Bruges (Brugge) , Belgium

Bruges (Dutch: Brugge, stemming from Bryggja, which assumedly used to signify 'landing stage' or 'port') is the capital and largest city of the province of West Flanders in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is located in the northwest of the country.

The historic city centre is a prominent World Heritage Site of UNESCO. It's egg-shaped and about 430 ha in size. The surface of the complete city amounts to more than 13,840 ha, including 193.7 ha off the coast, at Zeebrugge. The city's total population is more than 117,000, of which ca. 20,000 live in the historic centre.

Bruges has a significant economic importance, thanks to its port, and is also home to the College of Europe.

music:
Felix Mendelssohn - Songs without Words- Venetian Gondolied Op. 30, No. 6

Our man on the street:
"I am currently in Brugge in NW Belgium. It appears to be a quiet town with all old and small buildings, perhaps pre-Victorian, with a network of canals similar, but without the gondolas and singing rip-off-the-tourist gondoleers. I'll learn more tomorrow as we get a tour prior to dinner."

Look At That Face

An email from a friend in Brussels sings the praise of the incredible facades of the buildings. Nothing like the schlock that developers are putting up here in the city.
Brussels? At the rate the exchange rate is going, I'll never afford it. I thought "Look At That Face" would be a good match. I was looking for Carmen McRae's version. I had to settle for Brooklyn's Barbra.
Look at that face just look at it!
Look at that fabulous face of yours,
I knew first look I took at it,
This was the face that the world adores,
Look at those eyes,
As wise and as deep as the sea,
Look at that nose,
It shows what a nose should be!
As for your smile, it's lyrical
Friendly and warm as a summer day,
Your face is just a miracle,
Where could I ever find words to say
The way that it makes me happy,
Whatever the time or place,
I will find in no book,
What I find when I look at that face!

Freedom Trail

I've taken a break from blogging for a while. The reasons are too complicated. Here's something worthy to share: The fourth graders went to Boston.
The lyrics to the song :

Lift up your hands, ye heroes,
And swear with proud disdain,
The wretch that would ensnare you
Shall lay his snares in vain;
Should Europe empty all her force,
We'd meet her in array,
And fight and shout and shout and fight
For North America.

Torn from a world of tyrants
Beneath this western sky
We formed a new dominion,
A land of liberty;
The world shall own we're masters here,
Then hasten on the day,
Huzza, huzza, huzza, huzza
For Free America.

Sugartime

youtube removed
There was a great documentary on HBO last month on Sugar Ray Robinson. It was made about 7 years ago (2000). People seem to have forgotten how greay Sugar Ray was. The movie mentioned that Sugar Ray (a Harlem resident) at one time owned many of the businesses between 123rd and 124th on 7th Avenue on the western side of the block. He also maintained a couple of suites at the nearby Theresa Hotel supposedly for his lady friends. I was wondering whether any remnants of those businesses remain (especially Sugar Ray's Bar where a lot of celebrities like Lena Horne, Jackie Gleason, Sammy Davis Jr, Nat King Cole and Sinatra would hang out). I went to check and they're gone and a new ugly building takes up the entire block. The picture shows that block along with an image of Sugar Ray's vehicle registration which has him residing at 2074 7th Avenue (now Adam Clayton Powwell Blvd) Here's a clip of Sugar Ray in action I found on youtube

removed

A Walk Down Bay Parkway Brooklyn

This is another in "My Walk Thru" series, a project which in think would be a good model for a low tech kids' project. The Honda Element was in the body shop (again!) and I'll follow a "don't ask, don't tell" policy as to why, since the Mrs. does read this from time to time. As a result I took the F train to Bay Parkway and then the 6 Bus to 86th Street to go to the dentist. On the way back, I skipped the bus and walked from 86th to McDonald Ave to the train. It turned out to be quite an experience. First of all, there was the incredible view of Washington Cemetery (and beyond) from the elevated station. There's a lot of recent Russian "inhabitants." You can tell many of them by the picture engraved headstones. The
cemetery packed them into some least desirable spaces, near the fences. After a long wait for the 6 bus, I didn't lose my "MTA instinct" by letting the mob of people board a bus ahead of me since invariably there's another soon to follow. Sure enough, on this one I easily got a seat in the empty back section and picked up a left behind NY Post to boot. My peace was soon broken my a mob of little Jewish girls from a just dismissed Yeshiva. How cute they were, not the usual pasty face "genetically inbred" variety. They were gleefully swapping and comparing recently issued report cards and paid little notice to me as my rear seat was surrounded. With my gray beard in its fuller stage I must have looked like a Rabbi Jerry Garcia. There were a few older girls (about 11-12 or so) who were the mamas of the bunch who herded them off at around 70th Street. What a shame that these kids, and so many others from the parochial schools, are lost to the public system.
Getting to 86th street with time to spare, I checked into the OTB off the corner. It was almost entirely made up of Chinese guys, all of whom looked like recent immigrants. I wanted to see if I could place a bet on Thursday for the race on Friday, but I couldn't.. More on this to follow in a future post.

