RF(U)P!

After initially indicating that the Red Hook Ballfield vendors would get priority with a new formalized RFP process, the city seems to go back on its word:

Despite significant hurdles to overcome, the vendors decided unanimously at a closed-door meeting on Wednesday night to submit a proposal under the city’s new open-bidding process for vending permits at the Red Hook ballfields, which are on Bay Street, between Clinton and Henry streets.

“They decided to stick on, which is good news,” said Cesar Fuentes, who acts as spokesman and advocate for the 13 vendors.

One of the food vendors, Rafael Soler, added: “This is a very important decision. We tried to keep it together because when everyone is together, we’re stronger.”

The decision to dig in culminates months of hand wringing that began after the city decided to put the vending sites, where the food hawkers have been operating for decades, up for open bid.

At the time, the Parks Department said its “request for proposals” would be written to give the existing vendors a leg up. But the RFP unveiled last month would bar the purveyors from setting up folding tables, tarps and grills as they have been doing.

Instead, vendors must get mobile units, licensed by the Health Department, which cost $15,000–$30,000.

“For a corporation, that’s pocket change,” said Fuentes. “But for hardworking people holding down two other jobs, it’s a lot.”

The city says it wants a lively marketplace at the ballfields, but a spokesman recently suggested that the city is less concerned with who actually runs it — the longtime vendors or a new corporation.

Location Scout: Red Hook Ballfields.

Lysol Not Included

If you’re the type of person who might enjoy owning Brooklyn Paper editor Gersh Kuntzman’s ankle cast then either a) you’re way too obsessed with the minutiae of local news and you might want to seriously consider doing some other things with your time or b) you have way too big an apartment, in which case I have several boxes of books and records you might be able to store for me. Regardless of which it is, I feel sorry for you. From the eBay description:

Get the actual cast worn by legendary Brooklyn journalist Gersh Kuntzman after he broke his ankle in January! Not only is the cast signed by Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, but all money raised in the sale will go towards Markowitz’s Camp Brooklyn charity. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to own a piece of journalistic, medical and political history — the very cast worn by an award-winning journalist, signed by a future mayor of New York City, and written about in countless Kuntzman columns! This cast’s authenticity is guaranteed and the winning bidder will also receive a high-resolution digital photo of Markowitz signing the historic cast. A priceless collectible.

What’s Wrong With Tossing Around The Nerf And Doing Some Fishing?

I guess this is what people use Nerf balls for these days:

Cops yesterday revealed the chilling arsenal of pipe bombs allegedly fashioned by a Bulgarian immigrant in Brooklyn Heights — including a Nerf football stuffed with nails and a device designed to hang from a ceiling and rain down deadly ball bearings when detonated.

Ivaylo Ivanov, 37, was indicted on more than 100 counts of weapons charges in that case and another involving hate crimes stemming from him allegedly scrawling swastikas and anti-Semitic statements on local synagogues.

Police said they do not yet know if Ivanov, who is Jewish, was planning an attack on area Jews with the weaponry. Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said investigators are poring over “voluminous” material seized from Ivanov’s computer looking for clues as to what he planned to do with the weaponry.

Investigators have not found any bomb-making literature, but “Ivanov clearly knew what he was doing,” said NYPD bomb-squad commander Lt. Mark Torie.

An array of artillery, including a sniper rifle, machine gun, silencers and pistols, were taken from the fourth-floor apartment on Remsen Street — a historic brownstone-lined block in one of Brooklyn’s wealthiest neighborhoods.

. . .

Ivanov has told cops that the guns were for protection and that he wanted to bring the bombs on a fishing trip and explode them under water.

. . .

Cops said Ivanov also distributed anti-Semitic pamphlets while making his rounds as a dogwalker.

Earlier: Neil Simon Meets Steven Seagal.

Yet Another Reason To Demand Conventional

Because you’re never assured that the amphibians you also get have been raised organically:

A health-conscious Brooklyn mom says she nearly jumped out of her skin when she found a little green frog napping between the leaves of a head of organic lettuce she brought home.

“I jumped away” said 39-year-old Yvonne Brechbuhler, fearing she’d uncovered a dead bug or worse, a slug.

“I didn’t know what it was. But once I realized it was a frog, I was okay.”

The Prospect Heights mom, who doubles as a stage actress, described the tiny visitor no bigger than the tip of her pinky finger as “one tough frog.”

She said first the frog survived a journey from South Florida to the Park Slope Food Coop, then another three days in her refrigerator.

Finally it narrowly escaped being part of a pesticide-free salad she was making last week.

Neil Simon Meets Steven Seagal

Here’s something you don’t see every day in Brooklyn Heights:

A bloodied Ivaylo Ivanov, 31, approached officers at about 1:15 a.m. around the corner from 58 Remsen St., where he lives with his roommate, who is often overseas for work, police sources said.

Ivanov told the cops he had been shot in the hand by a stranger, and he was taken to Long Island College Hospital.

There, he changed his story and admitted he shot himself — apparently while cleaning one of his guns, the sources said.

When cops searched his fourth-floor apartment, they found six pipe bombs, sniper rifles, a handgun, shotguns, a crossbow with arrows, silencers, bomb-making equipment and other weapons — prompting an immediate evacuation of the building and others on the historic, tree-lined block.

. . .

Neighbors in the building said Ivanov shares the unit with Dr. Michael C. Clatts, 50, a pioneer AIDS researcher.

Clatts, an assistant professor at Columbia, is conducting AIDS research in Vietnam for the National Institute on Drug Abuse. He did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment.

. . .

[Ivanov] has been on the NYPD’s radar at least since September, when he became a suspect in a slew of hate crimes in the area that included swastikas painted on synagogues and cars.

After his arrest, he told cops he was working for Israel’s Mossad spy agency, the sources said.

“They are both what I would consider eccentric people,” Penny Kaufman, who lives on the second floor, said of the roommates.