Good Friday was observed in a variety of ways around Brooklyn yesterday, including local processions marking the stations of the cross. Here are some photos from Windsor Terrace from GL Correspondent Anna Lewis:

[All photos courtesy of Anna Lewis]

The book has more than 75 color photos of, Brooklyn storefronts from the Bari Pork Store (King of the Sausage) and the Los Doctores Tires Shop to the Great Eagle Photo Company and St. Jude Religious Articles. The author photographed them on bicycle trips around Brooklyn. More info about the event here.

How serious is the “stall” of Atlantic Yards? Does it mean that most of the project is dead? That Frank Gehry’s creation has been mangled? That what it will amount to is a nearly $1 billion basketball arena? Or is the developer looking for more public subsidies? It’s hard to say right now whether the stall is a stall in the sense of the car needing to be towed to the shop for some work or needed to be taken to the scrapyard and put in a crusher. Regardless, there has been much coverage since yesterday morning:

We Particularly Suggest:

• Atlantic Yards FAQ [AYR]
• Atlantic Yards Stall: Timeline of Despair [Curbed]

We Also Suggest:

• Ratner Admits Major AY Delays [AYR]
• Endangered AY [Brownstoner]
• Atlantic Yards ‘Stall’: Ouroussoff Goes Nuclear [Curbed]
• CurbedWire: Special Atlantic Yards Stall React-o-Matic Edition [Curbed]
• Miss Brooklyn & Housing to Die as Arena Lives? [GL]
• Thing That Was Never Going to Happen Isn’t Going to Happen [Lost City]
• Times Architecture Critic Packs Punch [OTBKB]
• Atlantic Yards is in Serious Trouble [DDDB]
• Ratner Accepts Reality, Folds Up Most of Atlantic Yards [Green Brooklyn]
• A Cautionary Tale [WGPA]
• Wither Atlantic Yards? [Brooklyn Streets]
• Goodbye Jumbo? [Dope on the Slope]

Some Photos:

• Coney Landscape [Blue Jake]
• Plumb Beach [Dalton Rooney]
• WFO Technologies [Blue Jake]
• Gowanus Flowers [ethersong/flickr]

Some Posts:

• The Kosciuszko Bridge [New York Shitty]
• Surface and Scaffold in Park Slope [Brooklynometry]
• No More Stink at Beverly Road Station [Brooklyn Junction]
• A Friday Called Good [A Year in the Park]
• Bed-Stuy Quonset [Bed-Stuy Banana]
• Sweet Melissa Expansing [A Brooklyn Life]
• Fiske Terrace-Midwood Park Landmarking [DITHOB]
• Restaurant Roundup [About Brooklyn]
• Bed-Stuy Oral History Project [Bed-Stuy Blog]

If you’re into old signs on buildings, this post with photos on “signs & vines” on a Flatbush building is a must click. “This sign, formerly on Nostrand Avenue & Glenwood Road- near Brooklyn College- illustrated the effects of nature on a fading ad, which made it a dynamic reminder of the passing of time- not to mention ones own mortality…The last image was taken on June 22, 1999- and is in an unusual summer state for this entwining symbiosis of signage and vinage. Apparently the roots were cut and the healthy, lush leaves have withered in the summer sun- another unexpected death. Signs and vines weather and grow.” There’s also a cool photo from the MTA of the street in 1971.–Fading Ad Blog

The exemplary specimen of Feddertecture on Jefferson Street in Bushwick is not only complete, it is now tagged up. “I wonder if the developer hired someone to do this so these luxury town homes would have that built-in ‘urban’ feel?”–New York Shitty

We found this vid courtesy of the always excellent Kinetic Carnival from Omar Robau and Ben Nadler. It’s amusing in a first day of the season at Coney Island kind of way.

The Grand Street rezoning has been passed by the City Council’s Land Use Committee, clearing the way for a City Council vote, perhaps as early as this week. Building height along Grand Street would be limited to four to five stories. The quick action may kill at least two planned 10-15 story buildings at Grand & Driggs.–WGPA

Right now, as we gaze out of the Brooklyn weather observatory, we see clouds and note that it’s 34 degrees. Today’s forecast is for mostly cloudy skies and a high of 46. Tonight will be clearing with a low of 33. Looking ahead to Easter Sunday, we’re talking about partly sunny skies and a high of 46.–Accuweather

The slowing economy, weighed down by a widening credit crisis, is likely to delay the signature office tower and three residential buildings at the heart of the $4 billion Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn, the developer said. “It may hold up the office building,” the developer, Bruce C. Ratner, said in a recent interview. “And the bond market may slow the pace of the residential buildings.”

