By Kim Velsey 11/02/12 9:04am

Greensward

Tree damage in Prospect Park. (Prospect Park Alliance)

Nature-Deprived Scofflaws Ignore Closures for a Walk In the Park

On Sunday, it was fun to settle in at home with popcorn and movies. On Monday, the hurricane hit, a frightening and fraught time. On Tuesday, the city took stock of the devastation. On Wednesday, well, Wednesday was the beginning of many frustrations: frustrations with ongoing power outages, frustrations with being cooped up for yet another day, frustrations with working from home, school cancellations extending through the end of the week, and the difficulty of borough-to-borough travel.

In the midst of these frustrations, the many islands of green scattered across the five boroughs started to seem very, very tempting. A tantalizing emerald escape from stuffy apartments, boredom and the tedium of days stretching ahead. The only problem is that New York City parks are closed, for fear of falling branches and dangerous debris, until at least Saturday morning. Read More

By Kim Velsey 5/02/12 2:04pm

Manhattan Transfers

Manhattan living, but in Brooklyn

Penthouse At Richard Meier’s Brooklyn Tower Sells For $5.1 M.

Things may have looked bleak during the recession for On Prospect Park, but the tower’s most expensive penthouse has finally sold for $5.1 million, just as everyone knew it eventually would.

Are boom times here again? Well, when it comes to gentrification in Brooklyn, Prospect Heights in particular, it’s not a question of if but when, and Prospect Heights was already pretty far gone when the sleek tower was just a rough sketch in Richard Meier’s head. Even if The New York Times did call the starchitect-designed condo “a wall of windows into the real estate bust” back in 2009. Read More

By Una LaMarche 5/01/12 9:30am

Mothers Superior

Web_-IceCream_David_Saracino2

Ice Cream Anti-Social: Slope Parents Fear Playground Popsicle Pusherman

I was shocked—shocked—to hear about the backlash that erupted a few weeks ago after a mom on the Park Slope Parents message board complained about ice cream vendors infiltrating our local playgrounds, in a craven attempt to force their obesity-promoting, lactose-intolerant intolerant products on innocent children.

In the interest of full disclosure, I was eating a pint of ice cream—well, gelato—when I received my weekly PSP digest, which was otherwise a lovely and harmless collection of stories about people getting help spying on their nannies using iPhone apps, or choosing the right Jewish day school, that read like an ever-so-slightly ethnic Nicholas Sparks novel. But when I got to the blast about the the ice cream incident, I pushed back my stracciatella in shame. Read More

By Kim Velsey 4/17/12 6:34pm

THERE GOES THE NEIGHBORHOOD

Black = existing historic district, Green = expanded historic district, Brown = desired "North Slope" historic district

Park Slope Gets Expanded Historic District, Still Not Satisfied

Though many thought it was not possible, Park Slope is becoming even more perfect. (And no, the ice cream trucks have not agreed to vacate Prospect Park.)

Today, the Landmarks Preservation Commission approved a sizable expansion of the Park Slope historic district, making it one of the largest historic districts in the city, according to a release from City Councilmember Brad Lander.

The extension will include some 580 buildings and will stretch from roughly 7th Street to 15th Street, mostly between 7th Avenue and 8th Avenues. The brownstone bedecked South Slope blocks also include the former Ansonia Clock Works factory and the factory workers’ homes. Read More

By Matt Chaban 2/29/12 11:25am

Road Rage

7 Photos

Share the Road

Brooklyn Beeps: Banning Cars from Prospect Park

The road rage is not only on Prospect Park West but also inside the Park itself. After two serious bike-on-pedestrian accidents left two women with significant brain injuries, the Prospect Park Alliance set out to redesign Park Drive, the busy thoroughfare inside the park that is often clogged with walkers, cyclists, and during rush hour, motorists. It can get hectic at times.

Now, the Alliance has unveiled a new proposal that will give each group its own dedicated lane, cutting down the car lane from two to one and giving peds and bikes their own dedicated space. There will be space for running both ways and for both slow and fast bikes, a more even allotment on the street. Read More

By The Editors 9/22/10 8:07pm

Fowl Play

Following Goose Massacre, Prospect Park Tries to Make Amends

Prospect Park’s administrator–under whose nose the city and federal government culled Prospect Park’s beloved goose population, in the dark of early morning, without public notice, in early July–is trying to make amends.

This afternoon, the Prospect Park Alliance, a nonprofit that operates Prospect Park on behalf of the Parks Department and of which administrator Read More

By The Real Estate Desk 8/30/10 1:48pm

Fowl Play

Peyser: 'The Geese Must Die'

The always charming Andrea Peyser devotes the majority of her New York Post column today to the Brooklyn hot-button topic du jour, the Prospect Park geese.

The issue, for those–to evoke another bird species–who bury their heads in the sand, centers on the hundreds of Prospect Park geese who used to reside at the Prospect Read More