• Subway Access without the Urban Room? Sure. [AYR]
• Truck Kills Woman in Downtown Brooklyn [NYDN]
• House of the Day: 31 Prospect Park West at $3.25M [Brownstoner]
• Fedders Friday with Gas Guzzling [New York Shitty]
• Prospect Park Dog Beach Video [amNY]
• Tree Planting in the Hood [Clinton Hill Blog]
• Fulton St. in the 80s & 90s [Clinton Hill Chill Blog]
• Knickerbocker Avenue Shul and Plumbing [Fading Ad Blog]
• Cool Lit Event at PS 107 [OTBKB]
• Local Graffiti [Bed-Stuy Banana]
• Spring at Umoja Garden [Bed-Stuy Blog]
• Waterfront Development Approved [GerritsenBeach.Net]

The tail end of the month is not a big time for Community Board meetings, but there are a couple coming up next month, culled from the Daily News compilation of Brooklyn meetings:

Community Board 13. (Coney Island, Brighton Beach, Gravesend, Seagate) will hold its next board meeting at 7 p.m. April 30 at Coney Island Hospital, 2601 Ocean Parkway. On the agenda, reviews of these committees: Parks and Recreation; Public Safety; Education, Library and Youth Services, and Nominating.

Community Board 15. (Sheepshead Bay, Manhattan Beach, Kings Bay, Gerritsen Beach, Kings Highway, East Gravesend, Madison, Homecrest, Plum Beach) will convene at 7 p.m. April 29 at Kingsborough Community College, 2001 Oriental Blvd., in the faculty dining room. The agenda for the evening will include a review of construction in the area.

“Attention sexy hipster kids, there’s a new Craigslist poster that needs YOU…if you are, in fact, a young hip Brooklynite who has a penchant for blurbing and reading about the sexual encounters of teens. Interested? Read on…”–Gothamist

The United Friends of McCarren Park (UFMP) group is having a meeting on Tuesday (4/29) at 7PM about (of course) McCarren Park. Per an email: “We’re a new group with the ambition of serving McCarren Park users, existing community groups and working with other parks groups in the area. With the influx of new park users and summer approaching this is a great time to get involved!” The meeting takes place at the Polish National Home/Warsaw, which is located at 261 Driggs Avenue at Eckford Street in Room 9 on the Second Floor.

If a weird Park Slope building keeps getting served with violations, but the owner ignores them, do they make a difference? That is the question with the notorious Park Slope Mystery Building at Seventh Avenue and Second Street.–Brownstoner

The conditions outside the Brooklyn Weather Observatory couldn’t be nicer right now. Spring sun shining through brand new leaves, with an early temperature of 60. Today’s forecast calls for mostly sunny and pleasantly warm conditions (although we heard one forecast say something about “partly cloudy”). The high will be 72. Tonight will be 54 with increasing clouds and a possibility of showers later one.–Accuweather

After nearly a year of public debate, work has started at at 360 Smith Street, now known as Oliver House. The digging has been going full tilt this week and is proceeding quickly. We’re tempted to joke that the building will be completed by next week, but it won’t be. It will be finished by June. Neighborhood blogger and City Council candidate Gary Reilly, who shot the photo on the right, wrote yesterday afternoon that it “Looks like [developer Billy] Stein is motivated to beat the text change on wide streets.” While the design of the development itself was significantly modified from the Heavy Metal version (that still appears on architect Robert Scarano’s website), the building’s height still exceeds what would be allowed under a rezoning of Carroll Gardens and there is still deep dissatisfaction among some in the neighborhood about the outcome. City Council Member Bill de Blasio, who was very involved in discussions about the building said of the developer, “for various reasons by and large he has responded in good faith” to community concerns. He called the entire process, which resulted in a changed design (if not a height reduction), “a good model of intervening early” to modify a project. Meanwhile, a Community Board 6 Meeting about the zoning text changes, which would redefine a number of very narrow streets in Carroll Gardens as actually being narrow and, therefore, limit the height of buildings on those streets, takes place tonight. It a meeting of the CB6 Landmarks and Land Use Committee and it starts at at 6:00 PM at 250 Baltic Street (between Court and Clinton Streets) in the auditorium. Residents are delivering hundreds of signed letters in support of the change.

