Sixth Annual Bengali (Bangladeshi Mela) Street Fair

Many people had their favorite moment at the Bengali Street Fair (Bangladeshi Mela) here in Kensington on the 26th. Some people liked the food others liked the traditional clothes. I for one liked the music. Organizers had set up a huge concert stage with performances of traditional Bengali music. But I have to admit the food was up there as well.

 If youa re missing the music...I found a great website for Bengali Music!

Brooklyn Moms Resorting to Weed To Keep Calm

There have been numerous NYC Blogs dealing with the reality that many Brooklyn moms smoke pot in order to deal with the stresses of life.  While I have nothing against it, I am wondering what the percentages are here in Kensington and how many those women who smoke find a real difference?

Read the original article here in the Post.

Richard Easton Matchmaker: My Friend Found his True Love

Richard Easton, Matchmaker New York.

I very rarely plug businesses on here (that is what Ken's List is for), but I have to say one thing about a matchmaking service for young professionals that are finding hard to meet their potential spouse.

Well, my buddy Tom is an investor and naturally was nervous meeting the wrong girl. He has had some terrible experiences with women and so he resorted to a matchmaking service, Richard Easton Matchmaker. It was a slam dunk.  Within a few weeks Tom had met "Jenny." She was studying in Law School and could appreciate his drive for success and admired my friend for things other than his money. As for Tom he was ecstatic over "Jenny's" intelligence and good looks. Well, the two just got married this past weekend...congratulations.

Learning to Cook in Kensington

Modeled on the popular TV show “Iron Chefs,” a new program has been developed in Kensington to teach local kids not only to cook, but to cook healthy. 

The program is called, “Teen Battle Chef,” and puts the kids in competition to come up with the tastiest and most healthy food offering that they can come up with. Originality and creativity is a large part of the criteria for which team takes home the bacon, I mean prize.

The competitions are weekly events that are held at the Brooklyn Commune, a local restaurant. Each weekly the winner goes on to compete in the following week’s competition, until the winner of the final round is chosen at the end of the month. The final winners will have their recipe placed on the menu at this popular restaurant.

Veronica Guaman-Meyer is a trained chef and runs the “Teen Battle Chef” program.

"We basically took kids who had no idea about cooking or nutrition, but they were eager to learn."

ANA Meeting on Thursday (Tonight)

Brad Lander, New York City Councilmember, will speak at the Albemarle Neighborhood Association meeting scheduled to be held from 7 to 8pm. Mr. Lander will be speaking about the final discussions for the New York City budget for the upcoming fiscal year; lawmaking goals; recent activities which Lander has taken to benefit the citizens of Kensington and other issues of interest to the participants. This meeting is your chance to get the information you need from the person who knows, your representative to the NYC council.

The meeting is being planned to be held outdoors, weather permitting. Come tonight to 414-415 Albermarle Road, and please bring a chair.

If there is a question of rain, please call 718-TENANTS to confirm the location. If there is rain, the meeting will be held at the Flatbush and Shaare Torah Jewish Center, 327 E. 5th Street, corner of Church Avenue. Please remember to use the groundfloor, wheelchair accessible, entrance.

The meeting is entirely free and open to everyone regardless of whether they are a member of the ANA or not. Refreshments will be served and provided by Foodtown and the ANA.

Three Hundred Trees to Grow in Brooklyn

The Nets are moving to a new location in Brooklyn and with them will come three hundred new trees to beautify parks all over the borough.

Together with Lawns by Yorkshire, the Nets sponsored a green initiative this past year which they called “Threes for Trees.” The deal was that for every three-point field goal that the Nets made during their games this past season they would donate one tree. By the end of the season they had scored 459 three-pointers, which translated into 459 maple trees.

The trees will be planted this coming autumn in parks all over Brooklyn, as well as in Branch Brook Park in Newark, New Jersey. Branch Brook Park is the place where the Nets have been playing as their temporary base until they make their move to their permanent home in Barclays Center at Prospect Heights next year. Brooklyn will get the vast majority of the trees, 300, while the remainder will be planted at the New Jersey location.

Annoyed Neighbor Paints Dogs Quiet

A Kensington, Brooklyn man became so fed up with the incessant barking of his neighbor’s dogs, that he climbed to the roof of his home and shot the dogs right in their faces; with a paint-ball gun.

