This “No Parking” except Sunday has not only been attached to some scaffolding it has also been attacked with black spraypaint. It can be found on Wythe Avenue near the Williamsburg Bridge.

There will be a forum on Internet Safety at the Brooklyn Public Library at Grand Army Plaza on June 4 as part of Internet Week New York. It will take place from 7PM-8:30PM. The session, Checking the Monitor: A Forum on Internet Safety, is free and open to the public. Anyone that wants to register to attend can email info@thelampnyc.org. The panel will be moderated by Dr. Katherine Fry, Associate Professor of Media Studies at Brooklyn College and Educational Director for the Learning About Multimedia Project (LAMP). Confirmed panelists include Rachel Dretzin (Executive Producer and Director, PBS Frontline documentary, Growing Up Online), JoEllen Fisherkeller, Ph.D. (Associate Professor of Communication and Culture, New York University), and Kevin O’Donnell Esq. (Cyber Crimes/SVU, Office of Kings County District Attorney). All of the Internet Week New York info is available here .

[Photo courtesy of lornagrl/flickr]

This photo which was placed in our GL Photo Pool by lornagrl show the gorgeous wysteria at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Very, very pretty.

Outside the Brooklyn Weather Observatory, there are signs of a day that could be worse (completely cloudy and gloomy) and could be better (totally sunny). Instead, we are somewhere in between. The forecast calls for it to be a cool day with times of sun and clouds and a possible afternoon shower. The high will be 64. Tonight will be partly cloudy and cool with a low of 48.–Accuweather

Here’s an interesting post on Brooklynian by someone named parkslopeboy that, at first, we thought was about vandalism of cars on Park Place in Park Slope, but it turns out to have some added information about what happened when two suspects were found by the police:

We were at our neighbor’s house on Park Place between 5th & 6th last night when we heard a loud noise (sounded like car windows being smashed) so we went out to the stoop. We didn’t see anything unusual (no broken windows etc.) but we did see two young men walking right in front of us, down the street. They then stopped and knifed the tires of a car…right in front of us (and a few others walking their dogs)! I couldn’t believe these guys! We figured the noise we had heard earlier was actually a tire being slashed.

So, we called 911.

This recent addition to the Williamsburg streetscape comes from Berry Street on the side of the Mill Building. Streetsy identifies the artist behind the rowboat as nickwalker.

[Photo courtesy of Tracy Collins/flickr]

This is 644 Pacific Street, which is near Sixth Avenue, in its current state of demolition. The building with the water tower is the Newswalk Condo, which will remain standing and, ultimately, very lonely surrounded by newly vacant lots.

We posted last month about the coming of Five Guys Burgers and Fries to part of the space that was once occupied by D’Agostino’s on Seventh Avenue in Park Slope. Five Guys has recently marked its turf right alongside the impending Bank of America next door. Coming in July.

This pimped fire plug comes from Church Avenue in Kensington, complete with hat, glasses and book on Javascript. We believe that it also supplies water to put out fires if necessary. The photo comes from the roving camera of Miss Heather.

This is 208 N. 10 Street, one of the consistently dangerous construction sites in the area we call the Williamsburg Triangle of Death because of the large number of treacherous construction and demolition sites whose hazards are rarely addressed by the Department of Buildings. (The site is a huge property between Driggs and Robeling and N. 9 and N. 10 Streets that goes by a variety of addresses for city purposes including 208 N. 10th Street, 199-211 N. 9th Street and 489 Driggs; we have probably put up nearly a dozen posts about the dangerous and menacing conditions at the site.) For a long time the site a deep pit full of water that we liked to think of as Roebling Pond. It has now been filled in, but not before some oil made an appearance at the bottom, which is interesting because the site is across the street from the Roebling Oil Field.

Is there oil down there???

