We have a few random notes to convey about food and retail things in Park Slope:

1) The GL reader who sent the first word of the death of the 2nd Street Cafe, sends a photo of a sign noting that Grand Canyon has cut back its hours. He writes: “Grand Canyon, the diner on 7th Avenue opposite PS 321, has cut back its hours. I note it because the 2nd Street Cafe had a similar cut back notice about two weeks before it finally went belly up…I don’t know what’s happening with Grand Canyon, but in this atmosphere, I assume the cutbacks are not a good sign.”

2) We checked out the storefront next to Amin’s on Seventh Avenue (between Union and Berkeley), which rumor says will be a frozen yogurt emporium and, above the plywood in front, could see lighting and design that looks very much like it will be something along those lines. We saw something more like Fifth Avenue’s Oko than Pinkberry, but who knows.

3) Something is going on in the big space at Seventh Avenue and Sixth Street that used to the be home of D’Agostino’s until it closed last year. For rent signs are still in the window, but last week, there was work going on in the basement and a truck in front piled high with bricks that had been removed.

4) Goldy + Mac, a Fifth Avenue Park Slope shop, is now open at 396A Seventh Avenue in the South Slope in a space that had housed Nest. More fashion comes to the South Slope.

We are major fans of the uber-shitty fence at the huge site of 33 Roebling (aka 250 N. 10 Street), which has been a wretched mess and wide open for nearly a year-and-a-half and a major dumping ground for all kinds of crap. At one point, two of the gates were closed, but a third was, inexplicably, left open. We say this to say two things:

1) Pile driving–well work on test piles–is under way at the site, although plans for the six-story building with 147 apartments on the site haven’t been approved.

2) The gates are open again, which means that anybody that wants to play with a pile driver can do so at N. 10th and Roebling. You don’t think they leave the keys in them, do you?

There are conflicting reports about the status of the Trader Joe’s at Atlantic Avenue and Court Street. One the one hand, it may be dead, per a comment on the Cobble Hill Blog: “I work for TJ’s at 14th st store and we were officlally told the store is not coming. Management could not agree with the terms by Two Trees. We heard it was bad.. Management is looking for another location in Brooklyn, maybe around Red Hook area.” On the other hand, it may be opening in Spring, per a comment left on McBrooklyn. Time will tell.

Anyone who likes to watch steel being put in place would have found the work at 405 Union Avenue (aka 68 Ainslie Street) in Williamsburg Sunday afternoon quite fascinating. It’s a Karl Fischer building that is rising quickly, with ample help from all the steel being hoisted on weekend. The Fischer will clock in at six stories and have 47 units and should be completed next week at the rate at which it’s rising.

After all the dust has settled, it may turn out that nothing has changed in terms of movement on the rezoning of Carroll Gardens. The Department of City Planning still can’t commit to “a precise timeframe for action,” which is what they’ve said all along. This does not sit so well with some, and never has. “Did they perhaps think or hope that we, regular community residents would not notice or care? Saying that Carroll Gardens is asking to push others aside, so that we may be first, seems a deliberately manipulative way of taking the heat off where it belongs…Carroll Gardens recognizes the need and sympathizes with the frustrations of each and every other neighborhood looking for relief through rezoning. We are not looking to shove anyone out of the way. We want to see more ‘windows’ open up to service those of us waiting on line.”–CORD Blog

Here’s a fun email circulating via a Community Board 1 mailing list on Yahoo that gets at the subject of “after hours work” in a major way:

Early this morning ( 2/2/08 ) at around 2 a.m. we were awakened by pile driving. The pile driving continued for over an hour. Our apartment is on the corner of Dupont & Manhattan. Did anyone else in the area hear it? Anyone know who’s responsible? I made a DEP report regarding the incident but was unable to give a location. These construction teams are so cocky, that they are comfortable to pile drive in the early am.

Given that the noise that pile driving makes is very distinctive, it’s very hard to mistake anything else for it, so all we can say is two things: A). 2AM? B). Why?

