The Bluebird of Happiness....

Is this Swoon or someone else? I claim no expertise on the wheat paste scene but I like this one. It's sweet in the original sense of the word.

post script - i found out the artist is "elbow toe"

Dispensed on Sackett Street

How To Keep Your Job in Hard Times: The Indispensable Employee - A Survival Manual".

I know it's hard times and all but I just have to say, this is one depressing book! Some chapter titles: "Eat Lunch at Your Desk", "Take Work Home With You", "Make Your Company's Problems Your Own", "Ask for More Work", "Be Smart, But Not Too Smart", "Delay Your Vacation If Necessary", "Sell Harder" and one of my favorites "Don't Waste Company Supplies".

Positively Dickensian!

REVS

I don't know how I feel about REVS painting over a beautiful old fading ad on a building in Chelsea. I guess I do. I guess it makes me feel slightly pissed off! The only thing that is keeping me from completely dismissing REVS as a visual eyesore is the fact that the building to the right looks like a Holiday Inn in Peoria!

Lost Glove

Found on Sixth Avenue

F.I.B Turned Two Today!

Yup.

Today in Chinatown.....

Dragons hanging out in the Year of the Ox!
And a good time was had all!

Snowy Night on Bond Street

Peace and a Happy MLK Day to everyone. Glad the Israeli's have stopped bombing and that we are going to have a NEW PRESIDENT on Tuesday! Anyone having an inauguration party Tuesday night? Let me know!!!

Toll Brothers Public Hearing with City Planning * WEDNESDAY

This was written on this building, a couple months before the "crash".
Well, with the economy as it is and with vacant condos throughout the city I am hoping the Toll Brothers will just throw in the towel on the 363-365 Bond Street condo project, just too many health and environmental risks on top of the financial ones! Toll Brothers' condos on the Williamsburg waterfront are fairly vacant and "renting to own" at this point. I hope big Daddy Robert Toll puts the final kabosh on this one, I heard he was never really keen on the city projects and that VP for Development David Von Spreckelsen had to work hard to convince him, kill it Robert!!!PLEASE!!!!

Anyway, The City Planning Commission is holding a public hearing for the Toll Brothers' project at 363-365 Bond Street . Anyone can speak their mind, please attend if you are lucky enough to be able to make it on this Tuesday morning.

The hearing is scheduled for:
January 7
22 Reade Street in Manhattan.
The public meeting begins at 10:00AM.

Happy New Year from F.I.B.....

New Year's Eve Firework in Prospect Park
In a stroke of insanity, I ventured into Prospect Park in the freezing temperatures last night. I have never gone before and it did feel cool to be close to nature at midnight, i wish my camera was able to pick up on the sillouettes of the trees in the foreground... I wish all the FI.B readers a happy, healthy, peace filled New Year. May your cupboards have some food in it and you have friends and family to lean on sometimes. Keep fighting the man for me please 'cause they are the reason everyone's lives and places like Coney Island are such a mess right now. I hope to get back to blogging more regularly, I'm working a job (which i am very THANKFUL to have) that makes it difficult to do....Happy New Year Babies!!!

Merry Christmas,Happy Hanukkah,Happy Kwanzaa!

"Found in Brooklyn" wishes you all a relaxing holiday, low on worries and full on goodness. Peace!

Found on Carroll Street

Back to F.I.B's original premise....WHY DIDN'T I TAKE THIS HOME WITH ME? WHY?!!! I LOVE ELVIS! I even went to Graceland and had an mazing cat of the same name! I am exhausted folks, F.I.B has not been blogging much because I've been working like a dog and going to school. The semester is over, I am sooo happy not to have to take the F train to Bay Parkway and switch to a bus and get home at 11oclock at night...I'll be posting more often me thinks.If anyone cares!

Another Brooklyn Christmas....

F.I.B is always late to get into the holiday spirit and to quote from a blog post from last year where I said,
"I was raised in a house where we never got a tree until Christmas Eve. All my life I thought it was a quaint old world tradition (well, actually it kind of is) but a couple years ago I found out the real reason we did that was because the trees were half price on Christmas Eve.

