Time for a traffic cam

Ocean Pkwy @ Belt Pkwy

What’s going on, out on the roads tonight? A few cabbies with pick-ups from the airport? Take Ocean Parkway, man! Are you listening?

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Sunset Park after dark

In Sunset Park, a multi-culti neighborhood, with Latin-Chinese restaurants and a tiki bar. But what is tiki?

Tiki is mainly about the idea of tiki – not Polynesian culture or history, but fruity drinks, torches, stylized drinking cups, and the Trader Vic’s aesthetic of the 1950’s and 60’s.*

Bklyn’s Tiki Bar is trying to be upscale. Collars are required for guys on weekends, and no hats or sports jerseys are allowed. (Hipsters in porkpies are okay, but thugs with baseball hats, please take your riff-raffy selves elsewhere.)

The Professionals is a barber shop.

* Yul Brynner sued Trader Vic’s at NYC’s Plaza Hotel in 1979 for allegedly giving him trichinosis from undercooked spareribs.

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Downtown Brooklyn traffic cam

Adams Street at Tillary

Brooklyn Bridge in background.

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Holiday season, North Flatbush

Now we know what the area around Atlantic Mall is called. (Few refer to it as Times Plaza; the Brooklyn Times-Union paper is long gone.) What I already knew is that the traffic around here, at the convergence of Flatbush, Atlantic, Fourth and Pacific Avenues, scares the bejesus out of me, night or day. The Atlantic Yards construction, if it happens, will mean even more cars. In the meantime, look both ways, not at the bland holiday decorations, and don’t try to beat the dollar vans when you’re crossing the street.

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