[Photo courtesy of GerritsenBeach.Net/flickr]

Thor Equities has unveiled its summer strategy for CConey Island and its 2008 summer theme: “Summer of Hope.” The developer, whose holdings include a large parcel of land between Coney’s Bowery and the Boardwalk on both sides of Stillwell Avenue was previously reported to be bringing a carnival ride operator to Coney, Reithoffer Amusements, from May 22 through June 3. It will leave a dozen rides and attractions, however, running and operating for the entire summer. Thor placed a two-page in the Bay News advertising the Summer of Hope (which is a play on last year’s Future of Coney Island images). The ads says, “Thor Equities hopes U have filled with sunny days and fun rides!” Thor cleared the land on which the rides are going in the winter of 2006-2007, saying that it needed the land for construction staging. The property was previously occupied by two go-kart tracks, a batting cage, a bumper boat ride and a miniature golf ride. One lot held a flea market that was dismantled in the winter of 2005-06. A circus operated on the property for a week last summer and sparsely-attended movie nights were held. A huge inflatable water slide that was widely considered a flop was placed on the property that had been the miniature golf course. This year the big empty lot has been used for parking at times. The developer is involved in negotiations with the city, which earlier reduced the size of its proposed amusement park from 15 acres to nine acres, in part to allow developer Joe Sitt to keep more of his amusement district land. City officials say they’re “optimistic” that an agreement with the developer can be reached involving a swap of amusement district land for public-property adjacent to KeySpan Park.

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

· Barclay’s Center Open by December 31, 2010? [AYR]
· No Arena, but Suites are on Sale [NYT]
· Brooklyn Landlord Charged with Trying to Kill Tenant [amNY]
· Single & Lonely Amidst Brooklyn Nightlife [TRE]
· Meet the Brooklyn Chess Champ [NYP]
· Development Watch: 438 Fourth Avenue [Brownstoner]
· Hamburger Christmas Tree Ornament Factory Ready to Fall [Lost City]
· Boerum Place Median Getting Planted [110 Livingston News]
· Short Films at Sunset Park’s Light Industry [Best View in Brooklyn]
· New York Photo Festival Kicks Off in Dumbo [Dumbo NYC]
· PLG House Tour is June 1 [Hawthorne Street]
· South of the Navy Yard (SONYA) Stroll This Weekend! [Clinton Hill Blog]
· Toy Truck-Real Truck [Brooklynometry]
· 2008 Bed-Stuy Pet Talent & Fashion Show [Bed-Stuy Blog]

This is the Royal Palace, a banya in Brighton Beach (or on the edge of Coney Island if one prefers that definition of the location. We found it via Flatbush Pigeon and were immediately mesmerized. Who knew that a place like this existed? Not only does it exist, but it’s brand new. The website is a must view–possible the Brooklyn Website of the Month–but here is Flatbush Pigeon’s description:

Royal palace features six different steam rooms: Russian, Finnish, Turkish and Roman as well as the much needed cold plunge. The main bath hall features a huge pool, an alcoved hot tub, showers and cafe tables from where you can order a variety of Russian delicacies. There will eventually be a full gym in the facility. There is a well-utilized beer bar and eight private rooms with separate steam rooms for 2-12 people. A full service restaurant graces the upper level of the facility.

It could be the perfect end to a long day in Coney Island. Private party rooms are available. Admission is $40 and it’s open until 11PM.

Click here for an equally priceless view of the pool.

A parrot has gone missing in Park Slope. Here’s the Craigslist post:

Seymour is a friendly and curious bird who is not afraid of strangers. If you see him or he happens to land on your shoulder please call Henry at 347 268 7872. Description: Seymour has a gray head and emerald green wings and back. His eyes are yellow. His breast and stomach are bright yellow and with an orange ‘v’ shape. The underside of his wings are yellow also. He has a metal band on his left ankle.” The owner’s email is henry (at) henrychung (dot) com. Seymour went missing on May 14 in the evening at Sixth Avenue and 19th Street. There are differences between his appearance and that of the Greenwood Parrots.

As we’ve noted, Greenwood Heights is having its “Third Annual Mega Stoop Sale” on 23rd Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues. It takes place from 11AM-5PM. Per an email: “Houses will have lots of stuff for sale, at, of course, *very reasonable prices!* (or you can just haggle with everyone). On sale: Housewares, Tchotchkes, Books/CDs, Clothing, Furniture, Food and a wee bit of ‘junk’ too!” The rain date is Sunday.

