We can’t lie about this: we really like the Williamsburg Kite Festival. After all, what’s not to like about a day of kite flying in McCarren Park? The kite festival takes place Saturday, May 17.

For details about the Kite Festival, click here.

The view from the Brooklyn Weather Observatory this morning is not one of blue skies. Today’s forecast is calling for cloudy skies with “a couple of showers.” The high will be 62. Tonight will be cloudy with showers and a low of 51.–Accuweather

[Photo courtesy of shveckle/flickr]

This cool Coney Island photo come from our new Gowanus Lounge photo pool. If you post Brooklyn photos on flickr, please join the pool and tag your photos gowanuslounge.

Back on the night of January 20, we started getting emails about the forced evacuation of 475 Kent in Williamsburg as the building was cleared out by the FDNY for multiple fire code violations and an illegal matzo factory in the basement. Today, the person who originally brought us word of the debacle on a frigid night reports that the vacate order was lifted as of 4PM and that residents can return: “As of 4pm this very afternoon, the FDNY’s vacate order of my old building is officially lifted three months and 10 days after it was ordered. Though I won’t be joining my neighbors in returning to my old apartment, I am beyond happy for them. It’s been quite an experience…”

There is further discussion of the Park Slope Branch Library suckage and strollergate issue from the person who posted the most recent allegations on the Park Slope Parents list. (Plus the follow-up strollergate thing.) It turns out that the Library acknowledges there may be some, uh, customer service issues:

…Today I called the community contact person, Lee Levy, and explained the situation. She was very open, receptive and apologetic. She said that she was aware of some issues with staff, and that many are new and therefore seemingly unaware of the concept of customer service.

Click here for more.

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[Photo courtesy of Adrian Kinloch/Brit in Brooklyn]

1) The USS Growler is in Red Hook. The sub, which was with the Intrepid and, then, moved to Bayonne, has been spotted off the Hook. A reader writes to say it’s in the Atlantic Basin: “i saw it there last night and today. no idea when it arrived nor how long it stays. you can easily see it by entering Bowne St gate to cruise terminal and heading to west side of Pier 11 shed.”

2) Was there some sort of dissension outside the future Ikea on Beard Street or was it something else? A tipster reports: “I saw four or five people outside the ikea site with what looked *maybe* like protest signs. they were in a group talking and the signs weren’t visible. maybe it was just wrapping up?”

A couple of emails from the often interesting Park Slope Parents group concerning (possibly related) muggings on the F Train were forwarded to us. Here is the first one:

My nanny was mugged tonight around 6:30/6:45 on the F train just before the train left the 7th avenue station by a group of 6 teenage boys (she thinks about 15) . She recognized one of the boys and saw him at the Greenwood Playground today and had seen him other times before. She said the group got on the train at the 15th St station and then walked into her car (there were only 2 other elderly women in the car) and as the train doors were about to close the surrounded her, grabbed her music player and bag and then punched her. She was in shock and did not call the police and called me when she got home to her apartment in Queens.

For more, click here.

A Starbucks may be coming to Fourth Avenue and Third Street on the Gowanus side of the neighborhood line. Yesterday, we noted the demolition of the former Parkside Auto Repair at the corner of 3rd & Fourth, which is being offered up for 20,000 square feet of retail. An informed GL reader emailed to say the site include a Starbucks and that there was some possible contamination issues. Here’s the email: “I heard from a good source that a Starbucks plus a second retail store is going up in front of Staples on 4th Ave. Also there was a lot of problems with the soil and the owner had to lower the the price.” In fact, a check of sale records indicates that the actual sale price late last year was $3.25 million, whereas the asking price had been $3.75 million. Whether that was because of the softening market or clean up costs is unclear. The property is near the Novo Park Slope, Hotel Le Bleu and Crest condo and would be a block from an eventual Whole Foods, if the latter happens. We’re certain the property will be throughly remediated before the Gowanus Venti Chai Soy Lattes start flowing.

There are more screen shots and even vids of Grand Theft Auto IV scenes in Coney Island. Kinetic Carnival has posted a number of stills and YouTube clips which were originally posted on the Coney Island Message Board by Switchback. They are riveting in their own way to those interested in Coney.

See a couple of other screenshots by clicking here.

GL will be on the Brian Lehrer Show this morning to talk about one of our favorite neighborhoods, Red Hook. We’ll be covering the state of things and the impact of the coming of Ikea in mid-June. Details to be posted on the BL Show’s page on the WNYC site later. Right now, the segment is scheduled for 11AM.

