This is the last remain residential building on the Vanderbilt Avenue side of the Atlantic Yards site. It still retains the Hot Bird advertecture.

Change is coming. A reader sent us an email yesterday afternoon with the subject line “B61 Shilling for Ikea” to let us know that the B61 no longer says that it runs to Van Brunt Street. Our reader wrote:

Yesterday I noticed that the B61 now says “RED HOOK – IKEA TERMINAL” instead of VAN BRUNT ST. RED HOOK in the flashing side destination menus. I might feel better about the free advertising *if the ikea was actually open yet* but, well, you know. Is the city getting paid for this? Inquring minds want to know.

Actually, we’re pretty certain it’s just the MTA being hyper-efficient and getting the name of the stop up there long before the store opens. If only other aspects of the operation could be so ahead of the curve.

In response to concerns raised by Council Member de Blasio, Borough President Markowitz, Community Board 6 and local civic groups the Department of City Planning began public review today on a creative zoning solution to protect the built character of a number of streets in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn.

Under review is a text amendment that would redefine First Place, Second Place, Third Place and Fourth Place; and Second Street, Carroll Street and President Street between Smith and Hoyt Streets as narrow streets for zoning purposes, effectively lowering permitted density and maximum building heights to preserve the character of these unique streets. A narrow street is defined as a mapped street less than 75 wide.

Currently, for zoning purposes these streets are defined as wide streets with widths of 100 to 130. These streets function in many ways like other residential side streets in the area, but have the unique condition of their deep front courtyards which are included in the measurement of the mapped street. Zoning permits larger buildings on wide streets, which are incongruous with this area’s built character. By defining these as narrow streets for zoning purposes, lots can be developed or enlarged pursuant to more limited height, setback and floor area regulations which produce buildings more in keeping with the surrounding context.

Community Board 6 and the Brooklyn Borough President now have 45 days to review and make recommendations on the proposal. Following review by the Community Board, the City Planning Commission will hold a public hearing.

Neighborhood groups have been pushing for the change and all of the narrow streets in the neighborhood have been included (see the map above). The change would cut maximum building height on these streets from the current 70 feet to 55 feet. There is more information on the City Planning website.

“Here’s a constituent e-mail from Brooklyn Assembly Member Joan Millman, who finally, bravely announces her intent to vote for congestion pricing. Note the time stamp: nearly two hours after the plan was declared dead.”–Streets Blog

Two years ago the city made changes to Vanderbilt Avenue in Prospect Heights to “calm” traffic, including creating medians and left turn lanes. The changes cut accidents with pedestrians and bicyclists among other things. Now, the Department of Transportation is planning a redesign of Vanderbilt between Dean Street and Grand Army Plaza that will include bikes lanes and Green Streets medians. DOT will present the plan to Community Board 8 on Thursday (4/10) at 7PM. The changes include bike lanes connecting Bergen and Dean lanes with Plaza Street and the entrance to Prospect Park, landscaped pedestrian crossings at Park Place, Bergen Street and Dean Street and a raised and landscaped median between Prospect Place and St. Marks Avenue. The meeting will take place at the Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation, 727 Classon Avenue, which is between Park Place and Prospect Place.

[Photo courtesy of Streets Blog]

With the prices of many food staples climbing, many Brooklyites are finding the increased cost of living is causing serious problems. Today’s Daily News looks at the impact on some low-income residents:

Retired Fort Greene home attendant Orelia Myers’ diet has taken a big hit as food prices have soared across the country – pasta has replaced meat on her dinner table. And Leslie Elikwu, already reeling from personal problems that make it difficult to care for her four children, sometimes takes them to soup kitchens.

For poor Brooklyn families, staples like meat, bread, eggs and milk are fast becoming luxuries. “I like porkchops, love porkchops, but they’re so high, so high, so high. I’m not buying them like I used to,” lamented Myers, 67, who lives in the Farragut Houses.

