August 20, 2007
Sunday Music - The Mamas and the Papas
The Mamas and the Papas had such a beautiful,joyous, haunting sound. My pick was going to be Creeque Alley, but I watched several of their videos on youtube, and the little dance that Michelle and Cass do here made me pick this one instead. Is Michelle beautiful or what? And John Phillips, where did you get that hat?
As Wiki tells us --"Dedicated to the One I Love" is the name of a song written by Ralph Bass and Lowman Pauling. Bass and Pauling were members of The "5" Royales, the group that recorded the original version of this song. A version by The Shirelles was a minor hit for them in 1959. The "5" Royales saw a re-release of their own version chart at #81 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1961. Later that year, The Shirelles re-released their version and watched it rocket up the chart to #3. A subsequent remake by The Mamas and The Papas released on the Dunhill label went to #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1967. Lead singer on the Mamas and Papas version was Mama Michelle Phillips. It was the first time Michelle was given the lead over Mama Cass Elliott in any of their songs.
August 17, 2007
Bay Ridge Tornado: Lief Ericson Park
Having heard stories of massive damage to the tree stands, I walked up to Lief Ericson Park yesterday, expecting the worst. But you know-its not in that bad condition.A number of trees were uprooted, many suffered significant damage, and probably all suffered some damage. But--the streets along the park are still lined with strong, fine looking plane trees. Re-plant a few of the trees that were uprooted, and this entire area will be fine.
Bay Ridge Tornado: Bay Ridge Baptist Church
Looks like Bay Ridge Baptist Church suffered roof damage.
Bay Ridge Tornado: Fourth Avenue Presbyterian Church
Fourth Avenue Presbyterian Church,
Before the storm
Yesterday
Double click so you can read the sign
The Fourth Avenue Presbyterian Church has always been a good neighbor. The building itself is damaged, but the Church is in fine shape.
August 16, 2007
Video of 68th Street near Fourth Avenue
Youtube video of 68th Street, near Fourth Avenue, taken on August 8, the day the tornado hit. Thanks, alecandy
Tornado; Report from August 9
I read the below article from China, in astonishment. Several of my neigbhbors are quoted in it. It was published by Newsday, who then edited it, removing the names of most of the local people. I finally found a replica of the original article on
Crown Heights Info. Thanks, guys.
National Weather Service officials confirmed Wednesday night that a tornado had touched down in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn this morning about 6:30 a.m.
The tornado, which was confirmed by twisting patterns in the debris left behind, was probably moving at speeds of 111 to 135 miles per hour, meteorologists said.
More pictures and videos in the Extended Article!
Hours after the tornado and violent thunderstorm pounded the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Bay Ridge and Sunset Park, Mayor Michael Bloomberg visited one of the blocks hardest hit, shook hands with residents and said that, thankfully, no one was seriously hurt there.
The mayor arrived at 68th Street and 4th Avenue in Bay Ridge at about 11:20 a.m., less than three hours after the tornado and storm knocked windows out of the Fourth Avenue Presbyterian Church, toppled trees and branches and blew the roofs — or portions of them — off a handful of row houses in the working-class neighborhood.
One area resident, Ted Najjar, 58, told the mayor he had grown up on the block — and that the house he currently lives in was previously owned by his parents. “To see the block like this is just terrible,” Najjar told the mayor.
“As long as nobody's hurt,” Bloomberg said.
Around them bricks, wood, pieces of roofs and downed tree limbs littered the street.
Officials at the National Weather Service confirmed this evening that a tornado had struck the area, after residents all day had described a tornado-like storm.
The storm caused the partial collapse of a building at 58th Street and 6th in Sunset Park.
It also ripped the roofs off of a number of houses on the north side of Bay Ridge Avenue, between 3rd and 4th avenues, while leaving buildings on the south side of the street untouched.
One resident of 68th Street, Vinny Ferraioli, 50, said he was getting ready to go to work as a computer programmer for Consolidated Edison when he turned on the Weather Channel and learned a tornado watch had been issued for Bay Ridge.
He said his 11-year-old daughter became concerned and he tried to calm her fears. “'Honey,'” Ferraioli told her, “'we never get a tornado.'”
Then Ferraioli said he got “a bad feeling” and decided to usher his daughter, his wife and his parents to the basement. But, before they even reached the basement door, the fury of the storm hit.
By 11:30 a.m. he was trying to figure out how to patch his roof, which had been partially destroyed by the winds.
“It's very weird,” he said. “I called my boss this morning and said, 'You won't believe this. There's actually a tornado.'”
Down the block, at the corner of 68th Street and 4th Avenue, Pastor David Aja-Sigmon stood on the sidewalk outside the Fourth Avenue Presbyterian Church in Bay Ridge sweeping shards of glass with a broom.
