Welcome to MRBRKLYN.COM


"If people can't trust not only the executive branch but also don't trust Congress, and don't trust federal judges, to make sure that we're abiding by the Constitution with due process and rule of law, then we're going to have some problems here."

...where is Dan Quayle when you need him

This domain is the private Domain of Ruben Safir for sometime now.

Esther Wallace, my beloved Grandmother who all but raised me, died this morning - July 12th, 2011. May her soul join all of Israel in Jerusalem..


Who is Ruben Safir? Good question. Born into a poor Jewish Canarsie family in 1963, Ruben is a life long Brooklyn resident from a long line of Brooklyn Residents. Currently a father of 6 children, all from the same wife, divorced, and a huge Free Software advocate. He is a published author, programmer, teacher, speaker, political activist, Pharmacist, and father.

With a long NY heritage this is a photo of the family just before coming to America.


Post Family from 1905 - Ruben's Great Grandmother Rose Post (later Rose Barcan) is the second from the left on the top row

There is also the Safir side of the family. Many of the Safir's are spread far and wide in the country, even close relatives who He's never met on my father's side of the family. If your related to Morris Safir or Nathan (Emile) Safir email me and He'll share with you some decent lost photos. And we can also take.

There are also some Ginsberg's, Barcan's, and Postofsky's floating around the family tree. Email if interested.

His Children's names are:


Dovid and his first fish. Shani in the background.

A list of some of todays biggest anti-semetic bigots

BROOKLYN GETS IT AGAIN FROM CITY

That being said the love of Ruben's life is still his 92 year old Granmother, Esther Wallace, who we couldn't say enough about. Her 90th Birthday is January, 2007. This is by far the most beautiful women on earth, and she makes great oatmeal. If your ever lucky enough to be around her kitchen table at 7AM, your in for a once in a life experience. She is by far the most insightful, intelligent conversationalist I've ever met, and has 90 years of archives to which she can exploit as a teacher, friend and confident. Here is a movie of Esther's Museum. It it you can get the feel for her compasionate charm and loving touch. About half way through, you'll hear a frank, unflinching, conversation about her age and death. At the end she pulls out a surprise. There is a companion movie as well, which covers more of her personal collection.

Here is a small Gallery of Esther's Art Collection


Ruben has a fettish with computers. A life long programmer, he began web design in 1995 for his own website the now defunct Jewish Billboard. He then began writing for


Brooklyn On Line

writing and designing the vast majority of that website until about 2003 after which a dispute with the sites owner, Brett Wynkoop, errupted over Brett's domain name squating and other unsavory activities. You can see his work with the pages on Coney Island, Historical Houses, many communities, news, the Aquarium pages, the Prospect Park Zoo, Brooklyn Archeology, Marine Park and Floyd Bennet Field pages and MUCH MUCH MORE. Chances are if you see kids on that site, they're mine

Along the way he help many Brooklyn based small businesses get their first feet on the web. Recalling back to those days, it was a very hard sell to get businesses to invest in internet presense. How the times have changed.

He helped businesses such are Medical Arts Chemist, Brauners Bakery, Judaica Tressures, Rosenzweig and Maffia, and TMM.NET get themselves up and running on the net.

There contines to be a lot of Brooklyn material on this site, perhaps the greatest repository on the net. One needs to have the patients to walk through the galleries of photo's, texts and movies. There is a near complete documentation of Williamsburg in the photo directories.


This is a lost section for Williamsburg which has been removed and is now a part of history.

Cobble Hill Brooklyn on Bastille Day July 2007
The New Developing Coney Island Web Site

By the way, our current Mayor's Office telephone number is:
Mayor Bloomberg's Phone Number Is 212-772-1081
I tell you this because he's not taking phone calls any more.

These day, Ruben is mostly a professional Pharmacist. However, he remains active in a number of important political and educational organizations. He founded NYFairUse, and later had to change its name to the NY Assocation of Copyright Stakeholders. He founded NYLXS, still one of the most important Free Software organizaions in the nation. He teachs computer programming, once for the New School and then for NYLXS. He has particular expertise in Perl, C and GNU/Linux.

Occasionally he gets to take in a Pharmacy Conference in San Francisco. And when he does he gets a chance to combine Pharmacy activities with Computer Activities.

Richard Stallman and Friends at Rick Moen's House in the Bay Area
Shoshana Safir testing the One Laptop Per Child Prototype.

Ruben's Quotes that others have Quoted

A few thigs of interest

Some amazing things Ruben would like to bring to your attention

Review of the new Green Lantern Movie