A slightly morbid bit of real estate news from the folks over at Ditmas Park Blog: Whisk Bakery Cafe, the coffeeshop owned by slain Brooklyn resident Josh Rubin, is hosting a one-dayonly assets sale this Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. to sell off the shuttered business's equipment. more ›

The family of Josh Rubin, the Ditmas Park cafe owner who's been mysteriously missing since October 31, has hired a private investigator to search for Josh and are offering a $5,000 reward to anyone with information leading to his whereabouts. more ›

Josh Rubin, the owner of Whisk Bakery Cafe in Ditmas Park who has been missing since October 31, may have been planning his disappearance, according to some new evidence from his neighbor. more ›

Josh Rubin, the owner of the recently opened Whisk Bakery Cafe in Ditmas Park, has been missing for over a week, and the neighborhood is rallying to help find him. Have you seen this man? more ›

Some Brooklyn residents want local neighborhood kids to STFU, at least on Sundays. According to the Daily News, the playground at P.S. 139 in Ditmas Park has become a battleground. Homeowners in the area say they used to have "Sundays off," but now kids are flocking there 7 days a week (as a part of Bloomberg's Schoolyards to Playgrounds initiative). They now plan to file a lawsuit arguing that the playground has become a public nuisance, and declare that the Mayor would never allow this near his home on 79th Street. more ›

Back in 2005, John Giuca and a friend were convicted of killing college student Mark Fisher one night in 2003 and dumping Fisher's body on Argyle Road. Then, in 2008, Giuca's mom Doreen Giuliano launched an impressive attempt to get the verdict overturned by losing weight and undergoing a sexy makeover to attract a juror who eventually admitted on tape that he shouldn't have been on the jury! Now, Giualino's dream of freeing her son has been shattered, because an Appellate panel rejected Guica's plea for appeal. She said to the Post, "I don't know how I could have thought we could get justice in Brooklyn." more ›

Does the Landmarks Preservation Commission have a brownstone bias? Earlier this year the group revealed that they would be focusing their efforts on Park Slope while delaying landmark status designations in Ditmas Park and Beverly Square West. One Ditmas resident says, "The [LPC] has limited resources, but it shouldn't be to the exclusion of the Victorian neighborhoods. If it's worthy, they should fund it and do it." more ›

This week Sam Sifton at the Times files a positive review of Purple Yam, a Filipino restaurant in Ditmas Park that formerly operated under a different name (Cendrillon) in Soho with the same chef/owner (Romy Dorotan). Sifton deems it "a perfect neighborhood restaurant. True to its aesthetic, the menu is resistant to easy division into appetizers and main courses. There are kimchis and chutneys to order. There are vegetables and side dishes. There is pig—almost every part of it. And there are Cendrillon classics, ranging from a sublime chicken adobo to a faintly ridiculous wild-boar pizza." more ›

Vox Pop, the previously victimized lefty coffee house in Ditmas Park, was shut down Tuesday for non-payment of back taxes. At the time, the state was demanding $56,000 to remove the locks from Vox Pop's door, but CEO and general manager Debi Ryan tells the Village Voice, "I've been able to negotiate." Now the Man has agreed to let Ryan reopen for $10,000, but that's still beyond her reach. So she's selling "shares" in Vox Pop for $40; with your share you get a copy of the recently published Vox Pop book, which details the cafe's five-year history. Plus free coffee refills! more ›

Early Monday morning someone stole a 200 pound replica of the Statue of Liberty that was bolted outside progressive cafe and bookstore Vox Pop in Ditmas Park, and now the Daily News has picked up the story. It's a nice bit of press for the troubled establishment, which has weathered severe financial storms in recent months—come to think of it, being robbed might not be such a bad publicity stunt for restaurants. Cabrito got lots of exposure when someone stole their goat, and Papacitos recently parlayed a burglary into an announcement about a major expansion. There's nothing indicating Vox Pop orchestrated the heist for free advertising, but owner Debi Ryan sure is at a loss to explain how someone managed to abscond with the 8-foot-tall fiberglass statue, which wouldn't fit in a car. Naturally, she suspects some shadowy right-wing conspiracy: "I have to wonder whether this theft was politically motivated. I mean, we aren't your everyday coffee shop." A "Find Liberty" rally is planned for tomorrow at Vox Pop, where a wide variety of beer, food, and other merchandise will be available for purchase—in solidarity! more ›

