Today is the day that the obscure, yet very powerful, Board of Standards and Appeals hears the appeal of its decision late last year okaying the Finger Building pending the outcome of legal cases. The building at 144 North 8th Street has been stuck at 10 stories for more than a year as the legal fight plays out. In the meantime, the rusting, partly finished hulk has loomed over the Williamsburg landscape, quite visible because it is the tallest building in that part of the neighborhood. Resident groups argue that the permit for the building isn’t valid because architect Robert Scarano and developer Mendel Brach counted neighboring roofs as “open space.” The building may also have changed ownership. All should be more clear in a few hours.

[Photo courtesy of Sail Brooklyn/GL Flickr Pool]

This view of Downtown as it appears now that many of the warehouses on the Brooklyn Heights waterfront are gone, comes courtesy of Sail Brooklyn in our GL Flickr Pool. Looks a lot different than it used to, yes?

“Parking in the bike lane should definitely be ticketed, but cops aren’t going to do it. I have called 311 but I’m really not sure how effective of a process this is. If you report someone who is not respecting bicyclists on the road, can that pass for a someone driving recklessly? What happens if you report of reckless driver to 311? Chances are they transfer yo to 911 and then you are wasting resources. There was a guy blocking the bike lane on sunday on Greenpoint Avenue, even though there was 5 open parking spots to choose from and as I went passed him, I yelled, “You’re in the fucking bicycle lane!” and he responded by skidding out his tires and brushing my side. I called the police, but I seriously doubt anything will come of it. Reacting to drivers will not make things better, even though I couldn’t help myself yesterday. I see no good solution in sight if there is no one to enforce these laws.”–New Greenpoint Bike Lanes Make Excellent Parking Spots

[Photo courtesy of Ruby’s Host/GL Flickr Pool]

This night shot of Coney Island come from Rubys Host via our GL Flickr Pool. The ride is one of those on property belonging to developer Joe Sitt.

Outside the Brooklyn Weather Observatory, we’ve got blue skies and sun this morning. Today’s forecast calls for it to be mostly sunny and hot with a high of 90. Tonight will be clear with a low of 74.–Accuweather

This work from Judith Supine is up on a building on N. 7 Street that had been a magnet for street art (and graffiti) until it was cleaned a couple of months ago. This is the first work to reappear there.

Earlier we related that a sign of some sort had been spotted in the window of the vacant Second St. Cafe on Park Slope’s Seventh Avenue. GL contacted KidsRx, which has a store on Hudson Street in the West Village, and can exclusively confirm that the retailer is, indeed, opening at Seventh Ave. and Second Street. KidsRx specializes in, obviously, children’s products. Given that the Slope is one of the baby centers of Brooklyn the location makes sense. How Slopers who were attached to the space as a cafe will feel about the transition from food to retail is another matter.

This is 462 Keap Street which is rising next to a huge Karl Fischer going up on Union Avenue in Williamsburg. It comes from Thomas Gilman, who has gotten some attention recently for the glass tower he has designed that will rise near Prospect Park. The new Gilman will be a six-story building with 29 units some of them with dramatic views of the service station next door. (In the photo, it’s the construction closest to the gas station; the back of the Karl Fischer is on the right.) In honor of its proximity to the aforementioned Getty Station (across the street from the forthcoming Gateway to Williamsburg development), we’re calling it the Getty Building. Among the amenities: no long trip to the gas station to fill it up.

And now, a selection of Brooklyn musical happenings from today through Wednesday:

Monday 7/28/08
Jalopy: Country Blues Jam–Bring yoru fiddle, accordion, banjo, washtub, mandolin, guitar, or maybe even spoons and participate in an open jam session. Free!! 9:30pm

Tuesday 7/29/08
Barbes: Slavic Soul Party (Balkan/Gypsy/Funk) $10, 9:00pm

Wednesday 7/30/08
Music at The Bridge, Tobacco Warehouse (Issue Project Room): John Zorn’s Cobra, Theremin Society, Jonathan Kane / February (Avant-Garde/Jazz) Free!! 6:30pm

Barbes: Jessica Pavone: No Way To Say Goodbye (Classical/Avant-Garde/Folk) $10, 8:00pm

—Dan Bennis

“On Sunday morning, July 27, 2008 between 6:30 – 6:50 am, atleast 12 automobiles had their tires slashed. Location: Cortelyou Road, between Ocean Parkway and East 7th Street and East 7th Street between Cortelyou Road and Avenue C. The Kensington Action Force is appealing to anyone who observed a group of 3 to 4 individuals, which included a woman/girl to send information to KAF at mailto:KAF.Kaforce@yahoo.com.”–Kensington Brooklyn

