Photo via www.newsone.com

The wave of sexual assaults that occurred in and around Park Slope last summer left our community feeling uneasy and, well, pissed. Attacks were happening left and right, yet assailants weren't being caught.

New details have emerged about a 22 year-old woman who was attacked yesterday morning around 5:30AM by a Hispanic male in his 40s. CBS New York reports that the woman was returning home from her job at a Manhattan night club when she exited the 4th Avenue/9th Street F/G station. As she walked on 16th Street between 4th and 5th Avenues she noticed a man was following her, but thought that she'd shaken him. Soon after, the man jumped at and groped her. Neighbors heard the young woman scream, and as they ran outside, the assailant fled. He didn't get far though -- a neighbor cornered him on Prospect Ave and 3rd Ave.

According to both CBS and NY1, the assailant was detained by police for about 15 minutes before being released. 

"I was just (beep) off that the cops didn't do anything about the guy," Donald Harrington, a neighbor, told NY1. "They came up here, I told them where the girl was and they just kept on going. They said they had no victim even though we call them back. We took the girl down we spoke to the police and they said the guy didn't want to be questioned so they let him go."

Police returned to the scene on Wednesday to speak with neighbors and check out security footage. 

As we await more info, check out this great list of late-night traveling resources that Park Slope Patch rounded up. These groups were formed last year in the wake of the attacks and are meant to escort residents home safely while on the streets late at night. 

Brooklyn Bike Patrol:

• Telephone: 718-744-7592
• Twitter: @BKbikepatrol      

Safe Slope:

• Telephone: 347-709-8852     
• E-mail: safeslope@gmail.com
• Facebook: facebook.com/SafeSlope
• Twitter: @safeslope
• Thursdays between 8:00 p.m.-1:00 a.m. and Fridays and Saturdays between 8:00 p.m.-3:00 a.m.

K9WaTch:

• E-mail: walk@k9watch.org   

Good news for all you disgruntled ExtraMooga ticket holders who are still not over the fact that you had to punch ppl in the face for a piece of shrimp toast or purchase toilet paper on the black GoogaMooga market: YOU'RE GETTING A FULL REFUND!

Event organizers Superfly decided to give all your asses your money back. Here's the scoop from Eater: 

"We are offering a 100 percent refund to anyone who attended ExtraMooga: the full ticket price, credit card fees—everything...Our intentions were to do something great. We were definitely ambitious. But we also wanted to do something top notch. We did not deliver on the promise we made for the ExtraMooga, and that’s why we’re going to make it right."

And here are the full instructions on how to get your dough back. 

I think it's nice to see Superfly doing the right thing, and doing it quickly.

You guyz agree, or too little too late?

(via Eater)

OK guys, I know we did a LOT of coverage on GoogaMooga and its aftermath, so I promise that this is the last of the GoogaMooga talk... for now.  I just couldn't pass this one up. A FiPS reader just sent us a copy of this presumably faux menu, which she claims was handed out by some random dudes as people exited The GoogaMooga experience this past weekend. I can't read one thing on this menu without peeing a little. It's so funny. I also missed out on the Googa experience this past weekend, so I have NO IDEA who made these. Did you get one? Do you know who made them? Can we please give these people a key to Brooklyn? 

ta da!

Like so many other Brooklyn girls, I really like crafts. That said, my affinity for all things crafty is limited by one, my total lack of talent (behold: my greatest achievement to date) and  two, my fear of sharp things, pointy things and flaming things. Taken together, these characteristics have led me to become a serial craft class taker -- but generally only for one session classes that deal with soft, non-threatening materials.

So of course as you'd imagine, I was thrilled when our Managing Editor Kerri asked if I wanted to take a class through the new(ish) website CourseHorse and then review it for FIPS. CourseHorse is essentially one stop shopping for all your NYC class taking needs (crafts, food, career development, health and fitness, and language, to name a few). There are about 14,000 classes listed on the site at any given time, and the average course cost is $55 (though they just added free classes). You'll find classes at places like the Brooklyn Artists Gym or the 92Y, but also lesser known venues like a wood carving school in Forest Hillls. Better still, you can search classes by location, time, date and topic. So if you've ever spent two hours trying to find a class in which to crochet a chicken poncho somewhere in the 5 boroughs that was reasonably accessible, affordable and at a workable time, then you'll appreciate this -- but I digress.