Yellow New York City Police Department tape cordoned off the area. A fallen pine tree lay on the nearby street.
The storm had shattered front stained-glass window of the red-brick church — a huge pentagon-shaped window measuring at least 15 feet wide and perhaps 20 feet high.
“Right now, we're just mourning,” Aja-Sigmon said, surveying the scene outside the church, which also suffered storm-related damage to several side windows. “We're just thankful to god that no one was here and was hurt.”
Aja-Sigmon said he served the past two years as pastor at the church, founded by Syrian-Americans, having moved to Bay Ridge from Chicago.
“Never would I imagine there would be a tornado and the windows would be gone,” Aja-Sigmon said, saying neighborhood residents claimed it was a tornado that struck the area. “I thought I left that back in the Midwest.”
In the aftermath of the storm, Lisa Hickey, 46, was sweeping the steps outside her home on 68th Street. Branches were scattered across the sidewalk. Tiles had been blown off the top of her roof.
She said she heard a “big boom” at about 5:45 a.m. Wednesday — and then her beagle started barking.
“I was afraid to come out because there was lightning and thunder,” Hickey said. “It certainly sounded like a tornado, because we heard a whirring sound. . . . We felt the floor shaking in the house.”
Another resident, Tommy Scanlon, 69, she he had planned to go to the Rockaways Wednesday morning to play golf with a friend. Instead, the storm hit, leaving his 1998 grey Mercury Grand Marquis crushed by fallen branches.
“This morning a little after 6 I called my buddy and said, 'Charlie, it look like were not going to play golf today.'” Scanlon said he heard the wind blowing and said: “'All this wind. My God, it's got to be a tornado.' I hadn't felt anything like this since Donna in 1964 . . . Then I heard the alarms going off on the cars outside. I couldn't believe what I saw. My car was buried in branches. There won't be golf for another week.”
Councilman Vincent Gentile said residents had “never seen anything like this” in Bay Ridge, adding that it was fortunate no one was seriously hurt by the storm. Police could not immediately confirm if there were storm-related injuries.
“Luckily no one was seriously hurt,” Gentile said. “Had it happened later there would have been much greater injuries.”
“There was lightning and thunder like nothing we have every experienced,” Gentile added. “Some one said to me it felt like we were in the Gulf Coast and we're in Brooklyn, New York.”
The storm not only flooded roads throughout the metro area and caused service disruptions to New York City Transit, Kennedy, LaGuardia, Long Island-MacArthur and Newark-Liberty airports as well as on the Long Island Rail Road, it also forced the closures of all 18 Nassau County north shore beaches, as well as many beaches on the South Shore.
Crown Heights Info. Thanks, guys.
National Weather Service officials confirmed Wednesday night that a tornado had touched down in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn this morning about 6:30 a.m.
The tornado, which was confirmed by twisting patterns in the debris left behind, was probably moving at speeds of 111 to 135 miles per hour, meteorologists said.
More pictures and videos in the Extended Article!
Hours after the tornado and violent thunderstorm pounded the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Bay Ridge and Sunset Park, Mayor Michael Bloomberg visited one of the blocks hardest hit, shook hands with residents and said that, thankfully, no one was seriously hurt there.
The mayor arrived at 68th Street and 4th Avenue in Bay Ridge at about 11:20 a.m., less than three hours after the tornado and storm knocked windows out of the Fourth Avenue Presbyterian Church, toppled trees and branches and blew the roofs — or portions of them — off a handful of row houses in the working-class neighborhood.
One area resident, Ted Najjar, 58, told the mayor he had grown up on the block — and that the house he currently lives in was previously owned by his parents. “To see the block like this is just terrible,” Najjar told the mayor.
“As long as nobody's hurt,” Bloomberg said.
Around them bricks, wood, pieces of roofs and downed tree limbs littered the street.
Officials at the National Weather Service confirmed this evening that a tornado had struck the area, after residents all day had described a tornado-like storm.
The storm caused the partial collapse of a building at 58th Street and 6th in Sunset Park.
It also ripped the roofs off of a number of houses on the north side of Bay Ridge Avenue, between 3rd and 4th avenues, while leaving buildings on the south side of the street untouched.
One resident of 68th Street, Vinny Ferraioli, 50, said he was getting ready to go to work as a computer programmer for Consolidated Edison when he turned on the Weather Channel and learned a tornado watch had been issued for Bay Ridge.
He said his 11-year-old daughter became concerned and he tried to calm her fears. “'Honey,'” Ferraioli told her, “'we never get a tornado.'”
Then Ferraioli said he got “a bad feeling” and decided to usher his daughter, his wife and his parents to the basement. But, before they even reached the basement door, the fury of the storm hit.
