If you’re going to be in Prospect Park on July 4 it might be worth stopping by the Prospect Park Boathouse (which is always worth a stop, in any case) as the Independence Community Foundation is offering a free “family pass” with free admission to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, the Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Historical Society, Brooklyn Children’s Museum and a free ride on the Prospect Park Carousel. The pass allows a one-time family admission to each and is good from July 4-September 1. It will be given out from Noon-4PM.

“A Brooklyn judge on Wednesday ordered the removal of an 18-foot-tall, 200-foot-long metal fence that separates the Red Hook Recreation Area from the Henry Street Basin. City lawyers had argued that the fence was built illegally and impeded access to the Red Hook waterfront…The fence was installed, without permission, by Gowanus Industrial Park, which owns some of the land underlying the Henry Street Basin — a harbor along the Gowanus Bay in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn.”–NYT

Do you have any design and planning skills? Want to try your hand at redesigning a fairly wretched Brooklyn street and intersection? Your moment has arrived. Transportation Alternatives is sponsoring a “Designing the 21st Century Street” competition for the intersection. They say “We are looking for new conceptual and physical approaches to the planning of public streets…The street will be re-imagined as a healthy, safe, and sustainable 21st Century street.” The competition is opening to both design professionals, students and members of the community in general. Designs are due by August. There will be an exhibition of winners in December selected by a jury. The top prize is $6,000, with $4,000 and $2,000 going to Second and Third Place. All the info is available on the website for the competition here. For more info email contact@21stcenturystreet.org. Everybody loves a challenge, right?

Yesterday, a “zoning text amendment” that redefines very narrow streets in Carroll Gardens as being narrow for zoning purposes, cutting the height of buildings that can be built on them, passed the City Planning Commission by a unanimous vote. It goes to the City Council on July 23, where easy approval is expected. In the meantime, one of the artists behind the Democracy Wall at the controversial development at 360 Smith Street, which sparked some of the neighborhood activism that lead to the zoning text amendment and the bigger push for a neighborhood downzoning, has struck again. This is a photo a new anti-development poster naming 360 Smith Street, the Clarett Group’s 340 Court Street project and Public Places as examples of “overdevelopment” in Carroll Gardens. The poster, we are told, is “on a narrow street,” the artist joked in an email. We are guessing this means Second Place, which is one of the “narrow streets” on which the 360 Smith development sit. The building would exceed the building height allowed on a narrow street after the zoning text change. Oliver House, at it’s called, has its own website to keep the neighborhood posted on construction activity.

Brooklinks is a selection of Brooklyn-related information and images. To all those heading out of town or to the beach today, enjoy and have a safe trip. A wonderful Fourth of July weekend and official beginning of summer to everyone!!!

· Kings County Hospital Execs Fired After Awful Neglect Death [NYDN]
· Boy Rescued from Fire Dies from Burns [NYT]
· “Monster” Deliberately Has Pit Bull Attack Child [NYP]
· More Atlantic Yards Subsidies Hinted at Hearing [AYR]
· Cop Beaned by Bottle at Ebbets Field Houses [NYP]
· Halfway to a Year in the Park [A Year in the Park]
· This Was Red Hook’s Pioneer Theatre [Lost City]
· Little Religious Group Leaving Bushwick for Mexico [NYT]
· Dumbo Waterfalls [Dumbo NYC]
· Volunteer Opportunities in Williamsburg [Williamsburg is Dead]
· RIP, New York Slick [Brooklyn 11211]
· Tazza Opening on Clark Street [BHB]
· July 4 at Tamboril [Clinton Hill Blog]

[Image courtesy of Curbed]

A reader sent in photos to Curbed yesterday of a new city-financed $1.25 million Water Taxi dock being floating into place at Schaefer Landing in Williamsburg. The original dock was removed after East River service was suspended during the winter. The Water Taxi East River Service was reinstated on Monday and will resume at Schaefer Landing on July 7.

“I, atypical Park Sloper, childless and unemployed, heard the fireworks going off around 10 PM on busy 5th Avenue. No one turned, no one blinked, no one cared. Just because a handful of Park Slopers know how to make their whining heard does not mean they represent all of us. Park Slope earns some of its rep but repeated NY Times articles and the like are not helping. In a word, the shit is getting exaggerated. The worst child behavior I ever saw in a restaurant: Carroll Gardens. Just had drinks at Lodge in Williamsburg and saw more kids in the place than I’ve ever seen in a bar at Park Slope. So let’s ease up on the Slope bashing. It may be easy to do but that don’t make it accurate.”–And Now, Park Slopers Peeved About Amateur Fireworks

Developers
are not
always

held in
high esteem

by the general
public, deserved or
not. Given the
impact that the developer
has on a community,
it is not surprising that
developers offend some
people. As in any
profession, some developers
are models of ethical behavior and
make innovative and attractive contributions
to the built environment, and some developers exhibit
low morals and appear on the front page of newspapers
under indictment for shoddy construction and bribery.

c. 2008 Graziella Radici

from Real Estate Development (2000). 3rd ed. Miles, Berens, Weiss. Washington, DC: Urban Land Use

[Photo courtesy of Kapuku/Gl Flickr Pool]

Here’s another of the many shots of Brooklyn rainbows made this week. This angle shows the rainbow over Prospect Park. It comes via our GL Photo Pool from Kapuku.

