Russian Oligarchs, The New Jersey Nets and Downtown Brooklyn.

This story was in Forbes on Wednesday.  (At least that is when I saw it, and since this is my blog, my seeing it is what counts)!

A Russian oligarch worth 9 billion dollars (he can buy New York City and Mayor Bloomberg), wants to buy controlling interest in the New Jersey Nets and move them to Downtown Brooklyn.

I grew up close enough to the Atlantic Yards to walk to them.    The site was thought of fifty years ago as a new place for the Dodgers to play (until Walter O’Malley took them away.  Highway builder Robert Moses did not want a stadium there, but that is another New York regional tale).

The Atlantic Yards are the Long Island Rail Road yards there, next to the Brooklyn terminal.

The proposed Barclays Center Arena would seat 32,000, large for basketball.  It would give new meaning to nosebleed seats but the players are so tall, you will still see them.

The potential buyer is so wealthy, he could have super cheap seats.  It would give new meaning to nosebleed seats.  Charge $5 and maybe the kids, who play basketball in Brooklyn gyms and playgrounds will actually be able to attend an NBA game, without sacrificing their first born.

Is this a good idea, though?   You want to encourage public transit use and economic benefit, but the crowds, etc.  Housing is supposed to be built as part of the site as well.

If this goes through, it would be the first American sports team to be majority owned by a foreign national.  (A Chinese conglomerate has minority interest in the Cleveland Caveliers and they may be losing LeBron James to the Knicks).

Not sure I like the idea of a Russian doing this.  I have my reasons as irrational as they may be.

Kicking Pigeons

Growing up in Brooklyn, pigeons were a constant nuisance.  Getting birded is not fun and had happened to me.  We grew up with a little ditty.

Pigeon, pigeon in the sky,

Dropped a whitewash in my eye,

I wont care, I wont cry,

I’m just glad that cows don’t fly!

There is always the Tom Lehrer song, “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park.  Well it is almost impossible to kick a pigeon, but one day as a thirteen year old walking up Montague Street (The main street of Brooklyn Heights), I successfully kicked a pigeon in the butt.  It flew ahead like a football being kicked through the uprights.  And the kick…Is good!

All on the street laughed, some clapped.  Except for one elderly lady who came up to be and said, “Young man, that was a terrible thing to do.

Others in the street scattered.  Then she saw a police officer.  “Officer I want that young man arrested for animal cruelty!”

I am incredulous, wondering can something really come of this.  The police officer ordered me to stand still and motioned the lady over so he could speak with her.  He nodded gravely and then came over to me.  He was smiling and said, I will pretend to give you a stern talking to.  He punctuated the points and the woman kept wanting to come over and here what was said.  He took out a piece of paper, pretending to give me a summons and told me to get lost.

The elderly lady was enraged.  “Officer, you aren’t going to arrest that young man?”

I did not hang around.  I ran.  Luckily, I never saw her again.  Wonder how THAT would have gone.

Midnight Rose

A Brooklyn candy store in the 30’s and 40’s.  779 Sutter Avenue, corner of Livonia, Sutter Avenue El station on the New Lots train.

It was the hangout for Murder Inc. and where they got their assignments.

I was telling the story of the place here in Tucson.

When I Was Your Age.

     Thirty years ago, I swore I would never use this phrase.  Mom taught me not to swear, but I didn’t listen.  Now I use it all the time.

     Not sure if it is a mark of maturity, or am I just getting old and cranky?  I was reminded of a silly story from when I was thirteen.

     I was sent home with a note from school.  Dad said he had to determine a suitable punishment.  I looked at him and said, “Dad, you know I could have crumpled the note and thrown it in a trashcan on the way home.

     Dad is a Chemistry professor.  He looked at me intently.  You could see the equations being crunched in his head.  He was wondering, “What kind of criminal career is this kid headed for?”

     The fact I even had the gumption to think about such a thing was in his eyes already a violation. 

     Now, that I think like him, I reckon I deserve  having an AARP card.

The Trip to Kings County.

Kings County Hospital is Brooklyn’s psychiatric hospital.  One day, my old friend Bonnie called.  I need you to come with me and some other people to visit someone Friday night.    My friend is in Kings County.

Kings County is also the county name for Brooklyn.  New Yorkers only use it on state forms.  Notice though, I knew immediately that Bonnie meant the psychiatric hospital, not all of Brooklyn.

“I coulda had a date, instead I’m going to Kings County?”  Then the usual moaning about life being unfair.

‘Consider it a date for me.”  Heck, what are friends for.

Altogether, seven of us were walking the few blocks up Myrtle Avenue going East to Nostrand Avenue.  In the late 1970’s this was not the safest thing to do, even during daylight hours.  On a Friday night?

As you went East, the buildings became more rundown.  More like the tenements you get in poorer New York City neighborhoods.

At the corner of  Myrtle and Nostrand, we were approaching the bus stop when a male voice that could not be seen called out from an abandoned storefront on the corner.

“Yo, what are you white kids doin’ here?”  Yours truly wanted to pick a fight with the voice with no face, but cooler heads prevailed and the bus showed up.

Things are better today.  Then, a Friday night on the B44, Nostrand Avenue bus, we stood out, but I think people figured we were crazy enough to be dangerous (and they would have been right).

We got off the bus at Clarkson Avenue and entered the hospital.  First the security guards had to search us.  I came prepared.  I had things stored in my denim jacket that would make Harpo Marx proud.

My knife dropped the floor, “What’s that?’ the guard asked.  Because I am a wiseass I responded with, “Looks like a gravity knife, sir.”

“And this?”   “Looks like a lead pipe sir.  Can I have them back?”  (I got them back when we left).

