[Photo courtesy of Heather-D/GL Flickr Pool]

We return to our street couch series with a contribution from Heather-D to our GL Photo Photo pool that almost rendered us speechless with its magnificence and by virtue of its location. It comes from Union Street in Gowanus and all it needs is a side table and a Tiffany lamp.

There’s a big and interesting music series coming to Brooklyn Bridge Park starting Wednesday, July 9 called Music At The Bridge. Headliners include John Zorn, French Kicks, and Las Rubias Del Norte. The concerts will run on five consecutive Wenesdays starting at 6:30PM and a different Brooklyn musical venue “will curate a three-hour jewel of a program, taking direct aim at the musically adventurous…the premise behind the series is simple. Rather than program random acts to perform in the tent at Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park’s Tobacco Warehouse, Music At The Bridge has invited five Brooklyn performance spaces—each with a limited seating capacity, but impeccable taste and a lot of heart and personality—to make the Tobacco Warehouse their home for the evening.

Full info on the schedule is ahead.

We realize that it’s a little late to be posting Mermaid Parade pics, as any photos more than 24 hours old of an event are, by definition, almost prehistoric, yet we never got to these photos of the Gowanus development controversy as it appeared at the Mermaid Parade. And, now, we have.

This morning, the Landmarks Preservation Commission approved a redone design for the landmarked Domino plant in Williamsburg. It is part of a larger $1.3 billion development with an eventual 2,200 units of housing. The design from Beyer Blinder Bell included a significantly smaller rooftop addition and the preservation of the old Domino sign. Brownstoner live blogged the LPC meeting and has a full set of images and renderings.

“Mau Mau/White Island is surrounded by hundred if not thousands of black sand bags which are holding the entire island together. Most of these bags are completely worn out from weather, tides and time. Over the last few years, these bags have been killing horseshoe crabs. You can see from the pictures (above and below) that the crabs are coming up to the shore line and getting tangled in the fibers of the broken bags. Killing them.”–GerritsenBeach.Net

The new Bank of America branch coming to Seventh Avenue has lost the bright red fence that had been surrounding it and the sign has gone up on the neighboring Five Guys Burger. It’s safe to assume a July opening for both. Well, at least for the Five Guys, which has had a sign up saying that it’s opening in July. They replace a Gothic Cabinet Craft and a D’Agostino’s supermarket.

The next step in the Coney Island redevelopment process takes place tonight at 6PM, which is when the Scoping Meeting on the revised Coney Island zoning proposal takes place. (The meeting was held earlier this year but the plan has changed since then, so it has to be done again. It will take place at Lincoln High School, which is located at 2800 Ocean Parkway and starts at 6PM. Written statements can be submitted through July 11. Click here for directions to Lincoln High School.

This vid, which was just posted to the YouTube yesterday, is making the rounds. Gothamist had it yesterday and we got an email saying that it was a response to a video of old-time Carroll Gardens residents talking about how the neighborhood had changed.

It was only a matter of time before someone started a Brooklyn NIMBY blog and it has finally come to pass. The effort, called NIMBY Brooklyn, is a satirical (for now) look at some Carroll Gardens neighborhood blogs. (We say Carroll Gardens because the focus seems to be Carroll Gardens and some of the disputes there. Here’s some of the post about the Hoyt Street oyster bar that has been the subject of much acrimony:

While everyone has been worried about the noise that the new oyster bar on Hoyt and Union might generate for its neighbors, has nobody considered the moral repercussions? Oysters can change their sex several times throughout their lifetime – they’re the trannies of the sea! Do we want the loose morality and decadence of oysters trashing up our Carroll Gardens streets? Certainly all these newcomer hipsters with their floppy hair will be slurping a few of these slippery gender-benders, but what about our impressionable children?

We especially enjoyed the post about Red Lobster taking over the old Blockbuster space on Court Street.

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

Hunger striking Coney Island Mermaid Queen Savitri D. has been getting her share of press attention, including an appearance on the Brian Lehrer Show yesterday with the Coney Island History Project’s Charles Denson. She’s in her final hunger strike day today, as it was designed to draw attention to the “scoping” meeting for the revised Coney plan which takes place tonight. She’s been in the window of the ground floor of the Coney Island USA building with a laptop from which she has been broadcast live on webcam and has been chatting.