“The city has used a brand new law to ban a rogue engineer for faking construction plans – but a loophole in Buildings Department rules let the alleged mastermind off scot-free. The Buildings Department barred licensed engineer Leon St. Clair Nation from city work on Jan 15…In trying to go after higher-ups in the scheme, the department claimed expediter Hershy Fekete showed building owners how to save time and money by fudging plans, then hired Nation to rubber-stamp them.” DOB has no rules governing expediters, however, so he was not cited. The problem involved fake photos of two building and doctored plans of a third one.–NYDN

We don’t know for a fact that this brown mass we found floating on the Gowanus on Saturday is, uh, crap. However, it looks disturbingly like what might happen if King Kong had the runs at the Carroll Street Bridge. (Actually, we watched the mass of whatever it was float from the Union Street Bridge to the Caroll Street Bridge.) Or, maybe, they’re just decomposed leaves that got washed out storm drains. Regardless, the Gowanus suffers from what are known in the trade as Combined Sewage Overflows or CSOs, meaning that untreated sewage flows right into the canal when it rains hard enough. Friday, it rained hard enough to do this. So, this was Saturday’s treat. If it’s any comfort, the smell wasn’t as bad as one would have expected. The blueish sheen on the water is oil which constantly bubbles up to the surface of the water next to the Bayside Fuel Oil facility near the Union Street Bridge. There is a meeting on February 12 to discuss such issues.

[Photo courtesy of Right in Bay Ridge; many more by clicking here.]

Brooklinks is a daily selection of Brooklyn-related information and images:

• Bay Ridge Goes a Little Wild in the Streets for Big Blue [Bay Ridge Rover]
• Yes, They Were in the Streets in Bay Ridge [Right in Bay Ridge]
• Park Slope Simply Cheered for the Giants [OTBKB]
• Brooklyn Obama Surge [NYDN]
• Inside Brooklyn for Barack [NYT]
• Farmer’s Market or Public Square [General Greene]
• So, What Do Delays Cost Ratner in Real Math? [AYR]
• Fun with 325 Kosciusko Street [New York Shitty]
• Gowanus Special Effects Business Weathers Writer’s Strike [NYDN]
• Car Tries to Make Court Street’s Marco Polo a Drive Through [ABL]
• Have Your Say on Brooklyn Parking Policy Tonight [Streets Blog]
• How to Determine if You’re a Bed-Stuy Native [Bed-Stuy Blog]
• Coney Island Concerned Writers Group [Kinetic Carnival]
• Stucco Fest in Gerritsen Beach [GerritsenBeach.Net]

When our friends at Brownstoner launch an exciting flea market we would naturally expect a blog to come with it. And so it is with the Brooklyn Flea Blog that’s just been started by Brownstoner in advance of the April 6 opening of Brooklyn Flea. Brownstoner writes:

With the April 6 launch date of the Brooklyn Flea just over two months away, we’ve decided to launch a blog that will serve both as a way for you to stay up on news about the Flea and as a way for us to solicit feedback about the many decisions we still have to make. In case you’re just tuning in, for the past several months we’ve been planning to launch what we’re hoping will be the biggest and most interesting flea market in the city on the Bishop Loughlin schoolyard on Lafayette Avenue in Fort Greene (map). It’s a 40,000-square- foot space, so we’ve got a lot of room to work with. We use the term “flea market” with both affection and a wink and a nod because, as you’ll see from perusing the preliminary vendor list to the right, while the Brooklyn Flea will offer plenty of flea market meat-and-potatoes (vintage clothing, music and furniture), it will also have an exciting mix of local designers, artists and crafties.

We look forward to what could truly turn into one of the most interesting and fun weekly retail ventures in Brooklyn, if not all of New York City.

The Lunar New Year celebration in Sunset Park will take place on Eighth Avenue on Sunday February 10. The festivities start around 11AM and will go for about three hours. In any case, if you want to see some great photos of last year’s celebration, you can click here and here.–Sunset Park Blog

Here’s a reminder about the forum taking place tonight (2/4) about Public Place that will feature professors and students from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Civil Engineering and Architecture that have been looking at the Public Place site. It’s called New Voices on the Gowanus: Focus on the Public Place. It takes place at 6:30PM at the PS 58 Auditorium, which is located at 330 Smith Street (entrance on Carroll Street). We posted about it a couple of weeks ago, but here’s a refresher:

Hear new voices and up to now missing points of view “that of academic and scientific scholars,” the Professors and students from Columbia University Graduate Schools of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Planning & Preservation who have been studying our Gowanus for over two years have just published a book (147 pages in full color) with their complete research, findings, theories, ideas and recommendations.

Public Place is the gravely polluted site between Smith Street and the Gowanus Canal that has attracted proposals from five developers.

[Photo courtesy of threecee/flickr]

These could be our favorite street couches ever. We’ve seen better ones, of course, but the placement on these–on Atlantic Avenue near S. Oxford in the Atlantic Yards footprint–is perfect. So perfect, in fact, that we got two photos of it within 12 hours of each other. The photo on top comes from Tracy Collins, the resident and photographer who is compiling an amazing photographic record of the neighborhood and work at the site. The bottom one comes from our very own wide-ranging Greenpoint correspondent. Perhaps what one might call the Bruce Ratner Twins were left there in celebration of the eminent domain decision on Friday.