One of our group was acting up.  The remainder of us wanted to sign her in there.  The person we visited was different that is for sure.  The head nurse insisted on tasting the imitation cold duck to make sure it was not alcoholic.

And that was my Friday night date in Kings County.

July 4th on a Brooklyn Rooftop

July 4th, 1982.  I was at my friend Bonnie’s house.  She was having a party.

The party started out with me already being silly.  I went into the kitchen to open a bottle of champagne for Bonnie.  I thought I was being so clever by doing it safely away from people.

I opened the bottle successfully and nothing coming out.  Perfect.  Wait, I spoke too soon.  The next thing I knew champagne was gushing out of the bottle, painting Bonnie’s wall.  I should have done something.  That would have been rational.  I was fascinated by the flow of the champagne.

Bonnie screaming at me woke me out of my trance.  Half the bottle wound up on her wall.  Not clever.  Sticky Stuff+New York wall=Insects.

Cleaned up the mess I made and then it was getting dark, time for watching the fireworks from the East River and up on the roof with our fireworks we went.

Was this clever?  Was this smart?  (To paraphrase Jamie Lee Curtis in A Fish Called Wanda).  Fireworks are illegal in New York, except for professional handlers, but everyone knows where to get them.  It is one of life’s more poorly kept secrets.  So we are up there with all sorts of cool sparkly stuff.

Bonnie had every reason to push me off the roof that night.  First I shot a bottle rocket right in the middle of the intersection of Myrtle and Washington.  Some poor man almost got hit in the head and looked up at us angrily (rightfully so).

Of course, I am from Brooklyn, I climbed a fire escape after drinking and now was ready for the challenge.  “Ya wanna piece of me?”  Ya comin’ up?”  I was all bluff, I certainly was not going DOWN.

Didn’t learn from the first bottle rocket.  Across the street was a Bodega called Pepino’s.  Genius me, shoot the bottle rocket straight up the aisle of the store, the owner comes out and sees me with Bonnie.  She lost her credit for two weeks.

Bonnie is good people.  She didn’t push me off the goddamn roof.

The Trip to the Bronx Zoo.

One day in 1996, I was staying at my parents.  On Saturday morning, I WAS enjoying ATTEMPTING to sleep late.  My then seven year old niece came in.  “Uncle Michael, wake up, grandma (my mother) is making pancakes.

I groaned audibly and rolled over.  Fifteen minutes later, I was awakened to being hit.  Not hard enough to do me harm (I’m a pretty sturdily built guy), but enough to wake me up.  The weapon of choice was the Sunday New York Times from the week before.  It might have been newspaper, but being whacked with the Sunday Times is enough to get anyones attention.  Then my mother started speaking loudly and in staccato Brooklynese, “Get up, I sent the kid in to wake you up, we’re going to the zoo.”

I looked at her as though she had three heads.  “What do I look like to you, the world’s largest cockroach?” I cried.  “Which zoo, are we going to, anyway?”  Notice I already knew I was going.  This was my mother speaking.  She might be small, but I don’t call her the “toy cannon” for nothing.  It would never have entered my head to refuse.

“The Bronx Zoo, of course,”  my mother said in a tone that meant, what other zoo could you mean?  Surely not the inferior Central Park or Prospect Park Zoo’s.

It is a long trip to the Bronx Zoo.  I am brining my overnight bag, so I can go home to New Jersey afterward.  My mother thought I was mad for bringing it, but there you have it.

An hour later, riding the el and getting off where my dad grew up, we were in the West Farms section of the Bronx.  Dad was away at a professional meeting, so he escaped.  (Chicken).

It was a bright sunny day.  The Macarena was all the craze and the kids were doing it in the street.

We spent the day at the zoo.  The Bronx Zoo is great, no question about it.   It was still going to be a long ride back.

The train was held up at 163rd Street, Intervale Avenue in the South Bronx.  A man in jacket and tie held a gold detective shield to the conductor and into the car.

My mother the lady of understatement and wanting to be involved in anything asks said detective, “Looking for someone?”  He looked at her as though she were mad.  (Then again, a New York Detective should not have been fazed especially not in the Subway).

Still, I figured I better rescue Mom from Mom.  I looked the Detective in the eye and said, “Sorry Detective, Mom juts got outta Creedmoor last week.”  (Creedmoor, a now closed psychiatric hospital on the Queens, Nassau border).  He looked from Mom to me, then to my niece, shook his head and went about his business.

Mom’s comment did have one advantage.  People in the subway car leave you alone.

I got off at 14th Street, much to Mom’s chagrin.  I was going home.  And so went the trip to the Bronx.

Stickball on Grace Court

Grace Court is a dead end street in the Brooklyn Heights section of Brooklyn.  The end of the block, where I grew up has a turning circle for motor vehicles to turn around.

Now you have roller hockey, when I was a kid, we had touch football, tackle football if it snowed.

The best was that Northeast United States tradition, stickball.  A pink rubber ball and a broom handle.  Didn’t need protective equipment, expensive bats and uniforms.  Home plate was painted at the end of the street, along with baselines.  A box was painted in the on the wall at a certain square on the pavement for Two Grace Court.  Second base was the manhole cover, third base the fire hydrant.  A fly ball hit in the trees rolled off every branch.  You really had to pay attention.  As we got older and stronger, we could clear the trees and hit it half way up the block.  I remember, we were playing one summer evening as people were coming home from rush hour.  Mrs. Quattlebaum lived in my building.  Imagine her surprise when a fly ball I hit dropped just in front of her.  I was feeling rather sheepish.

In Arizona, you don’t need to play stickball.  Baseball is everywhere.