Yesterday’s protest against Exxon Mobil’s role in helping to sponsor the Earth Day event in McCarren Park, was quite visually interesting and attended by some media and the police. Here are a few photos posted to flickr by amc_. The company’s role was controversial, of course, given the huge spill of oil under Greenpoint that Exxon is responsible for cleaning up. One of the people involved in the protest emailed us to say:

We went to the event and held our political theater right in front of the exxon mobil booth. Most people were supportive, but the funniest part of the day for me was when the exxon employees tried to mitigate the seriousness of their company’s actions by assuring us that they had already cleaned up less than a third of what has been seeping into the greenpoint community for 50 years!

There was also an interesting email exchange about the protest from an unidentified person that appears connected to the organizer of the Go Green Greenpoint event:

It is extremely poor form to try to disrupt what promises to be a very nice, grassroots event put on by your and my friends and neighbors. While there is certainly a place for protest and disobedience, I do not think that a positive, community-focused event is the appropriate place. Perhaps a more constructive action and presence would be to have worked with the event organizers to set up a booth educating Greenpointers and others of the hazards associated with the Exxon (and other) spills, and the oils companies’ responsibility (both moral and legal) to clean it up. The Town Square group has been working day and night for months to put this event together, to provide a positive, ecologically-oriented event for Earth Day. It is a shame that you are trying so hard to mar and counteract their efforts.

An there was this response from one of the organizers of the protest:

I respect the work of the Town Square Group, and in addition to static informational booths we will offer a roving street theater performance with informational fliers about the oil spill and the greenwashing epidemic. We are artists and this is how we can positively contribute to an ecologically themed event for Earth Day – educating the public in a non-didactic way. Nothing in my email implied “disobedience”, and please put it in perspective. It’s not ok for some of the very worst environmental offenders in the US to sponsor Earth Day in a community where they are responsible for incredible environmental disasters. This is the very definition of greenwashing. I don’t believe that their aide is necessary to pull off a local environmental celebration. They do not deserve positive publicity when so many of local community groups are engaged in a lawsuit with them for the harm that they’ve done.

Just another day in North Brooklyn.

Yes, it’s Sunday and that means it is time to return to that ocean full of ships passing in the night known as the Craigslist Brooklyn Missed Connections. The instant we saw this entry, we know what we had to do:

Hot Dude on the L train – w4m – 25 (L Train)
this morning around 10 o’clock you and I were on the L train together. You had on pants that were so tight I could see your panty-line. a little gross, but totally hot. you’re hoodie had the best silkscreen i’ve seen all year. you were looking all around at all the hot girls in their spring getup, but you didn’t seem to notice me. i was standing right across from you leaning against the door. i have dyed black hair and i wear all black all the time. some people call me goth, but they don’t understand the pain i feel INSIDE. do you feel my pain? i felt yours, your pants were tight, i know that can be painful. if you don’t e-mail me back i’m going to cry forever. I LOVE YOU TIGHT PANTS.

Inner Goth pain vs. tight pants pain. One comes from the soul. The other comes from the…crotch region. Which is more compelling?

Check out the pics of the pre-Passover Burning of Leavened Bread on Wallabout Avenue in South Williamsburg. If you’re unfamiliar with it, you can also read about it here.–Fading Ad Blog

We got an email from Angel Hess, the man behind the Purple 53 Truck that was parked in the lot at Bedford and N. 11 Street in Williamsburg for a year before going out on the road again. He is now in the Golden State, writing, “Hey I made it to Cali 3 days ago. There are lots of new photos on my site… p.s. Its not going to well in California so if you know anyone in southern California who you could connect me with that would be great.” Anyone who can help hook the artist and the truck up on the opposite, can check the Purple 53 site for info. In the meantime, check out one of his latest posts from Jacumba, Calif. for a sense of things.

Every week, we take a look at comments left by our readers during the previous seven days. Here’s a selection from this week:

Carroll Gardens Rumor Mill: “Pro-Development” Petition? “I respectfully disagree with your choice of words calling Buddy Scotto an ‘activist’ unless you mean by that he is active in encouraging large-scale, greedy developers to make a killing in CG where he and a few others stand to make a personal fortune as well. None of the current grassroots ‘activists’ (in the true sense) groups (there are many) is ‘anti-development either’; they are merely pro-“responsible and contextual” development which the current development of course is NOT!”