We love photo expeditions to places that in ruins, like the old buildings of Floyd Bennett Field in the Gateway National Recreation area. Photographer Nate Kensinger writes, “This abandoned airport houses decaying hangars, cracked runways, a ransacked police station, closed-off tunnels, lost boats and antique airplanes, all visible from its empty control tower….Today, it hosts cricket players, a large community garden and a shiny new sports complex that has changed the quiet nature of the park.”–Kensinger Photography

The yellow car and purple umbrella are from Lee Avenue in South Williamsburg in the time warp-like strip of stores in the Hasidic shopping district. If you have never been on Lee Avenue, we will simply say that it is not at all like Bedford Ave. & N. 6 Street.

It’s not looking good this morning outside the Brooklyn Weather Observatory. The forecast today call for it to be rainy and chilly with a high of 56. Tonight will be mostly cloudy and cool with some showers and a low of 46. Tomorrow will be a lot nicer.–Accuweather

Van seats put to use on the street are always interesting. This pair comes from the front of a small grocery in South Williamsburg. Nice.

That Jackson Heights ad campaign, which has featured some bus shelter posters on Seventh Avenue among other things, is back with a new Park Slope pitch and a new slogan. The always engaging Copyranter scanned an ad out of today’s New York Times supplement, which presumably will be popping up everywhere soon. Gawker’s take on the subject can be found here.

See the full ad by clicking here.

We were done with the Great Library Internet Porn Battle among the members of the Park Slope Parents Group (which ironically started with a branch library in Boerum Hill). Then, someone sent us this email last night, which touches on some interesting angles of the debate. The writer of the email calls the discussion “a bit baffling and a little annoying” and says the tone of the discussion is “Park Slope Parental Entitlement at its finest.” (The porn debate, by the way, hit Channel 4 News last night.) Here it is:

This discussion may be interesting to some, but I have to say I find it a bit baffling and a little annoying in the most stereotypical PSP way. We are bound for NY Mag, indeed.

First, I just wanted to mention that there are occasionally reasons that a person may be looking at porn other than a desire for arousal. For example, a friend was given an assignment in graduate school to do something that made her uncomfortable and online porn was one of the suggestions given.

Some people dislike Harry Potter as much as porn

Earlier this year, the City Council passed a law requiring non-food service business with more than 5,000 square feet or ones that are part of a chain with five or more stores in the city to start accepting plastic bags for recycling by late July. This means that most drugstores, supermarkets and big chains will be accepting bags. There’s more info about the law here. A bit more about the law:

Stores are required to have a collection bin in a visible location that collects all types of plastic film, including shopping bags, dry cleaning bags, and newspaper bags. Retailers must also stock reusable bags for consumers to purchase. Plastic bags in those stores are required to say “PLEASE RETURN THIS BAG.”

That particular provision takes effect next year. In the meantime, local stores are starting to collect bags for recycling. They include the Key Food on Atlantic Avenue at Clinton and Met Foods on both Smith Street and Henry Street.

This storefront on Bedford Avenue near N. 10 Street is not for sale or for rent or for lease. Capisce?

[Photo courtesy of Nate Kensinger]

It’s hard to find good cricket, but photographer, blogger and GL Contributor Nate Kensinger hit up Floyd Bennett Field and found cricket season is underway again. (There are also good matches to be found in Prospect Park.)

Another shot of a cricketer outside the crease.

[Photo courtesy of Tracy Collins/flickr]

Atlantic Yards footprint photographer Tracy Collins offers this updated photo of Ward Bakery demolition porn. It is coming down steadily.

Hey, we’re certain that it’s nothing that a good cleaning (and, perhaps some new glass is that’s acid etching the windows) can’t fix. The sign for a “luxurious” store for rent that is not that luxurious to look at does make for a nice photo, however. The store is on Broadway in Williamsburg.

Union Hall won its fight for its liquor license last night when Community Board 6 resoundingly voted to support its application to the State Liquor Authority. Last week a committee had voted against the license. The meeting at Borough Hall was angry and emotional at times. Union Hall says it will have monthly meetings with residents and probably close earlier on weekdays.–Gothamist

Here’s one of our weekly features from the Center for the Urban Environment (CUE). This week’s interiew is with Movers, Not Shakers! owner Mark Ehrhardt. CUE was introduced to him through the Sustainable Business Network NYC, which is a network of businesses dedicated to building a local living economy in New York City.

Q: Where are you from originally?

A: Baltimore, MD. I moved to New York on Halloween in 1988.

Q: Sounds like there might be an interesting story in there… How’s Baltimore different from New York from a small business perspective?

A: Trust me… I came to New York to be a rock star and wound up a business owner. Huh? The key difference is New York’s population density. As a start-up, you’ve got a large, savvy audience who will give you the benefit of the doubt, but from there it’s up to you.

Read more of the interview by clicking here.