Twenty-six year old Daniel Lacin, originally from Switzerland, could no longer abide the non-stop yapping of his neighbor’s pit bull mixes. The dogs, a one-year-old pit bull-terrier mix named Baby, and a 3-year-old pit bull-mastiff called Birdie, were barking at nearby construction workers at about 11am last Wednesday.

I wonder if the dogs learned their lesson? I sure hope Lacin has since he was charged with injuring and torturing animals, weapon possession, criminal mischief and reckless endangerment. The owners' dog, Peter Wojcik complained to Lacin about the injuries his dogs suffered.

The real lesson here is that neighbors need to learn to live with each and respect their boundaries and please don't take the law into your own hands.

Energy Deregulation Gives New Yorkers Freedom of Choice

For many Kensington, Brooklyn residents, deregulation of the utility monopoly was fraught with confusion and misunderstanding. But there is no need for this distress. Deregulation was a hard won achievement for ordinary citizens which introduced competition into the energy supply sector, and in the case of supplying our electricity and natural gas, competition is good.

Competition helps keep prices down and service quality up.

In Brooklyn there are several energy suppliers of electricity and natural gas to choose from, including:

·         IDT Energy

·         Columbia Utilities      1-877-7-COLUMBIA   (1-877-726-5862)

·         Energetix                     1-800-544-0182

For a complete list of suppliers go to this link: http://www.poweryourway.com/residential_escos.asp

For a clear discussion of what energy deregulation is and how it can help you to save money,  watch the video below:

Brad Lander to Speak

Kensington Ginkgo Tree Felled Just to Steal a Cheap Bike

Last week a group of bike thieves encountered a cheap, department store bike locked up to a ginkgo tree in the Kensington section of Brooklyn. Since the bike was locked and presumably the thieves did not have the tools to cut through the chain, they decided it was worth their own intense efforts as well as the destruction of the beautiful tree which was planted there to enhance their own Kensington neighborhood, to chop down the tree to get to the bike.

The entire episode was caught on closed circuit TV, and can be viewed on YouTube. There is a thread now on the Reddit social bookmarking site discussing whether or not the tree can or cannot grow back. But in addition to the obvious waste of a wonderful tree in a neighborhood that can certainly use some “sprucing up,” the man who began the thread on Reddit explained why he is especially hurt by this wanton destruction:

“My dad co-paid with the landlord for the foresters to plan this specific tree,” he wrote. “I don’t know if it’s actually his legally, but it’s definitely his in spirit.” Later he added, “My dad really wanted that type of tree as allegedly it’s very long lived. A legacy if you will.”

Down and Out Man Killed by Hit-and-Run Driver on Ocean Parkway

Dominick Trevisano, aged 51 and father of five, was killed by a hit-and-run driver as a stumbled onto Ocean Parkway escaping from an attacker who had been beating him violently.

Mr. Trevisano was an unemployed welder who was living on the streets recently. A friend who witnessed the event said that he heard Dominick scream out in pain, staggering into the busy intersection of Avenue C and Ocean Parkway, crying, “Oh my God! I’m going to die! I’m going to die!”

After Trevisano was struck by the car, a different driver swung his car around in order to block traffic, and then called 911.

He was rushed by ambulance to Maimonides Medical Center, where he died of his wounds.

Trevisano’s  sister said that the police told her that if the driver who struck Dominick had stopped and called 911 immediately, he might have lived.

"He's not a piece of dirt that you run over and leave like that," Jeannette Coppola said with bitterness. "How can they live with themselves? Come forward. Say you're sorry."

Kensington Woman Falls to Death from 10th Floor Apartment

In a tragic accident an 86-year-old woman fell to her death from her 10^th-floor window as she struggled to close it.

Police and witnesses said that the elderly woman, whose identity was not immediately released, was closing the window inside her apartment on Ocean Parkway not far from Cortelyou Road when she suddenly plunged out the window and down to the sidewalk 10 stories below. 

The doorman of the building discovered the body after a tenant informed him that there was a woman asleep in the front garden of the building. The woman died at the scene of the accident.

"She was an old woman - so sweet and always happy," said neighbor Yvonne Giudice. "She would smile all the time."

The woman lived together with her husband, daughter and grandchildren in the apartment.

"I cried when I first heard the news," Giudice said. "I just couldn't believe it."

The woman was well known for her kindness and lovely temperament. 

"She was a sweet lady," said one neighbor, who declined to give her name. "She was just a beautiful lady."