Carroll Gardens Rumor Mill: “Pro-Development” Petition? “So many people who hide behind the ‘contextual development’ label are in fact anti-any-development. They are NIMBYS, since it’s OK to develop elsewhere, but not in CG-BH. It was development that helped make CG the attractive and hip place it is today but now that you and your strollers are clogging the sidewalks its ‘hey…stop it.. this is MY neighborhood!’ Buddy Scotto was a champion of neighborhood revitilization twenty five years ago, when CG was little more than a sleepy Italian neighborhood and Smith St was nothing but ancient mon ‘n pops and bodegas, and a good fifteen years before all of these gentrifiers moved in and set the stage you see today. He has more neighborhood bona-fides in his pinky than any of you can ever aspire to.” [Anonymous]

If Attacked in Park Slope, Don’t Fall Into a Flower Bed. “This story is so ‘one sided’… the person who landed in the woman’s flowers was drunk… If he/she were sober enough to explain the situation to the woman she might have had a different reaction.” [Anonymous]

Slope’s Cafe Eleven Space to Be Wine Bar, Neighbors Concerned. “whino, the mature and sophisticated banter being parried to and fro through the evening hours in this most cultured nabe will be so welcome indeed! anyone who lives hear knows it doesn’t take a bar full of drunken skin-heads to cause enough of an annoyance- just a mere bar full of drunken sophisticates with senstive palates who are in denial in homage to their fixations.” [Anonymous]

Slope’s Cafe Eleven Space to Be Wine Bar, Neighbors Concerned. “I think the real question of importance here is: Will they allow strollers?” [Richard Nickel Jr.]

Here’s a huge set of vids by and of Matthew Silver, aka the Bedford Avenue Dancer. He has his own website bcfools.com and emailed recently to say “I’m trying to making Bedford Ave. in Williamsburg, Brooklyn into a circus by slowly weaving the local characters, the people I see there every Sunday, store owners, the street vendors, musicians, artists, rent owners, street roamers, performers in to a positive wacky interactive performance, show, movement…I want to keep the show community based and always at a grass roots level, a positive influence in helping out the community by creating positive attention, my main goal is to reawaken a colorful wacky, funny, street life which seems to be dying. I want to make Bedford Ave. into a village of happy fools where people have the opportunity let out there inner child in public, which is what I’ve been doing.”

• Cobbler’s Row in South Williamsburg [NYT]
• Grandfather Killed in Crown Heights DWI [NYP]
• ‘Belt Parkway Killer Set Free’ [NYDN]
• Getting the Ballfields in Shape [GerritsenBeach.Net]
• Street Tree Walking Tour Next Sunday [Sustainable Flatbush]
• Hair Returns Center, Ditmas Park [Fading Ad Blog]
• Big New Food Coop [Ditmas Park Blog]
• Researching the Aunt Who Died in a Long Ago Coney Island Fire [NYT]
• Now, That’s a Spring Picture [New York Shitty]
• Looking Toward Manhattan [Brit in Brooklyn]

Remember the Brooklyn Earthquake of 1985? “On Saturday, October 20, I was sleeping soundly in bed when suddenly the bed started shaking violently enough to wake me up. I looked up and the lighting fixture above was swaying back and forth. It lasted just a few seconds and I drifted back to sleep.” There are also details about the Quake of 1884. Do read.–OTBKB

We don’t know how we missed this gem, but we did until Dave Hogarty at Gothmist picked it up: Seven students at Park Slope’s MS 88 hid in the school until everyone was gone on Monday. Then, they “stuffed papers and books into a microwave in the teachers’ lounge and turned it on to start a fire, which caused minimal damage. The seven teens were charged with trespassing and arson.”–NYDN via Gothamist

BUST Magazine is having its “Spring Fling Craftacular” at Warsaw in Greenpoint next Sunday (4/27) from 11AM-9PM. They’ve had “Holiday Craftaculars” there in the past. Here’s a bit from the email:

BUST Magazine¹s first ever Spring Fling Craftacular is set for Sunday April 27, 2008. After 3 years of enormously successful and Folio award winning Holiday Craftaculars, BUST is ready to spring into step with our first ever Springtime craft fair and 90s themed dance! Sponsored by The Frisky, the Spring Fling Craftacular will feature over 50 of the most unique and talented crafters from across the country offering the very best in handmade wares. But the Spring Fling Craftacular is not just another craft fair, it is also an all day dance party with an open bar and an entire room set aside for dancing and mingling. Craftacular DJs will put the spring in your step, spinning all your favorite jams from the 90s all day and into the night.

The Warsaw is located at 261 Driggs Avenue, between Eckford and Leonard.
Admission is $2. More info here.

Today’s forecast is a tough one. The conditions outside the Brooklyn Weather Observatory this morning are gloomy, just as they have been since last night when we watched clouds and fogs roll dramatically over the Verrazano Bridge. On the other hand, the forecast does call for “times of clouds and sun” with a high of 66. Tonight will be mostly cloudy with a low of 48.–Accuweather

We woke up this morning to an email from a group called The Change You Want to See, that was widely distributed by the New York Action Network point out that today’s Go Green! Greenpoint Earth Day festivities in McCarren Park have a number of interesting corporate sponsors. We’ll start with the most ironic of them: ExxonMobil, which of course, is responsible for the horrific oil spill under Greenpoint along Newtown Creek. The spill is the largest in American history and the slow pace of the cleanup (which has stretch to nearly a half-century) is the topic of much local anger and controversy. Other sponsores include BP America, Waste Management and Forest City Ratner Company. The release we got said “These companies are no friend to our community, and no friend to the environment.” A group calling itself Greenpoint SuperFUNd SuperFriendz is starting an online email campaign to send messages protesting the sponsorship and asking for faster action on the oil spill cleanup to City Council Members and Members of Congress. That email says:

I was disappointed to hear that ExxonMobil was sponsoring the Go Green Festival in McCarren Park this weekend. ExxonMobil is responsible for the largest oil spill in America’s history just meters away from where the festival will be taking place.

