• School Project Causes Panic on B Train [NYDN]
• Gravesend School Has Gun Panic Lockdown [NYP]
• Historian Very Confused by This Whole Internet & Blogging Thing [AYR]
• Will Ratner Turn Atlantic Yards Into a Humongous Parking Lot? [Metro]
• Obama Behind Congestion Pricing [NYP]
• Massive Bridge Street Tower in the Works? [Brownstoner]
• Brooklyn Trader Joe’s Work Starts…with One Guy [McBrooklyn]
• Keep Off Flowers [New York Shitty]
• Horse-Drawn Brooklyn Dairy Delivery in the Old Days! [PMFA]
• Hunch: Park Slope’s Barrio Connected to Bubby’s [OTBKB]
• Francis Morrone to Document Every Building in Brooklyn Heights [BHB]
• The Many Joys of Gentrification [New York Shitty]

Anything that says “Rock the South Slope Til the Stroller Wheels Come Off” will catch our attention. So it is with this event brought to our attention that is taking place at the Living Room Lounge at 245 23rd Street at Fifth Avenue. It’s billed as a free dance party and “quite the blow out” with a format that “is basically anything you can shake your ass to. Soul / funk / disco / house / hiphop / reggae / dancehall / indie. You get the idea. Djs are myself, Rut Roh, Soul Korea and special guest the Honorable DJ Caps of Caps and Jones fame.”

All of the enthusiasm, inventiveness, and fearlessness that Brooklyn kids are capable of will be presented onstage when six young playwrights perform their works alongside professional actors in “Off the Hook: Original Plays by Red Hook Kids.” The performances will take place Friday, April 18, at 7:00 p.m., and Saturday, April 19, at 3:00 p.m. in the auditorium of the Patrick Daly School (PS 15), 71 Sullivan Street, in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Admission is free of charge.

“Off the Hook” will feature original plays written by six young playwrights, age 10-16, who have completed a three-month workshop in playwriting and theater arts. “The program catches the young playwrights at a time when they’re becoming aware of the complicated world around them, but they still bring a kid’s optimism and enthusiasm to the plays they create,” says Reg Flowers, founder of Falconworks Artists Group and the creator of Off the Hook. “They’re on the edge of adulthood, and their actions and words show they are impatient to grow up, but there’s still an underlying wide-eyed perspective and a belief in the impossible that comes through in the plays they write. Almost anything might happen once the curtain goes up.”

There is a lot more info about these very cool plays here and you can make a reservation (the shows are free) by clicking here.

One of the NYPD’s traveling Towers of Fun has come to Dumbo in response to an increase in crime in the neighborhood. “The NYPD deployed Sky Watch yesterday, a ‘mobile platform for surveillance, assessment, and response’ on Front Street between Adams and Pearl Street in Dumbo Brooklyn. We haven’t had a chance to check with NYPD how long they’ll be there, but could this be a result of the recent crime in Dumbo and Vinegar Hill? The menacing looking Sky Watch has high powered sensors, cameras, mics, and spotlights and was rolled out to high crime areas of Crown Heights and Harlem in 2006. We’ve seen a lot more foot patrol in the area since the Precinct meeting last week, which is great, but is this over the top?”–Dumbo NYC

There is some gloom outside of the Brooklyn weather observatory this morning and that’s because today’s forecast calls for periods of rain. The high will be 51. Clouds will break tonight and it will be breezy with a low of 31.

Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama supports New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s congestion pricing strategy. He told WNYC’s Bob Hennelly, “I think Mayor Bloomberg’s proposal for congestion pricing is a thoughtful and innovative approach to the problem.” He also voiced support for Federal mass transit funding. The full interview will be on All Things Considered later today.–GL Inbox

Almost 80 people attended a community forum on Residential Parking Permits (RPP) last night in Windsor Terrace at Holy Name Church. The forum was co-sponsored by Councilmember Bill de Blasio, Community Board 7, the Windsor Terrace Alliance, Friends of Church Avenue and Kensington-Windsor Terrace Neighbors.

