A Slice of Brooklyn Bus Tours

For over 20 years, artist Jane Greengold and the residents of Cobble Hill in Brooklyn (one of the neighborhoods featured on our Chocolate Tour) have carved pumpkins for Halloween and impaled them on the 273 sharp posts along the fence at Kane Street and Strong Place. On Halloween night itself, the pumpkins are illuminated; serving as a perfect attraction for trick-or-treaters.

It's #FanAppreciationFriday! THANK YOU to everyone who has taken our tours over the past 16 years! We honestly couldn't have done it without all of you. And if you've never done a tour with us then we look forward to showing you around Brooklyn one day as well!

It's time to play "Just One Word" again! All you need to do is describe a photo using one word. That's it. This week's photo is this optical view of the Brooklyn Bridge. Remember, just one word. Aaaaand GO!

#ThrowbackThursday Which Brooklyn based movie, released in 1944 and based on a play, opens with this scene?

Since we cover Brooklyn's history on all our tours, school groups are a big part of what we do. This group of teachers and students came from France and spent the day with us. Naturally we wanted to make sure that we sent them home with a great group photo as well.

I really enjoyed doing this segment about Dyker Heights last year with Inside Edition. And if you've been on our Christmas Lights Tour then you know about Sam the Greek's house. Besides being one of the larger homes on the tour, it's also decorated like no other. In fact, we like to call it "Christmas meets Las Vegas". In this segment you'll see that Sam decorates the inside of his house just as much as he does the outside! You'll even see our tour guide Marc as well.:) https://www.facebook.com/Inside.Edition/videos/492885438011649

Last week I told you about Brooklyn's Christmas tree which is always on display in front of the Soldiers' and Sailors' Memorial Arch in Grand Army Plaza. Well that's where Brooklyn's official menorah is also set up for Hanukkah! It's one of the largest in the world at over 30 feet tall. In fact a crane is used to hoist the Rabbi who lights the menorah all eight nights. Each night there are thousands celebrating with the accompaniment of live music and hot latkes for all, and special gifts are distributed to every child. :)

It was on this day in1953 that the Brooklyn Dodgers signed pitcher Sandy Koufax. Koufax was born in Brooklyn and attended Lafayette High School which we drive past on our Pizza Tour. After seeing Koufax pitch for Lafayette, Brooklyn Dodgers scout Al Campanis invited him to an Ebbets Field tryout where Campanis assumed the hitter's stance while Koufax started throwing. Campanis later said, "There are two times in my life the hair on my arms has stood up: the first time was I s...aw the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and the second time when I saw Sandy Koufax throw a fastball." The Dodgers signed Koufax for a $6,000 salary ($57,000 today) with a $14,000 signing bonus ($133,000 today). Koufax planned to use the money as tuition to finish his university education if his baseball career failed. He would go on to pitch 12 seasons for the Brooklyn Dodgers and then the Los Angeles Dodgers from 1955 to 1966. This was his rookie baseball card din 1955. We'll salute Sandy Koufax again later this month on December 30th to celebrate his birthday. :) See more

Happy 63rd Birthday to actor Steve Buscemi! He was born in Brooklyn on this day in 1957. By the time he was a teenager, the family moved to Valley Stream on Long Island. But he couldn't stay away from Brooklyn long and has been living in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn for the past 30 years! He's appeared in such movies as "Fargo", Reservoir Dogs" and "Trees Lounge" just to name a few. And he was great on the HBO shows "The Sopranos" and "Boardwalk Empire." Do you have a favorite Steve Buscemi role? TRUE STORY: Before going into acting, he was a NYC firefighter from 1980-1984 with Engine Company No. 55 in the Little Italy section of Manhattan. The day after 9/11, he returned to his old firehouse to volunteer. He worked 12 4-hour shifts for a week and helped dig through the rubble looking for missing firefighters.

Brownstones in the Sunset Park section of Brooklyn as seen on our Best of Brooklyn Tour: https://asliceofbrooklyn.com/bus-tou/best-of-brooklyn-tour/

It was 63 years ago today, on October 25, 1957 that Brooklyn mobster Albert Anastasia was killed while getting a shave in a barber chair at the Omni Park Central hotel in Manhattan. It's believed that a fellow Brooklyn mobster, Crazy Joe Gallo (4th photo below), was the one who pulled the trigger on the orders of Vito Genovese and Carlo Gambino. Gambino subsequently became boss of the family. Anastasia was a mobster, hitman, crime boss and one of the founders of the modern A...merican Mafia. He was also the founder and boss of Murder, Inc. and boss of what became the modern Gambino crime family. Anasthasia was also in control of the Brooklyn waterfront for most of his criminal career, including the dockworker unions. He was one of the most ruthless and feared organized crime figures in American history, and his reputation earned him the nicknames "The One-Man Army", "Mad Hatter" and "Lord High Executioner".

