DO THE RIGHT THING…

27 Thursday Feb 2014

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Spike Lee has some thoughts on Brooklyn.

From Spike:

“I grew up here in New York. It’s changed,” Lee said at Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute, an art, design, and architecture school. “And why does it take an influx of white New Yorkers in the South Bronx, in Harlem, in Bed Stuy, in Crown Heights for the facilities to get better? The garbage wasn’t picked up every mother******* day when I was living in 165 Washington Park. … The police weren’t around. When you see white mothers pushing their babies in strollers, three o’clock in the morning on 125th Street, that must tell you something.”

THE CARING LIFE…

25 Tuesday Feb 2014

Posted by Steve in Blog

≈ 6 Comments

In the film, “A Bronx Tale” Chaz Palminteri says, “NOBODY CARES!”

In the film, “…And Justice for All” Al Pacino cries, “Don’t you care?”

Does anyone care anymore?

–Red

hoops135@hotmail.com

ROSE LANG

19 Wednesday Feb 2014

Posted by Steve in Blog

≈ 4 Comments

Received a message from Gerard Lang:

Wanted to let everyone know that Rose Lang is battling lung cancer over the past year with dignity and grace.

Wife of Bill (Tippy), Mother of William, James (Jamus ) Gary (butterball) , Timmy, Marty, Donald (duck), the late Rosanne, Matthew, Gerard, Richard, Donna, Mary Lou.

Please keep her in your prayers

THE WIND BEGAN TO HOWL

15 Saturday Feb 2014

Posted by Steve in Blog, Timboo's, Windsor Terrace

≈ 9 Comments

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Container Diaries, Timboos, Windsor Terrace

“Frustration leads to anger. Anger to violence. Don’t get frustrated.”

-Dave Kindred

Saturday morning in February.

It’s so cold in our apartment.

I have two blankets covering me, a sweatshirt and a pair of white long johns. I’m wearing a pair of white tube socks.

Glancing over at my digital clock on the table it says 4:35.

Thank God I can still sleep some more. But how can I sleep? Mom is having another fight with her boyfriend.

They are out in the living room, screaming at each other.

My sister who is nine, slept over my cousin’s house last night so she’s safe.

My older brother who’s 17 is not home. I know this because we have bunk beds and he sleeps on the top.

I’m not only cold, I’m scared.

Mom’s boyfriend is mean. He’s vicious and strong too. His temper is out of control.

What makes it worse is when he’s drunk, like he is now, he’s twice as bad.

This is becoming the norm on Saturday mornings.

It’s hard to understand what they are yelling about. Their speech is slurred.

The shouting match goes on for what seems like an hour. But finally they are quiet. Too quiet if you ask me. I decide to get up from the bed, I’m not scared of him. I’ll pick up my Louisville slugger which sits close by and smack him across the fuckin’ head.

I look out of my room towards the living room. I see mom on the couch and her boyfriend on the living room floor.

Looks like they both passed out.

How can they go from screaming at each other to sleeping?

It’s still dark outside. In the past I have run out of the apartment to the schoolyard to get away from all the bullshit.

But I think I’m going to stick this one out.

I make my way closer to where they are sleeping.

Looking at my mom she has her mouth open a little bit and she still has her clothes on. The boyfriend is on his stomach, sprawled out on the carpet. I can smell booze and cigarettes. I’m sure they were in Timboo’s all night.

I don’t think he has hit her though, usually when he does she screams really loud.

One time he hit her so hard he gave her a black-eye. Our landlord downstairs called the police and Doyle came by and placed the cuffs on him and took him away. I stuck my head out the window and saw him ushered into the back seat of the patrol car. Before he got in he looked up at me and smiled.

I gave him the finger.

Figuring that would be the last we saw of him, to my surprise he was back two days later. Mom never pressed charges.

Standing over them in the living room I feel like Mills Lane, the boxing ref standing over two boxers who knocked each other out.

But there’s no one around pleading for them to get up. I’m not counting to ten either. I don’t want them to get up. I hope he never gets up. As for mom, she can sleep as long as she wants.

HAPPY VALENTINES’S DAY

14 Friday Feb 2014

Posted by Steve in Blog

≈ 1 Comment

My first girlfriend.

I loved everything about her.

First time I saw her I thought she was the most beautiful girl in the world. Like Charlie Rich once said, “Hey, did you happen to see the most beautiful girl in the world.”

Yes indeed Charlie, I saw her and she was standing right in front of me. My first true love affair.

At 14 I fell in love for the very first time.

I don’t even remember the first time we kissed but I remember how she mad me feel.

It was just one year before we met I had played the game “7 Minutes in Heaven” the first time I kissed a girl but this was different. My girlfriend’s kiss was smooth. It had meaning. She wrapped her arms around me. I felt like someone cared about me.

She was tall with short dark hair and she had the brightest smile of all the girls in our group. There must have been close to twenty-five of us, a mixture of boys and girls. We were young, 14 to 16. Thought we knew it all.

We hung out every night. And the best part of every night was she was there all the time. How lucky can one boy get?

We could be in Prospect Park, Holy Name schoolyard or on a street corner. My favorite spot with her though was on her stoop. People would walk by her house and say hello and I was so proud to call her my girlfriend. We sat there for hours talking. Every now and then we would sneak in a kiss.

She had an awesome voice too. The first time she told me she said that she loved me, I went home and couldn’t sleep. After spending time with her I hated going home so we would call each other on the phone.