“I’m buying more potatoes and pasta,” she said. “They’re cheaper.”…

The problem is serious for people on limited or fixed incomes. Some estimate the cost of groceries have gone up almost 50 percent. A gallon of milk now costs about $4 – 33 cents more than it did just last month. The average price for a dozen eggs has increased by as much as 25 percent.

There was an awful accident at Newtown Creek early yesterday morning when a car plunged into the water, killing one man. “The death is under investigation, but it would seem that drowning — rather than the extreme pollution in the creek, a byproduct of decades of pollution from coal and oil refineries that opened alongside the creek in the 1860s — was the most likely cause.” There have been many deaths in the creek over the years, although none related to the foul nature of the water.–CityRooom
& NYP

Normally, the promise of a City Council hearing is not something that gets the juices flowing. When the hearing is a Transportation Committee oversight hearing on G Train service. We posted about this in late March and it’s worth noting again that the hearing will take place today at 1PM in the City Council Chambers at City Hall. For whatever it’s worth, there is a City Council resolultion calling on the MTA to immediately improve G Train service and not implement any cuts. There should be info from the MTA about ridership data and plans for the future as well as some interesting public testimony. For more info on the G, as always, there’s the Save the G blog. Also, the wonderful Brooklyn Based site recently put up a post with everything you’d ever want to know about the G Train. It’s a must read for anyone interested in all things G.

With the big renovation plan for the New York Aquarium dead in the water, but a new shark exhibit moving ahead, the new director of the New York Aquarium says he “wants to turn the quaint-but-ragged Coney Island sea-life center into a nationally recognized tourist attraction. Aquarium director Jon Dohlin said his $14.5 million annual budget isn’t enough to transform the 51-year-old institution into a destination that will draw Manhattanites – let alone nationwide tourism dollars. ‘The aquarium needs work – everyone admits that and everybody knows that to be true,’ said Dohlin, adding admission fees can’t be raised because of its nonprofit status.”–NYDN

Regina Myer, new president of the park-development authority, calls the carousel “awe-inspiring.” But her priority, she says, is to get park-infrastructure construction up to speed after years of dithering. Which means the carousel and its pavilion will just have to wait, Pritzker or not. And so the carousel still sits behind a padlocked gate in a former spice warehouse in Dumbo, awaiting its fate. “I wake up every morning and ask myself, ‘How do we get the powers that be to get off their dime?’ ” Jane says. “We’re tired and a little worn down.” And she worries that if the current state of limbo stretches too long, this prospective jewel of the park may eventually end up elsewhere. “There’s a guy in Dubai who wants to buy the carousel,” she says. “I guess they have children there, too.”

For the time being, the carousel is housed in a former warehouse building on Water Street in Dumbo.

There a significant meeting coming up tonight (4/8) for the Brooklyn Greenway. Here’s the info from the Brooklyn Greenway webtsite:

Big Turnout Needed for Greenpoint/ Williamsburg Greenway Meeting

The full board of Community Board 1 will decide on the plan for the physically separated bikeway on Kent Ave and West St. We need a strong showing of support to make the board know the overwhelming desire for these improvements for pedestrians and cyclists. Sign up speak by 6:15 PM. Meeting begins at 6:30pm

Location: Swinging 60’s Senior Citizens Center, 211 Ainslie Street, Brooklyn, New York 11211 (Corner of Manhattan Avenue)

Another email with some info says:

a “greenway” is not quite the same thing as a bike lane, although the Brooklyn Greenway has a bike lane element. The Brooklyn Greenway is funded by CMAQ (federal Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality money); our regular on-street bike lanes are funded via DOT’s paint and asphalt budget. The Brooklyn Greenway will provide a safe, designated walking lane for people who wish to take a nice walk; it will provide critical traffic calming along Kent Avenue, which is also a truck route (and will also provide critical air quality mitigation — also important because of the truck route). With a planted median containing 250 trees, the Brooklyn Greenway is more of a linear park, than a bike lane; and the tree-planting and walking elements make it all a genuine, significant benefit to our community. The car parking that would be displaced by the Brooklyn Greenway plan has been replaced nearby, and DOT is moving right now to make those parking spaces available now, in advance of theproject.