Mr. de Blasio opened and mediated the oftentimes heated debate. Michael Cairl, a Trustee of the Park Slope Civic Council, Chair of the Livable Streets Committee,and the Civic Council’s Representative on the Parking Permit Task Force, explained the Department of Transportation (DOT)’s RPP proposal. The Department refused to send its own representative.

Throughout the two-hour, town-hall style meeting, a wide range of questions and comments from the public were addressed by Mr. de Blasio and Mr. Cairl and they will be compiled in a report for Mayor Bloomberg’s office and DOT. Because Mayor Bloomberg has included a residential parking permit plan within his congestion pricing proposal, Mr. de Blasio said, “you can’t talk about residential parking permits without talking about congestion pricing.” He added that he sponsored the forum to trigger public debate on the parking permit issue. He said that RPPs “should have been discussed a long time ago,” but not as what he called “a carrot” intended by Mayor Bloomberg to win favor for congestion pricing. Mayor Bloomberg had previously residential parking permits.

According to DOT’s proposed program, Mr. Cairl explained, if a neighborhood chooses to adopt the program, then residents with a permit can park in RPP zones all day. Cars without RPP stickers during specified 90-minute periods would be subject to ticketing and towing. Permits would be available to residents upon proof of car registration.

Neighborhoods can request the creation of an RPP zone using a form available on DOT’s website that can be submitted to the local Community Board, which would have have a public hearing. If it approves the request, it would have to be approved by the City Council, the NYCDOT and, finally, the Borough President. Such a process, said Mr. Cairl, creates “citywide” opportunity for RPP without imposing “a top-down system.”

Forum participants expressed concerns about the following RPP issues: possible confusion arising from different 90-minute periods in different RPP zones; issuing permits upon proof of car-registration rather than per household; the need for visitors’ permits; the possibility of having to pay a fee for a permit (though Mr. de Blasio and Mr. Cairl said that the current DOT program does not include a fee); potential unfairness experienced by residents living on or near a Community Board boundary (since RPP zones would correlate with Community Boards); the impact on school teachers; the potential black market in permits (Mr. De Blasio conceded the risk, saying “we’re a very entrepreneurial people here in Brooklyn”); the cost of enforcing the RPP plan.

Forum participants suggested the following plans as alternatives or supplements to RPP: granting permit-holders two-hour visiting rights to any neighborhood, thereby preserving easy, short-term travel between RPP zones (modeling a policy that one speaker and former D.C resident said worked well in Washington D.C.); a tiered-pricing system based on the distance between a driver’s residence and the destination; the creation of paid parking lots near major transit lines.

Mr. de Blasio said he “likes the idea” of parking permits, but thinks the issue should have been under discussion long ago and that he hopes it will be debated regardless of the outcome of congestion pricing. The forum presented “clear thinking” about how RPP might impact residents, he said, and triggered a change in his own thinking about residential permit parking. “I’m seeing now that it would have to be a city-wide policy,” he said. Mr. de Blasio considers the forum “a conversation important for the future.” “A larger debate has begun now,” he said, a debate that he hopes will “permeate the mayoral campaign” in 2009.
–Anna Lewis

The Toll Brothers are coming. Well, not Bob Toll himself, but some company representatives (most likely Development VP David Von Sprecklesen) to make a presentation on the big and controversial proposal for housing on the Gowanus Canal. The presentation will be a committee of Community Board 6, which this week weighed in a with a long list of issues that it suggests be addressed in the environmental review of the development. Significantly, the Board identified a wide range of environmental issues on the property that weren’t in a document prepared by the developer based on historic use of the property for the manufacture of lead-based paint and a number of oil-related uses. Here’s what CB6 says about tonight’s meeting:

Informational presentation by representative for Toll Brothers, Inc. of a pre-certified application, known as 363-365 Bond Street, that would allow the redevelopment of two blocks fronting on the Gowanus Canal including the block bounded by 2nd Street, the canal, 1st Street and Bond Street (Block 458, Lot 1) and part of the adjacent block bounded by Carroll Street, the canal, 1st Street and Bond Street (Block 452, Lot 1 and 15) with a mixed-use development. The proposed project would result in approximately 447 dwelling units, 1,500 gross square footage (gsf) of neighborhood retail space, 1,500 gsf of community facility space, 260 below-grade parking spaces and 0.6-acres of publicly accessible open space along the Gowanus Canal.