Outside the Brooklyn Weather Observatory, it’s looking good, but the heat and humidity are returning today along with some late thunderstorms. The forecast calls for it to be partly sunny, very warm and more humid. The high will be 89. Tonight will be mostly cloudy with thunderstorms around later. The low will be 70. Tomorrow’s a few degrees cooler but with a threat of both daytime and evening thunderstorms for the fireworks.–Accuweather

Here to close out our broadcast day on this day before the day before the long Fourth of July weekend and the true, official start of summer festivities, is a view from above of the Atlantic Yards site. It’s interesting because you don’t often get the perspective from this side from above. This is the segment of the site where the Frank Gehry office building and arena would go, showing the current status of site clearance.

“Of all the identities in all the world, why would anyone steal mine? Wouldn’t you think a thief would do a little research and decide to impersonate, oh, I don’t know—someone with a good credit rating? Someone who didn’t owe the IRS a bunch of money?…But no, someone stole mine and promptly drained my bank account. To add insult to brokeness, once he was all dressed up in my identity, he went shopping at Costco. Not Barney’s or Bendels or anywhere I’d shop if money weren’t an object. No, I get the white-trash ID thief, who spends my dough in the land of ten-gallon Cheese-Coodle barrels and thousand-roll packs of Charmin. To his credit, he did buy a computer, but still—a crappy Costco computer.”–Bad Advice

We found these fliers on Fourth Avenue near First Street on the Gowanus side of the big avenue and are posting it on the off chance that someone might recognize the really cute pooch in question.

The “narrow streets” zoning text amendment that would redefine a number of narrow Carroll Gardens streets as actually being narrow for zoning purposes was passed by the City Planning Commission today by a unanimous vote. The measure would define the streets as 50 wide rather than the current 130 feet (which counts front gardens) and cut the height of future buildings from a maximum of seven stories to five stories. The measure will go to the City Council on July 23 where it is expected to be approved by a wide margin. An overall Carroll Gardens downzoning is still a number of years in the future, even though local officials and community groups have been pushing for immediate action. The Zoning Text Amendment moved relatively quickly through the process because it wasn’t subject to a full land use review.

Here’s Olafur Eliasson’s waterfall on Governors Island (which we consider to be an honorary part of Brooklyn as it is closer to us than Manhattan) viewed up close and personal from the Island itself.

Anyone living in Gowanus or in Park Slope has no doubt been seeing or hearing the cool late night fireworks displays that people have been setting off for at least the last week or so. Not everyone is so enamored of them. Per another Park Slope Parents email that has come our way from a faithful and reliable Park Slope Correspondent:

…there are fireworks going off on Union between 4th and 3rd Avenue every night for almost the past week. They set them off directly across from the gas station and they are large professional grade fireworks. Very pretty but very loud. People in our building have called the police nightly who respond after about 2 hours, too late to catch the guys. I don’t think these are the same fireworks that you would hear, but it’s probably the same response you would get from the police.

Yes, it’s almost July 4, one of our favorite days of the year.

Yes, it’s another playground post, but in the form of another followup to an earlier post because there may be some progress on the LICH Playground in Cobble Hill. (That’s the one we’ve posted about that is fairly dirty, has poor drainage, is barely maintained according to parents and may even have safety hazards for kids.) One parent posts a follow-up on the BoCoCa email group that says:

I feel I’ve made at least some progress, not that anything has changed at the playground. I was there this morning, forcing my kids to dodge the many muddy puddles and mud piles blocking multiple paths. Anyway, yesterday I spoke to Diana Sullivan, VP or Operations…It is apparent that this is a long standing issue and she is aware of the community’s concerns. She even told me that she has people reading the blogs. After explaining to me how difficult it is for them, she did listen to my concerns and suggested that perhaps a meeting between her and a small group of parents could help to address some of our concerns. it sounds like she is trying to form a better relationship between LICH and the community….She doesn’t want to have a meeting with a large group of angry parents, stating that she has tried this route before, and it hasn’t been productive. I think this is a good start. I will gather a list of concerns, hopefully at least some of which can be addressed. I am also willing to help to organize some sort of work group where we can pitch in to make LICH playground a place where we want to bring our children to play.

It’s a small sign of positive movement, in any case.

