Things may be literally quiet in Coney Island except for the barking of guard dogs, but there is activity to report. Entrepreneur Lola Staar, who was almost forced from her boardwalk shop last year by developer Joe Sitt, has sent out an email announcement saying that she will be opening a “new boutique in Coney Island this spring! Our second Coney Island shop will be located inside the sparkling new, fabulously renovated Stillwell Avenue Subway station!” The fascinating part of Ms. Staar’s email however is this:

Another, even more exciting dream is in the works for 2008. A preliminary manifestation of Lola’s dream to build a Roller Rink in Coney Island may take place this summer! We will keep you updated as Lola’s exciting dream unfolds!

A “preliminary manifestation” that “may take place this summer”? We understand that to mean a temporary roller skating facility for the summer. Will it be on city-owned property? On the land that Mr. Sitt cleared last winter that it now sitting unused and vacant? In the meantime, State Sen. Carl Kruger held a press conference on Friday to say that there would have to be a long environmental review process before the city could “alienate” (or de-park) 9.6 acres of land next to KeySpan Park that currently is classified as a park. (In reality, it’s a parking lot, plus the ugly and underused Abe Stark Ice Rink.) More thoughts on whether an environmental impact study will be needed to change the status of a baseball stadium parking lot from “park” to land for development, tomorrow.

[Image courtesy of Lola Staar]

It’s Sunday, so we turn again to our Brooklyn Craigslist Missed Connection. This week we not only have our first Bocce Missed Connection, but our first Bocce Injury Missed Connection. Here it is:

Hit in the face with a bocci ball? – m4w – 24

We were at a bar on union street in brooklyn, sunday night. ran into you in the bathroom.. wanted to talk to you later on. as i was making my attempt BAM!! you were struck by a whizzing bocci ball in the face. karma? not sure. but i still can’t believe it happend. hope your healing and able to enjoy all the goodness over the holidays.. merry christmas!

Ouch.

For a nice guide to New Year’s possibilities in Brooklyn, have a look at this thoughtful compilation. You might just get an idea or two.–About Brooklyn

• Short-Term Becomes Long-Term at Transitional Facilities in Coney, Other Places [NYT]
• Two Suspected Brooklyn Hit-and-Run Drivers Caught [Gothamist]
• Carroll Gardens Moody Motorcycle Repair Shop [PMFA]
• Eight Things to Watch in 2008 [Brooklyn Junction]
• Things to Like About 2007 [OTBKB]
• Stabbing Pains in Bay Ridge [Bay Ridge Rover]
• New Condos Planned for Parade Grounds [Hawthorne Street]
• Q Gets a C [Brklyn Stories]
• Free New Year’s Eve Event at Water Street Restaurant [Dumbo NYC]

Once a week, we take a look at some comments left by GL readers during the previous seven days. This week, a post relating a local professor’s experience at Central Booking in Brooklyn generated a huge number of comments.

Brooklyn Jail Nightmare: One Woman’s Story:

“Brooklyn Central Booking is manned and maintained by the NYPD. Their are no “guards” involved in the process. The”guards” who work as Correction Officers in the NY DOC man Queens and Manhattan Central Booking. Ask anyone who has had the misfortune to have been through either of those facilites that in all honesty those facilities are kept as clean as possible. I’ll tell you why. I recently retired from one of those places and I refused to work in filthy conditions. I was locked in with the pre-arraignment prisoners for 8 to 16 hours. Yes people got sick. Yes we gave out bologna sandwiches that I would not eat. When people got sick we called the NYPD so that they could come and get their prisoner and take them to get medical care. If they didn’t show up in a timely fashion we bucked it up to our supervisors who would them get on the phone with the NYPD supervisors. Only in an extreme emergency would we be allowed (due to NYPD-NYDOC policy) to take a prisoner to get medical care. I could not give out food that I did not have but I would check the sandwiches to make sure that they were not stale or moldy before I gave them to anyone. The bread does get hard quickly because its made on Rikers and doesn’t contain preservatives. The Department rarely gave us cheese sandwiches. I can’t say that I enjoyed my job but I did meet hundreds of young men and women who I hope my talking with them as I processed them made a difference for them. It didn’t matter to me if they were accused of raping a baby or jumping the turnstile everyone had my ear for the five minutes or so that it took to process them. I know that Brooklyn Central Booking is the pits and I can’t apologize for the filth because there is no excuse but unlike the Correction Officers who see Central Booking as a preferred command, the NYPD see it as punishment. Many of the cops assigned their work the “rubber gun squad” meaning they are pending Departmental charges and may end losing their jobs anyway. I don’t have the answer except that it takes money to staff it with people who want to be there like CO’s who would otherwise be on Rikers. Most people of course would vote for more school or hospital funding rather than funding to improve conditions for people who they perceive to be low lifes.” [COnoMO]