Mr. Ratner, chief executive of Forest City Ratner, did not specify the kinds of delays possible, but suggested that construction could be put off for years. His comments are his first public indication that the darkening economy has slowed the ambitious project, spanning 22 acres at the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues….Mr. Ratner insisted that the Brooklyn office market remained healthy, but he conceded that “until we get a tenant, we won’t start Miss Brooklyn.”

“It’s not going to happen in a nanosecond,” Mr. Ratner said during an interview across Atlantic Avenue from the railyard where he plans to build the arena. “I hope it’s not going to be drawn out. I’d hope that the first residential building will be done within six months of the opening of the arena, and a second one a year after that.”

Is it simply an extended timetable? Is Mr. Ratner looking for deeper public subsidies for the project? Will much of the project’s affordable housing be tossed, which opponents have long predicted? Will he carve up the site and sell portions that are now being cleared to other developers? Will the land the state allowed to be cleared long before it would ever be developed sit fallow for years to come? There’s an item about Nicolai Ourousoff’s analysis below, including the conclusion that an area without Mr. Gehry’s towers would be “urban blight” and that the process has been “a betrayal of the public trust.” One can find the analysis on Atlantic Yards Report here. Also, No Land Grab has posted a list of bullet points from the story for easy digestion.

Thank you for contacting our office. Unfortunately, the guard dog issue is a neighbor/neighbor matter that can only be resolved between neighbors. If you see the dogs loose again, I would urge you to contact the 76th precinct.

GL Analysis:
While we’re certain the response is appropriate in a bureaucratic way, it seems to lack a certain something we can’t quite put our finger on. Perhaps, it’s the hope that the “guard dog issue” be “resolved between neighbors” when the neighbor in question is a building site that has 36 complaints logged with the Department of Buildings, many of them for what would seem to be very un-neighborlike conduct. Or, maybe, it’s simply the entire sense that one must wait for one’s face to get bitten off or one’s pet to be killed before anyone in city government will do anything. So, we would ask whether one should call the 76th Precinct be before or after prying the vicious dog’s jaws from one’s leg or trying to keep it from swallowing one’s pet? Perhaps it would behoove the Community Board to add escaped vicious dogs to the list of construction site safety issues that might be addressed, not between neighbors, but between government and development and contractors.

Oddly, what we called the Nightmare on Bond Street brings us full circle to the issue of powerlessness that many people feel about the impact of development on their communities. It’s not being excessive to suggest the city should take an interest in construction site attack dogs that could kill someone before there is an injury. The power of the building permit–and its suspension or revocation is one of the few defenses the public has. It should be used, and the code should be revised to cover any number of threats including Construction Site Cujos.

Times architecture critic Nicolai Ourousoff calls the possible slowing or cancellation of parts of the huge Atlantic Yards project noted in today’s Times “a painful setback for urban planning in New York.” He also calls it “a betrayal of the public trust” and the possible arena that will result “a piece of urban blight.” We would use similar phrases, and have, but for vastly different reasons. In any case, here are some of the words of damnation from Mr. Ourousoff:

So if the decision to proceed with an 18,000-seat basketball arena but to defer or eliminate the four surrounding towers is defensible from a business perspective, it also feels like a betrayal of the public trust.

Mr. Gehry conceived of this bold ensemble of buildings as a self-contained composition — an urban Gesamtkunstwerk — not as a collection of independent structures. Postpone the towers and expose the stadium, and it becomes a piece of urban blight — a black hole at a crucial crossroads of the city’s physical history. If this is what we’re ultimately left with, it will only confirm our darkest suspicions about the cynical calculations underlying New York real estate deals.

Also, Mr. Ouroussoff says that “no development at all would be preferable to building the design that is now on the table” and that Mr. Gehry might want to walk away. It is early. There are many Brooklyn reactions sure to follow today, but here is one of the ones that counts the most, from the preeminent Atlantic Yards authority, Norman Oder of Atlantic Yards Report. Mr. Oder, for instance, writes that “ it’s not a painful setback for urban planning because there was no real urban planning.”

