A series of armed robberies has left Red Hook residents on edge and fearful that danger — real or imagined — might be lurking around every darkened street corner.

Three incidents in a two-day span brought out locals en masse to the Feb. 24 meeting of the Red Hook Civic Association, which invited Captain Kenneth Corey, the commanding officer of the Precinct, to discuss the incidents, and try to allay residents’ fears.

Story here

VBS traveled to Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, to meet the classically trained mystic meatballerinos behind the Frankies Spuntino empire

Our decorated family room. The tree is roughly 8.5 feet tall, plus the height of the star. You can see my stocking hanging on the closest red door.



Click the images for full size view.

Nice write up about the D’amico family coffee tradition. He mentions price gouging for younger customers and affordable coffee for the old timers.

“We used to open at 5:30 in the morning, and we had customers waiting. The wives would go out and get the cold cuts and whatever to make lunch for their husbands, so we did pretty good,”

Read the rest

This Halloween will always be a memorable one for Amy and I. Not only was it the first in our new home & neighborhood but also my sister, her husband and their son – my nephew – were in town. We all went from store to store and ended up at the cobble hill parade for the festivities. Eli collected so much candy he wasn’t sure if he was going to be able to carry it all back to our apartment! See photos of the fun afternoon on my flickr.

Something about Carroll Gardens moniker has always confounded merchants. You never see a Cobble Hills Deli or Parks Slope Hardware, but misspellings of the nabe named after Declaration of Independence signer Charles Carroll are rampant.

See the other photos over at lost city.

The F train is slower, dirtier and less reliable than other lines in the subway system, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority finally admitted in a bombshell report released on Friday.

Rest of story over at the Brooklyn Paper