This is another photo of the dog that was hit by one, or possibly two, cars on Sixth Avenue and was rescued by a kind hearted passerby and taken to a vet for help. He is described as being seriously hurt. As of early this morning his owner hadn’t been found, although fliers were handed out in Park Slope yesterday and will likely be posted around. Here’s the latest from Brooklynian:

No owner as yet, but someone just called me to say that he saw this dog being hit by a car on flatbush & 7th Ave, and that he kept running after he was hit. he must have then been hit again on Sixth and Sixth.

Anyone with info about him or his owner (he may be a Prospect Heights pup, given the direction in which he was going) should email nicky (dot) agate (at) gmail. Someone is, no doubt, heartbroken about losing this guy–he was found with leash and collar–so we hope the connection is made.

Talk about Yin and Yang. We found two Brooklyn Missed Connection ads that were posted yesterday that are very different sides of the same coin. One is to someone that stole someone’s coat at Union Pool in Williamsburg. The other is to someone that turned in someone’s clutch at Union Pool in Williamsburg. First, the theft:

To the guy whole stole my coat last night at Union Pool… – w4m
I even saw you do it… you walked out wearing my dark green coat, and I think I even stopped you for a minute. But, I am naive and thought “no guy would steal my coat“. Anyway, I’m sure stealing my coat was hilarious to you, and I enjoyed walking home in the cold, but I’d really really like it back. It was a gift from my parents and it keeps me warm outside. If I could get it back I’d be very appreciative and would not be mad at all. Thanks.

To recap: the dude stole a woman’s coat and she’s not pissed. Now, on to a very different posting:

the “handsome man” who turned in my clutch at Union Pool last night – 25
That’s what the bartender said, anyway. I asked her to point you out so I could thank you in person but she couldn’t find you. So, thank you so much. I was out celebrating turning in a very big project and got so drunk I must have left in the bathroom. I was halfway home before I realized I didn’t have it and ran back, not expecting it to still be there (especially considering there was a brand new PDA in there). Anyway, thanks for reminding me that the world is not full of assholes. May your good karma follow you. Thanks again, Emily

Stealing & turning something in. Bad karma & good karma. Two ads, two hours apart.

Dusk in Red Hook, looking across the water at Sunset Park and at Staten Island.

Gravesend Bay hides a potentially explosive secret, and it’s not the soup of toxins sitting at the bottom. “A HALF-CENTURY ago, an ammunition barge broke loose from the U.S.S. Bennington, an aircraft carrier anchored a mile offshore in Gravesend Bay. The barge drifted over to Rockaway Point, but somewhere along the way it overturned, scattering 15,000 live antiaircraft shells, each as long as a man’s leg, onto the sea floor.” Five hundred fifty shells were recovered. Two hundred tons of ordinance are still down there. So what happens if they dredge for a marine waste transfer station?–NYT

We can see why some people get a little perturbed about fliers being tossed outside their buildings. This picture is from Carroll Gardens and came our way via our intrepid Carroll Gardens-Cobble Hill Correspondent. It can’t be seen in this particular frame, but the good news for bargain hunters is that Kohl’s is having a two-day sale!

Every week, we like to a highlight a few of comments left behind by GL readers during the previous seven days. Here’s a selection from this week:

More Renderings of the Domino Glass Box. “Surely with all those giant massive towers filled with apartments, does this really need a glass topped whatever? Hell, it could be a heliport cuz I doubt anyone rich enough to buy into this are gonna want to take the L train. Oh, no, right, these people will all have cars and will be jammin’ the bridges every rush hour…” [Anonymous]

Red Hook #3: Removed Beard Street Paving Stones Reappear. “I love Ikea and they did a great job reincorporating them. You assholes will never be happy. Always looking for something to complain about.” [Anonymous]

Gowanus Update: Slow Going at the Bunker on Bond. “Design by Scarano. Facade by IKEA! It’s awful . . . not as awful as I thought it would be, but still Stasi approved.” [Gary]

No Day of Rest at 340 Court, as Application is Filed. “Ok Rogers Marvel, are you a licensed architect? How do you feel about non union labor? Please, show us what you have up your sleeves. A glass and cement richard meire fake? A brentwood cluster? a paramus strip mall? Please, we are all very interested…” [Anonymous]

2nd Street Cafe Closing Followup: Seventh Ave. Retail Bummer? “BTW, it is not just 7th Avenue. Take a walk down 5th and you’ll see more boarded up store fronts with landlords waiting for some chain or bank to move in. Rumor has it that a certain french restaurant on 5th Ave and 4th is about to go under, and several others are teetering on the edge of solvency.” [Anonymous]

Brooklinks is a daily selection of Brooklyn-related information and images. Happy Superbowl Sunday.