Yesterday, the State Siting Board for power facilities turned down a proposal to build an 1,100 megawatt power plant at N. 12 Street and Kent Avenue in Williamsburg. For those that thought the plant was dead in 2004, it was. At that time, an application for an above-ground facility was turned down. But TransGas, the utility that wanted to build it, came back with a proposal for an underground one. The vote to dismiss the proposal was unanimous. We hate to slosh cold water in the face, but given the astounding history of the plan, we’d be remiss in overlooking the one tiny footnote that does not leave the plant 100 percent dead: the utility can still appeal the decision. “We fully expect that they will be completely unsuccessful,” says neighborhood activist Phil DePaolo. Okay, so it’s 99.99 percent dead. Still, it’s that .01 percent that can come back and get you when you’re not looking.

There was some interesting activity yesterday afternoon at Smiling Pizza in Park Slope, which is located at Seventh Avenue and Ninth Street: “At 3:15 or so today (3/20) there were at least a half dozen police cars and paddy wagons encircling the corner of Smiling Pizza. There were quite a few teens that seemed to be arguing with the large collection of police officers. Does anyone know what was going on? As i continued walking north down 7th ave, there were a few police cars driving ful speed, sirens blaring, with passengers in the rear seats. Not the scene one expects on a sunny afternoon in park Slope. OK, mainly just curious, but thankful for some kind of explanation.” Another report says several teen girls were arrested.–Brooklynian

• Slow Economy Likely to Stall Atlantic Yards [NYT]
• Building Inspector Arrested in Crane Collapse Case [NYDN]
• Court Rejects Former Arabic School Principal’s Claims [Sun]
• Fourth Avenue Stairway to Nowhere [Brownstoner]
• Another Rape in Brownsville Project [NYT]
• Patriotism in Air Conditioning [Bed-Stuy Banana]
• Going to Urban Outfitters BK [OTBKB]
• McCarren Park Lighting Like Close Encounters of the Third Kind [Bad Advice]
• Rain in the Park [A Year in the Park]
• Carroll Gardens Palm Sunday, 1922 [PMFA]
• Seventh Avenue Met Food [Brooklynometry]
• Gardel’s Garden Gone [General Greene]

Then last night, at a forum at the Museum of the City of New York, a city official acknowledged there were talks going on to reach some sort of agreement where the city would realize a remade amusement district in conjunction with the private landowners, which would represent a reverse from the November announcement. The official, Coney Island Development Corporation president Lynn Kelly, said she could not expand much beyond that, but did say of the plan that “the different landowners could partake in all of this.”

Why the shift since November? As often with development fights, local politics reign supreme. Some key colorful local elected officials greeted the city’s plans with some displeasure, with State Senator Carl Kruger vowing to block a crucial measure that moves around parkland designation. Mr. Kruger became an immediate outspoken opponent after the plan was unveiled, though he did not say much about it while it was being crafted in a relatively public manner.

There is a rundown of the meeting at Kinetic Carnival, but it does not mention Ms. Kelly’s comment or any possible shift of plans. Another attendee said the comment was made in the context of the city’s intention not to use eminent domain and did not represent a shift in plan or policy.

“Most blocks in South Brooklyn stick to the usual variations of brownstone and red brick buildings. On Summit Street, between Henry and Hicks, however, you’ll find a veritable Easter egg basket of pastel paint jobs. Baby blue, pale yellow, light green, lavender, candy-apple red—they’re all here (along, of course, with plenty of plain red brick). You won’t find this assortment of house colors anywhere else in Carroll Gardens.”–Lost City

The number of potential bidders for the huge Starrett City complex on Jamaica Bay has increased to four. Interestingly, all the possible bidders identified so far are groups involved in affordable housing or with a commitment to keep the development’s nearly 6,000 units affordable. The complex was the subject a deeply controversial $1.3 billion bid by Clipper Equities that was ultimately killed by the Department of Housing and Urban Development after a firestorm of protest. Crain’s reported yesterday that the National Housing Partnership Foundation and the New York Housing Partnership “have both expressed interest” in the development. A coalition of labor, religious and community groups as well as the National Development Council, which is a Manhattan-based nonprofit, have been previously noted as potential bidders. No private buyers have yet “expressed interest” in the 46-building complex.