It’s been a while since we’ve posted a “Coney Island Death Watch,” but developer Joe Sitt and his firm Thor Equities are clearing some of the land they own in Coney Island. Tenants got the boot from properties at the end of last year, and now, there are reports that a number of the Sitt-owned […]

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Developer Joe Sitt is turning up the heat on the city in his attempt to have Coney Island rezoned to allow luxury highrise housing on the boardwalk. While Mr. Sitt’s publicly-released plans have stressed retail development and amusements such as a new roller coaster, the New York Post reports that Mr. Sitt is suggesting he […]

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If you’re not a New Republic reader you might miss this next item, so we figured it’s worth passing along. It’s actually a story about Senator and Presidential candidate Barack Obama and his appeal across racial lines. The story, however, dwells quite a bit on some research that sociologists did in the 1990s in Red […]

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Brooklinks is a daily selection of Brooklyn-related information and images. In 1938, Blight Was a Simpler Thing [AYR] Brooklyn Matters Documentary Hits the Screen [NYDN] More Money for Atlantic Yards on the QT? [No Land Grab] Checking in on the Third Place Horror Show [Brownstoner] Another Brooklyn Construction Worker Dies in a Fall [NYT] How […]

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What you’re looking at above is a map of the Atlantic Yards site, color-coded to show who owns what. While the entire thing makes a pretty, multi-colored map and diagram of the project, what’s of particular interest here are the areas in red. Those, according to Develop Don’t Destroy, are properties that are still privately […]

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We caught a virtual symphony of construction work going on over at what we call Karl Fischer Row on Bayard Street next to McCarren Park on Sunday and have been so overwhelmed with posts this week that we’re only now getting around to posting a couple of pics. There was the sound of banging and […]

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A special North Brooklyn correspondent who saw our post yesterday featuring two Williamsburg development sites that are pretty much open to those that wish to romp through the rubble and play demolition contractor or construction worker hit us off with the photo above of another fun site. This one is on Green Street in Greenpoint. […]

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These Brooklyn coffee maps, which are simply zoomed in versions of NYC coffee maps came to our attention via the Google Maps Mania blog. The top one–which shows independent coffee places–comes from cupofnyc’s New York City coffee map. The bottom one shows the location of Starbucks (the paucity of which in certain parts of Brooklyn […]

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If demolition and construction in Brooklyn were a genre of literature or drama, it would be Theater of the Absurd. How else to explain day-to-day, week-to-week spectacle of flagrant violations by developers and contractors, slow response by municipal officials and blatant disregard of any orders that are eventually issued? We present without further explanation the […]

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Our little trip to see PortSide New York’s Mary A. Whalen in the graving dock at the Brooklyn Navy Yard was, to us, pretty damned cool. Yesterday, we posted a large flickr photoset from the visit. Today, we’re putting up a Brookvid. It gives a little bit of the feeling of what it’s like to […]

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After years of discussion and planning, the BAM Cultural District may be moving forward. The $650 million project would be built around the Brooklyn Academy of Music and in the words of today’s Post create “a new Left Bank – Brooklyn-style.” It will include a theater and arts library, dance studio, public park, museum & […]

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We don’t usually do posts on street art, except to feature it as a “Photo Du Jour” sometimes, but the recent outbreak of splashing, and the beauty of the two works here, merited a stand-alone post. In any case, we won’t publicize the location of these two other than to say they’re in Williamsburg somewhere […]

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[Photo courtesdy of Harvenyc/flickr] Ever wonder about that sunken lightship in Red Hook by the Revere Sugar Plant whose masts were poking out of the water? The ship was reportedly removed from the water on Sunday by a massive crane floated into the Erie Basin by Thor Equities. We came across this flickr set of […]

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Way back when, the Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods was promised $100,000 to report on the Environmental Impact Statement for Atlantic Yards. The group did a good job of coordinating the “community expert review” of a terribly complex document and was vigilant in monitoring what some would say was a deeply flawed process. It turns out […]

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Brooklinks is a daily selection of Brooklyn-related information and images. Weather & Idiotarod Prospect Park: Snow Capital of New York City [Gothamist] Van Brunt Street with Snow [A Sad Day for Birds II] Trying , and Failing, to Find the Idiotarod [Brooklyn Record] Idiotaroders Outsmart Cops, Media & Pull Off Race [Daily Intel] Idiotarod [newyorkshitty] […]

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Leave it to the flickr photographer who goes by f.trainer to get a wonderful perspective on the Revere demolition in Red Hook. Don’t stop at this photo. Check out his entire Revere photoset, shot over time, and definitely make a stop at his Gowanus Batcave photoset.

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It’s not like we walk around Williamsburg looking for messed up construction sites–you know, downed fences or poorly secured doors. But, sometimes, we practically trip across them. The specimen above is at N. 10th and Berry on the site of an old zipper factory that was recently demolished and that will become condos. The one […]

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There is something that is both frightening and uplifting about standing under a 613-ton fuel tanker several stories beneath ground level. You look up and the mass of the ship, with a fresh black coat of paint, rises several stories above your head into the pale Brooklyn winter sky. The the left and right are […]

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How do you hide the fact that you’re connected to the well-heeled developer proposing at $1.5 billiion project? You produce a flyer from an independent group that looks like it came off an underground printing press. On Friday, we noted that the a group calling itself The Future of Coney Island that is connected to […]

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The Revere Sugar Plant in Red Hook is on its last legs. Demolition workers tearing the iconic structure down on behalf of developer Joe Sitt and his firm Thor Equities were back hacking away at the metal structure this week and also made more headway demolishing brick structures on the site. In addition, a huge […]

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Score one for the Faile crew. A check of the state of street art on N. 6th Street, which was one of the spots struck by the destructive Splasher, finds that the Faile crew has replaced destroyed street art. The art war was noted in the Sunday New York Times, and quoted a Faile member […]

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Brooklinks is a daily selection of Brooklyn-related information and images. 2,159 Idiotarod 2007 Flickr Tagged Photos!!! [flickr] More Idiotarod Goodness [Gothamist] Why Isn’t the Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods Getting Its $100K? [AYR] Brooklyn Heights, 1982 [Brooklyn Heights Blog] NYT is Very Interested in Correct Spelling of Cannellini Beans [DDDB] Chance to Get Things Right in […]

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The documentary Brooklyn Matters now has its own webite, brooklymatters.com, which is a good spot to watch a trailer and to get updated listings of where producer/director Isabel Hill’s Atlantic Yards documentary is being screened. The website itself says: No single event will have a more drastic and long-lasting impact on Brooklyn than the proposed […]

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It’s always interesting to see how Brooklyn is viewed, especially in light of its inclusion over the last year or so in a ton of travel section stories. In any case, here’s a little something from yesterday’s LA Times that we’re including for fun: The [Brooklyn Cruise] terminal, at Pier 12 off Bowne Street in […]

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[Photo courtesy of LarimdaME/flickr]We missed the Idiotarod, which is a sort of winter version of the Mermaid Parade with shopping carts, which took place yesterday and ran from Clay and Franklin in Greenpoint to 45th Road in Long Island City. It apparently attracted a large police presence, including helicopters, in addition to a large number […]

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