Another childhood memory shattered."

If you want to read a a bit more about why I chose to divulge my saga to the world last year, click here!
And now I give you Christmas in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn USA!
President Street.Homer all alone on 1rst Place.Big drunk Santa!

Defend Gowanus! NO LOVE CANAL HERE! Please sign!

Even though CB6 approved the Toll Brothers project the community is still fighting, FOR GOOD REASON! I quote the Urban Divers comment on the petition here- because they tell it like it is:
"The Gowanus Canal has historically and continues to be the catalyst for the severe environmental denigration that challenges public health and has caused the economic decline of the community. CLEANING THE GOWANUS CANAL FIRST, before IMPOSING ENCROACHING LUXURY HOUSING and or OTHER HUMAN DENSITY DWELLINGS, is the only way to PROTECT PUBLIC HEALTH, and RESTORE ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY and SUSTAINABILITY. THE CLEANING AND RESTORING OF ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY OF THE GOWANUS CANAL FIRST, is the only way that the community, the city and the state will ever reap a REAL BENEFIT, and restore economic viability of the Gowanus Canal community and beyond."

Click here to sign the Defend Gowanus petition.

This petition is targeted at:Mayor Bloomberg, Borough President Marty Markowitz, Councilman Bill de DeBlasio.

NYHC A-7 Reunion Show: The Return of a bunch of former Reagan Youths

LOUD FAST RULES! So F.I.B is switching gears now from the theater to an amazing punk rock show (for some!) taking place at the soon to be closed down as of January 2009 Knitting Factory in money makin’ Manhattan. I ‘ve mentioned before that F.I.B was a “hardcore kid” in the 80’s before discovering her love for 60’s garage rock but I’ll mention it again. New York City in the early to mid 80’s had a thriving largely undocumented punk rock music scene largely run by mostly teenagers. Most were from the Lower East Side and Queens. This is the scene that Beastie Boys spawned out of… Anyways…there was a club on Avenue A and 7th Street in the East Village called the A-7 club that was the epicenter of the scene, it closed in 1983, I actually never went there but I did go to it’s second incarnation in an abandoned building at the corner of 2nd Avenue and Houston Street which probably closed in 1983 as well! It actually collapsed a few years ago. Anyway this music came out of the Reagan era and this show is billed as “A tribute to the A-7 Club”.

From the shows MySpace page:CONFIRMED BANDS INCLUDE:*76% Uncertain (paying tribute to CIA &; Reflex from Pain)*The Abused*Adam 12*Antidote (w/Nunzio on guitar &; Drew Stone on vox)*Borscht*Butch Lust &; Hypocrites*Armed Citizens**Disgrace (feat. Butch Lust, Steve Wishnia from False Prophets &; Dave Manzullo from UV)*Fed Up!*False Prophets*Fatal Rage*Payload! (feat. John Sox from the FU's doing FU’s &; Straw Dogs)*Ism*Jerry's Kids*Major Conflict*Modern Clix*Nihilistics*Rapid Deployment*Reagan Youth*Sexual Suicide (feat. Ex-Anti-Christ Newsboys/Trenchcoat Army)*SUX (feat. Jack and Paul from AOD)*The Oppressed NYC [1980 Queens punks; 1st and last ever gig!]*Ultra Violence*Urban Waste (feat. Johnny Waste, John Dancey &; Kenny Ahrens)*US Chaos*Blackout Shoppers*Violent Society*Government Warning*Waste Management*Reason to Fight*Cardiac Arrest*Virus NYC (feat James Kontra)*Lost Generation*Psycho (from Boston)* MORE TO COME! STAY TUNED...

Check out some of these excellent photos by photographer Drew Carolin to get an idea of just how young the scene was. Navigate your way to “matinee”, he took a lot of photos of “the kids” back in the day. FIB is in none of these photos but many friends are!

Show is Saturday December 6th, doors open at 6:30, 3 floors of bands
Knitting Factory is located at 74 Leonard Street, NYC.