Prospect Heights’ troubled M.S. 571 would close its doors permanently by 2013, announced the Department of Education on Dec. 6th and 7th. The middle school was included in the department’s plan to shutter 26 of the city’s lowest performing schools.
“I don’t see why this school was targeted,” said M.S. 571 P.T.A. President Maria Salichs. Listen to Salichs discuss where the school goes from here:
The Underhill Avenue school earned a “D” on its most recent annual progress report. An investigation this fall into M.S. 571 by department officials found consistent problems at the school, including low attendance rates, poor test performance and concerns over student safety. Here’s a closer look:
Prince Arala Osula has no lavish palace but rules the downtown train platform at 125th Street and Lexington Avenue. If you’ve taken a four, five or six train, headed downtown from that stop, you have probably heard him. And if you had a hankering for some reggae or rock that day, you may have even spoken with him.
Prince isn’t into performing just to get the royal treatment. He claims he was called by God to play not just at 125th and Lexington, but specifically to play on the downtown platform. Whether it was a calling from God or the desire to be discovered, Prince is serious about his work.
He’s been at the station for five years and has regulars. Fans range from school kids to the New York Police who Prince ubiquitously calls “Finest”. But Prince also welcomes tourist and often has a song from a visitor’s native country.
While this blog has covered the foibles of obnoxious bar patrons in the past, it has only examined the issue from the point of view of fellow bar-goers. But what do the bartenders have to say? After all, we may be briefly inconvenienced by obnoxious drunks, but bartenders are the ones who are perpetually saddled with their inane requests, their loud remarks and—at times—their disgusting bodily functions. With that in mind, we take a look at the pet peeves of the brave men and women who pour our drinks and deal with us at our most obnoxious.
Note: As a caution to the reader, in true bartender fashion, some of the following language is not safe for work.
Brian M., a bartender at the venerable Brooklyn hangout Farrell’s, offered this criticism of amateurish holiday drinkers.
Murray Hill, one of the lowest crime, highest income areas in New York, is quietly drinking its way to the top of the city’s binge-drinking ranks. Part of the reason for that is the lineup of bars along Third Avenue in the 30s, which cater to a crowd that includes a lot of freshly-minted college grads, who bring their Fraternity and Sorority experience with them to Midtown East.
New York Magazine ran this parody video about Murray Hill residents, which shows their rowdy behavior after a long night of hitting the Third Avenue strip of bars. According to nyc.gov, the area’s binge drinking rate is the second highest in all of New York City and almost the same as the highest–23%.
Even on a Sunday afternoon, Third Avenue in Murray Hill is a jam-packed with bar patrons watching sports, sipping suds and more.
At Patrick Kavanaugh’s, the arch-shaped windows are open and the bar is so tightly packed that people are sitting on the sills, while others stand on the sidewalk looking in. They are crowded around the televisions watching the Jets and keeping the bartenders and waitresses busy.
A patron at another bar, Shawn Reagan, only visits Murray Hill on Sundays during football season. He lives on the Upper East Side and says he isn’t a fan of the rowdy nightlife in Murray Hill because of the drinking and also the pickup scene, which, he says, is even apparent on a Sunday afternoon.
Residents of the neighborhood, like Hilary Pecheone, also come out to the bars on Third Avenue to watch sports. Pecheone is dressed head to toe in football paraphernalia, from a numbered jersey to knee high tube socks and she is carrying a football. She says she only goes to The Wharf on Sundays because it’s an Ole Miss college football crowd. At night, she says, Murray Hill is known for having a certain atmosphere.
Taylor Dupree is also at The Wharf, but he says he doesn’t go there often, only when his friends invite him. He graduated college last Spring and says the crowd, especially at night, is mostly his age. He says it’s upbeat and can be fun and that people go to Murray Hill to have a certain kind of experience.
Struggling with a significant increase in burglaries, Crow Hill residents protested a new pawnshop Saturday that they feel will only bring more crime to their growing section of Brooklyn. It’s a dispute that places the pawnshop at the center of a heated debate over the future of what is arguably the front line of gentrification in the rapidly developing Crown Heights neighborhood.
Opponents argue that the pawnshop, opening at the corner of Park Place and Franklin Avenue, is a step backwards for the budding Franklin Avenue commercial strip. Once a neglected avenue of dollar stores and shuttered storefronts, Franklin Avenue has witnessed a resurgence in recent years as restaurants and bars capitalized on the changing community.
“It is not consistent with what we are trying to do with Franklin Avenue,” said Councilwoman Letitia James, of District 35. “We are trying to attract businesses to Franklin Avenue based on what the needs are of the community and right now the needs of Crow Hill are not for a pawnshop.”
The pawnshop is also located on a block where zoning prohibits pawnshops from opening, said Nina Meldandri, project manager for the Crow Hill Community Association. The association is now working to get Department of Buildings inspectors to the site in an effort to force Community Pawnbrokers to close its doors.
But owner Eugene Josovits says, protest or not, the pawnshop will open.
“I am not breaking the law,” said Josovits. “I have nothing to be afraid of, I followed every single rule in the book.”
Let’s talk about Handball. American Handball. This game is quite popular in Brooklyn, where we can find children playing it almost every day after class in one of the numerous outdoor fields of the borough. James, Diana, Kary and Thomas were playing last Friday evening at the Fish playground park, between Saratoga Ave and Fulton Steet in Brooklyn.
Diana, 29, is a matron who takes care of special needs persons. She lives a few blocks away, and come here quite often to teach the rules to children who want to improve their skills.
If these people were playing for fun, tournaments of American Handball exist, as well as a United State Handball Association, which counts 8,500 members. A low figure which shows that American Handball’s hearing is still confidential.
After more than forty years working as an actor both on stage and movie, Richard Hughes, 67, has the insider’s knowledge to the business. He sits down with me this weekend and shares some of his thoughts on fundamental principles of acting, the importance of experience as well as the difference between acting on stage and on movie.
Part of being a New Yorker is dealing with the ultimate pest — poor MTA service. So what are your MTA beefs? Bianca Siedman-Shvarts, Edouard de Mareschal and Paul Pedersen recount some nightmares.