Brooklyn’s raw milk supply has a problem. The horse and buggy-driving Amish farmer from Pennsylvania who was a major supplier was busted and shut down last week for selling the contrband. “They swooped in on Friday morning like a bunch of Vikings, handcuffed me and stole $30,000 worth of my milk, cheese and butter,” the outlaw farmer, whose stuff ends up in Brooklyn cream puffs says.–NYDN

We love some good buttressing of buildings. This is Greenpoint’s 602 Manhattan Avenue (in the middle), which we posted about yesterday in terms of an email we got and complaints on the Department of Buildings website. Miss Heather wandered by yesterday and found the owner and a contractor engaged in discussion, and emailed us this photo of the bracing that has gone up to keep the neighboring buildings standing.

We got an email yesterday from someone who’s created a blog called Save Manhattan Beach Architecture. Its subject matter is not hard to figure out. At issue is a house at 230 Corbin Place, which is coming down. The blogger writes:

our local architectural history is in jeopardy. For the past few weeks, I noticed that the Field family no longer had their lights on at 230 Corbin Place. Soon afterward, I noticed the sculpture in their side garden and their stained glass were gone. The Department of Building’s website confirmed my fears– that the house has been sold and the department has authorized its demolition. Most likely a massive structure will replace the house and garden…the house appears to be unaltered in its 100 years of life.

There’s an interesting photo in the post of the house once sitting on the shoreline. The trend–of smaller homes being demolished to make way for larger structures holds across Brooklyn and particularly in Southern Brooklyn.

Brooklinks is a daily selection of Brooklyn-related information and images:
· Funds for Group Councilman Eugene Founded Were Blocked [NYT]
· Cops Missed Loaded Gun on Arrested Suspect [NYDN]
· Love Lane Mews Seeing the Light [Brownstoner]
· It’s Construction Safety Week!!! [Bad Advice]
· Fort Greene House Tour Coming Sunday [Clinton Hill Blog]
· Meet Your Neighbors, Episode II [Bed-Stuy Blog]
· Weekly Tip Sheet [Brooklyn Based]
· Court Street’s Busy Chef Adds a Blue Pig [BK 11202]
· Ocean Hill Barber [Fading Ad Blog]
· Dumbo Gallery Walk Tonight [Dumbo NYC]
· Not So Green Streets [Hawthorne Street]

[Photo courtesy of threecee/flickr]

Call this the Big Bruce Chair as it comes from Pacific Street, within the Atlantic Yards footprint. Also, it has fall and can’t get up.

Serious efforts are underway to try to get the Nets moved to Newark, where the new Prudential Center is struggling with just a hockey team. Mayor Corey Booker and Devils owner Jeff Vanderbeek are holding meetings–Mayor Brooker with Forest City Ratner and Vanderbeek with Bruce Ratner. There is talk of putting together a group to buy the Nets. “Sources said Booker also has tried to entice Ratner by offering him development possibilities in Newark.”–Star-Ledger

It is red. It is reduced to its bare essense, and it is in Williamsburg.

The development of the end of Court Street near the BQE continues with two developments at 525 and 517 Court. One is team up of Garnet, Basile Builders and Henry Radusky of Bricolage.–Brownstoner

[Photo courtesy Deborah Matlack/Matlack Photography]

We return to Green-Wood Cemetery courtesy of GL Contributing Photographer Deborah Matlack for this image of its lake in Spring. “Quietest place in town,” she writes. And, if it wasn’t, we’d be worried. All kidding aside, Green-Wood, which very popular as a park back in the day, is a very beautiful (if somewhat depressing) place.

Some of the big graffiti showing up around Brooklyn (and by “big,” we mean one or two stories tall in some cases) is being done via fire extinguisher, which would begin to explain how it’s being done.–Gothamist and Razor Apple

It’s from Williamsburg. One installment of this Faile art has been covered by a construction sign and another has been tagged.

The conditions we’re seeing outside the Brooklyn Weather Observatory this morning indicate that it will be a sunny day, but the forecast calls for mostly cloudy skies “with a touch of rain” and a high of 62. It will be mostly cloudy with some showers overnight with a low of 49.–Accuweather

GL has a new flickr photo pool. If you have a new photo that you’d like us to see (and possibly post) toss it into the pool as well as tagging it “gowanuslounge.”

[Photo courtesy of Dalton Rooney/flickr]

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