Or as Nena would sing: 500 rote Luftballons

New Year’s and Christmas are in the rearview mirror, lowering the prospect of balloon drops in your life to almost nil. We say almost because if you’re the lucky duck that can make it out to Prospect Heights tonight you can be the proud owner of 500 (small) red balloons. Finally, you can do five takes on your “99 Luftballoons” video to make sure you get it just right. (more…)

In news that would excite Mars Blackmon, there’s a Nike pop-up shop that just landed in Brooklyn. In news that would disappoint Mars, it’s at the Barclays Center. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Air Force 1 (you’re getting old), Nike set up in front of Barclays to pay tribute to their iconic shoe and celebrate the launch of the possibly space-based update to it, the Lunar Force 1. (more…)

Back up, E.T.

In news that your friend who’s “really into crystals” can probably decipher for you better than we can, Brooklyn is on the lips of UFO spotters after a video surfaced last week claiming to capture UFOs hovering above Vanderbilt Avenue. What were they doing here we wonder? (more…)

They may look unassuming, but these nosebleed seats are a nightmare.

I recently took my first trip to the Barclays Center to see my new neighborhood team, the Brooklyn Nets, play my hometown team, the Boston Celtics. It took less than a quarter for me to realize that a.) I can’t afford to be a Nets fan and b.) I’m too tall to be one, anyway. (more…)

You don’t need a TARDIS to get there, but it doesn’t hurt. Well, unless it does, like in every Dr. Who episode. via Girl Gone Geek

Prospect Heights is a neighborhood on everyone’s tongue nowadays. Sure the suburb, just a hop, skip and a jump from Lake Michigan has had its ups and downs and…sorry, that’s Prospect Heights, Illinois. Prospect Heights, Brooklyn though, is a neighborhood we all love, even if we don’t know we’ve been there. Home to the Brooklyn Museum, nerd bar The Way Station and a little more than half of Grand Army Plaza, Yelp is out to make sure you’ll know you’re there from now on with their Passport to Prospect Heights event next week, from October 22-28. (more…)

My president is black, my Lambo’s blue, my stadium is rust-covered.

You’ve got to hand it to the people still fighting the good fight over at Occupy Wall Street. What they lack in numbers or media attention right now, they more than make up for with the same kind of earnestness as your friend who hangs around forever waiting for you to have sex with him. Shocked that multi-multi-multi-millionaire Shawn Carter wasn’t enthusiastically on board with a progressive taxation system, they’ve vowed to respond the best way they know how…with a teach-in outside the Jay-Z-supported monument to capitalism. (more…)

Photo via The New York Times.

At the intersection of Neat and BAWWWWWW in Prospect Heights sits the Little Free Library, one of those good-faith-in-your-fellow-neighbors community swapping posts. The box has been there since May and has been a hit with residents. It’s pretty simple: bring a book, take a book, don’t throw up in the box or anything else jerk-ish.  “It’s a marker of the increasing friendliness. It offsets some of the new, young commerce,” a longtime neighborhood resident told The Times. “It’s real and it’s humble.” Read the whole story here. (more…)

This is a very expensive 3BR (!) place we mention mainly for voyeuristic purposes. But read on for some nice cheaper ones.

Many 96-degree days ago, when Mama Brokelyn was a wee lass, she bought a her first Brooklyn apartment: a beaut on Park Place between Carlton and Vanderbilt. It was the 2BR parlor floor of a brownstone with high ceilings, a moldings and a fireplace, for just north of $100K, which came out to roughly $750 a month all told. But that was right after World War II, and Brooklyn was still farmland, and the place came with horse parking. See, dirt-cheap deals are a thing of yore in Prospect Heights (witness this 2BR for $4,200), and they’re getting pretty scarce in Crown Heights too. (If we had about a million nickels to rub together, we’d sink it into an investment property there.) If Mama Brokelyn was still a wee lass, she’d double, triple or quadruple up and move into one of these places, leaving plenty of fat in the budget for carousing at the local joints with the wee lads. (more…)

Oysters at Cornelius. Photo courtesy of 3fortheroad blog.

It’s summer time, and you’re in the mood for some salty slurpies to go with that afternoon beer. Sure, they’re a delicacy, but bar food is bar food, and if they’re gonna charge $2.50 for one mouthful of slime, you’d rather go stick your face in the Gowanus Canal. Here’s where and when to get ‘em for a buck each: (more…)

a 4BR in Windsor Terrace.

It’s moving season and Brokesters on the hunt for apartment deals should know that you can get way more space for less dough in better hoods if you’re willing to sacrifice no-pants Wednesdays, commit to a chore wheel and stick to a strict morning bathroom schedule — aka, have some roommates. In today’s roundup of apartment deals and steals from our Brokelyn Real Estate section, we’ve got some true bargains on three and four bedrooms for young families, post-collegiates nostalgic for the frat/sorority house, and other folks who are into the hostel-esque commune vibe of sharing living space with multiple (potentially awesome) roommates.

First up is this AMAZING two-story, 4BR/1.5 bath unit in Windsor Terrace. For $3,000/month you get an eat-in-kitchen, living room, dining room, den AND a lush lawn and garden area that are fully maintained by a wise old groundskeeper (I assume he’s wise; aren’t they always?). Only catch is that the house sits on old church grounds, so there may be some extra tenants floating around rattling chains and cutting holes in the sheets. But you can put all the dough you save on rent towards an exorcism. (more…)