August 9–15, 2019 Brooklyn Paper • www.BrooklynPaper.com • (718) 260-2500 AWP 11
Playing that ‘Tunes’
W’burg basketball court gets Looney-inspired paint job
Now on
Photo by Caroline Ourso
Good clean fun
Do-gooders wash dogs to
support animal shelter
FROM THE PAGES OF BROWNSTONER.COM
Slope brownstone asks $3.795M
Single-family home boasts four bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms
Stephen Zacks
Brownstoner
This single-family brownstone
in the Park Slope Historic
District has an extraordinary
amount of well-cared for
woodwork and other original
details. The four-story townhouse
at 538 9th St. was designed
circa 1894-95 by carpenter
and builder George W.
Oelkers, whose name is sometimes
mistakenly recorded as
Oelkus.
It belongs to a row of seven
with flush facades rather than
the more usual window bays.
This one has square-headed
windows supported by radiating
voussoirs and a cornice
with a paneled fascia.
The facade is ornamented
rather simply, with alternating
bands of rough and smooth
faced brownstone.
Inside we see an assortment
of motifs characteristic
of fin de siècle New York.
The mantel in the front parlor
features garlands and a mirrored
topper. The window and
door surrounds have foliate
details on the corner blocks
and along the tops, and fluting
along the sides. And the tin
ceilings have a dizzying array
of foliate details, and diagonal
peaks and dentils around
the cornice molding.
The well-appointed rear
parlor has a pier console mirror
as well as a mantel. Downstairs
on the garden level, the
nicely intact dining room features
wainscoting, window
seats and a built-in buffet. Also
down here is a wood mantel
with neo-Classical columns
and, according to the listing,
from Ronit Abraham of Compass,
a marble surround.
The kitchen is on the garden
level, and the part of it we
can see in the photos appears
to have been redone sometime
in the 1970s or ’80s. It features
a mantel ornamented with
swags, presumably moved
from elsewhere, sitting on
top of a raised hearth. Also
visible is an oak breakfast bar
topped with marble, a raised
wooden dining platform and
beige tile floor.
We don’t get a glimpse of
the cabinets from the photos,
only a teaser of the stainless
steel refrigerator. Sliding glass
doors lead to a brick-walled
paved garden lined with raised
planters with built-in benches,
all of it illuminated with builtin
wall sconces.
The four bedrooms on the
top two floors also show off an
abundance of woodwork with
foliate details, well-preserved
mantels, and windows with
original shutters. The passthrough
areas have been altered
and turned into closets,
one of which is a tiny kitchenette.
The one bathroom pictured
appears to be of relatively recent
vintage, and has marble
tile going up to the ceiling,
a retro-modern wood vanity,
and a glass enclosed tub, all
updated with brass fixtures.
Two of the house’s 3.5 bathrooms
are en suite, including
a bathroom with a shower on
the parlor level.
A closet in the hall of the
parlor level is marked “mechanicals”
on the floor plan
but is just a closet, the agent
told Brownstoner. The house
contains more than 4,000
square feet of space. If that’s
not enough, the location is on
a park block.
Although the floor plan
suggests the house may at
one time have been used as
a multi-family or even contained
single-room occupancies,
and it seems to have at
one time been registered with
the city’s Department of Housing
and Preservation, all online
records we could find
show it as a single-family.
The house has been in the
same family since 1982, one
that was in the real estate business
and owned at least 10
properties in Brooklyn over
the years, records show. Now
it is being offered for $3.795
million. Is the price right?
The single-family brownstone in Park Slope is on the
market for $3.795 million.
By Kevin Duggan
Brooklyn Paper
It’s not duck, or rabbit
season — it’s basketball
season!
Dozens of Williamsburg
ballers celebrated a Looney
Tunes-inspired makeover of
their local basketball court
on Aug. 1.
California studio Warner
Bros. revamped the ball
court at Rodney Park North
on Rodney Street with a mural
by artist Evan Rossell,
which was inspired by the
Tune Squad, an all-star team
of cartoon characters from
the 1996 cult movie “Space
Jam,” in which Bugs Bunny,
Lola Bunny, Daffy Duck, Sylvester,
Tweety, and Taz team
up with Michael Jordan and
Bill Murray to take on the
evil Monstars.
Groups of dancers and performers kept the crowd
going during the half-time show.
The company celebrated
the court’s Looney new look
with a closed-to-the-public,
five-on-five basketball game
emcee’d by Eric Bauza —
the voice actor of Bugs and
Daffy — and legendary Manhattan
street ball announcer
Team ChaChing.
Dancers performed some
smooth moves at the halftime
show of the evening
match, as dozens of onlookers
watched from the sidelines
and from outside the
park between S. Fourth and
S. Fifth streets.
The new mural just so
happens to coincide with
the recent announcement
of “Space Jam 2,” an animated
sports comedy starring
LeBron James and Don
Cheadle expected to hit theaters
in July 2021.
By Rose Adams
Brooklyn Paper
It was a yappy day!
A Clinton Hill pet care
company bathed hundreds
of dirty dogs during its seventh
annual Great Dog Wash
event on Saturday, which
raised funds to fix a nearby
animal shelter’s broken-down
adoption van.
“The whole event was a
high,” said Helen Bowers,
chief marketing officer for
dog-walking and pet-care
business Brooklyn Bark.
About 25 volunteers gathered
outside Sean Casey’s E.
Third Street no-kill animal
shelter near Fort Hamilton
Parkway on Aug. 3, where
they scrubbed down a small
army of musty mutts, according
to Bowers.
Some dogs protested their
baths, but the Brooklyn Bark
volunteers came prepared with
handfuls of tasty treats, which
placated the impatient pooches
long enough to rinse them
clean, Bowers said.
But Kings County canines
weren’t the only ones to leave
with a snack — a bake sale at
the event sold dozens of sugary
goods, including brownies
and Lucky Charmsmarshmallow
treats.
And after everyone one
was nice and clean, Brooklyn
Bark lent owners poochsized
sunglasses and little
bowler hats so they could
dress up their dapper dogs
for a photo shoot.
“I really loved when the
owners would take pictures
of their doggies with hats,”
Bower said.
Brooklyn pups beat the heat at Brooklyn Bark’s annual
Great Dog Wash. Clean pups posed with hats
and sunglasses. Jen Law’s dog, Oswald (above), was
one of the pups who was bathed.
Photos by Caroline Ourso
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