If ExxonMobil really wanted to do something positive for their image, they should start cleaning up the 17 to 30 million gallons of oil they spilled over 50 years ago. Sponsoring a so-called “green” event is no substitute for taking responsibility for the tremendous amount of suffering ExxonMobil has caused the Greenpoint community.

For those interested in sending the email, it can be found here.

In the meantime, there’s a protest today at the park:

Join us at McCarren Park for a protest rally. We’re calling on YOU to help reclaim Earth Day from the greenwashers and reclaim the oil from McCarren Park!

Reclaim the Oil! Saturday, April 19, 11am — Meet at Driggs and N. 12th by the dog run. There’s oil a plenty underfoot and we oil men will be on hand with rig, drills, and buckets to reclaim our oil and our earth (day). Dear Exxon, We Drink Your Milkshake!!!!

Needless to say the sponsor names did not appear on any of the fliers posted around Williamsburg.

Here’s another adoptable pet of the week from the Brooklyn Animal Rescource Coalition (BARC) shelter in Williamsburg.

This is “Seven Up”. She was named for the seven puncture wounds she suffered, most likely caused by a dog attack. She’s about 8 weeks old and very affectionate. One of the wounds punctured her ear canal, so she’s unsteady on her feet and will be on antibiotics and cage rest for awhile. When she’s ready for a new home she will be spayed and up to date with all her vaccinations. Seven Up and all the BARC Cat Loft cats (well, most of them anyway!) love to have visitors, so come by Tuesday-Saturday from Noon to 5.

For info on BARC click here.

TransGas is still trying to get approval for a power plant on the Williamsburg Waterfront, and the document it sent out this week is a classic. “The release uses phrases like “zeal to appease” former Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff,” “suicide mission to sacrifice” the future, charges of pandering to “well-heeled, largely white” gentrifiers and more. In that sense, it is one of the most superb press releases from a business on a dry topic we have seen in years.”–Curbed

A possible Apple store has been bandied about for many locations in Brooklyn, including the Edge in Williamsburg and various locations downtowns. So far, they’ve only been rumors. Well, ifoAppleStore confirms that inside sources say Apple will be opening two NYC stores. One will be at 23 Wall Street and the other…will be in Brooklyn:

Real estate and other insiders have confirmed previous reports that Apple will open two additional street-level stores in New York City. The company will open its first store in Brooklyn, in the Williamsburg section of the borough. The exact location of the store isn’t known, but the New York Post has speculated on Albee Square, One Hanson Place or the Municipal Building at 345 Adams Street, while others point The Edge, a future development at North 6th Street and Kent Avenue.

The mystery continues.

The situation faced by Soundfix, the music store in Williamsburg that sometimes hosts performances, is as alarming as it is strange. It has been targeted for “violation upon violdation” by a variety of city agencies, some of which allow potentially life-threatening situations at construction and demolition sites around the corner to go on unchecked.–Brownstoner

Photos:

• Mr. Sign [Bluejake]
• Another Finger Grows in Brooklyn [Atomische]
• Sunset Park/Bay Ridge Walk Photoset [mandaclose/flickr]
• Pear Blossoms [Brooklynometry]
• Sheepshead Bay Photoset [Dalton Rooney/flickr]
• Cyclone [ms. squegee/flickr]

Words:

• Con Ed Admits It’s Demolishing Landmark Kent Ave. Power Plant [INSIJS]
• Ratner E-Newsletter Wants Readers to “Reach Out” to Elected Officials [AYR]
• Cops Break Down Door of Hasidic Home in Crown Home, No Warrant [NYP]
• Pervert Arrested for Abusing Two Children at Brooklyn Parks [NYDN]
• “Brooklyn ‘Love Triangle’ Stab-Slay” [NYP]
• Go Inside the Edge [Curbed]
• Analyzing the Gowanus Green Site Plan [Brownstoner]
• Passover, Warsaw, 1943 [OTBKB]
• Acorn School for Social Justice [Bed-Stuy Blog]
• Graffiti Ads [Bed-Stuy Banana]
• Dumbo, the Fashion Mecca [Dumbo NYC]
• Blogfest Sponsors Wanted: Opportunity to Win Hearts & Minds [OTBKB]
• Many Colors Showing [A Year in the Park]

These are flowers in Park Slope that come to us courtesy of GL Correspondent Anna Lewis. She notes that the pink ones on the left are called Bleeding Hearts.