This Wednesday is your chance to meet artist Katie Daniels, hear her reflections on the piece and share your reactions.

We’ll begin on the Lincoln Road Bridge at 6 PM and wrap up in the pop-up gallery, around the corner at 552 Flatbush Avenue, with refreshments.

Hope to see you there!

This Saturday & Sunday, Katherine Daniels will be installing a woven sculpture inspired by Navajo blanket designs onto the fence. You can read about Katie and see some of her work here: http://www.katherinedaniels.com/. Please stop by over the weekend to welcome Katie to the block and witness the installation process. And stay tuned for an announcement of an opening reception to celebrate the new piece!

The bridge was home base and Bob Thomason was the first volunteer to arrive.

Saturday’s block clean up was so much fun.

Large contingents from 40 & 50 Lincoln Road and the Maple Street School pitched in as did neighbors from around the community, all fueled by delicious bagels, coffee & tea donated by K-Dog.

Volunteers aged 2 through 83 worked hard, breaking up compacted soil, uprooting dandelions, removing litter, all to beautify the block we all share.

Dandelion destroying super heroine!

Tree pits and the planters in front of K-Dog, Lincoln Park Tavern and 40 Lincoln Road are now full of flowers, plants and soil generously donated by the Home Depot on Hamilton Avenue.

Thanks Hamilton Avenue Home Depot! The flowers, plants and soil look great.

This adorable family worked hard on the flower bed and planters. And the littlest member admired every worm she came across.

Most impressively, the truckload of wood chips donated by Brooklyn Forestry was impressively demolished by a handful of guys and gals equipped with Ikea bags and a few makeshift carts. Our custom tree pit guards are still under construction and eagerly anticipated as we work to maintain the progress we’ve made. Thanks and congratulations to everyone who gave their time and energy to this project. We did it!

Painting over graffiti is So much more fun than sleeping in.

This event is part of a larger day of neighborhood beautification. See recent post on our neighborhood listserve here for more details: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Lefferts/.

WHAT: Clean & Green Lincoln Road

WHEN: Saturday, April 30, 9 AM – 1 PM

WHAT: Clean & mulch tree pit beds, install tree pit guards, plant planters, paint over graffiti, remove litter.

WHO: All of us! & whoever else wants to join in. All volunteers are welcome.

HOW: With the support of the Citizen’s Committee for NYC, Build It Green NYC, Park Tower Associates & K-Dog & Dunebuggy

Please sign up at K-Dog, respond to this post or write linroforma@gmail.com so that we can have an idea of how many volunteers to expect.  Group leaders are especially needed so please consider taking a leadership role!

**********************************************************************

Our block clean-up is part of a neighborhood wide effort to Put Litter & Garbage in its place. For more information on this initiative or to join the conversation, check out this neighborhood list-serve.

A neighbor applauds the crew.

Thumbs Up Gline Striker & Crew!

After a year of 311 calls, letter writing and appeals to local politicians, we’re experiencing a real success this morning. A (Supervisor Gline Straker’s) Queens-based DOT crew has arrived with shovels and blowers to clear the snow from Lincoln Road bridge. One supervisor told LinRoFORMA that he believes the bridge is being added to the list of regular sites to be cleaned in our borough. We hope this is the case. As we’ve told DOT, this is the last through street for eight blocks and a critical pedestrian corridor for the neighborhood.

Apparently the crew was directed to clear both the south side of the bridge, outside the train station and the north side but believes the MTA should be responsible for clearing the sidewalk outside their station. It’s unfortunate, but agencies pointing the finger at one another is a major cause of inefficiency in the city. Nevertheless, we should celebrate the meaningful progress made. Thanks DOT crew!

As if this wasn’t exciting enough, the MTA began running trains on the north and south bound Q & B tracks at the same time. So far, the trains have been out of service but it gives hope that this side of the neighborhood will be reconnected to the city by rail later today.

Soon after the services, new graffiti began appearing:

The first photo shows tags outside 40 Lincoln Road. The second shows tags on the mural wall beside the laundromat.

It just can’t be that these tags — a few RIPs mixed in with other nonsense — are an appropriate tribute for the loss of a human life. If anything, it’s a demonstration of how life can be wasted and short.

The tags at 40 Lincoln are already gone. The ones on the mural won’t last long. Perhaps a more fitting tribute would be for the young man’s friends to spend a day per month with the mother or grandmother of the young man who was killed, showing through their actions that he was valued and will be remembered.

Our video, taken by camera phone at 6:50 AM the morning after Thanksgiving

We had a brief respite over the summer when it seemed as though our complaints were heard. Now, we are very disappointed that MTA continues to act like an irresponsible neighbor. The link between air pollution and respiratory diseases, cancer and decreased IQ levels has been established in numerous studies–as has the fact that young children are particularly susceptible. And yet, MTA buses continue to idle all day, every day, for sometimes up to 15 minutes at a time.

It is the rare exception that we see an MTA bus arrive, park, and have its engine shut off. We continue to see buses idling, doors wide open, with the bus driver out on the street smoking a cigarette or chatting with the scheduling supervisor. All seem oblivious to the ongoing noise, air and dust pollution their buses bring to our neighborhood every day. In one particularly egregious case, we saw a bus driver, after idling her particularly loud bus for over 5 minutes, open her driver’s window to drop a plastic wrapper on the street. Meanwhile, trash cans are available right outside, up and down Lincoln Road.

Idling buses, besides being linked to serious illnesses and environmental pollution, waste money. Earlier this year, the MTA announced that it was in such dire financial straits that it considered cutting its subsidy of student cards. It has since slashed bus routes, subway lines and prepared to lay off workers. And yet, every day, in front of our neighborhood preschool, buses waste fuel and money.

We are sending a letter to the MTA to encourage it to follow these practical recommendations:

• Respect the law and obey the 1-minute idling limit in this school zone;
• Install kill switches in their buses to ensure that buses cannot idle when parked;
• Reduce neighborhood noise pollution by scheduling quieter hybrid buses for late night/early morning runs; and
• Reduce traffic congestion by having buses run on large, high traffic streets, instead of narrow, high-density residential ones.

By following these straightforward, manageable recommendations, the MTA can be a better neighbor not just to our block, but to the environment in general.

Below is a snapshot of recent bus idle times, one noisy November day. We casually counted 12 buses idling throughout the day. At one point, 3 buses were idling simultaneously, creating an incredibly loud living environment, and adding significantly to traffic congestion.

For November 3, 2010

Let’s meet on Tuesday evening and talk money. Meet your neighbors and receive an update on the grants we’ve applied for and received thus far. We’ll also discuss and vote on a fun holiday fundraising opportunity.

WHEN: Tues., 11/23, 7 PM

WHERE: 40 Lincoln Rd., Apt. 6M

Interested in participating in the bock association but can’t make this meeting? E-mail linroforma@gmail.com and be added to the mailing list.

LinRoFORMA is your block association if you:

– live on Lincoln Rd. b/w Flatbush & Ocean Avenues

– work or own a business on Lincoln Rd. b/w Flatbush & Ocean Avenues

– live in 99 or 115 Ocean Aves.

Hope to see you Tuesday!