Prospect Park

Tickets for Oscar and Pulitzer winner Bob Dylan's Prospect Park concert tonight are going for upward of $565 each, according to Gowanus Lounge. Meanwhile, tomorrow's print Observer will have a story about a real estate deal that connects to Mr. Dylan.

Coincidence? 

Apparently, the Prospect Park around which bad ass Neil Diamond grew up was a lot rougher back in the day. From today's Page Six:

"One night we were scrapping with these guys in Prospect Park, around the corner from my house, when all of a sudden I heard this pop and felt a hit under my left eye. It turned out I'd been shot. It was only a pellet gun, but it hurt pretty bad . . . That was my first and last gang fight."

You know the drill: The Prospect Park Audubon Center offers the kids some  “interactive exhibits” (let’s hope that doesn’t include that baboon family) with music, crafts and general whoop-de-do.  read more »

Saturday

10 a.m. Rev. Al Sharpton, joined by Rev. Jesse Jackson and Ancestry.com, ask African-American parents to give their children a family tree at National Action Network, 106 West 145th St. at Lenox Avenue.

10 a.m. Prospect Park Alliance honors volunteers at the Prospect Park Picnic House in Brooklyn.

11 a.m. Sunset Park residents hold a community forum on development issues at Trinity Lutheran Church in Brooklyn.

Noon. The New York City Bar Association sponsors free application assistance for immigrants applying for U.S. citizenship at the South Queens Boys & Girls Club, 110-04 Atlantic Ave. in Queens.

3 p.m. The opening reception for the photography exhibit, "Fighting Prejudice with Votes: Sikhs in New York" will be held at the Queens Museum of Art in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, Queens.

7 p.m. A panel discussion on "Campaigning, Blogging and Fighting Back: Netroots Activism in Presidential Politics" will be held at the Tank, 279 Church Street between Franklin and White.

9 p.m. Columnist George Will interviews CUNY's John Patrick Diggins his book "Ronald Reagan: Fate, Freedom, and the Making of History." Airs on C-SPAN2.

Barack Obama rallies with AFSCME workers in Chicago.

Sunday

Noon. "Nickle and Dimed" author Barbara Ehrenreich is interviewed on C-SPAN2.

1 p.m. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Speaker Christine Quinn and other city leaders will appear in the St. Patrick's Parade in Queens. The parade begins at 43 Street and Skillman Avenue in Sunnyside and ends at 61 Street and Woodside Avenue in Woodside.

Barack Obama keynotes the annual voting rights march commemoration in Selma, Alabama, while the Clintons accept and award.

John Edwards rallies at the University of California, Berkeley.

Monday

10 a.m. The Senate Standing Committee on Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities will hold a public hearing to evaluate the use of restraints, training and communication at OMRDD-run and licensing facilities at the Legislative Office Building in Albany.

1:30 p.m. Monday, March 05, 2007 Hearing

Committee(s) on: Education Time: 1:30 PM Location: Council Chambers - City Hall Chairperson(s): Robert Jackson Details:

Oversight - Empowerment Schools:What Have We Learned So Far?

Proposed Res 267-A - By Council Members de Blasio, Brewer, Foster, Gennaro, Gentile, James, Nelson, White Jr., Rivera and Felder - Resolution calling upon the Department of Education to assess the impact of its decision to decrease milk choices in New York City’s public schools in order to evaluate the effect of this policy change on children’s milk consumption and nutrition.

5 p.m. Irshad Manji, author of "The Trouble with Islam Today," and filmmaker Lesley Stahl discusses her new PBS documentary, "Faith without Fear" which is based upon Mr. Manji's book. Her film illuminates the perspective of a progressive Muslim woman living in the West. The movie will screen at the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service in the New York University The Puck Building's Skylight Ballroom, 295 Lafayette Street.

John McCain, Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani's campaign advisers speak at Harvard University.

John McCain fundraises in Detroit & Grand Rapids, Mich.

John Edwards rallies at the University of California, Los Angeles.

-- Gillian Reagan

The anti-war activists Jonathan Tasini was looking for during his primary challenge to Hillary Clinton may finally emerge this weekend as the Working Families Party is films an anti-war ad this Saturday in Prospect Park.

They're looking for volunteers to lip sync a Pete Seeger song for the shoot and help "send a message to Washington bring the troops home from Iraq."

-- Azi Paybarah

Developers Louis Greco Jr. and Mario Procida have teamed up to form SDS Procida. Why does that matter? The new group is developing Richard Meier's On Prospect Park, the 114-unit condo at 1 Grand Army Plaza. (A good start.)

Plus, the press release mentions "intelligent design" in the requisite paragraph on respecting local residential and business communities. Meier, after all, is God.

The full release is after the jump.

- Max Abelson

(Update: "On Prospect Park" is not "One Prospect Park." Thanks, comment board!)  read more »

When Australian actors come "up over," they really leave the old country behind.

Over the weekend, Luxist picked up a listing from McGrath's in Sydney (with tons of accompanying pictures) and ID'd it as belonging to Brokeback Mountaineer and Park Slope Parents' Association member-to-be Heath Ledger:  read more »

His home on Bronte Beach is for sale. The three-level home was bought for $4.45 million in 2004 and has four bedrooms, a home office, a 1700-bottle wine cellar, carpeted double garage and home theater. Other details include polished concrete floors, custom walnut shelving, oak paneling in the home theater, large terraces and state-of-the-art security.

- Tom McGeveran

July 4, 200512:02 p.m.

9 pounds, 8 ounces  read more »

New York Methodist Hospital

When I found a new apartment last month, there wasn’t much about the old one I feared I’d miss.  read more »

When I found a new apartment last month, there wasn’t much about the old one I feared I’  read more »

The New York Times reports the Jets and the Giants will collaborate on a $800 million stadium in the Meadowlands. It's the first time two N.F.L. teams will have financed and constructed an arena together. It'll be share land with Xanadu, a $2 billion shopping and entertainment facility. Elsewhere in the Gray Lady, there's a report on plans for a half million square feet of retail down Ground Zero way. Wal-Mart is pleased.

It's almost, but not quite, a palindrome, so it's gotta be good. The Post reports that a freedom-free 9/11 museum at Ground Zero will be built by 9/11/09.  read more »

The News reports that residents in the South Slope are getting steamed at developers who are trying to beat the clock on a rezoning that'll take effect in November limiting the size and scale of new buildings. People have been complaining and the Department of City Planning rushed a much-approved down-sizing through. But, like in the Far West Village right now, developers are racing to build, build, build before they're stopped by the new zoning. Remember the bad old days of Prospect Park? Yeah, neither do we. Back then we were too busy scoring in Thompson Square Park. But the News does; now thank your FIDO for cleaning up the park.

Last summer, I saw a man with a leash dragging a strange, scuttling creature across the big lawn in  read more »

Save Me!I'm Hooked On

Christian Talk  read more »