While it would seem anecdotally that the Great Park Slope Alternate Side Parking Experiment hasn’t made it noticeably more difficult to park in most parts of the neighborhood (our own sense of the situation), there’s some concern that filth has started building up on the street. The problem involves what people are saying is more trash at the curb and garbage piling up at catch basin and blocking them (although, again, we haven’t noticed a situation that’s unusually more gross considering). Here’s an email sent our way by a member of our Park Slope network that is from the widely circulating Park Slope Parents email flow:

Are your streets dirtier than normal because of the suspension of Alternate Side Parking for the summer? Ours is filthy & the storm drains on the corners are plugged up with dirt, debris and leaves. Whatever bureaucrat determined that summer was a good time to suspend the parking rules was not thinking about the impact on the neighborhood. If you have a minute, please take a minute to let our community leaders know that you are upset about the conditions on our neighborhood streets.

Another email on the subject says:

I agree, our street is also dirty. We have construction on our block which seems to give many people the idea that they can throw garbage on the ground more!

More discussion to follow.

Kinetic Carnival has chatted with hunger striking Mermaid Savitri D. Here’s a sample: “KC: Is this the first time you put yourself through this kind of thing for a protest? coneyislandmermaid: Yeah I have never fasted like this or lived in a window before, I have fasted before with juice and maple syrup but never just water and never with this other value. KC: Sorry to bring up food but have you planned what and where you’ll eat when the fast is over? coneyislandmermaid: no i was thinking a smoothi first, then I will probably crave something a bit stronger…”–Kinetic Carnival

The “intrusive banner” hung by rapidnyc.com on a wall next to a Community Garden on Fifth Avenue in Park Slope has already been taken down. We wandered past yesterday evening and found that the only thing remaining of the banner, which had advertised apartments for rent, were the metal brackets holding in place. After the banner went up, the community garden put up a flier complaining about the “intrusive” ad and saying that it would be discussed at its next meeting. There were strong reactions elsewhere as well, including threats to somehow obscure or deface the banner “legally.” After we posted about it on Friday, courtesy of a report from a GL Correspondent, the firm immediately responded, saying that it had not meant to offend anyone and that the banner would be taken down ASAP. The firm wrote that “Our intention was not to be ‘intrusive’ on your garden. All we are trying to do is make the community aware of the services that we provide…The last thing that we wanted to do was upset the community by posting up a banner.” The firm was true to its word and pulled the banner down within 48 hours. And, now, it’s a blank wall again. Rumors that the wall be used for a “Pop-Up Waterfall” designed by Olafur Eliasson are utterly untrue.

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

Atlantic Yards:
· Supreme Court Refuses to Hear Atlantic Yards Case [NYT]
· Court Won’t Review Nets Arena Project [NYDN]
· Supreme Court Denies Eminent Domain Appeal [AYR]
· Supreme Court Rejects Challenge to Atlantic Yards [Sun]

Not Atlantic Yards:
· Building Collapse on Bergen Street in Boerum Hill [Brownstoner]
· Brooklyn Museum’s Click Show Opens Friday [NYDN]
· Tingles on Fifth Avenue [Brooklynometry]
· Historic Districts Council Summer Lecture on Landmarks Tonight [WGPA]
· Some Local Linkage [Ditmas Park Blog]
· Vespa Dealership Coming to Nassau Ave. in Greenpoint [Brownstoner]
· Cool Mural at Columbia & Degraw [Fading Ad Blog]
· Community Board 10 Now Has a Website [Bay Ridge Journal]
· Brooklyn’s Ugliest Tree Planter? [BK 11201]

The moment we saw this latest photo sent to us of the oil spill at the site of a luxury apartment building at 40 Berry Street in Williamsburg, we thought of the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles. The La Brea oil is remnant of prehistoric times. The Williamsburg Black Gold happened when some oil tanks were ruptured. Residents are worried that the oil has seeped into the ground and say the stench is making them feel. The neighbor who sent us this photo wrote: “The oil is definitely out of the tanks and in the soil. Last night the neighborhood stank.” The development is financed by Lehman Brothers and the California State Teachers Retirement Fund. La Berry Tar Pits, anyone?

“The New York Aquarium is mourning the loss of a Pacific walrus named Ayveq. Ayveq was about 14. He died Sunday after a short illness. The aquarium is awaiting the results of a necropsy done to determine the cause of his death. The director, Jon Forrest Dohlin, says aquarium workers took extraordinary steps to try to save Ayveq and are deeply saddened by the death of their “beloved walrus.”…Ayveq had a calf named Akituusaq who recently turned 1.” [AP/Sun]

[Photo courtesy of Shield/GL Flickr Pool]

Mermaid Parade day always yields some interesting visuals, as per this scene captured on the N Train going in the direction of Coney Island by Shield and put into our GL Flickr Pool.

