The Brooklyn Children’s Museum is having the grand reopening for its $48M Rafael Vinoly design on September 20 and 21. In the meantime, the new exhibits and attractions are going up. In the photo above, Tim Watkins of May & Watkins Design, readies the “Splashdown” exhibit. It’s an interactive sculpture that “provides water for a [...]

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Infant mortality fell dramatically in two borough neighborhoods where rates have been historically high for years, says new city Health Department statistics. In Fort Greene, infant mortality fell from 7.3 deaths per 1000 births in 2006 to 0.8 deaths in 2007. In Crown Heights North, the rate fell from 9.8 to 4.6. In both neighborhoods, [...]

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Here are some vids posted to the YouTube of yesterday’s West Indian American Day Parade down Eastern Parkway.

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[Photo courtesy of Bumpershine/flickr]
Yesterday, of course, was the huge annual West Indian Carnival on Eastern Parkway and hundreds of thousands of people turned out to watch. Here are links to some of the photos and posts that have appeared at this fairly early point:
· brooklyn carnival tagged Flickr Photos
· West Indian American Day Carnival Parade [...]

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Labor Day means one thing in Brooklyn: the West Indian Carnival, which takes place today along Eastern Parkway. The parade starts at 11AM near Rochester and Eastern Parkway and doesn’t end until 6PM. The wrap up point is at Grand Army Plaza, and there’s a stage at the Brooklyn Public Library. That would make for [...]

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The dispute over the proposed intake facility for the homeless at the armory in Crown Heights continues, although the city has made some concessions:
On Thursday, Heather J. Janik, a spokeswoman for the city’s homeless services agency, said an additional intake center would be opened in Manhattan to lessen demand at the proposed Brooklyn site. She [...]

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[Photo courtesy of hungrynadchen/GL Flickr Pool]
This magnificent image, which juxtaposes religious icons with South Florida-style lawn ornamentation is priceless. It comes from Crown Heights at Schenectady and Eastern Parkway. C’est magnifique.

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The Crown Heightser, which stop posting last year, is back in business. Or, at least, it appears to be with a few new posts this month. We’ve always advocated for more neighborhood-based blogs in “underblogged” parts of the borough. One of the neighborhoods we always include on the list is Crown Heights. Here’s hoping they [...]

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“In October 1902, the owners of this grand new structure in recently developed Crown Heights took out several ads in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, informing the public that ‘the word ‘hotel’ has a new meaning.’ The copy seems very sincere. ‘Perhaps you have not associated the two ideas of ‘hotel’ and ‘home.’ In the St. [...]

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“Over the five months I’ve spent living in Prospect Heights, the neighborhood (including its border area with Crown Heights) has slowly revealed itself to me. Young professionals populate the areas closest to Prospect Park and the Brooklyn Museum. Further in, neo-hippie and hipster types might sell marijuana to get by on rent. During the day [...]

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Tensions are mounting in Crown Heights, but is there a genuine threat of repeat of the riots of the 1990s or are some leaders overreacting? In the words of the Times, “The streets of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, resembled an armed camp on Wednesday…Crown Heights is flaring up again, as it has every so often since [...]

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Black and Jewish community leaders in Crown Heights called Sunday for calm - and more help from police and City Hall - in the wake of racially charged violence in the Brooklyn neighborhood. Geoffrey Davis, brother of slain City Councilman James Davis, organized the gathering at Albany Ave. and Empire Blvd., where black attackers pummeled [...]

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This is not the standard Missed Connection, that much is clear, but in perusing the listings for our weekly Sunday Craiglist Missed Connection we came across this interesting specimen from Crown Heights. We don’t know what it, but do know it’s worth featuring:
who put the dead bird in my mailbox? - w4m - 27 (crown [...]

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So, if you stop and take a photo of the NYPD’s “Tower of Fun” skywatch thing, which is currently stationed in Crown Heights, an undercover officer might pull you aside and suggest that you’re a terrorist. Like this: “What are you, a terrorist? You look like you’re taking photographs of the officers in that secure [...]

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Crown Heights, Brooklyn[Photo courtesy of Runs with Scissors/flickr]

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From the Crown Heights North Association (CHNA) comes word of its first Annual House and Garden Tour, which takes place this Saturday, October 6th, from 12–5. They say in an email that “We are celebrating the beauty and culture of our neighborhood, and our recent designation as the first new Historic District in Brooklyn in [...]

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The special GL correspondent who sent us this photo she took on Eastern Parkway yesterday said it put her in the carnival spirit. We agree, and it compelled us to note that the 40th Anniversary edition of the parade is happening on Monday, Sept. 3. There will, of course, be events all weekend long. If [...]

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The Crown Heights North Historical District was designated by the Landmarks Preservation Commission on April 24. On Sunday (6/10), the Crown Heights North Association, (CHNA), which led the landmarking drive, will hold the first annual Crown Heights North Walking Tour. It will include, in the word’s of the group’s press release, “some of the fine [...]

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New York City’s newest historic district is in Crown Heights. Yesterday, the Landmarks Preservation Commission voted unanimously to create the Crown Heights North Historic District, which is Brooklyn’s 17th. The Commission’s press release called the decision “the cornerstone for establishing similar districts in the neighborhood.” The new district runs along Pacific Street to the north, [...]

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The Landmarks Preservation Committee will be voting today on landmarking part of the historic Crown Heights neighborhood, the first step in a process of creating a larger Historic District to protect the neighborhood. The New York Times reports:
…in a meeting this morning, the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission is expected to designate a long swath of [...]

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