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Some things manage to press a button that goes directly to one’s reserves of anger. So it is with this tale on writer Felicia Sullivan’s blog, which is ostensibly about why someone is fed up with Park Slope (yes, taking off on the theme of that New York Times article again), but is really about a vile person. As issue issue is the sad murder of Kyung Sook-Woo in Windsor Terrace. We’ll let the writer explain the rest:

I stand in front of the shop, mute, surrounded by women with bags in little carts, toddlers in expensive strollers, and at eight in the morning we all lament about how cruel this all is. And when I turn to head home, a woman with a stroller whines, pushing aside the piles of flowers that have been left in respect: But my cleaning is in there! my clothes! When will we get our clothes?! And I consider killing this woman, just a little bit.

We could go on at length about the evil things we wish would befall this smug, self-centered person, but it would be wrong. Her words and actions speak loudly for themselves. We hope her cleaning languishes in police evidence hell until about 2038.

(UPDATE: The photo here is NOT of the person in question in this post. It is a wonderful picture that a reader sent of a resident adding something to the memorial for Kyung-Sook Woo. To see it in its original context, click here. It powerfully shows the sadness that many feel, which is why we used it as a counterpoint to the situation discussed in Ms. Sullivan’s post.)

Brooklyn schools are about to get swamped by a wave of overcrowding as the effects population growth and residential development hit dozens of neighborhoods. Meanwhile, the Education Department has done little to anticipate growth. The summary in today’s Daily News is grim. Take Williamsburg and Greenpoint: “…the City Planning Commission projects a general population increase of 12.5% from 2000 to 2010 because of thousands of new apartments being built. But Education Department consultants project an enrollment decline of 19.5%.” Meanwhile, in Downtown Brooklyn, “more than 3,000 housing units are under construction or were recently completed in the PS 287 school zone alone, yet no new capacity is planned for that area.” The problem is serious in many Brooklyn neighborhoods from Bath Beach to Bushwick where the city has apparently failed to plan for population growth that everyone knew was coming.

This could get interesting. A long post on Streets Blog is deeply critical of Assem. Hakeem Jeffries involvement in the issue. (The rally is at 6:30PM at Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church.) Streets Blog writes: “…this move reeks of cynical pandering from someone who had ample opportunity to stand up for transit riders mere weeks ago, but chose to obstruct $4.5 billion in MTA funding instead.” Mr. Jeffries opposed congestion pricing. Streetsblog goes on to suggest that “a counter-protest could be brewing. Might the Brooklyn Assemblyman regret grandstanding on this particular issue? If anyone is planning to go to the event to challenge Jeffries, hand out flyers, ask tough questions, hold up signs, or otherwise call attention to the hypocrisy of his speech, shoot us an email.” Streets Blog had an earlier post about Mr. Jeffries opposition to congestion pricing vis a vis his current position.

[Photo courtesy of F. Jasmin Adams]

Ever about whether the old tree out front is going to survive a strong storm or wind? Here’s one that didn’t this weekend. Our Carroll Gardens Correspondent sends this image of a tree that came down on President Street between Clinton and Hicks (Brownstoner had the same fallen tree photographed by someone else), noting “A neighbor had been calling about the possibility of this tree falling for over 2 years.” Firemen did the chainsaw action between 130 and 230 am.

For most of the 19th Century, Stewart Avenue–which is named for a landowner along its route–was Bay Ridge’s main drag. It “once ran straight up the spine of what was then the western edge of the town of New Utrecht….Today, you can more or less make out Stewart Avenue’s old route on the map by drawing a line from 5th Avenue and 85th Street straight to 7th Avenue and 66th Street. 4th Avenue lies in Stewart Avenue’s old roadbed from 5th Avenue and 95th Street south to Shore Road (you can see that on the map at left at the dotted line saying “Bay Ridge.”) Seventh Avenue assumes Stewart Avenue’s route north of 66th Street. Another all-but-vanished ancient route, Kowenhoven Lane, intersected Stewart Avenue at what is today the confluence of the Gowanus Expressway and 67th Street.–Forgotten NY

We’re going to go out on a limb here and say that Union Hall’s new venture on Seventh Street between Second and Third Avenues in Gowanus won’t be ready until fall. Yes, back during the Winter, they were saying that construction would last through spring. But a reader pointed us to this ad on Craigslist for a construction manager and said duties run from May 26-August 31. This indicates a fall opening for the venue.

