DOINGS IN BROOKLYN
from William (Bill) Gralnick
Crumbling Under Your Feet
Brooklynites contact your local politicians. The Coney Island Boardwalk is deteriorating under your feet. At both ends it has places where it is worn to almost toothpick thickness. Whose child will be the first to fall through? As grandma used to say, “Get on the stick!”
Declaring War
Brooklynites—get out the cheese and those traps. NYC has declared war on rats, particularly in Brooklyn, so reports the Brooklyn Eagle (did you know it still exists?!?). This past year there were over 64,000 inspections, up by over 45,000 since 2015. Why do I think there are more rats than inspections…?
Why the Dodgers
Did you know…? Trolleys were once so important to Brooklyn’s transportation that a baseball team, later known as the Brooklyn Dodgers, used them to traverse the borough. At that point they were known as the Brooklyn Trolley Dodgers
Only in Brooklyn
“Only in Brooklyn, “you gotta love Brooklyn…” pick a Brooklyn cliché and then take a look at Carroll Gardens. This long time hub of Italian Americans is slowly but surely changing as diversity weaves different colors and patterns into the area. Then came the decision to re-do the park in Carroll Gardens—you know, the one with the Bocce court. That’s what is causing the political brawl. Let’s leave it like this, “It just ain’t the same.”
Captured in Brooklyn
Feb 18, 1963 Willie Sutton captured in Brooklyn. The paper cost 5 cents and the headline screamed, “City Hit Hard by Asian Flu. Many deaths reported.”
Brooklyn Eagle
On this date in 1906, the Brooklyn Eagle reported end of the San Francisco fire. It described the city “as a ring of desolation.”
Monday, April 20, 2020
Day 57°, Night 42°, Chance of Rain
New York, by far the nation’s leader in coronavirus nursing home deaths, released details Friday on outbreaks in individual facilities after weeks of refusing to do so. The report revealed one home in Cobble Hill where 55 people died and four others with at least 40 deaths.
Al Capone
Ballyard vs. prison yard. Did you know that Al Capone played semi-pro ball in Brooklyn? He was a first-baseman and pitcher for a Catholic league team. All of life is choices. He could have chosen the ballyard, not made a lot of money, but be able to spend it, or the prison yard whose run-up made him piles of money that he couldn’t spend. Alas. “You pays your money and takes yer chanse.”
“The feature of the game was the twirling of Al Capone, who whiffed 15 of the opposing batsmen. Al got three hits, including a double,” gushed a June 6, 1918 story in the Brooklyn Citizen about the team’s 13-6 victory over Lockport. A 1916 game attracted 3,000 fans.