It’s hard to keep love down, particularly during Spring Fever season. With the original hearts having been removed by work crews on behalf of developer Billy Stein, the battle for the heart of the developer, if not the hearts of residents, seems to have escalated back to the kinds of posters that used to grace the Democracy Wall. A GL reader sent us this shot of love which, clearly, urges everyone to “Make Love, Not Tall Buildings.” A throwback to the Summer of Love, 2008-style? Will love triumph? Will the developer rip it down or let love rule? Stay tuned, because we’re on the Love Beat.

Mr. Recchia’s support for the city’s latest proposal—which allows for more privately owned hotel rooms and entertainment-related retail while cutting down on the city-owned amusement area—is crucial. City officials, who have indicated the newest plan is their final offer, said they are looking to Mr. Recchia to help broker a deal with Mr. Sitt; without such a deal, the whole redevelopment initiative of the amusement hub could collapse…“Joe Sitt was the only developer that put these parcels together. If Joe Sitt didn’t do the accumulation, the city would be having to do that, and that would be very difficult,” he said. “So when people say, ‘Joe Sitt this,’ ‘Joe Sitt that,’ and they just want to knock Joe Sitt, I’m just telling you no other developer wanted to do this, and I think people have to recognize that.”…

Robert Lieber, the deputy mayor, said the city could proceed without reaching a deal on the amusement area, as its plan to rezone the areas to the west and the north for dense residential are far less controversial. “We’re still going to do the rezoning—we’re still going to do what we’re doing whether we buy Joe or leave him in there,” he said. Getting Mr. Sitt to agree to a deal is clearly Mr. Lieber’s end goal, and in that, he credited Mr. Recchia with being effective, saying he is “optimistic that Domenic can help us make a deal.”

Was it only November when Mayor Bloomberg and Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff were expressing a strong belief that Mr. Sitt would cut a deal and remove himself from the entire amusement district? Yes, it was.

“On May 2, Studio B is slated to celebrate the debut of a large rooftop level…Fans of a cleaner, quieter Greenpoint (as in: the neighborhood’s residents), though, balk at the opening altogether. According to them, Studio B’s patrons forever vomit show flyers, cigarette butts, and broken glass (and occasionally actual vomit) onto the streets surrounding the club…But many of Studio B’s neighbors agree that the noise is the worst problem of all.”–Village Voice

“This afternoon, (4/23) at Cadman Plaza park in Brooklyn Heights at around 4PM. A little boy between two and a half and three, light brown hair and hazel eyes, rosy cheeks, wearing army green and navy striped t shirt, light blue and white kind of train engineer striped pants and navy blue shoes. I think he said his name was Devon — I can’t be sure. He was wandering on his own in the woods toward Cadman Plaza West and on the pavement by the war memorial at the north part of the park for quite a while with no supervision…”–ISYN via BHB

Perhaps you recall Monday’s lost dog “Public Service Announcement.” We there is closure to report. The reader who originally emailed us about the her, writes:

There is a happy ending to our found dog situation. We were able to locate the owners of our sweet chocolate lab/ pit bull mix. Although upon first glance, her living situation may not seem to be the greatest (she lives at a junkyard), she has 2 other doggie friends, food, shelter, room to run and an owner who really cares for her. So, a happy ending for everyone!

As a side note, the American Kennel Club that dog theft is on the rise and that pets are at-risk if they’re left outside tied up outside stores. There are no statistics about New York City or Brooklyn, but given the number of “lost dog” fliers ones sees, particularly for pure breed dogs, there would appear to be an issue.

• MTA “Concerned” About $100M for Rail Yards from Ratner [AYR]
• Vandalism Rising in Brooklyn Parks [NYDN]
• Bodega Hammer Attack Video [Gothamist]
• Mansions of Midwood [Brooklyn Junction]
• Wednesday Food & Drink Roundup [Brownstoner]
• Hotel Le Jolie Now with GTA IV [Curbed]
• Boiler Band-Aid [Bed-Stuy Banana]
• Health Fair Coming to Sunset Park [Sunset Park Blog]
• Brooklyn Daffodils [Fading Ad Blog]
• Paul Simon American Tunes at BAM [DITHOB]
• Checking Out Healthy Body [Clinton Hill Blog]
• Late Week Tip Sheet [Brooklyn Based]
• Hard Hat Hannah Goes to Orient Avenue [New York Shitty]