[Photo courtesy of 66 Square Feet] These chairs come from GRDN in Boerum Hill and are a very sure sign that summer is just around the corner, despite the ongoing cool temperatures from time to time.

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The debacle of Brooklyn’s “Arabic school” has taken a new turn. “Three opponents of a Brooklyn public school that teaches Arabic filed a lawsuit on Wednesday against the school’s founding principal, Debbie Almontaser, claiming that she had defamed them by saying they had stalked her.”–NYT

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There’s a community meeting coming up on May 29 about the city’s contentious plans to expand and reopen the Brooklyn House of Detention. It will take place at 7PM at the Belarusian Church on the corner of Atlantic Avenue & Bond Street. Here’s a bit from the House of Detention Stakeholders group that’s sponsoring the […]

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As the Crown Heights playground weed smoking debate continues on Brooklynian and in the comments over at Brownstoner, the Pacific Branch Public Library Porn Discussion is still going on at the Park Slope Parents Group. Is it okay for people to look at porn in the library? Does the First Amendment end when lewd acts […]

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Is internet porn okay at a public library? In point of fact, the Brooklyn Public Library installed a filter to comply with the Children’s Internet Protection Act, but it can be turned off by adults. People being people, the result is that some people use library computers to look at porn or at images that […]

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It has been some time since we came across tales of woe and despair from the notorious Times Plaza post office in Boerum Hill on Atlantic Avenue, (about which we have written many times). Today, we have new stories to relate from emails circulating, although they are relatively mild tales of woe compared to some […]

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Today, we inaugurate a new feature that we’re very happy about: interviews and reports from the Center for the Urban Environment. This feature is “Living Local Economies,” which will focus on local businesses that are green or focused on sustainability. The subject of the interview is Alexis Miesen Co-Proprietress of Blue Marble Ice Cream on […]

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Things are a little pissy in Boerum Hill. “One neighbor has had the bed of his pickup truck repeatedly doused with urine, and on several occasions large quantities of urine have been used to soak the gardens and sidewalks in the middle of the block…”–Curbed

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This is an email circulating via the Boerum Hill group. We present it in its entirety: Of late I have had a weekly visitor who is a fairly dapper Asian woman. She apparently does not speak English. She enters my yard, rifles my garbage cans and containers. Today she blithely stole a new garbage bag […]

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“The Vargas Mini-Market, a bodega at the corner of Bond and Warren, was shut down late last week. According to the restraining order affixed to the shuttered business, it was closed for the ‘sale of untaxed cigarettes.’” Isolated thing or growing trend in the age of mega-taxes?–Brownstoner

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The South Brooklyn Neighborhood Alliance–whose formation we noted in an exclusive report here on March 5 and whose name and status we updated last Thursday–has officially announced itself. It involves groups from Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, Boerum Hill and Red Hook’s Columbia Waterfront District. A press release from SoBNA went out last night and it […]

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There were many comments left yesterday on our post about the parking sign outside PS 38 in Boerum Hill that was mysteriously altered to expand the parking off-limits to residents during school hours. Residents say a school employee tampered with the sign to reserve an entire block for school employees and, then, said that those […]

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Here’s one way to alter parking regulations without going through the cumbersome Dept. of Transportation procedure: change the signs yourself. This, apparently, is what an enterprise staff member at PS 38 in Boerum Hill has done, at least, according to some Boerum Hill residents. Per the Boerum Hill email list: Arrived home tonight to discover […]

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Few New York City schools have gotten the volume of bad press and controversy as the Khalil Gibran School. It has been booted from Park Slope, embroiled in an ugly principal controversy and not embraced in Fort Greene, where it will go next year. Now, it’s current location in Boerum Hill is being slammed, per […]

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It’s been a while since we heard news of the Giant Sinkhole of Pacific Street in Boerum Hill, but there are developments. First, the big hole has been filled, (never mind that the problem developed in December) but construction equipment has been left behind, and another sinkhole is opening where other work took place. Per […]

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A flower disappeared from the base of a tree in Boerum Hill and the owner presumes a flower is at work. Who, exactly, would steal a little purple flower, anyway?–Curbed

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Council Members Bill de Blasio and David Yassky are cutting the ribbon on a new Computer Lab at MS 447 on Dean Street today. Per an email: “grants were awarded to the school upon learning that the school would be moving from one location to another. The total cost of the technology lab which includes […]

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The Boerum Hill Association is showing the documentary “Twilight Becomes Night” on Wednesday, April 7 at 7PM at the Belarusan Church, which is at the corner of Atlantic Ave. & Bond St. Per the BHA: This film examines the devastating impact neighborhoods suffer when local businesses are forced out by rising rents and competition from […]

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Are the skateboarders in front of Homage on Smith Street a menace and does skatboarding on Bergen Street make driving a nightmare? Or, is the real nuisance the parade of strollers and the mindboggling jam in front of the Tea Lounge on Court Street? There are many opinions, including nearly 80 comments.–Curbed

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We realize that this is Brooklyn/New York City and that muggings happens (less frequently than they used to, but often enough to make it an unpleasant possibility). For some reason, mugging tales that circulate via some of the neighborhood listserves are most unsettling than “police report” stories, possibly because of the personal accounts they contain. […]

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The Brooklyn House of Detention expansion proposal now has an organization called the Brooklyn House of Detention Stakeholders Group working to “keep the community informed of the ongoing struggle against expansion of the Brooklyn House of Detention.” Their website is brooklynjail.org. Quite a few groups near the facility, which the city wants to reopen and […]

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It was what we called The Battle of the Beans–a cafe called Brooklyn Bean on Atlantic Avenue and a new one coming to Fourth Avenue at Carroll Street that was also going to call itself Brooklyn Bean. We wondered how it was going to end. Now we know: There won’t be two Brooklyn Beans. There […]

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The Atlantic Avenue Betterment Association is have a meeting on Thursday (3/20). Here’s a bit from an email: Find out the latest news from Atlantic Avenue Betterment Assoc. regarding Brooklyn Bridge Park – report on court hearing of appeal today Monday Brooklyn House of Detention ‘s future – a new vision for the site is […]

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This is the tote bag that Urban Outfitters was giving out with purchases at its new Atlantic Avenue store yesterday as posted by our friends at Racked. (Images of the store, which is apparently not very stroller friendly, here.) It continues the odd advertising approach of the posters that have popped up, in fact, taking […]

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The city will be installing a new traffic light at Bond and State Streets in Boerum Hill to try to cut down on accidents. Some residents think it will make matters worse with cars speeding up to try to make lights (one person writes, “We should take a stand against all these lights…“), but others […]

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