Click here for the ad

It is not going to be a good year for Community Boards, most of which can’t get the projects they want funded by the city and are also in line for budget cuts. “Eighteen Brooklyn community boards recently submitted their wish lists for the preliminary 2009 budget – and judging by the city agencies’ responses, the majority of requests will remain pipe dreams. ‘The percentage of us getting what we want is quite low,’ conceded Community Board 8 District Manager Doris Alexander, who requested the new sewer for her Prospect Heights neighborhood.”–NYDN

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

· Surprise: Vito Fossella Won’t Be Running for Reelection [NYDN]
· No Brooklyn Tech Building at Atlantic Yards [NYDN]
· Decoding the NYDN Story About Brooklyn Tech & Atlantic Yards [AYR]
· Times Notes Park Slope Hating & No One Cares [Daily Intel]
· Where is the Love for Park Slope? [Brooklynometry]
· Well, the Brooklyn Cyclones Love Park Slope [OTBKB]
· Condo of the Day: the Former Gowanus Condo on First Street [Brownstoner]
· Brooklyn Diary: Pet Stuy, Kiddie Rides, Vigilante Plumbing, More [NYDN]
· Were You Obama’s Brooklyn Neighbor? [BHB]
· A Stop and Frisk Kind of Morning [Bed-Stuy Banana]
· Coney Island Memories [Kinetic Carnival]
· New Life for Prospect Park’s Litchfield Villa [Sun]
· Waterfall Structure Growing Under Brooklyn Bridge [McBrooklyn]

One of the people interviewed for the Hating Park Slope article in the Sunday Times didn’t care much for the outcome. “That’s the last time I give an interview. I spoke to writer Lynn Harris months ago for an article she was doing on Park Slope. ‘Where Is the Love’ appeared in yesterday’s NY Time’s style section. Now I’m getting emails from friends asking me why I lied. I didn’t lie so much as I was coerced into confession and creative editing was used.” Although the story about the Park Slope Dog Kicker is quite accurate.–Reclaimed Home

This interesting Williamsburg bicycle comes from Wythe Avenue on the South Side. It is only partly deconstructed, however.

Close watchers of the Williamsburg development scene will recall the two Karl Fischer towers that had been planned for the corner of Grand and Driggs Williamsburg. One site is currently a big hole where a rather spirited game of beat the downzone had been going on until it was hit with a Stop Work Order. The other is an empty lot where a ten-story Karl Fischer was planned. The images above is something we found of a new idea for a building, which would appear to be something that would mostly house retail. More details over at Curbed. The building is officially known as 207 Grand Street. We’d say it looks like a Commerce Bank location, but there is already one planned for Bedford Avenue and N. 4 Street.

Don’t remember the original tower? Click here.

“The grand The indefinite suspension of alternate-side parking rules in Park Slope, Brooklyn, took effect today, and residents and the motorists greeted the change with a mix of reactions: joy, astonishment, apprehension, confusion and — yes, we have to admit it — a bit of the self-importance for which the neighborhood is sometimes, uh, criticized.” There is confusion on some streets because there are no signs about the suspension of alternate side rules and not everyone has heard.–City Room & NYT

It’s short notice, but jazz artist Ravi Coltrane is performing a show at PS 107 in the South Slope tonight (5/20) at 7:30 PM. The show will benefit the school’s PTA. PS 107 is located at 13th Street and Eighth Avenue. The show is on the Fourth Floor of the school. Tickets are $20 and can be purchased by clicking here and are also available at the door.

[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.