By 11:30 a.m. he was trying to figure out how to patch his roof, which had been partially destroyed by the winds.
“It's very weird,” he said. “I called my boss this morning and said, 'You won't believe this. There's actually a tornado.'”
Down the block, at the corner of 68th Street and 4th Avenue, Pastor David Aja-Sigmon stood on the sidewalk outside the Fourth Avenue Presbyterian Church in Bay Ridge sweeping shards of glass with a broom.
Yellow New York City Police Department tape cordoned off the area. A fallen pine tree lay on the nearby street.
The storm had shattered front stained-glass window of the red-brick church — a huge pentagon-shaped window measuring at least 15 feet wide and perhaps 20 feet high.
“Right now, we're just mourning,” Aja-Sigmon said, surveying the scene outside the church, which also suffered storm-related damage to several side windows. “We're just thankful to god that no one was here and was hurt.”
Aja-Sigmon said he served the past two years as pastor at the church, founded by Syrian-Americans, having moved to Bay Ridge from Chicago.
“Never would I imagine there would be a tornado and the windows would be gone,” Aja-Sigmon said, saying neighborhood residents claimed it was a tornado that struck the area. “I thought I left that back in the Midwest.”
In the aftermath of the storm, Lisa Hickey, 46, was sweeping the steps outside her home on 68th Street. Branches were scattered across the sidewalk. Tiles had been blown off the top of her roof.
She said she heard a “big boom” at about 5:45 a.m. Wednesday — and then her beagle started barking.
“I was afraid to come out because there was lightning and thunder,” Hickey said. “It certainly sounded like a tornado, because we heard a whirring sound. . . . We felt the floor shaking in the house.”
Another resident, Tommy Scanlon, 69, she he had planned to go to the Rockaways Wednesday morning to play golf with a friend. Instead, the storm hit, leaving his 1998 grey Mercury Grand Marquis crushed by fallen branches.
“This morning a little after 6 I called my buddy and said, 'Charlie, it look like were not going to play golf today.'” Scanlon said he heard the wind blowing and said: “'All this wind. My God, it's got to be a tornado.' I hadn't felt anything like this since Donna in 1964 . . . Then I heard the alarms going off on the cars outside. I couldn't believe what I saw. My car was buried in branches. There won't be golf for another week.”
Councilman Vincent Gentile said residents had “never seen anything like this” in Bay Ridge, adding that it was fortunate no one was seriously hurt by the storm. Police could not immediately confirm if there were storm-related injuries.
“Luckily no one was seriously hurt,” Gentile said. “Had it happened later there would have been much greater injuries.”
“There was lightning and thunder like nothing we have every experienced,” Gentile added. “Some one said to me it felt like we were in the Gulf Coast and we're in Brooklyn, New York.”
The storm not only flooded roads throughout the metro area and caused service disruptions to New York City Transit, Kennedy, LaGuardia, Long Island-MacArthur and Newark-Liberty airports as well as on the Long Island Rail Road, it also forced the closures of all 18 Nassau County north shore beaches, as well as many beaches on the South Shore.
August 15, 2007
Tornado Aftermath- Favorite Trees Badly Damaged
68th Street, Bay RidgeFor this and other photos, double click to enlarge
One week after the tornado, the neighborhood stands tall.
There's a great deal of work that needs to be done.
Some of our neighbors have had the most awful week. They're living in hotels. They come back to their houses to try to move the process of rebuilding forward, or just to be there.
If you happen to walk or drive by, its easy to think that things are normal. They're better, but not normal. Some of our friends are having an awful time. A lot of the rest of us have had an awful scare. Some of us will only be discovering specific damage to our homes in the coming weeks.
I remember when this tree, in front of 374 68th Street, was immense, with strong branches extended over the street. The house was owned in the 1960s by a old lady named Maude ( "Aunt Maude" ) who had lived in the house since the 1920s, when there were vegetable patches across the street, in a Bay Ridge that still had lots of farms in it.
She saw this tree grow up, and we're now seeing it in its last stages. A huge chunk of it fell onto the street last July. Now the storm has ripped much of the remaining branches from it. Its a stick, a shell of its old self now.
A smaller, relatively young tree in front of 370 68th Street was destroyed.
This tree, in front of 366 68th Street suffered a lot of damage. A chunk of that big branch to the right snapped off.
And amazingly ( look closely) the top part of the trunk was ripped off cleanly.
The trees on this street and on Bay Ridge's other fine streets and avenues are its crowning glory. They've been hurt badly. I hope that new trees are planted and that the injured ones recover.
---
I was told that Mr. Macey, who with his family lived for many years at 370 68th Street, died last week, about an hour after the storm hit. He'd been living in Toms River, NJ. He was a good neighbor and a fine man. God Bless.
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