, quarantine has been established regulating the movement of any tree wood in these boroughs.
All residents of affected boroughs must schedule an appointment to discard any and all tree prunings, firewood, and other organic woody debris from their property. To schedule a wood debris pickup, call 311 or fill out the Wood Debris Removal form.
If you live in Kensington, you need to know about this rezoning (aka Culver El) - The city is in the public review stage of rezoning a good chunk of properties over by the Green Triangle (a couple of blocks West of Church Avenue F stop, where Church avenue begins), and some folks in the neighborhood think that there is much room for improvement.
Thank you to all who braved the heat and came out to the Traffic Calming Block Party this Sunday, and a very special thanks to Debbi Ryan and Anne Pope for organizing, and making sure we had the permits, providing shade, and most of all – infectious spirit and a firm belief that our street could be so much better.
By the end of Sunday, we had collected over 100 surveys online and in the street – thank you to all of you who took the time to fill them out (and Keka for designing them)! If you did not have a chance to fill out the survey on pedestrian conditions at Stratford and Cortelyou that were collected on Sunday, you can still do so online here. The results will be shared with the DoT and CB14, in our ongoing efforts to make Cortelyou road a safe street for all.
Some of you have noted the presence of the DoT traffic boxes on Cortelyou (near the express bus stop on Cortelyou) – it looks like they are looking at the conditions on Cortelyou again, and doing so in the summer, again. I have to admit, I don’t really understand how these boxes work, and it will take a while to get the info (Do they count cars & pedestrians, or just cars?), but it is probably safe to assume that they cannot see the busses and trucks that routinely block the basically unmarked intersection and any chance of pedestrians crossing; or that most people cross at Argyle to the South side so they don’t have to risk their lives.) So please – fill out the surveys and let the DoT know how you feel about crossing Cortelyou!
In the meantime – CB14 has offered to ask DoT to extend their study into October. Thank you, Doris Ortiz!
I’m finally getting around to updating the local blog feed (it shows excerpts of the most recent neighbor blog posts in chronological order) and this is a call for links.
If you are a neighbor, who writes a blog that you think might be of interest to other neighbors, (and you keep the language and images pretty clean), send along a link to your rss feed to ditmasparkblog@gmail.com, and I’ll put it up. If you have emailed before, and I have failed to link you, please don’t take it personally and email me again – dealing with the pipes is a pain and I probably just decided to do it later and forgot.
Who’s local? If you live anywhere between the Park, Avenue H, Ocean to Ocean. I know, it super borad, but I don’t want to start a borders discussion here. If you live between Coney and McDonald, Fort Hamilton to 18th Ave (or thereabouts) – email your link to Kensingtonprospect@gmail.com, and we’ll link you there as well.
The important, and (perhaps deliberately) obscure process of revising the City Charter continues tonight in this neighborhood, with a hearing at the Gershwin Theater at Brooklyn College at 6:00 p.m.
The topics will include a new report from the Citizens Union — you can read it here — which calls for, among other things, non-partisan elections and enhancing the status of borough presidents, the public advocate, and community boards.
Community Board 14 Chair Alvin Berk, who’s been critical of the process, suggests that the report’s a bit tilted toward the mayor, and worries that the commission will wind up narrowing the community boards’ focus under the guise of professionalizing them.
Had to drop a note about this weekends experience at the neighborhood Kent Theater. My son and I arrived on bikes, moments before the Sunday matinee only to realize we had forgotten our locks. The guy at the counter smiled, ushered us in and placed our bikes in the “bike corner” where he kept an eye on them until the show was over. I can’t imagine that happening at another theater in NYC.
The Kent movie theater is located at 1170 Coney Island Avenue, (ave H) – a nice walk or a short bike ride for most of the folks around here.
In conjunction with the Traffic Calming block party on Sunday, we’ll be asking folks to fill out very quick surveys on how they feel about the intersection of Cortelyou and Stratford, that will be later shared with the DoT. If you will not be around on Sunday, but would like to fill one out, you can do so on the Sustainable Flatbush website here. It may not even take a full minute.
And if you are around – see you on Sunday! All day outside Vox Pop on the corner of Stratford and Cortelyou – there will be lots of fun stuff, and the priceless opportunity to meet your neighbors and do something good for the neighborhood.
5 pictures from earlier today of the Flatbush Community Garden in Prospect Park South…The plots seem to be thriving for mid-July. Hopefully, the sick looking tomato isn’t from tomato blight? (last photo)
This Sunday at the Farmers Market on Cortelyou, come learn how to prepare the fish Karen and Pat of Gill’s Seafood bring to us fresh every Sunday. Here is what our lovely neighbor and chef Elaine Mamary has to say:
On Sunday July 18th there will be a special Fish Demonstration at the Cortelyou Farmers’ Market. I will be partnering with Pat Gillespse of Gill’s Seafood, who along with his wife Karen sells their fresh-caught bounty every Sunday at the market. Pat will regale us with seafaring stories and tell us about the various catches of the day, while demonstrating how to filet and otherwise fabricate the fish (and perhaps other seafood) to get it ready for the pot, pan, broiler, or grill.
on the menu at the Castello Plan – Now Serving Dinner!