The meeting starts at 6PM and will take place in the auditorium at PS 32, which is located at 317 Hoyt Street.

Posted in a Park Slope Parents email: “Person Needed to Cut Ring from Finger….hi, my husband cut his finger on Sunday and now his finger is very swollen and infected. We went to the doctor and he is taking antibiotics, the problem is that his wedding band is extremely tight around his finger…Anybody knows where he can go to get it cut off? (the ring, not the finger!).–OTBKB

As for the threatened trees, a Parks Department officials says they are Honey Locusts and that while the ones on private property are toast, the ones in the public part of the plaza will be saved (once the “public” part of plaza is determined). Here is an email to Parks from resident Barbara Bookhart, who has started the Carroll Gardens Brooklyn History blog:

I understand that Parks Department Forestry Dept. has been asked by the developer William Stein to remove the five locust trees several weeks ago, and that you are evaluating the request?…Those trees were put in the plaza by Buddy [Scotto] and the Carroll Gardens Association in the 70s…they have survived very well. We don’t want to lose the trees. We hope that Forestry will decide that the trees, which are perfectly healthy, should not be removed.

There are more photos and more about the issue at Pardon Me for Asking. Right now, it looks like some of the trees will survive.

According to a new survey of crime in city parks the largest number of crimes over the last 18 months occurred in Central Park, Flushing Meadows Park, Prospect Park and Riverside Park. Flushing Meadows Corona Park had 99 incidents, including robberies, grand larcenies and two rapes. Prospect Park had 57 crimes, Riverside Park 31 and Bronx Park had 30. No crimes were reported in two Staten Island Parks. Central Park had 162 crimes.–New Yorkers for Parks

Yesterday, a teenager was charged with a hate crime for allegedly taking a yarmulke from someone’s head at the Fourth Avenue Station in Park Slope back on March 18 The Daily News had some details, but the story that captured our attention was the one on Wicked Local Wellesley. The victim is a rabbinical assistant there:

A New York teenager is being charged with aggravated harassment as a hate crime after allegedly stealing a Wellesley rabbi’s yarmulke in a Brooklyn subway station last week. Rabbi Uria Ohana, 25, a rabbinical assistant at the Wellesley-Weston Chabad Center, had just entered a Park Slope subway station at 4th Avenue and 9th street at 6:20 p.m. on March 18 when he felt someone grab his yarmulke.

Turning around, he said, he saw an Arab teenager running down the stairs, and decided to chase him to get his yarmulke back. Running through the station, they passed a group of the boy’s friends who began chasing Ohana and screaming, “Allahu Akhbar!”

Ohana chased the boy, identified as Ali Hussein, 18, of Queens, outside, where he ran into the street and was hit by a car. Hussein’s friends caught up with Ohana and began shouting, “you see what you do?” punching him in the head, and screaming “Allahu Akhbar.”…There were numerous witnesses outside the crowded subway station, he said, and many of them pulled out cell phones to call 911. Before police arrived, a black SUV pulled up, and two of Ohana’s attackers jumped in the car and drove away, leaving Hussein at the scene…

The rabbi, who has been in the States for two years and spends half his time studying in Brooklyn, and the other half working at the Chabad center in Wellesley, wants to draw attention to the case “for the police to see that it’s something serious,” he said. “Attacking a Jew just for being a Jew — it’s important that this doesn’t happen. This kind of hate crime, it’s important to me that it doesn’t occur.”

The “Yarmulke Theft Teen,” in the Daily News’ words, could face seven years in prison.