The Greenway would cover 14 miles, from Newtown Creek to Sunset Park. There is a lot more information about it at the Greenway website.

• Considering the Many Angles of the Bruce Ratner Brooklyn Museum Gala [AYR]
• Girl Found Hanging in Closet in East New York Dies [NYP]
• Man Hit and Killed by Subway Train Near Franklin Avenue Station [CityRoom]
• Boerum Place Getting Spruced Up [Brownstoner]
• Block Association Calls for Atlantic Yards Demolition Moratorium [AYR]
• Want to Go to Sideshow School? [NYDN]
• All the Brooklyn Bridge Park Memorial Garden Daffodils Died [McBrooklyn]
• It’s a Blogubator in Dumbo [Dumbo NYC]
• Washed Up Boat on Coney Island [lornagrl]
• Fulton & Atlantic, East New York, Sept. 2001 [Fading Ad Blog]
• Lessons of the Little Red Hen [Brooklynometry]
• What Wakes Beneath [A Year in the Park]
• Windsor Terrace Library Toy Sale [Kensington Brooklyn]
• Chicken-o-Rama [Bed-Stuy Banana]

Congestion pricing died in Albany yesterday, perhaps for good. Here is some of the coverage:

• $8 Traffic Fee for Manhattan Gets Nowhere [NYT]
• With Congestion Pricing Dead, $17B Transit Deficit Looms [Streets Blog]
• Requiem for Congestion Pricing [2nd Ave Sagas]
• Breaking: Silver Says Congestion Pricing is Dead [Gothamist]
• Conge$tion Hits End of the Road [NYP]
• Congestion Pricing Wreckage Scattered in Albany [Sun]
• Riders may pay cost of traffic fee’s defeat [Metro]
• Shel Game Wasn’t Personal-This Time [NYP]
• Sheldon Silver’s gettin’ good at just saying, ‘NO!’ [NYDN]

Another new condo development that hasn’t sold many units is going rental. Bridgeview Tower, which is in an odd location between the Manhattan Bridge approach and the BQE has been on the market for two years and only has four units in contract. Hence, rental listing are showing up: $3,900 for a 2BR. Given the location, will anyone bite?–Brownstoner

A flower disappeared from the base of a tree in Boerum Hill and the owner presumes a flower is at work. Who, exactly, would steal a little purple flower, anyway?–Curbed

There are clouds right now at the Brooklyn Weather Observatory, but one can see them breaking and letting the sun through, which is what today’s forecast is saying will happen. It calls for some sun and warmer, with a high of 56. Tonight will be clear to partly cloudy with a low of 42.–Accuweather

Congestion pricing is dead. It fizzled rather than going out with a bang, as it didn’t even come to a vote in the legislature. Assem. Speaker Sheldon Silver said that there wasn’t enough support for the plan to go through the formality of voting. Today was the deadline for passing the plan in order to qualify for $354 million in Federal money. Of course, the plan could still pass, but as things stand, it would do so without the big pot of funds from Washington–CityRoom

Probably due to the mortgage crisis we have been granted an extension for another year, and really who knows after that…Thank god for loyal Brooklyn customers that don’t want the place that they have ‘invested’ in turn into one more mini-manhattan bedroom, and support the mom-and-pop businesses that make our neighborhoods neighborhoods.

The Nursery has been impacted by both the opening of two other business–Chelsea Garden Center and Sunset Garden Center–in Red Hook (aka the Gardening District) as well as a fairly longstanding redirection of traffic on Summit Street that can make it hard for drivers unfamiliar with the area to find the Nursery. The owner says her long-term goal is coming back to Gowanus as “we’d love a spot back by the Canal.” In any case, the Nursery is alive and well and open again.