Vinny From Brooklyn

It seems that they are almost done fixing the clock tower down on Atlantic and Flatbush ave. They started to take the wrappings off the other day. It does appear to be cleaner than it use to be. I wonder if they are gonna fix the time on the 4 clocks.

The clocks use to tell all sorts of time. It all depended on which side of the clock you were facing. You can see more about the tower here http://www.nyc-architecture.com/BKN/BKN005.htm

A loyal reader on the Vinny From Brooklyn website made a nice collage using some pictures that I took in Brooklyn. Kind of cool if you ask me.

Since I am always trying to improve on my Brooklyn website I have decided to add a forum to Vinny from Brooklyn.

I want users from Brooklyn to chime in and let people know what they are missing in their Brooklyn neighborhood. People that live in the city probably have no idea what is out there because they tend to stay in their neighborhood.

Now is your chance to add to a forum and help others find out what is the best thing to do in Brooklyn etc. You can join the forum here. http://www.vinnyfrombrooklyn.com/forum/

A tornado hit Brooklyn yesterday! As much as I heard it all on the news for the last two days it is still hard to believe. I was not near where the twister set down. I was about 5 miles away and I had no clue that a tornado was that close to me. I was by the Atlantic Avenue Mall around 6am and was caught in a rain storm that made my umbrella totally useless.
The tornado was also said to have touched down in Staten Island as well. The reports from Brooklyn are still not complete but it is said that it touched down around 68th street and 4th avenue and kept on going until it ended up over in Sunset Park. The twister tore the roof off of a couple of houses. It even ripped apart a Baptist church. It just goes to show you these things don’t care what they destroy. There were no lives lost which is hard to believe considering the amount of people that were effected by this freak storm. The New York Subway service was almost shutdown system wide as the 3 inches of rain that fell in about an hour. All this rain ended up in the subway.

There was no escaping the wrath of this storm as people all over New York City lost power due to the high winds. The winds were all types of speeds all over the area. Even parts of Long Island had lost power due to trees falling over power lines

My visit to the “Top of Rock”

If you are planning on coming to New York City and you want to see one of the best views of the city you need to see this. On top of Rockefeller Center they have a spot where you can almost reach out and touch the Chrslyer Building.

Needless to say this is also the best place to take a picture of the Empire State Building as it is only 20 something block away. You can wave to the people on their observation deck.

On the north side is Central Park which looks like it really doesn’t belong there trapped by the buildings. I was up there on a very wet and windy day. It still beats the Empire State Building deck as far as sights to see as you can’t see Central Park from there.

The best part about living in New York City is you never know what you are going to do from day to day. Sure you can plan stuff to do but it never seems to go as planned.A few months ago I was listening to a Joan Jett album and I even looked up to see when she was playing New York so I could go see her. She had played here the week before so I knew it would be a while until she came back from her tour. I kind of forgot about it until yesterday.

I was on the train reading the newspaper when I saw Joan Jett was playing a free concert on the pier at Hudson River park. Needless to say I went to the show. They have free concerts all summer see www.hudsonriverpark.org for more details. Joan was way better than I expected and she sounded great as did the Blackheart’s. I can’t wait until Joan plays a club date here again so I can go see her again. One of the best parts of the night was the opening bands. I am now hooked on a band called “The Dollyrots” www.thedollyrots.com

The band is a three piece unit with the lead singer Kelly handling the bass as if she was Gene Simmons at a Kiss concert. What was impressive was the vocals she provided besides the great bass playing. At first I thought this was at least a four person band because the sound was surrounding and very full.The rest of the band is Luis on guitar and Chris on drums. They sounded great and they played like they have been together for a long long time.

There was a slight rain and that was great as it cooled off the crowd. I think that they had to cut their set a little short as the rain was about to come down and Joan still had to take the stage. I have made a plan to see them when they come back to town.I had never heard of The Dollyrots before this and was surprised they had a hit rising in the charts called “Because I’m Awesome” which they played and it was sounding great with the same flow as the song has on the album.

I enjoyed the cover version of Melanie’s hit from the 1970’s “Brand New Key” which I haven’t been able to get out of my head all day now. As they were finishing their set I wandered over to the place they were selling their Cd’s at and bought the first two Dollyrots Cd’s. I couldn’t wait to get home to listen to them. Needless to say I am now a Dollyrots fan. This was my first time to Hudson River Park or I should say out on this pier. It seems like a great location as the backdrop of New Jersey and the sun going down made for a great evening.

For more pictures see my picassa album Joan Jett at Hudson River Park

Here is a video for the song “I Love Rock n Roll”

After making the site www.vinnyfrombrooklyn.com I realized that I needed a spot that can be interactive. With the amount of email I get it would make it a little less stressful if people with the same passion about Brooklyn as I do can post their own ideas.

This blog will be moderated as there are many issues that people are not happy with right now. Between the Nets area at Atlantic Yards and the rebuilding of Coney Island the blog could get ugly fast.  I will not put up with that.

If anyone wants to contact me they can through the email links on the right side of the pages.