Happy First Birthday to Brooklyn Based, the way cool email newsletter and blog that bring arts, entertainment, retail and lots of other Brooklyn news. That having been said, check out this week’s list of tips that are good through May 18. You’ll be glad you did.–Brooklyn Based

Here’s a brand new Fort Greene blog from an anonymous blogger called The Real Fort Greene. It’s all of about four or five days old and here’s what the blogger has to say about starting it: “After years of reading the various Brooklyn blogs I became frustrated with the lack of consistent coverage on Fort Greene/Clinton Hill. While there have been a variety blogs on the hood they all seem to start strong and fade away. I’m hoping this one will be different…” Here’s to a long existence with many posts.

There’s no end in sight to the redevelopment of the Sunset Park Bush Terminal Piers into a new, multi-use 23-acre, $36 million public park. Two years after it was announced with great fanfare, the project has yet to enter remediation, the first phase of development that deals with the removal of pollutants or contamination from a brownfield site. (For photos of the current landscape, click here.)

At a presentation delivered last month before Community Board 7, representatives of the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) presented their most recent plans for the park and discussed the delay with Board members. Chairperson Randolph Peers called the presentation “a disappointing message.” The disappointment was not about the vision for the park. The plans adhere to the basic principles outlined in the original proposal, including baseball and soccer fields, an environmental education center, a community hall, and other active and passive recreational areas. CB7 members, however, were expecting to hear that, after two years, the remediation phase would be coming to a close, with construction about to start. Instead, they learned that remediation has yet to begin.

CB7’s disappointment is a far cry from the optimism of spring 2006 when Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Pataki first announced the $36 million renovation of the four brownfield piers. Now, NYCEDC representatives said, it is clear that the site’s redevelopment will not be completed by Mayor Bloomberg’s departure in 2009. With the priorities of the new administration still unknown, Board members said, the delayed project could face an uncertain future.

–Anna Lewis

(Yesterday, we noted similar issues about the big planned Bushwick Inlet Park, where there are major concerns in the community that land acquisition hasn’t even begun in the case of the properties that would make up the bulk of the park and that the project could be threatened by a change in Mayoral administrations.)

Click here to see a plan of the park.

A new charter school was approved for Park Slope on Monday. The Brooklyn Prospect Charter School will open in 2009 with a sixth grade and will add classes until it reaches 12th grade by 2015. The school will accept students (via lottery) that live in Park Slope, Gowanus, Sunset Park, Red Hook, Windsor Terrace, Cobble Hill and parts of Downtown Brooklyn. There’s more info at the school’s website. Best View in Brooklyn also offers a rundown on the school worth checking out.

For a map of the area from which students can come, click here.

[Photo courtesy of F. Jasmin Adams]

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

· E-Recycling Law Enacted Over Bloomberg Veto [NYP]
· The Politics of Water at the Park Slope Food Coop [CityRoom]
· Someone is Very Unhappy at Kensington’s Simone [Brownstoner]
· Applebee’s Coming to Triangle Junction Mall [Brooklyn Junction]
· Teen Spirit Has Cocoa Puffs [OTBKB]
· Lunch at New Court Street Olive Vine [ABL]
· Friends of Greenwood Playground Need Friends [Kensington Brooklyn]
· Clinton-Washington Neighborhood Patrol [Clinton Hill Blog]
· Water’s Edge [A Year in the Park]
· Prospect Park Spring Cleaning [Brooklynometry]
· Tranquility [Bed-Stuy Banana]

“This week, the city quietly announced a change in parking rules that, for thousands of people in Park Slope, will be nothing less than life-altering, a summer not to be forgotten, like the Summer of Love, the Summer of Sam. The alternate-side parking rules of half a century will be indefinitely suspended while workers replace 9,200 parking signs. Not suspended for a snowstorm. Not for a holiday. Indefinitely. As in, you park, you lock the door, and you walk away for as long as you want, a way of life in most of this country, but altogether breathtaking and revolutionary in New York City. Welcome to the Summer of the Spot…The news was met with dropped jaws, as if it had been announced that Park Slope was seceding from the United States, and this was the first act of a fledgling nation.”–NYT

Forgotten New York pays a visit to Third Avenue in Bay Ridge this week. Here’s a sample of Kevin Walsh’s take on the Chip Shop’s signage:

Bay Ridge is the last place on earth…OK, maybe the NYC area…that would be associated with punks at all, at least the punks of the late 1970s musical movement that produced the Sex Pistols…the Clash…the Adverts and many other British bands. (They in turn had taken their cues from American bands such as the Ramones who visited England in the mid-70s.)…imagine my surprise, with Bay Ridge not being a punk town by any means in that 1976-1980 period, at the opening of a branch of the ChipShop chain, which uses as its logo graphic designer Jim “Jamie” Reid’s classic Sex Pistols’ God Save The Queen 45-RPM sleeve.There’s a lot more to the whole post. Do read.