Anyway, onto the class! I signed up for Bookmaking at the Brooklyn Artists Gym because it was near my house and I like the idea of walking away from a craft class with something tangible and useful. I could not have been happier with the class -- and not just because the scariest implement we used was a needle. It was actually incredibly interesting to see the steps involved in book binding (this is a class for first timers) and I left with a nifty, pretty little book perfectly sized for displaying postcards and photos. Our teacher, Sarah, brought a bunch of beautiful, acid-free, Nepalese papers for us to chose for our covers and carefully walked us through the delicate process of gluing and sewing the book together. The class was scheduled for three hours and the time flew by. Sarah was very encouraging and patient (and far more supportive than the instructor of a wool felting class who told me I had a bad attitude just because I pointed out that the felt otter I made looked more like an otter turd than an actual otter).

My only regret is that I can't easily make a book using the same process at home. Sarah did provide us with a detailed instruction packet to take with us - but the amount of materials and space required is not exactly doable for the casual crafter like myself. That said, I am actually about to go look for other bookmaking classes on CourseHorse and I'm relatively certain I'll find one. If I don't, maybe I'll just take welding -- that doesn't involve anything scary, right?

After a recent incident involving some negligent parents and their maniacal scooter-racing child, a Park Slope newbie wrote to us asking for a polite way to tell these parents: Hey, fuckface. Your kid is plowing through the crowd like an asshole on his shitty little scooter. Wanna do something about it or what?!

  Here’s an excerpt from her email:

My roommate and I were walking along 5th ave on a busy Saturday, and we both had a little mishap with a kid on a scooter. First he scooted in front of me and then stopped, causing me to basically fall over him as my roommate almost ran into me. His parents, who were walking in front of us, didn't even notice. So we power-walked to get ahead of the group, but as we got to through the next intersection the scooter kid powered ahead and ran over my roommate's foot. The kid didn't react or apologize and the parents didn't seem to notice. Is there a good way to tell the parents of Park Slope to maybe watch your kids (especially those on the scooter who might be a little out of control), without causing a scene or argument?

But of course! This inconvenience by a breeder and their tyrannical spawn means that you have officially been initiated to the hood. Welcome to Park Slope!  

Now, despite the fact that this is a common occurrence and shouldn’t be a surprise (see: Have you ever almost been killed by a kid on a scooter?), after reading this message I can’t help but fill to the brim with furious rage at the level of inconsideration prevalent in our little society. That being said, today’s your lucky day, Park Slope newbie with a problem, as you’ve come to the perfect place for advice on this matter.

Here are several options of what you can do the next time you desire a nice stroll in the neighborhood without getting injured by poorly-trained children and their careless parents. Options range from completely passive to completely aggressive:

1. Keep it to yourself and gear up: Stock up on knee-high socks, elbow pads, a helmet and any other gear that you can find until your entire body is completely covered and impenetrable -- we're talking to the point where you could get clipped by a blimp and be none the wiser. Doesn’t matter how hot it is or how ridiculous you look, this is just what you do now.

2. Be one with the scooter: Get really ninja about listening for scooter sounds, and learn how to dodge them before they hit you. You can likely find scooter sounds online and play them on your iPod when you’re hanging around your apartment. You can even practice dodging scooters in front of the mirror to perfect your form. Click here for a scooter video to get you started.

3. Make them care: Next time a kid runs over your or your roommate’s foot and neither the kid nor the parent seem to notice or care, scream as loudly as you possibly can and fall to the ground. Fake tears, keep screaming and DO NOT get up. At this point you should be drawing a crowd. Unless they are completely void of a soul, the parent should show concern, embarrassment and remorse for their negligence. The kid will hopefully get a rude awakening of what sort of consequences can come from their careless, scootering about.

4. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em: Run them over with YOUR scooter! Order one online now and show those little punks what it’s like.

5. Fuck it, unleash the rage: Just say something, anything, that gets the “You're-Being-Inconsiderate-And-Now-I’m-Injured-And-Uncomfortable-And-Pissed” point across. What’s the worst that could happen? You cause a verbal scene that calls these parents out for not having a hold on their kids’ behavior? Good. Someone needs to say it or nobody will ever learn.

Hope this helps and good luck out there!

Happy Tuesday, FiPSTERS! I hope your GoogaMooga sunburns are starting to subside...

This photo comes from our FIPS FLICKR POOL, courtesy of ATAFERNER. Got great photos of the Slope? Consider taking off all your clothes and jumping in the pool with us! For now, give us your Fipsiest photo caption in the comment box below! The winner will get an online pat on the ass.