A Walk Down Rivington Street YouTube

The World Of Our Fathers 2

An amazing bit of synchronicity occured when researching the 1930 census for information on my old Knickerbocker Village friends' fathers. I had remembered that many of these fathers had grown up together before eventually moving to Knickerbocker Village as adults (built approx 1935). It's striking when you see the data right in front of you. I put together segments of that census above in a comparative collage. They practically lived on the same block, Monroe Street, between Market and Pike! The exception is Murray's mother, who of course wasn't a father except in the "generational" sense. She lived about 4 blocks northeast. She also came from, it seems, a comparatively well off family. Her father owned the building they lived in which was above the family butcher shop on Ludlow and Hester. My parents lived "uptown," meaning north of Delancey. This lower, lower east side was more a mix of Italians, Irish and Jews as well as Spanish as opposed to the more concentrated Jewish section. Max Weintraub, more about him later, wasn't one of my friends' fathers but an interesting gent who I had lunch with today. Below is a google map satellite view of that area. The baseball field shown was the former site of PS 177 where many of these dads, and later their sons, went to school.

Below, a picture recently sent to me by Murray Schefflin (Blance Miller's son), shows PS 177, a CBJ Snyder castle gem, being torn down in 1967. The arrow points to the approximate site of 129 Monroe Street.

I Love The Way You Move

Melissa's first graders are studying community means of transportation. I took some pics of a variety of formats in the neighborhood between East 4th-6th and between Avenues A and B. I love this old Earth, Wind and Fire song even though it's not cool to like Kenny G.

Reach The World Trinidad

This is pretty good if I do say so myself. I was teaching Ms. Cleveland's third graders about Trinidad since the Makulu was there.
I took advantage of the knowledge of our school's Steel Drum expert Mr. Ling for an impromptu interview. Later I mixed the interview with steel drum music using audacity. The images were suggested by Mr. Ling's discussion.

synchroncity: Mr. Ling grew up on the LES and lived in the Vladeck Projects where my father lived. He played Little League baseball at East River Park

Lost In The Bronx: Talie V

After I picked up Talie I mapped out in my mind a travel itinerary. We would head over to the University Heights area to locate the house on Loring Place that my adopted Aunt Florence (my mother's best friend) lived in. I had just remembered that street name when inadvertently being lost by it two weeks ago in a detour I took to avoid Thanksgiving traffic upstate. Then we would go to Riverdale to a nice diner for lunch. The only thing was the usually reliable "map in my head" wasn't working. I'm not too familiar with the Bronx. The picture has my meanderings. The red has the first part of the trip. We never made it to Riverdale. The green has my dumb return trip by parkway instead of the streets. Talie played a gentler version of my father in his criticism of my driving. While lost I pulled over and had Talie call my Aunt Lilly. This is what happens when you get old. Here's a slide show of the whole experience.

Blossom Dearie's Geography Lesson

From the woman who gave voice to many School House Rock songs. A most underrated and unique singer, still going strong in her 80's. Again, I revised another slide show on Rhode Island so that it is youtube compatible. A great geography lesson inspiration.

Mapping Pawtucket, Rhode Island

I fixed my youtubed version of "Rhode Island Is Famous For You" so that the lyrics could be visible for all the karaoke fans.
Sister in-law Laurie and daughter Emma are visible in the last frame.

Rhode Island Is Famous For You

Two salutes to Rhode Island: The first, with geography lesson images, starring Blossom Dearie

The second: A karaoke version with my own pictures of interesting homes, starring Mandy Patinkin



the youtube streaming may misalign and drop portions of my slideshows and eliminate some of the karaoked text.
Here's the correct Blossom version
and
Here's the correct Mandy version