“Despite concern from some parents, Brooklyn’s controversial Arabic-themed school will move into a Fort Greene elementary school next year, officials said. Public School 287 parents were told at a meeting yesterday that the Khalil Gibran International Academy will move into the school building next year after growing too large for its current Boerum Hill location. Some parents are concerned about older students from Khalil Gibran going to school alongside their elementary school kids. PS287 currently houses the Urban Assembly School for Law and Justice, a high school that is moving into an old courthouse next year.”–NYDN

For those that appreciate the unique joy that is driving the Belt Parkway, GerritsenBeach.Net passes along news certain to warm the heart of construction lovers. More than $500 million will be spent in coming years to rebuild seven bridges and their approaches to the parkway including Bay Ridge Avenue, Fresh Creek, Gerritsen Inlet, Mill Basin, Nostrand Avenue, Paerdegat Basin and Rockaway Parkway. Per GerritsenBeach.Net:

The new Mill Basin and Paerdegat Basin bridges will be built along side the existing bridges, while the other ones will be built piece by piece with construction lane closures. The Gerritsen Inlet and Mill Basin bridges will start in 2010. The Mill Basin Drawbridge will no longer be a drawbridge, rather a fixed bridge with a clearance of 60 feet a huge change from the existing 35 feet.

Should make things more interesting.

[Photo courtesy of Satyadasa/flickr]

[Photo courtesy of Spatch/flickr]

Coney Island’s beloved B&B Carousell, which was bought for $1.8 million by the City of New York before it could be auctioned off, is on its way Marion, Ohio, where it will be restored by experts at Carousels & Carvings Inc. The movers showed up at the Brooklyn Army Terminal, where it has been stored, on Tuesday. The restored carousel will be installed in Steeplechase Plaza, which will be built at the base of the Parachute Jump. Per the Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

Carousels & Carvings was responsible for dismantling the carousel, cataloguing its thousands of components and preparing them for storage at the Army Terminal. In addition to developing and executing a comprehensive, detailed restoration plan for the carousel, C&C will also transport the restored carousel back to Coney Island, reassemble it and install it at its new home in the newly created Steeplechase Pavilion near the Parachute Jump.

There is a good deal of history about the carousel here. The sign in the building where it was housed on Surf Avenue was painted over and destroyed recently. It will be at least a couple of years before the carousel is restored and is able to take its place near the boardwalk.

• Sports Stores Still Selling Gang Gear [NYDN]
• Fine Print on Atlantic Yards Affordable Housing is Vague [AYR]
• Brooklyn Heights Car Garage Plan is Back [Brownstoner]
• More Detail on That Unloved Heights Car Garage [NYDN]
• Some Neighborhood Improvements [Bed-Stuy Blog]
• New Aquarium Director [Kinetic Carnival]
• Connecticut Muffin on Lafayette [General Greene]
• Ansoniana [Brooklynometry]
• Brooklyn Earth Day Expo [Green Brooklyn]
• Knocking on Mr. Scarano’s Back Door [New York Shitty]
• Spring is Popping Up in the Park [A Year in the Park]
• Rebranding Prospect Park? [Ditmas Park Blog]
• Wednesday Food & Drink Roundup [Brownstoner]

It seems like Second Chance Saturdays–the clothing recycling events at Grand Army Plaza–just got underway. Yet, we have already arrived at the last one:

Bring your unwanted textile materials to the Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket on Saturdays. Clothing and household linens are Reusable & Recyclable. Where: Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket, NW entrance of Prospect Park.

The recycling goes from 8AM-4PM. Clothing, coats, shoes, boots, hats, jackets, towels and bedding are accepted. The program has been operated by Goodwill Industries.

Are the skateboarders in front of Homage on Smith Street a menace and does skatboarding on Bergen Street make driving a nightmare? Or, is the real nuisance the parade of strollers and the mindboggling jam in front of the Tea Lounge on Court Street? There are many opinions, including nearly 80 comments.–Curbed