For New Yorkers like me, who chose to flee fast and far from suburban places where the fanciest restaurants are Olive Gardens, the best coffee is from the Exxon/Mobile station, and all cutting edge clothing is found at The Gap, I've come to appreciate small, locally-owned businesses. Especially the ones in our own neighborhood. 

Smallknot, a new fundraising program, exists to support and help these businesses do what they already do well (just better). Smallknot is an online fundraising system that allows a community to fund growth projects for small businesses with rewards for each donation level, similar to Kickstarter. 

My first question was this: Why would I give a business my hard-earned dinero? 

First, often the rewards of donating are things you'd want anyway, and are exclusive to people using Smallknot. Second, if you appreciate the work they do, and the services and products that they provide, it seems like the same idea as donating on Kickstarter to your friend's crappy electro pop band, or that whaling documentary your old professor is shooting. Why not fund a project that's gonna keep delicious artisanal cheese closer to my apartment? Or tasty coffee, right on my block?

Smallknot helps already-thriving small businesses, who are looking to continue to enrich the neighborhoods they are located in, to grow and complete small projects that will be integral to their future success. Our very own neighborhood coffee joint, Kos Kaffe, is one of the pioneer projects currently on the site. Their campaign is focused on raising funds to add retractable awnings to the front of the cafe, which will assist in cooling the space in the hot summer months ahead.  Check out their fundraising page for more details on how to support one of our very own neighborhood spots.

All of this said, I do have one "suburban" confession.  I still stand by the allure of a steaming basket of Cheddar Bay Biscuits from Red Lobster. So maybe all things "chain" aren't bad, as long as we continue to help the locals.

Would you donate money via Smallknot to help keep your neighborhood favorites in business?

image via Brooklyn Spoke

After receiving a green light from Community Board 6 last week, a the much-discussed two-way bike lane on Plaza Street is finally becoming a reality. You may remember that CB6 pussied out on the proposal last year due to both the bitching and lawsuits against the Prospect Park Bike Lane. I don't need to link to that anymore, right? Alright, here's one. The Plaza Street lanes were reintroduced because a Department of Transportation study found that one third of cyclists where using the existing single lane in the the wrong direction. 

The Brooklyn Paper describes the changes:

The city’s on-street design calls for removing four feet of road space reserved for automotive traffic and giving it to cyclists, creating an eight-foot-wide patch of asphalt for two-wheelers heading to Prospect Park and bikes traveling toward Prospect Heights.

So you can guess where this is going, right? Some residents are claiming that the expansion will plug up the charming, yet narrow street. Dolly Williams, a former city planner, is one of these people. “No one will be able to get through," she told the Brooklyn Paper. "It’s going to become a nightmare.” Other local residents believe that the lanes will not only increase congestion but "create chaos, and even block ambulances."

Plaza Street / via www.brooklynspoke.com

Unlike the A-Holes from the Prospect Park West debacle, who want to do away with the entire lane, these naysayers don't want to chuck the whole thing all together. They just want the lane moved onto the sidewalk.  But the opponents to these opponents say that such a proposal an awful idea because bikers will have to fight for space with pedestrians. Also, Plaza Street's sidewalk borders an area of Grand Army Plaza's green space. Robert Minsky of the GAP Coalition says, "I think it's an incredibly foolish idea. It will take away from the park."

I'm giving the last word to my boy and big huge bike lover Eric McClure who says, "They're is plenty of room on the street."

What say you FIPS'ters? Cool or not cool? New bike lane on the street? New bike lane on the sidewalk? New bike lane up our asses? 

A FiPS reader recently sent us this gem, which was taken at PS 372 (The Children's School), and should absolutely be filed under "Only in Park Slope."

It takes a special kind of person to consider complaining an art form, and lucky for Cathy Towey, there are no shortage of these people at Park Slope PTA meetings. 

Of course we all know that if you REALLY want to see complaining as an artform, all you have to do is read the comments here on FiPS. I challenge you, loyal readers, to show those PTA fools how it’s really done.