Starting tonight, the Castello Plan will be serving dinner sized portions of customer favorites like rabbit and sweet potato, says their amazing Chef Natasha Pogrebinsky. What kind of food? “New European” is her response, and that just sums it up perfectly – a bit French, a bit Ukrainian, a bit Scandinavian. For all of those who enjoy the New American way of cooking (think the Farm on Adderly ), check it out.
The new menu is not on their website yet, but from what we saw the entree prices are in the $11-13 range. Hours are 5pm-2am, 1213 Cortelyou Road, off Argyle. Will update.
Before we all go our separate ways this weekend, I want to share a recipe for a really nice summery drink. Its called Tinto de Verano and its a Spanish cocktail similar to Sangria but without the necessary soak time. Supposedly it is what Spaniards drink while tourists have Sangria ha ha. Its super simple [...] […]
I’m heading out tomorrow for a week of teaching and relaxing at the New England Fiber Arts Retreat in mid-coast Maine. I’ll be teaching the eternal knot blanket for the first time, and debuting a new design-your-own shawl class that I’ve been calling “Shawl-o-Rama!” I haven’t been at a summer camp in, well, a long [...] […]
I'm pleased to announce that Friends of Lulu has assembled an unofficial, interim Board of Directors. Volunteers have stepped forward to take on the following roles: Interim TreasurerInterim Director of CommunicationsInterim Membership SecretaryInterim Recording SecretaryThese persons have generously offered their time to assist FoL, and will be an inva […]
The following 20 future trends for the comic industry (and fandom) is scheduled roughly for the next two years -- by 2012. They are based on a combination of market research and intuitive insight. My track record for previous predictions is quite good, as I have successfully predicted things like the DC restructuring and Disney buying up Marvel a couple of y […]
I think I'd just address one more thing, while I'm getting stuff off my chest.I still love comics. But the old mainstream paradigm, for the most part, doesn't work for me anymore. It has been, to a degree, toxic to the women who tried (and continue to try) to love it. Not so much now, in this present generation -- but definitely in the last ge […]
Quick Chilled Cantaloupe Soup by Aimée Wimbush-Bourque -- Featured on Simple Bites Chilled soups in the summer are a delicious treat. They are refreshing and flavorful and oh, so easy to make. Although I love a classic warm soup, the rising temps are keeping me far away from my beloved soup pot, but that's OK! Especially since my blender has been serv […]
Just a quick message, men can volunteer at Friends of Lulu and be considered for a place on their Board of Directors. This is in answer to several men who wanted to help but weren't sure if they were "eligible" for a place on the Board."Lulu Is For Everyone" […]
The other day, Liena from Ditmas Park Blog was nice enough to post my entry about geese returning to Prospect park - filling a vacuum, as it were. The comments have been educational, revealing, and sometimes horrific. There are a couple of people who equate geese with rats as far as being a pest. I object. Even though I did refer to the geese's nazi-lik […]
I want to thank the people who have written to me in support about Friends of Lulu and have offered their time.As for those people who sit behind their computer screens and publicly rage & complain, but don't offer to lift a finger to help: well, that pretty much says it all, doesn't it?I have plenty of emails on file from persons who criticise […]
We (Vinyl Club & Electric Temple and joined by IMPOSE this time) started something in June, and now we're planning on keeping it just as we started. Psychedelic. Double Rainbows are for food and music. Please join me this Sunday for grilling, music. All you have to do is bring the dance party and wish John happy beeday.- - - {{{{ Psychedelic Summer […]
“If your mind is at work, we’re in danger of reproducing another cliche. If we can keep our minds out of it and our thoughts out of it, maybe we’ll come up with something original.” -Peter Falk “When I started making films, I wanted to make Frank Capra pictures. But I’ve never been able to [...] […]
I was originally going to just post this on my Digital Comics Blog, but upon reflection the topic is so potentially huge I wanted a bigger audience's opinion.I found this post by Joey Manley (founder of the Modern Tales webcomic site) , entitled, "The Death of Webcomics?""But when it comes to the field as a whole, the excitement I used to […]
Update 2010-07-28: Welcome, NY Times CityRoom readers. Added links to information on the 2002 settlement agreement. The Baltic Street Community Garden in Park Slope, as it appeared in July 2008. It was destroyed in 2009 by the NYC Department of... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]] […]
