Looking Inward In Times Of Disaster, Toward One’s Navel

Is there a local Haiti angle? Of course there is — “In a Quake, Brooklyn Would Shake More Than Manhattan”:

The last big earthquake in the New York City area, centered in New York Harbor just south of Rockaway, took place in 1884 and registered 5.2 on the Richter Scale. Another earthquake of this size can be expected and could be quite damaging, says Dr. Won-Young Kim, senior research scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University.

And Brooklyn, resting on sediment, would shake more than Manhattan, built on solid rock. “There would be more shaking and more damage,” Dr. Kim told the Brooklyn Eagle on Wednesday.

Walking The Plank

Here’s some of what all your stimulus money is going toward:

Newly rebuilt chunks of the famed Coney Island Boardwalk are already starting to fall apart, advocates said.

On the stretch of the Boardwalk fronting Coney’s amusement area, where the Parks Department finished installing new planks last spring, there are now screws popping out of their holes and planks coming loose and protruding.

“It’s not even a year old, and we’re right back to square one,” said Todd Dobrin, chairperson of Friends of the Boardwalk.

The new planks are part of a $30 million project to rebuild 15 blocks of the fabled 42-block stretch.

Location Scout: Coney Island Beach & Boardwalk.

Sounds Cool Now, But Let’s Talk Again Around Epiphany

Maybe you love your own child’s heartwarming refrains, but remember that it’s only December 10:

Sunset Park students are serenading Fifth Ave. pedestrians with holiday songs recorded at their schools and piped over the street on lamppost-mounted speakers.

. . .

The Sunset Park Business Improvement District recorded student musical groups’ holiday songs at seven local schools over two months, collecting about 50 songs that reflect the diverse neighborhood with songs in English, Spanish and Mandarin.

The results will play on the Fifth Ave. shopping district between 38th and 64th Sts. from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. until Jan. 10.

Location Scout: 5th Avenue in Sunset Park.

The Great Bike Lane War Of 2009

Hasids vs. Hipsters:

Groups of bicycle-riding vigilantes have been repainting 14 blocks of Williamsburg roadways ever since the city sandblasted their bike lanes away last week at the request of the Hasidic community.

The Hasids, who have long had a huge enclave in the now-artist-haven neighborhood, had complained that the Bedford Avenue bike paths posed both a safety and religious hazard.

Scantily clad hipster cyclists attracted to the Brooklyn neighborhood made it difficult, the Hasids said, to obey religious laws forbidding them from staring at members of the opposite sex in various states of undress. These riders also were disobeying the traffic laws, they complained.

. . .

A source close to Mayor Bloomberg said removing the lanes was an effort to appease the Hasidic community just before last month’s election.

Location Scout: Bedford Avenue in Southside Williamsburg.

I Got Dreidel Skillz

In the new economy, we will barter in chocolate and braggadocio:

The four-sided, Hebrew-letter-covered spinning top typically plays a minor role in the annual Festival of Light, but Williamsburg bar owner Eric Harris Pavony wants to change all that through Major League Dreidel, the first “professional” sports “league” for the nation’s top dreidelers.

On Dec. 12, the second night of Hanukkah, MLD Knishioner Pavony will bring his pros — and also the arena, the “Spinagogue” — to the Knitting Factory in Williamsburg for an evening of competition the likes of which the world hasn’t seen since the days of the Second Temple.

“MLD validates the dreidel as a bona-fide sport — and its elite are recognized and respected like professional athletes,” Pavony said. “However, they are paid in chocolate money.”