If it were in Britain, Coney Island United could be the name of a soccer team. But Coney Island United is in Brooklyn and it’s a new Coney group that’s been set up to push a Coney agenda. Here is the group’s mission statement:

The purpose of Coney Island United is to create and move forth an agenda for the preservation and enhancement of the Greater Community of Coney Island; the preservation and upgrading of services for the existing residential community; the updating of the crumbling infrastructure; the improvement and expansion of the already existing amusement area; the restoration of Coney Island to its former glory as America’s Playground for those of every means.

The group’s leaders include Rev. Connis Mobley, pastor of United Community Baptist Church, Arthur Melnick, president of the Brooklyn City Streetcar Company, Charles Denson, who is director of the Coney Island History Project, James Prince, who owns Major Meats on Mermaid Avenue, and community advocates Regina Mitchell and Brigitte Purvis. Things on the group’s agenda include a moratorium on new construction in Coney’s residential area until infrastructure needs are identified and a goal of at least 50 percent affordable housing with new construction once it resumes with priority given to local residents. In the Amusement District, the group opposes any changes to the current amusement zoning. The group also has a long list of infrastructure concerns, saying that Coney Island’s current infrastructure will be overwhelmed by significant new development. In terms of the big redevelopment agenda, the group has this to say:

Creation of a luxury resort, or possibly even a condo/shopping mall complex, in the amusement area will only serve to undermine the needs of the current population as well as destroy the over century old legacy of America’s Playground for those of any means. This will negatively impact current residents, workers and business owners as well as people from all over the city who count on Coney Island as a relatively affordable diversion from the rigors of their everyday lives.

The full website is here.

The new Williamsburger on Wythe Avenue in the Burg opened on Friday night and its menu says it’s “Beefing Up Hipsters.” There’s a straightforward burger menu with cheese choices including white cheddar, Maytag blue, gruyere Swiss and “government.” There was also a Yellow Fin Tuna special on the menu we saw. Some hot dogs and side including cheese perogies. We talked to the owner yesterday afternoon who said the menu was still in flux. On the other hand, an early diner sent a bit of a rant to Eater, which also has posted a photo gallery of the new eatery. It’s located at 342 Wythe, which is at S. 2 Street.

The last time we checked the site of Park Slope’s defunct Second Street Cafe (on Saturday) there was a big “for rent” sign in the window. But there’s a report today on Brooklynian that “a new sign in the window of 2nd St Cafe says ‘Children’s Rx’ or maybe it was ‘Kid’s Rx’ is coming. Is it a pharmacy, a healthy kids restaurant… Anyone in the know?” An interesting development in this Park Slope mystery.

Check out yesterday’s storm from the dramatic viewpoint of Shore Road in Bay Ridge.

We came across this tidbit about how the MTA is now taking B61 service issues more seriously because of Ikea in the course of an entirely different email discussion on the Brooklyn Baby Hui (Williamsburg parent) group about petitioning the MTA to make buses more stroller friendly. Here’s the bit about the reviled B61 we found interesting:

I have started to call MTA directly when waiting too long for the B61 bus (my nemesis) If I have to wait for more than 15 minutes past the time it is supposed to arrive I call and complain. At first I called 311 but now I carry the direct number in my wallet. I was amazed, after my first call a supervisor called me back a few days later to explain what the delay was and ask me more questions. The second time I called they didn’t have specifics to give me, but the appeared to take my complaint very seriously. They also told me that the B61 is the most complained about bus line–and they were probably concerned because now it is attached to the Ikea Terminal, and will be getting much attention. After complained, I noticed the driver arriving at my station with a TIME SCHEDULE posted on his steering wheel.

Now, would that have happened six months ago?

Those new bike lanes on Manhattan Avenue in Greenpoint are proving popular for many purposes and uses, including–you guessed it–parking. A GL reader who was using the bike lanes for bicycling, sent us a big series of photos featuring people who are using the bike lane for parking. He writes: “All of these pics were taken as I attempted to ride my bike up the new Manhattan avenue bike lane today [Saturday] at around 1pm. There was a vehicle parked in the bike lane on every block – in some cases more than one car.”

A whole gallery of excellent Greenpoint bike lane pics ahead.