Lola Staar wasn’t able to make the Scoping Hearing on the Coney Island plan, which has in turn led to the eruption a little, uh, back-and-forth discussion on the Coney Island Message Board, because she was attending the premiere of the documentary made about the Dreamland Roller Rink event at Childs Restaurant earlier this year. The vid features some comments about Coney Island by, among others, Rosie Perez and Dreena DeNiro.

Here are a few very cool bike rides for people with an interest in long rides and stamina. We especially like the “Brooklyn Beach Cruise” that stars in Bay Ridge and follows the Shore Parkway Greenway. It “wraps around Southwest Brooklyn, with great views along the water. At the southern end of Bensonhurst Park, the Greenway turns into a well-marked street route that will lead right down to Coney Island Beach and its cruise-able boardwalk. To explore beyond the Coney and Brighton beaches, turn right on Neptune Avenue and head east…” All the way to the Rockaways.–Brooklyn Based

Here’s an interesting question that comes via the Boerum Hill Group that raises the issue of dealing with a vacant building next door. While the issue is less widespread than it used to be, it still pops up here and there. Here it is:

I live next door to a building that has been vacant (in foreclosure) for a few years now & which periodically has junkies who get in & set up camp. The owners refuse to board up the back windows & basement door, which is how they are getting in. The police will come & kick people out, but they keep coming back. The dept of buildings is no help, they gave the owners a citation for it being open & accessible, but that is all they tell me they can do. Has anyone dealt with this sort of situation before? Any tips on who to contact? I have a call in to the crime prevention person at the 76th precinct but haven’t heard back yet. Besides not being thrilled with living next to junkies, my biggest fear is that they’ll set the place on fire & our house will go up with it…

It seems to be one of those classic situations where no particular agency has an especially effective solution.

Was the Metropolitan Opera in Prospect Park only a couple of weeks ago? Well, Eugene Patron, who we like to think of as the Oracle of Prospect Park, sent us an email to let us know that the Philharmonic will be performing on July 14. Per the email:

Each year, the New York Philharmonic returns to Prospect Park’s Long Meadow Ballfields for an amazing free concert under the stars. This year’s program will include Mozart’s Divertimento in D major, K.125a; Beethoven’s Symphony No. 4; and Sibelius’ Finlandia. Alan Gilbert will conduct; Sheryl Staples and Michelle Kim will be featured on violin. A fireworks display rounds out the evening. The concert space features a state-of-the-art sound system with a wireless broadcast network and 24 15-foot speaker towers. Park concessions will be on hand, selling hot dogs, ice cream, and other great summertime refreshments.

The music starts at 8PM.

The Department of Transportation has seriously scrambled alternate side parking regulations in Park Slope as part of the reduction in overall time from three hours to 90 minutes. On most streets, the days themselves have been changed and we don’t think it’s going out on a limb to predict that this will prompt some very vocal complaints from residents who’ve been accustomed for years to moving their cars on certain days. Because the new scheme is very complicated, we’re reproducing a chart from Community Board 6 that shows street-by-street what the new days and times will be. You can find the images after the jump and if you click on them, can see them full size. For those who were accustomed to, say, Thursday and Friday alternate side days, you can kiss them goodbye just like $2.00 a gallon gasoline.

Click here for the street-by-street look at the new parking regs.

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We were really hoping for a playground-free day today, but it is not to be. Having posted last week about a Park Slope Parent members widely-circulated email complaining of employees at Harmony Playground arguing, curing and smoking, we’re glad to see the response from Prospect Park. Park spokeperson Eugene Patron, who always keeps people informed about goings-on in the park, also wrote an email related to the issue of playground proselytizing and what is and isn’t permitted under Parks Department rules. We begin with the Harmony Playground email:

Reports of Park workers acting in a discourteous manner to Prospect Park patrons, as well as smoking in the Park’s playgrounds, are of great concern to Park managers. Parks Department employees, whether full or part-time, are instructed to treat Park users with respect and courtesy. They also should not smoke in or around playgrounds. Parks Department managers will remind their staff of these important points. As well as reporting their concerns to the City’s 311 system, the public can also call the Prospect Park Administrator’s office at (718) 965-8951. So that managers can better respond to concerns, please provide the Administrator’s office with the date, time and location of any incident you are calling about.

Read about the proselytizing issue here.

Yesterday, Curbed got a new set of a dozen renderings of Brooklyn Bridge Park, work on which is coming along. Two segments, on Pier 6 at Atlantic Avenue and at Pier 1 at Fulton Ferry Landing are supposed to be finished by the end of 2009. Work on the entire park, however, could stretch through 2012, assuming full funding of the park, currently estimated to cost $300 million, is secured. The renderings provide an interesting look at the future of this stretch of the Brooklyn waterfront.

Click here to see a gallery of all the renderings.