“GET OFF THE GODDAMN PHONE!” mom would scream at me somewhere close to midnight.

On my birthday and at Christmas she made it memorable. She bought me a ten-speed bike for my sixteenth birthday. And of course there was Valentine’s Day. She would always give me some chocolate, a card and of course that smile. But most of all, the biggest gift she gave me was her time. Being with her topped anything in my life.

Happy Valentine’s Day, Maureen…

I hope you’re doing well.

AND WE’RE ROLLIN’

13 Thursday Feb 2014

Posted by Steve in Blog

≈ 1 Comment

Bless me father for I have sinned, it’s been ten days since my last blog entry.

Amanda Decker on Holy Name Church via the Brooklyn Eagle:

On St. Patrick’s Day 1878, a new Catholic parish was created to fill the growing spiritual needs of a young and rapidly expanding Brooklyn community. Then Brooklyn Bishop John Loughlin recognized that soon more and more souls would be calling this enclave between the Green-Wood Cemetery and Prospect Park their home and would be in need of a place of worship. The neighborhood was Windsor Terrace and the newly formed fledgling parish was Holy Name of Jesus Catholic Church.

In humble beginnings reminiscent of the manger of Bethlehem Holy Name’s first official mass was held in a stable not far from where the current church now stands. Holy Name’s transition to a brick and mortar home soon followed under the eye of its first appointed priest, a young Irishman by the name of Thomas S. O’Reilly.

When ground was broken for Holy Name Church on the corner of Prospect Avenue and 9th Avenue, the congregation itself already had a considerable following. Brooklyn was quickly expanding and the new parishioners were largely working class Irish, German, Polish, and Italian- Americans looking for an inviting city neighborhood in which to settle down. From the beginning, Holy Name Church played an integral part in the forming of the community of Windsor Terrace- anchoring the neighborhood and providing a place of meeting and shared inspiration to its newly settling members. The parish helped families to create a strong, connected and comforting community in the heart of the major metropolis of New York City. This legacy would prove to endure through the ages.

Since its inception, Holy Name Church has undergone several physical makeovers. The original outlying structure built of Philadelphia brick has remained mostly untouched and intact. Several interior renovations were completed over the years, the most infamous of which was the 1980 renovation that left many parishioners less than pleased.

At around the same time that Holy Name parish was established, a gifted young architect by the name of James Renwick Jr. was making his mark on America’s burgeoning architectural scene. Designing such notable structures as; Manhattan’s beautifully ornate Grace Church, Washington D.C.’s Smithsonian Institute, and his most famous work, St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Renwick Jr. made a name for himself in the architectural world that would reverberate through the ages. Renwick’s works implied a strength of vision and undeniable presence that would echo in the halls of his masterpieces, inspiring and elating all who entered their doors.

Though carefully planned and sharply executed it turned out that one of Renwick’s grand designs did not fit into the unfolding layout of St. Patrick’s. Due to its large size one of the side altars Renwick designed had to be left out. Too beautiful by far to be abandoned the altar was instead given to Brooklyn’s St. Vincent de Paul church located in Williamsburg. When St. Vincent de Paul Church closed its doors, the altar was move to storage where it remained until—the new renovations of Holy Name Church began in 2012. It was at this point that Renwick’s altar was given to Holy Name Church to serve as a grand focal point for its new renovations. Renwick’s ornate marble altar is a considerable change from Holy Name’s previous markedly plain liturgical space.

As more and more churches in the northeast are closing, it has become common practice for new or renovating churches to purchase remnants of these old buildings—sometimes even the entire building itself. Holy Name was fortunate to obtain the Renwick altar for only the price of its storage and transport.

Coincidentally, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the originally intended home of Renwick’s altar, opened its doors for the first time (in 1879) just a few months after Holy Name Church held its first Mass on Christmas Day. Again, like Holy Name Church St. Patrick’s also began an extensive restoration in 2012. Furthermore, as happenstance would have it, James Renwick Jr. was buried at the Green-Wood Cemetery just a few blocks from Holy Name Church.

Holy Name Church’s renovations also include two side altars from St. Vincent de Paul, as well as the installation of marble flooring and adorning woodwork. The renovations are slated to be completed by this Easter, which falls on April 20.

The Holy Name renovation process was a product of an ambitious fundraising campaign begun by Father James Cunningham. Father Jim, as he is known, began the project in response to the complaints and urgings of his parishioners to “fix” the church after its last infamous 1980 face-lift when it was painted pink and left unadorned. Father Jim, who has been named this year’s Grand Marshal of Brooklyn’s Irish-American Day Parade, felt a monumental renovation of the church would offer a more inspirational church going experience for parishioners. As Father Jim puts it, “the center of our life as a Catholic parish is the Church and we need a worship space conducive to prayer that people like coming to.”

When the fundraising project began it was estimated that Holy Name Church would be able to raise approximately $1.2 million. To date the church surpassed—indeed, doubled that goal—raising $2.4 million. What accounts for this overflow of donations? Sitting with Father Jim in the church rectory he explains, “In all my years of pastoring, all the places I have been, I have never encountered a place like Holy Name Parish.” He pauses for a moment and looks reflectively out the rectory window at the peaceful tree lined street that adorns Holy Name. “There is a loyalty and connection here that is unique. I know what I have here. And I hope to stay here forever.”