Heavy on the Caribbean, but still a pretty worldly collection! From what I can see, we have Antigua and Barbuda, the Dominican Republic, Albania, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Lucia, Grenada, Guyana, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Australia, Uruguay, the United States, Thailand, Egypt, Slovenia, Haiti, Puerto Rico, and Ghana.
(Spotted in Crown Heights on my way to the subway this morning.)
Jews are biblically prohibited from wearing garments that contain shatnez, which means a mixture of linen and wool. Clothing labels can be imprecise or untrustworthy, so many observant Jews will have their garments inspected by an expert with a microscope to ensure that they are acceptable to wear.
It sounds like this banquet hall, the former Aperion Manor, is going to be torn down to make way for a new 10-story hotel/synagogue building.
TUITION CRISIS refers to the high cost of a private Jewish education.
DOV HIKIND is a state assemblyman who was baffled that people were offended when he wore blackface on Purim to complement his "black basketball player" costume.
Catering to Orthodox Jews, this kitchen accessories store has its own mikveh (ritual bath), which is used for toveling (the consecration, by immersion in a mikveh, of dishes and utensils that were manufactured by or acquired from non-Jews).
This is one of many enormous houses (satellite view; Street View) in a section of Gravesend populated by some of the wealthiest members of Brooklyn's extremely insular Syrian Jewish community.
I was surprised to learn that Eddie Antar is a longtime resident of this community (not counting the years he spent in federal prison). Mr. Antar was the head of the Crazy Eddie retail electronics empire of the 1970s and '80s that was famous for its over-the-top TV commercials ("His prices are insane!"). Once a seemingly thriving business, Crazy Eddie collapsed in the late 1980s following years of tax fraud and securities fraud perpetrated by its psychopathic management. In the words of Sam Antar, the company's CFO and Eddie's first cousin:
The first fraud was designed to evade taxes before we went public, by understating our profit. And after we went public, we did the opposite—we overstated our income to inflate the stock price and sell stock based on that inflated price. We committed our crimes at Crazy Eddie for fun and profit and simply because we could. We had no empathy whatsoever for our victims. During my 16 years at Crazy Eddie and two years spent covering up our crimes after being terminated from the company, I never had a single conversation with any of my co-conspirators about morality or the suffering of our victims. Our conversations focused solely on the successful coldblooded execution of our crimes.
This field house and the adjacent athletic field, now owned by the Parks Department, were acquired from Brooklyn Friends School, a Quaker school, in 1973.
According to the Parks Department:
The focal point of the playground is the Rivka Greenberg Trencher Swing Area, named for Rivka Greenberg Trencher, who was instrumental in the reinstallation of the swings.
This Midwood residence is surrounded with nautical paraphernalia, including bollards (such as the one above), cleats (background at left in front of the door), a lantern (background at right), an anchor, a red thing I can't identify, and another red thing I can't identify.
UPDATE: This statue stands in the yard of an Uzbek immigrant who sculpted its pedestal by hand with the help of a Turkish neighbor.
This is the home of the Sheepshead Bay United Methodist Church, originally known as the Sheepshead Bay Methodist Episcopal Church. It was built in 1884 by John Y. McKane (formerly John McCain), the tyrannical "autocrat of Gravesend"*. By 2011, the steeples had become structurally unsound, and it looked like tearing them down was going to be the only affordable solution for the dwindling congregation. The necessary permits for demolition were acquired from the city, but the company hired to do the work backed out. A second contractor then came in and convinced the church that it would actually be cheaper to fix the steeples than to remove them. The first step was to stabilize them with cables, which are visible in the photo above.
* Not to be confused with The Autocrat of Flapjack Junction.