Photo via Eric Isaac (food.ericisaac.com)

Well people, GoogaMooga has come and gone. All that remains are sunburns, soggy wrist bands and what I'm guessing is a huge fucking mess in the park. A few of our FiPS writers ventured into the mouth of The Great GoogaMooga over the weekend, so if you didn't make it out and are curious to know what your ass missed, here are their stories: 

GoogaMooga Day 1: BY MIKE

Dearest FiPS followers: I sincerely hope none of you threw down $250 for the "Extra Mooga" at Saturday's Great Googa Mooga festival debut. Because if so, you are probably pissed off in the way that only getting cheated out of a significant hunk of cash can make you.

I read rumblings from multiple social networks that said the so-called "Extra" areas ran out of food, utensils, tickets, melted-cheese baths, or whatever else they were giving people -- and fairly early (Brooklyn Spaces Facebooked about it around 5 o'clock.). So some folks plunked down two Benjamins and a Grant for...nothing. Entry to a festival that thousands of others claimed for free. Yikes.

Luckily, I paid no such blood money. And so this review is for those who stuck with the gratis tix. Here's how the first day of Gogoa-Mooga-ing went down:

ID bracelet line, circa 4pm.

* Lines: First of all, people are gonna talk about lines. They will talk about lines while they wait in line. They will talk about lines while they look at the lines to decide if they want to wait in the lines. They will take to thetwitternets to face-bitch about the lines after they've left said lines.

Dudes, it was a free-entry (mostly, see above) festival in one of the most populous spots in the country. One with foodie-crazy artisan assholes. If you didn't expect lines, I've got a bridge/$250 "Extra" pass in Brooklyn I want to sell you.

That said, yes. The lines could be shitty long. I heard tales: One woman told me of the hour she waited for rice balls. "But, it was totally worth it!" Really? Clearly she has stronger feelings about balls than I do (Boom!). Three-and-a-half hours to get tix for beer-tasting. My thoughts? Leave those lines. Find others.

I went in planning to eat a couple things only at reasonable lines. Which is what I did. It earned me a mediocre Sloppy Joe from an artisanal meats place that probably had the shortest line for a reason. I stayed the hell away from the ID-bracelet line, which was Anacondian when I got there around four. By 6, the alcohol lines were quite manageable. I got a (better) sandwich from Mile End Delicatessen after less than 30 minutes.

Tell me: Is standing with your friends, with food imminent, while music plays, an appreciably more hellish experience than sitting with your friends, with no food imminent, while music plays? Apparently so.

Brooklyn jonesin' for a slice.

* Money: If you stepped foot into the park this weekend, it's likely that you spent more money than expected. Even if you went in expecting not to, your wallet departed the Great Googa Mooga sporting a svelte new figure. Yeah, the festival was "free" (again, see above), but it's free the way a shopping mall is free. I'm sure we all, at some level, knew this, but the whole thing is essentially a corral for consumerists. The music isn't the point -- consuming the most basic consumable, pricey food, is the point. The vendors are the point. 

And they effectively get you to keep buying. I'm not sure what it is. There may be some nefarious marketing feng-shui behind the food-stall layout. Our hunter-gatherer brains are mezmerized by the bounty. I think it's also the portions: small enough to poke your appetite, but still leave it grasping for something more. Of everything they screwed up, the Great Moogas did place the reward button in just-the-right corner of the cage.

Didn't drop enough dough on food? Buy a $25 t-shirt to drop food on!

* Disappointment: Surely there came a time in every GoogaMooga goer's day when a man walked up to your portion of a line, as you stood sweating in the sun, and announced that they were out of vanilla shakes. Other things I saw get gone were soft-shell crab sandwiches, the above-mentioned rice balls, and fro-bananas. And I'm sure more. But most of the food huts were still humpin' to the end of the day.

* Tables: Shockingly good table situation. That may sound minor, but I was pleased. You expect, at a big eating thing like this, you'll end up awkwardly balancing plate, fork, cup, water bottle, etc. while bumbling around grass-sitters. Mooga had a bunch of slim tables, many strangely fashioned out of police barricades, to avoid that problem. One instance of great foresight.

Sorry, probably creeped-out lady. Was actually taking a pic of the barricade-table.

* Music: Did y'all know there was music here? The bands were mostly secondary, and that was palpable. It's likely that this was just not the festival for me, because I wanted that rush of excitement when the band you came to see amps up. What makes a festival fun? To me, it's the transformation of the quotidian -- just some park -- into a mass, shared experience. That energy of a sea of people rushing at the same stage. 

By comparison, the atmosphere at GoogaMooga was kinda dull. You just don't get the same group electricity from lines of people enjoying soft-shell crab as you do from masses of kids crushing on their indie loves.

