I’m writing this on Sunday, a few hours after my friend (and fellow Brooklyn resident) James completed the 2008 New York City Triathlon. The race consisted of a 1.5 kilometer swim (in the Hudson!), a 40 kilometer bike ride around the Upper West Side, and a 10 kilometer run around the loop in Central Park

James’ wife, their families, and their friends joined thousands of spectators in unusually high heat and humidity to cheer him on. We were supporting him for two reasons: first, his amazing transformation. The James I knew from college was a beer-drinking foodie who spent many an afternoon doing nothing more strenuous than reaching for a bag of chips from his perch on the couch. Now he was swimming, biking, and running further and faster than I’ve ever attempted.

The second reason is more complicated. This contest wasn’t just about surprising his friends with his hidden athletic ability.

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It’s been easy to come up with things to write about Brooklyn over the past few weeks. My Downtown Brooklyn neighborhood especially has seen an influx of attention from many sources. This attention has led to seemingly weekly articles on raising rent and purchase prices, gentrification, etc.
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A few weeks ago, I received a jury summons in the mail. I had served on a jury before, when two women were suing the driver who caused a car accident that left them injured. The jury sat in silence for half a day before we were called into the courtroom and told by the judge that the case had been settled without us hearing a single word from either party. Immediately I realized that this summons was different. Rather than a regular trial jury summons, this was for the grand jury.

There are many ways to get out of serving on a trial jury. Whatever the case is, expressing bias in any direction - even just speaking up - will usually get you sent back to the big waiting room. Eventually - and it might take a few days - someone will send you home.

But the grand jury is completely different.

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This past Thursday, Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson’s “New York City Waterfalls” installation finally debuted. While there are a number of Circle Line boat tours operating on the East River, you can also see all four waterfalls from land in Brooklyn, if you’re willing to do a little walking. After the storms settled this past weekend, I set out on my own tour.

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This past week I received a hand-written letter (addressed to “Mr.” Jaime Morelli… which irks me to death) from a “neighbor.” Here’s what the letter read:

Dear Neighbor,

We cannot reach you at your home, so let me make this invitation to you, please. Even in our troubled world we can find happiness from accurate Bible knowledge of God and his purpose for mankind.

Psalm 119:105 states - “Your word is a lamp to my foot and a light to my roadway.”

So we offer you a free home Bible-study in any translation you have. Please let me know if you are interested in a visit. Or just come to one of our meetings.

Sincerely yours,

[redacted]

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This week two interesting things happened in Brooklyn. First, The Brooklyn Paper reported that uncontested divorces in Brooklyn have skyrocketed 30% in the last four years. Then, Babeland opened its first Brooklyn location in Park Slope. Coincidence?

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I had about eight topics in mind for this week’s post. Initially, I considered attending Wiimbledon, the Wii Tennis tournament held this past Saturday at Barcade in Williamsburg - but instead I went to the Belmont Stakes and was nearly cooked through by the sun. That would have made for a good post, too, except it had absolutely nothing to do with Brooklyn, or even with New York City, minus the fact that half of New York City was on the LIRR that morning.

But then, during a slow but muggy walk through Brooklyn Heights on Sunday, my friend and I found ourselves in front of the Brooklyn Historical Society at the corner of Clinton and Pierrepont Streets. They were cranking the air conditioning, so we bought two tickets.

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Through an accident of fate, karma, and bureaucratic regulation, I have the luxury of spending all of my Fridays this summer not at work. While I’m tempted to pass many hours on my couch in front of the television, I can always do that on Saturday. Instead, last Friday I decided to visit two places I have (shamefully, considering eight years of residence in the borough) never been – the Brooklyn Museum and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.

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By now you’ve heard that MTV’s The Real World is coming back to New York City. After dealing with two casts already - the original seven and the tenth season - you would think it wouldn’t be a big deal to have to witness cameras following a group of self-absorbed fame-seekers (and they’re always so pretty!). But the reason every NYC -based publication has been falling all over themselves the past week is because MTV announced that, unlike the other two seasons, the new cast would not be housed in Manhattan. No, the Seven Strangers are coming to Brooklyn.

Downtown Brooklyn.

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For the past few weeks I’ve been traveling in Peru and Bolivia with a tour company that practices what it dubs “responsible travel.” Essentially, Gecko’s Adventures designs their tours to minimize travelers’ impact on the environment while maximizing interaction with the local community and ensuring that those communities benefit financially from Gecko’s tour groups (e.g. we stay in locally-owned hotels vs. the Holiday Inn).

On this particular trip, my tour group also had the opportunity to spend the night with a host family on Amantani Island, where 800 families live in mud-brick homes with no electricity and a single faucet in the yard for running water. In return for our lodging, we brought gifts of rice, sugar, cooking oil, and bananas – items that are difficult to come by on the island.

This got me thinking that I didn’t have to fly to the Southern Hemisphere to have a positive impact on an economically depressed neighborhood.

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