Collectively running a lefty cafe and bookstore is just not as romantic as it sounds. Vox Pop in Ditmas Park is in deep weeds; the health department shut down the food-and-beverage operation at the shop in January because of $29,000 in unpaid fines, not to mention evidence of vermin. Now the phone's been disconnected, they're three months behind on the rent, and some locals are worried that the demise of the four-year-old gathering place may signal a broader degentrification in Ditmas Park. Employee Debi Ryan explains to the Times: "There are financial problems due to—I don't want to call it mismanagement, I want to call it lack of management." Former co-owner Sander Hicks, who also founded Soft Skull Press, resigned over the unpaid fines, but it's a vicious cycle: without revenue from the cafe it's hard to raise the money to pay the fines to reopen the cafe. All this has customers like Oliver Moné deeply vexed: "This is aggravating. I like the coffee. I like the place. Dunkin’ Donuts is O.K., but this is prime stuff. I mean, I hate Starbucks. God, I hate Starbucks." more ›

A 46-year-old Brooklyn mother who posed as a "sexy" 30-something California transplant in order to win the confidence of a juror from her son's trial has not proven the need for a new trial, prosecutors say. You may recall the story: Doreen Giuliano, whose son John Giuca was convicted in the murder of a Fairfield college student in 2003 during a long night of partying in Ditmas Park, learned that one of the jurors, Jason Allo, knew some of her son's friends, a fact he withheld during the trial. So she slimmed down, dyed her hair, and rented an apartment near Allo in order to befriend him. more ›

Earlier this year author Joel Kotkin said in so many words that New York should be looking to San Francisco as a role model. Now NYMag names Ditmas Park one of their many reasons to love our fair city. Why? Because it's our own tiny version of the City by the Bay. The mag says, "What New Yorker with a repressed slacker-hippie side hasn’t fantasized about ditching Gotham for calmer, quainter San Francisco? Some locals have been satisfying that yen by simply moving to Ditmas Park, the Victorian-packed enclave south of Prospect Park. It isn’t just that the West Coast metropolis and the west-of-Flatbush hamlet share an abundance of turn-of-the-century painted ladies." And those painted ladies will cost you just about as much as the ones on the West Coast, now well over a million bucks. But that's the price you pay to live near bookstores, drum circles, and a laid-back SF vibe, man. One local told them: “It’s a bunch of communists hanging out and drinking Fair Trade coffee while reading conspiracy books." more ›

Sycamore: A Flickr user named Finstr took this atmospheric photo at the opening night of Ditmas Park's newest bar. The opening of yet another bar in Brooklyn hardly merits mention, but Sycamore's a bit unique in that it's located within a flower shop. Or rather, one walks through a flower shop on the way in. Or you could also just buy your flowers and leave. Flatbush Vegan went all the way with the thing, though, and notes decent prices, a jukebox, half-moon banquettes, and a spacious back deck with a cast-iron fireplace and ivy climbing up the walls. Your move, Windsor Terrace. 1118 Cortelyou Road (between Westminster and Stratford). more ›

Fans of Ditmas Park favorite the Farm on Adderley, get ready: The newest venture from co-owners Gary Jonas and Allison McDowell, a French bistro dubbed Pomme de Terre, is on the verge of opening. Apparently the regular customers at the Farm are jonesing for another mid-range restaurant in the neighborhood, and it's unlikely a recent shooting on the very same corner will deter them. more ›

In just a few hours, there were five separate shootings all over Brooklyn last night and early this morning. The violence began at 10:20PM in Ditmas Park, when three people were shot at East 21st and Dorchester Road when a gunman opened fire on a man. The 25-year-old known as "Indian" died while a 23-year-old and a 50-year-old, who was shot inside his/her home, were both in stable condition. more ›