But, music there was. I reached the entry line as the Van Halen tribute band ripped into a seriously convincing version of "Panama." Kitschy, state-fair stuff, true, but I enjoyed the flashbacks to fifth-grade bowling alleys nonetheless. "Holy Ghost" over on the bigger, main stage coaxed a decent quantity of boogie from the overwhelmingly white, BBQ-filled crowd with some indie dance-rock. That felt more like the festivals I know.

The Mighty Roots on the main stage.

And, of course, The Roots closed it out: the only real name on the line-up (mild apologies to Hall & Oates.). The Roots bounced and hopped and referenced all of rock-soul-hip-hop like the Roots do, with the expected-but-welcome MCA shoutout. They were solid. My expectation for Day 2 was that Googa would smooth over the fuck-ups , and the music would follow the crowds that followed the food. 

* Weather: The weather was perfect, right there in the '70's, enough sweat to give everyone that vaguely sexual patina of sweat, without the grossness of late summer. Comfortable. 

Final verdict? Googa doesn't require much of you. The food's there to get, and you can pick which lines you want to tackle. It's nice out in May. Enjoy the park with some friends: there's music and snacks. Just don't buy the "Extra" pass.

GoogaMooga Day 2: BY DANIEL

Friends of Park Slope, I have survived The Great GoogaMooga Festival 2012. There was food. There was music. There was love (of food). I’m exhausted. I was in the sun nearly the entire day, and I have the burns to prove it. Please don’t tell my mother I forgot to bring sunscreen.

First, let’s talk about the GoogaMooga wristbands. The “Media” wristband is periwinkle (thanks Crayola). I guess this is pretty close to the color of the “VIP” wristband, although I’m not sure I ever saw one. But the point is that I guess someone at the VIP entrance to ExtraMooga wasn’t aware of the difference. So when this silly blogger waltzed up to the VIP entrance, he was allowed admittance. This was easily the best thing to happen to me all day.

The roasting of the boarThe ExtraMooga section of GoogaMooga was THE SHIT. Most people paid 250 bucks to get in, but your intrepid blogger paid nothing AND got to experience GoogaMooga with the other half. There was a brunch at the boathouse that involved waitresses in flapper dresses (I believe it was Gatsby themed). There were wine tastings. Drinks were included! (Of course, I was too hungover to even consider imbibing, but one can be excited about free drinks even when he cannot partake.) There was a roasting wild boar. I also had the best iced coffee of my life, provided by Counter Culture Coffee (hey look, you gotta cherish that kind of memory).

But all good things must come to an end. We left ExtraMooga after about an hour, and later found out that we were never supposed to have been there when one of the guards quite rudely turned us away. By the way, what was with the entryway/security system? There was absolutely no organization, many of the workers were pretty rude, and there was never any consistency in the way our IDs were checked. But I digress. I know what you actually care about: was there enough to do even without ExtraMooga?

Yes. There was plenty to do at GoogaMooga. I learned a lot about how to make sausage at a session at the Urbarn hosted by Adam Kaye of Blue Hill. Honestly, the dick jokes at a sausage-making session write themselves, and there was much giggling. I also had a really good time at Escort’s performance on the Nethermead Stage. Their bright disco sounds were a perfect afternoon treat, and they included a much appreciated tribute to Donna Summer.

And now onto the food. Lines were long, but I managed to obtain a horse bologna and foie gras grilled cheese from foodie darling and recently closed M. Wells. This $15 sandwich was greasy and delicious and absolutely the kind of thing I would never eat outside of an event like GoogaMooga.

Holy deep fried Oreo, Batman!I also had a few desserts. I really liked the chocolate covered frozen banana with peanuts and sea salt from The Big Banana. I also had an excellent milk shake from Dumont Burger. But perhaps the king of all desserts was the deep-fried Oreo from James of Prospect Heights. While we missed out on the Fried Cheesecake bombs that Brooklyn Based recommended as one of the 5 things to eat at GoogaMooga, the Oreos that were substituted in later in the day were awesome. 

Finally it was time for Hall and Oates. These dudes had us on our feet. They made our dreams come true! Standing amongst the Ray-Ban clad crowd in their boat shoes and Tom’s, I realized it was exactly what I wanted to end this exhausting day in the park.

I LASTED 45 MINUTES AT GOOGAMOOGA: BY ERICA

Photo via Eric Isaac (www.food.ericisaac.com)