• Serious Development Comes to Crown Heights [NYT]
• Courts Haven’t Affirmed “Significant Positive Impact” of Atlantic Yards [AYR]
• Fire at 140 Henry [Brooklyn Heights Blog]
• About That Park Slope House at Seventh Ave. and Second Street [NYT]
• Cops Have a Meeting on Jay Street in Dumbo [Now Public]
• Will a New French Bistro Gentrify Newkirk Ave. & Argyle Road? [NYT]
• More Altered Ads from the G Train [New York Shitty]
• Gowanus Tear Down is a “Fantasy Plan” [BDE]
• Smartmom Reports Kids Back at Union Hall [OTBKB]
• Brooklyn Writer Gabriel Cohen’s Work is “a Relief and Pleasure” [Washington Post]
• Bed-Stuy Unmoved by Federal Tax Rebates [NYT]
• 209 Stationary [Brooklynometry]

What better piece of street furniture to offer up on this Superbowl Sunday than this recliner that was sent our way by our Greenpoint Correspondent. It comes from Kingsland Avenue in Greenpoint. Sadly, there was no TV on the sidewalk with it.

It’s Superbowl Sunday and that only means one thing: Superbowl TV ads. It’s way off-top for us, but here’s a selection of ads, with an emphasis on humor.

Some videos of the 2008 Idiotarod that have been posted this week.

We came across an email relating a disturbing incident at Carroll Park on Thursday afternoon in which an adult (a father, no less) is alleged to have kicked a five-year-old boy because he didn’t like the way the little boy “had grabbed” his own child. The child ended up with a bruise and the adult who kicked him quickly left the park with his own son when it may have dawned on him that trouble might ensue. We’re not sure what would motivate someone to kick or hit another person’s five-year-old no matter what that child did or was doing, even if there was a possible slip-up in supervision. Here is the description of the the incident from an email circulating via the BoCoCa Parents group:

I am just writing about a disturbing incident that happened to my five-year-old son in Carroll Park on Thursday afternoon. At approx 4pm he ran into the big kids’ playground w/ a friend while my sitter was chatting just outside that area. A few minutes later she heard him crying and ran in there looking for him. When she found him, another boy’s father was next to him loudly demanding to know who his parents were. As my sitter crouched down to see what the problem was, my son started saying that this man kicked him and when she caught wind of that and stood up to address the man she found he had taken his son and left the park. From what we can gather, through my son’s account (he has a bruise on his leg) and that of another sitter who caught the tail end of the incident, my son had grabbed this guy’s son and the man was so incensed that he marched over, kicked my son in the shin and started nastily berating him. Now, clearly my son shouldn’t be grabbing other kids, but I don’t think there’s any excuse for a grown man to kick a child.

No, there is no excuse whatsoever for a grown man to kick a child. The mother is trying to find witnesses to the incident in the hope of finding the man who kicked her child.

We will refrain from extended comment on what we will be calling Williamsburg’s Nightmare in Glass until Monday. In the meantime, that should offer an indication of our general feelings about the modification to the landmarked Domino Sugar Plant on Kent Avenue that developers are proposing. Yesterday, Brownstoner offered a first look at renderings that had been revealed at a Community Board 1 committee meeting on Thursday night. Today, the Waterfront Preservation Alliance of Greenpoint & Williamsburg has more detailed renderings of the modifications to the factory building itself. (Notably, the renderings do not show the towers that would surround the building.) The Landmarks Preservation Commission will be holding a public hearing about the proposal on Tuesday, February 5 at 2:00 p.m., at the Municipal Building (1 Centre Street), 9th Floor North. According to the Alliance, “the big story” is the rooftop addition to the Filter House .” The firm Beyer Blinder Belle is proposing to put a five-story addition on top of the Filter House. If one includes mechanical bulkheads, the addition will be almost eight stories tall. The group will be meeting on Monday evening to formulate its own position on the Nightmare in Glass. The Beyer Blinder Belle proposal is similar to the glass addition that has been proposed to the landmark Battery Maritime Building in Manhattan, which would fundamentally alter that structure.