Here are some awesome behind-the-scenes photos taken during the filming of the opening scene of "Saturday Night Fever" on 86th Street under the el near Lenny's Pizza. :)

There’s nothing like starting off your Sunday morning with a Brooklyn bagel! Bagels made in Brooklyn the old fashioned way, by boiling and then baking them, are truly something special. I love an everything bagel with lox and cream cheese. How do you like your bagel? :)

First time trying out Facebook’s 3D effect with this photo. Yay or nay?

Words to live by. Mitzvah is Hebrew for a good deed or an act of kindness. #asliceofbrooklyn

Greetings from Brooklyn! :) Have a great weekend everyone!

Hayden Rorke, the American actor best known for playing Colonel Bellows on the 1960s American sitcom "I Dream of Jeannie", was born on this day in 1910 in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn. He attended Brooklyn Prep School where he served as president of the Dramatics Society. As Colonel Bellows, he was constantly trying to figure out why Major Tony Nelson (played by Larry Hagman) often behaved strangely. He would try to decipher Major Nelson's crazy antics but he never figured out what was actually going on, and Major Bellows usually wound up making himself look like a fool in front of his own superiors. Hayden Rorke passed away in 1987 at the age of 76. Were you a fan of "I Dream of Jeannie"?

Pumpkins lined up on the fence of a house in the Cobble Hill section of Brooklyn. #asliceofbrooklyn

It's #FanAppreciationFriday! Every Friday we like to post photos of folks who've taken our tours these past 15 years. Maybe you'll even see yourself in them? As always, THANK YOU to everyone who's joined us on the bus over the years! We couldn't have done it without you. And for those of you who've never done a tour with us before, we look forward to taking you on a tour of Brooklyn one day as well! #asliceofbrooklyn

This week's #ThrowbackThursday photo was taken last year when both of our guides were doing tours on the same day: Marc was doing our Pizza Tour and Paula was doing our Chocolate Tour. Have you taken a tour with either of them? They're both truly wonderful guides and ambassadors for our hometown, and I'm truly blessed to have them both as my guides.

Jerome Lester Horwitz was born on this day in 1903 in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn. He was best known as Curly Howard, a member of the Three Stooges which also featured his elder brothers Moe and Shemp Howard and actor Larry Fine. Curly was generally considered the most popular and recognizable of the Stooges. He was well known for his high-pitched voice and vocal expressions ("nyuk-nyuk-nyuk!", "woob-woob-woob!"), barking like a dog as well as his physical comedy. H...e also developed a set of Brooklyn-accented reactions and expressions that the other Stooges would imitate long after he had left the act: * "I'm a victim of soicumstance! [circumstance]" * "Soitenly!" ("certainly") * "I'll moider you!" ("I'll murder you!") Occasionally the Stooges faced a problem that required deep thought, whereupon Curly would bang his head on a wall several times and then shout, "I got it! I got it!" Moe would ask, "What have you got?" Curly's answer: "A terrific headache." He was forced to leave the Three Stooges act in May of 1946 when a massive stroke ended his show business career. He suffered through serious health problems and several more strokes until his death in 1952. He was only 48 years old when he died.

Okay, time to play "Guess The Famous Brooklynite"! This youngster became a famous actress as an adult. Here are your hints: 1) She attended the Montessori School in Brooklyn Heights. 2) At 11 years old she wanted to become a nun, but some would say she became a princess instead. 3) Just like a princess, she's lived in a tall tower in Brooklyn as well. Who is she?

Please help us give Joann McGuirk of New Jersey a big Brooklyn "How YOU doin'?!" She just became our 13,800th fan! Thank you Joann and welcome to our FB page!

Happy 78th Birthday to Judge Judy Sheindlin! She was born on this day in 1942 in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. Her and her family lived on Quincy Street and she attended James Madison High School where she graduated in only 3 1/2 years. She passed the New York state bar examination in 1965 and became a prosecutor in the family court system. In 1982, NYC Mayor Ed Koch appointed her as a judge, first in criminal court then later as Manhattan's supervising family c...ourt judge. Her show, "Judge Judy", debuted on television on September 16, 1996. She is now the longest-serving judge or arbiter in courtroom-themed programming history, a distinction that earned her a place in the Guinness World Records in 2015. She's also written numerous books, two of which have hilarious titles: "Don't Pee On My Leg and Tell Me It's Raining" and "Beauty Fades, Dumb Is Forever". :) See more