Narrows Botanical Garden and Gallery 364 (founded by local Brooklyn Eagle photographer and art curator, Georgine Benvenuto) invite you to their latest installment of ‘Art in the Park’ this Sunday, July 13th, from 11am-4pm at Narrows Botanical Gardens.

After less than a year after at it’s 3rd avenue and 85th street Bay Ridge location, the Park Slope babywares retailer, “olá baby,” is returning from whence it came – Court Street.

The ambitious retail space taken over by the Park Slope pram purveyor last summer is presently looking for a new tenant – as the bugaboo boutique goes out with a yawn, rather than a toddler’s whimper.

After years of serving the greater Bay Ridge/Dyker Heights community from a building that faintly resembles something out of a Soviet Cold War spy novel – or some other incarnation of a modern day secret detention facility – Community Board 10 is finally getting a much deserved upgrade.

As the Modern Life slowly creeps towards Bay Ridge like a hipster to a tofu hot dog bar, the men that brought you Bay Ridge’s newest condo sensation, Cento, would like you to come and see for yourself what it is to live the Modern Life.

Cento, brought to you by Basile Builders — the same people who killed the Bay Ridge Victorians to bring you Yellow Hook Townhomes — are having an open house where you may see and feel what it will be like to live the… ‘Modern Life!’

Bring your family and all worldly possessions Tuesdays thru Fridays 6-7pm, or Saturdays and Sundays 1-3pm for an open house.

Don’t ask, just succumb to the warm sensation of ‘the Modern Life.‘

The hulking red trailers that have become a permanent fixture in Bay Ridge’s Lief Ericson park much to the displeasure of local residents — having served as both reminder of rampant school over crowding and never ending project overruns at the High School for Telecommunications — may finally be slated for removal, after almost a decade.
The trailers remained part of Lief Ericson after a string of larger and more complicated improvements at the High School for Telecommunications (all of which riddled with overruns) made it necessary to have some kind of provisional classrooms for students while a large classroom annex was built for the high school.

The annex came under intense scrutiny from the Senator Street Historic District and a number of neighborhood preservationists, including Victoria Hofmo, who demanded the addition be built within the context and character of the surrounding block – which consists of beautiful brownstones.

High School Telecommunications Assistant Principal Patricia Rogers tells the Brooklyn Paper: “We are conducting extensive work at the [school] and need the trailers for construction purposes Once the work is completed at the school, we are going to remove the trailers and rehabilitate the park. We have funding for removing trailers and will do so when the work at the school is completed.”

Jim O’Dea, former president of the 67th Street Block Association, begs to differ. According to O’Dea, High School of Telecommunications has been saying the same thing for the past 10 years, and is apparently ready to take them to court.

High School of Telecommunications, which, in and of itself, as a structure is of some architectural beauty – the general population of attendees is often considered by those in northern Bay Ridge as something of an eyesore.

The Phantom over at Bay Ridge Blog describes the institution (formerly Bay Ridge High School) as ‘unfriendly,’ and a drain on the surrounding 67th street neighborhood’s parking and curb appeal.

“Students from the school sat on the stoops nearby, and didn’t like it too much when they were asked to move. It’s not as bad as it was some years ago, but you still see loitering “students” cutting class. smoking reefer, on 68th Street, Senator, all the nearby blocks.”

(photo courtesy of the Phantom)

While many of you will no doubt spend this afternoon swinging to the sounds of local live entertainment legends like Frankie Marra, Phil Hill and the Dirty Stayouts, while chowing down on some great food prepared by volunteers for the 68th Precinct Youth council at Bay Ridge’s 1st Annual 4th of July BBQ – we hope you former colonists take time to reflect on what it is we’re out there celebrating.
Mainly, to live in a city within a country that celebrates its nation’s call for independence by watching a diminutive Japanese man eat his weight in hot dogs.

Happy 4th, Bay Ridge… may the wings of liberty never lose a feather!

A mere 24 hours before Victory Memorial hospital was slated to lose its license, per a 2006 NYSDOH report ordering its closure, it appears a backroom deal with SUNY Downstate Medical Center has been reached that will save the bankrupt Bay Ridge hospital.
Under the deal, Victory’s facility (currently renamed SUNY Downstate at Bay Ridge) will continue to run its ambulatory surgery unit – which conducts surgeries that do not require overnight stays – for another two weeks until Downstate receives a state certification, according to the Brooklyn Paper.

SUNY Downstate Bay Ridge will rent the space from the Abe Leser Group, a Borough Park real-estate firm, which bought the beleaguered hospital for $44.9 million in May.

News of the SUNY Downstate takeover was welcome by hospital employees, and local bay Ridge residents who – after an unsuccessful lawsuit filed by local politicians this year failed to halt its closure – were concerned the area would be undeserved without Victory’s emergency and ambulatory services.