[Right photo courtesy of Brooklyn Streets] After nearly a year of public debate, work has started at at 360 Smith Street, now known as Oliver House. The digging has been going full tilt this week and is proceeding quickly. We’re tempted to joke that the building will be completed by next week, but it won’t […]

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It’s hard to keep love down, particularly during Spring Fever season. With the original hearts having been removed by work crews on behalf of developer Billy Stein, the battle for the heart of the developer, if not the hearts of residents, seems to have escalated back to the kinds of posters that used to grace […]

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The Carroll Gardens Democracy Wall, which had been used by residents as a kind of community bulletin board since last year, disappeared last week behind the big blue construction fence for the controversial 360 Smith development. While it’s unclear if the blue fence will end up serving the same purpose or just get plastered with […]

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One of the things that has riled up Carroll Gardens residents as much as the design and height of the building that is planned for 360 Smith Street is the loss of part of the plaza in front of the Carroll Street subway station and the trees that have been planted there. Several trees on […]

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Is there a miniature game of Beat the Clock underway with the controversial building at 360 Smith Street and others in Carroll Gardens? A text amendment to city zoning that would change an odd city definition that has defined a number of very narrow street in Carroll Gardens as being wide (allowing taller buildings) is […]

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One gets the feeling that very little is going to happen at the 360 Smith development that will not be noticed. Over the weekend, we got an email that said “Work went on at 360 without the MTA knowing. The arrangement is that the MTA is ALWAYS supposed to know when work happens at 360.” […]

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This is the Smith Street bar that used to be called Quench. It is coming back to life as “The Jake Walk,” from the owners of Stinky and Smith & Vine. Its transition was noted yesterday by Brownstoner along with the coming Clover Club next to Rocket Ship. Our Carroll Gardens Correspondent came upon the […]

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The Carroll Gardens community activist message board we nicknamed the Democracy Wall acquired some new artwork on Saturday night about the 360 Smith Street development, work on which will likely be starting soon, given that building permits were issued on February 22. The artist named Art Dog, who has created the big murals, said the […]

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Permits were issued on Friday for the controversial Carroll Gardens condo that will be going up at 360 Smith Street. Documents on the Department of Buildings website, to which GL was directed by a neighborhood source, show an okay for a seven-story, 70-foot-tall structure with 44 units with a total of 65,203 square feet. The […]

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The redesign of 360 Smith Street unveiled last week at a Carroll Gardens Neighborhood Association meeting by the developer, Billy Stein, continues to elicit reaction from residents. The CORD group, which was formed after original renderings or the Robert Scarano-designed “Heavy Metal” building were posted last May, offered up a photoshopped view of Second Place […]

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The big news to come out of developer Billy Stein’s appearance at the Carroll Gardens Neighborhood Association meeting last night wasn’t even fresh: architect Robert Scarano has been off the job at 360 Smith Street since December. Mr. Scarano, who had designed the early versions of the 360 Smith Street structure that we named the […]

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The Carroll Gardens Neighborhood Association is having its monthly meeting tonight (2/11). 360 Smith developer Billy Stein is expected to be there and, presumably, will offer updated renderings of the structure that we once nicknamed the Heavy Metal Building. The meeting will run from 7:30PM-9:00PM. Anyone that’s been should know that the meetings are no […]

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We started getting emails yesterday afternoon about boring machines drilling test holes at the future site of the controversial 360 Smith Street building in Carroll Gardens. It would indicate that the project is getting closer to getting underway. Speaking of which, we understand that 360 Smith developer Billy Stein will be appearing at the Carroll […]

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We got an email with a photo off the latest art work posted in Carroll Gardens about the development at 360 Smith Street. This one isn’t posted on the Democracy Wall, but rather, is nearby because it’s aimed at parents of the Hannah School. “I wonder how much the parents are of about the coming […]

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Here’s a reminder about the forum taking place tonight (2/4) about Public Place that will feature professors and students from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Civil Engineering and Architecture that have been looking at the Public Place site. It’s called New Voices on the Gowanus: Focus on the Public Place. It takes place at 6:30PM […]

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The new St. Clair Restaurant, which is taking the place of the old one at the corner of Smith Street and Atlantic Avenue has a new sign. “Glad the new owners kept the old name, and, taking the sign’s aesthetics as face value, they seem to be trying to retain the spirit of the diner.”–Lost […]

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Billy Stein, the developer of the controversial 360 Smith building is apparently planning a presentation about his building at the next meeting of the Carroll Gardens Neighborhood Association. The CORD group has been agitating to get information from the developer about the building and has, in fact, posted 67 questions it would like answered. Mr. […]

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Today’s featured construction site comes to us from Carroll Gardens and it’s one that the Department of Buildings has actually noted. Like all our favorite construction sites, the fence at this one has apparently come down a bunch of times, but we haven’t gotten any photos of it opened up. DOB issued a Stop Work […]

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The traditional dry cleaners and laundries of Smith Street and Court Street may be dropping like flies, but there’s now a “Laundry at the Deli.” The L at the D is at 183 Smith and is still a work in progress. In addition to washers and dryers, there is a food case being installed in […]

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Some new art work and information has been added to the Carroll Gardens Democracy Wall in the plaza outside the Carroll Street subway stop. One of the ways the wall has been used is to repurpose newspapers article and blog posting about neighborhood development issues, as these pics show.

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Testing work has gotten underway at the site of the controversial building that will be going up at 360 Smith Street. An email we got said that workers were on the job by 8AM yesterday: Residents were quite shocked to see two trucks on the site and one large dumpster. People counted “5 spots” that […]

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The image above is the latest poster to appear on the Carroll Gardens Democracy Wall in the plaza outside the Carroll Street subway stop. It reaffirms why the wall has proven a valuable outlet for community sentiment, whether one agrees with opinions being expressed or not. In an era when so many people are slammed […]

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GL has recently made an appearance on the Carroll Gardens Democracy Wall. The wall, which bears dozens of posters and statements about development issues in the neighborhood, can be found in the plaza at the Carroll Street subway station on Smith Street.

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The space in Carroll Gardens we named The Democracy Wall was the subject of a News 12 report before the New Year. (We named it after the Democracy Wall in China where the government briefly encouraged people to put up posters and political statements in 1978 and 1979.) It’s been posted to the YouTube.

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Looks like it’s time to say bye bye to another dry cleaner on Smith Street as of January 19, per the photos of the No. 1 Dry Cleaner at Smith and Sackett sent to us by a special correspondent. Our correspondent writes: It seems that people who live in the vicinity of Sackett and Smith […]

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