No Large Losses

good developers
have always relied
on a great deal
of background information
gleaned over a lifetime of
conversation,
observation,
and reading-
newsletters, newspapers,
academic journals,
and the like
data are fundamental to sophisticated players
in the marketplace and
will not make money
for a developer.
assimilation of such historical and current public information,
however,
can help developers
avoid large losses.*
c. 2008 Graziella Radici
*(from Real Estate Development 3rd edition by Miles, Berens, Weiss. (Washington DC: Urban Land Use, 2000.)

(GL Contributor Graziella Radici resides in the Greater Carroll Gardens/Gowanus Metroplex.)

Outside the Brooklyn Weather Observatory at the moment there is bright sun. Today’s forcast calls for “intervals of clouds and sun with a shower or thunderstorm around this afternoon” and a high of 82. There will be some showers and thundershowers around tonight with a low of 65.–Accuweather

And, now, it’s time for a small anecdote about a little car break-in in the South Slope. (The level of such incidents in the Slope is almost non-existent compared to, say, what goes on in Williamsburg where there’s such an abundance of broken glass from car windows is almost like a weird public art project on some streets, but that’s another story.) Today’s tale of cracked safety glass comes from Brooklynian:

It’s 1 AM, and some dude just smashed the passenger side window on a car in front of my building, took something from the car and ran away. My husband saw it happen and we called the cops, and now they’ve come and are doing cop stuff.

Mainly it’s just going to be a pain for the people who own the car, no one was hurt, but should we have, like, leapt to the rescue in some fashion? Executed a citizen’s arrest? Lassoed him? I grew up in rural suburbia. Once a cow escaped and was walking down the street and we called the Lenti farm and told them to get their cow. (Hmm, maybe we should have lassoed the cow.)

The poster wanted to know if she’d done the right thing by calling the cops and answering their questions.

Herewith, a selection of shows coming up in Brooklyn today through Wednesday.

Monday 6/23/08
Union Hall: Jenny Owen Youngs, Food Will Win The War $12, 8:30pm

Tuesday 6/24/08
Southpaw: Chris Devoe // Multitudes w/ DJ sets by Prefuse 73, Leb Laze, Epstein, JayTram, J-Stroke $8, 8:00pm

Wednesday 6/25/08
Barbes: Norden Bombsight $10, 8:00pm; Andrew D’Angelo Trio $10, 10:00pm

Studio B: The Studio BBQ- Finger On The Pulse DJ’s- Free!!, 7:00pm

—Dan Bennis

Yes, we attended the Mermaid Ball at the historic Childs Restaurant building on Saturday. We’ve already posted a short vid, but here’s a photo gallery to make the record complete.

If you know how to do trapeze and you were wearing a fedora and fishnets while waiting for the L at Bedford Avenue, someone is looking for you:

Trapeze Bruise in a Fedora – m4w – 27 (L-train Bedford)
You have a bruise on your leg. I was wearing a navy blue baseball cap. Around 2am Sat. night, you told me, “tell them to hurry, the sign says zero minutes till the train.” My three friends (2 guys and a girl), joined me on the train and we chatted about your fresh trapeze bruises from Chelsea Piers. You were wearing a fedora and fishnets. I want to buy you breakfast.

We do love our L Train Missed Connections. (Our apologies to those who looked for our weekly Sunday Missed Connections post yesterday. We forgot to run this item, so here it is today.)

And now, a few video moments at the 2008 Mermaid Ball at the historic Childs Restaurant building on the boardwalk.

Few of us realize why the first Thursday in June –“Brooklyn-Queens Day”– is a holiday for the public school children of New York City. It was not always the case. Between 1959 and 2006, for instance, only children from Brooklyn and Queens enjoyed the day off. And prior to 1959, the holiday was celebrated exclusively in Brooklyn. But the reason for the holiday goes back much farther than the mid twentieth century…

Fondly remembered as “Anniversary Day” by some older Brooklynites, the holiday was originally organized in May as the anniversary of the founding of the Brooklyn Sunday School Union in 1810. It was shortly after the Civil War that a bill was drafted declaring “Anniversary Day” an official school holiday in Brooklyn.

Click here for the rest of this fascinating history.