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After scaring residents of two boroughs when a woman discovered a pipe bomb on her Jeep Cherokee, police arrested Baudelio Rodriguez for making a pipe bomb and placing it on a car. What makes the story more strange is that it was Rodriguez's daughter who discovered the bomb - the Jeep belongs to his daughter and his wife! He was reportedly angry at his wife for leaving their Brooklyn home and staying with their daughter in Staten Island. more ›

How much thought do you give to the origins of your daily dose of java? Not the origin of the purchase (mega-chain vs. local joint), but the origin of the beans themselves. And not just country of origin, but the labor and trade practices of the growers and workers who got those beans to you, no matter where they end up. Many of us don't think about this, but the owners of Vox Pop, a coffeeshop in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn, proudly trumpet the fair trade origins or their coffee varieties, and the customers are rolling in. more ›

We were fortunate enough to be at the Time Out New York Eat Out Awards last night to watch the winners of both the Readers' Choice awards, chosen by readers who made over 14,000 submissions, and the Critics' Picks awards, selected by the TONY staff. The coveted plates hang on restaurant and bar walls throughout the city. more ›

The Kensington-Ditmas Park area of Brooklyn is slowly becoming known for its restaurants and dishes, including the “haute barnyard” French Fries at The Farm on Adderley. Meanwhile, the wide swath of Coney Island Avenue running through the center of both neighborhoods remains a mainstay of ethnic restaurants from Prospect Park to Brighton Beach -- everything from all-night, tri-level Pakistani joints to Turkish baklava places. It’s sort of like the restaurant bustle of Jackson Avenue in Queens, but decompressed over a 5-mile stretch. In this mix are a dozen or so Mexican Torterias; tiny shops, usually with signature sandwiches. Most of these places are closet-sized, just big enough for a stove at the back, a regular household refrigerator or a steam table. Torterias are often home bases for roving tamale carts; moreover they’re round-the-clock operations, with employees pickling their own jalapenos, pulling and braiding homemade Oaxaca string cheese, or clipping cilantro leaves from plants growing in window boxes. more ›

Last week, a Brooklyn teenager died after being electrocuted while climbing a fence at PS 217 in Ditmas Park. Luis Rivera and friends were leaving the school's basketball courts (which had been closed) around 8PM, and when Rivera climbed the fence, he brushed up against a light fixture which was not properly "grounded" and was shocked. Now his family has filed a notice of claim to sue the Department of Education for $10 million. The DOE isn't commenting now that there's a lawsuit, but it had initially said that Rivera was trespassing and that he wasn't even a student at PS 217. NY1 reports Rivera's brother as saying, "My brother really was a very special, special person who was trying to make a change for better in his life. And the opportunity was taken from him drastically, and I just want to make sure that someone takes [responsibility] for what happened that day." more ›

PS 217 in Ditmas Park is under the microscope as parents wonder if the police should be called in on unruly children. The most recent incident involves Jonathan Modesto, a 6 year old who has ADHD and had the cops called on him after he "threw a tantrum in his kindergarten classroom, allegedly kicking a paraprofessional and an assistant vice principal." And there were two other incidents where children were sent to hospitals for evaulations - an 8 year old (with ADHD) had a tantrum and a 5 year old who "was nipping at teachers' ankles" and "taken away in a stretcher." We imagine student tantrums are tricky situations for teachers and school administrators to handle. The biggest problem is most likely what kind of liability the teachers and school bear if someone is hurt (the child having a tantrum, other students) if they try to restrain them or don't call in extra help. Many schools do not seem to have the resources to deal with children who might act up, but calling the police or sending them to a hospital sounds pretty harsh. more ›

city rag has photographs of "Victorian Flatbush," the part of Brooklyn that looks rather un-city like. Upon further research, brownstoner calls it a South Midwood area - and links to a helpful realty site that explains more - and VictorianFlatbush.org a "polyglot and polychrome" "softly shaded patch of Flatbush in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn with a multitude of races. Now, Gothamist heard the term "Victorian Flatbush" last week for the first time, and we wondered if "Prohibition West Village" or "Speakeasy Harlem" or "Mafia Den Mott Street" would be the next hot new terms. Or "Drug-Addled Alphabet City" or "Gay Chelsea"? But Victorian Flatbush is quite pretty - it's like Cape May meets Queens! more ›