Brooklinks is a daily selection of Brooklyn-related information and images:

· A Deadly Weekend in Brooklyn & Other Waters [NYT]
· Convert Empty Spaces at Williamsburg House’s to Apartments? [NYDN]
· Where Mobil Station Stood, Now an Empty Lot [AYR]
· Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket Goodness [A Year in the Park]
· Car Culture III [Bed Stuy Banana]
· Slope’s Five Guys on Opening Day [A Hamburger Today]
· Theft at 132 Montague [BHB]
· Strongmen Going at It in Coney [Brooklynometry]
· Life & Death at Kings County Hospital in the BWAC Show [DITHOB]
· Back When Brooklyn Was Norwegian [NYT]
· Weekly Dumbo Links [Dumbo NYC]
· The Lonely Waterfall [Sail Brooklyn]

“Brooklyn’s Maimonides Medical Center regularly flaunts fire-safety regulations and permits revolting accumulations of sewage and mold, according to a lawsuit filed by a former executive. Patricia Abrams, the one-time assistant vice president for human resources at Maimonides, says she was fired after she blew the whistle on illegal, dangerous and nauseating conditions at the hospital, according to the suit filed in Brooklyn Supreme Court.”–NYP

[Photo courtesy of Forgotten NY]

For anything and everything that there is to know about Canarsie, go to the latest installment of Forgotten New York, where Kevin Walsh has outdone himself with two pages of words and photos about the Southern Brooklyn community. Here’s some history:

Canarsie, which is located between Paerdegat Basin on the west (Paerdegat is a British corruption of Dutch words meaning “horse gate”) Jamaica Bay on the southeast, Fresh Creek Basin on the east and (this is my determination) Foster Avenue on the north, has been settled for thousands of years. It was first occupied by the Indian tribe that gave the neighborhood its moniker, the Canarsees. The name “Canarsee”‘s etymology is in dispute, but it some scholars of Native American tongues say it means “fenced land” or “fenced place.”…The first European to make a permanent home in the Canarsie area was Dutchman Peter Claesen Wyckoff, who arrived in 1652 after several years of indentured servitude in Albany. The home that he built that year at Canarsie’s outskirts, at today’s Clarendon Road and Ralph Avenue still stands…

Head over and check it out. It’s very, very good stuff.

The search was called off for a little girl presumed drown in Coney Island on Saturday evening. Ten-year-old Akira Johnson vanished around 5:30PM on Saturday while swimming near W. 23rd Street. She “was one of seven presumed drowning victims during a weekend of mayhem at city and Long Island beaches. The drownings appear to be linked to rip currents from ‘long-period’ waves produced by winds out of the south, according to the National Weather Service. Akira was swimming with her cousin Tyriek about 5:30 p.m. near W. 23rd St. when rough currents sucked them into the sea. Lifeguards were able to rescue Tyriek.”–NYDN

[Photo courtesy of lornagrl/GL Flickr Pool]

This pic manages to capture some of essence of the Surf Avenue scene in Coney Island. It comes from lornagrl, whose Coney Island photography is, in a work, superb.

“We went tonight with our 2 year old and honestly there were no such events. When I asked the guy taking the tickets where I could park my stroller he looked at me like I was from another planet.”–Stroller Olympics at Cyclones Game Today

[Photo courtesy of woodendesigner/GL Flickr Pool]

There were some fairly dramatic bolts of lightning snaking out the sky during yesterday’s storms. This is one of them, touching down in Carroll Gardens. Woodendesigner, who dropped this into our GL Flickr Pool, writes: “So I stepped out into my front yard to check out the storm and saw a pretty nice lightning strike (not this one). I thought to myself….. ‘Hmmmmm I should get my camera out’. This bolt hit about five seconds after I stepped back out with the camera. A pretty close strike to where I am in Carroll gardens.”

Right now, it’s cloudy outside the Brooklyn Weather Observatory but today’s forecast is calling for a partly sunny day with a high of 87 (and none of yesterday’s weather drama). Tonight will be partly cloudy with a low of 62.–Accuweather

[Photo courtesy of Rubys Host/GL Flickr Pool]

Astella’s 18th Annual Sand Sculpting Contest took place on the beach yesterday and produced some very cool displays of sculpted sand as it does every year. Check out Rubys Host and lornagrl for more pics of the scene. There was also an Arm Wrestling Championship yesterday and you can see some of Dietrich’s photos here. On a very sad and somber note, as per the link below, a 10-year-old girl drowned in rough surf of Coney Island yesterday around 5:30PM.

A couple of more great photos ahead.