“it’s not about the cops, but about the conditions. In my case, I let someone walk through the turnstile with me (her Metrocard said ‘just used’, as in she paid the fare but the turnstile didn’t work). Just inside, an undercover cop stopped is. She got a ticket but I — as I still had an out -of-state drivers license — was cuffed, walked on a daisy chain THROUGH A SUBWAY STATION AT RUSH HOUR and taken to central booking. It was all very much as described (except there were no sanitary pads for the men). Even still, we had the same sandwiches scattered all over the floor, especially around the toilet. After about 9 hours of people urinating all over them, another batch of people were brought into the cell. One of them immediately got down on all floors and started eating the piss-soaked bread like there was no tomorrow.” [Anonymous]

“That sounds similar to my experience, except I also had the fun of having the police lose my fingerprints for two days and a woman die in our holding cell. We were left alone the night she died for more than twelve hours with no water, food or guards. She was screaming for help for about half that time. None came. In the morning she was dead. We were all questioned, but I think they ruled it a drug overdose. I’m not sure, because at that point they let me go. Kudos to you for writing about this, after my experience I was too shaken up to do so.” [Anonymous]

Petition to Stop Eviction of Court Street Tailor/Cleaner. “That dry cleaners is as old as dirt. And I’m amazed the sign has lasted. It’s the same one I remember from 1970. In the 1950s, that location was a grocery/sandwich shop called Sullivan’s. A lot of their business was selling hero sandwiches to the students from St. Francis College, which was on Baltic St. till 1960.” [Ex-Warren Street Denizen]

We’ve posted about this a while ago, but now that New Year’s is upon us: the 2007-2008 New Years Fun Run will be happening tomorrow night (12/31) at 11:15PM Prospect Park. The start and finish line of the 3.3 mile race is the park’s Grand Army Plaza entrance. It’s sponsored by the Brooklyn Road Runners Club and Slope Sports and the entry fees are as follows: $15 for Brooklyn Road Runners Club members and $20 for non-members before December 30. (We’re not clear if today counts or not, so check with the sponsors.) Race Day registration is $20 for members and $25 for non-members. One can register or pick up numbers at Slope Sports, which is at 70 Seventh Avenue, between Lincoln & Berkeley, in Park Slope. The telephone number is 718-230-4686. Registration hours are: Sun. Dec. 30th, 12PM-5PM, Race Day, Mon., Dec 31st, 11AM-5PM. There is also on-site registration from 10:30PM-11:00PM on New Year’s Eve. All the info is at the Slope Sports site. Louise Crawford of OTBKB is thinking about running in the race, and has also posted info about it. Give her a wave and a big thank you for all the great work she’s done this year if you see her.

A few vids of fireworks in Prospect Park, in honor of tomorrow night’s annual show.

“The classic corrugated signage which read “Donuts Coffee Shop” had been taken down and all that was left was the broad white background. The woman behind the counter said someone had bought it and taken it down the previous day. There was a good crowd inside. About three-quarters of the stools were occupied. A photographer from Brooklyn Paper was there clicking away. A few donuts remained in the racks. I asked for a plain and a coffee ($1.50).” Read the full post.–Lost City

Have some old or (newly made old by holiday gifts) electronics devices? Well, here’s another opportunity to get rid of them in an environmentally friendly way: Sustainable Flatbush’s Post-Holiday E-Waste Recycling Event. It will take place on Saturday, January 5 and on Sunday, January 6 fromm 1PM to 5PM. The location wil be 462 Marlborough Road, which is between Ditmas and Dorchester in Flatbush. Among the devices being accepted are computers (laptop & desktop), monitors, printers, scanners, fax machines, copiers, networking devices, keyborards, hard drives, power supplies, TVs, VCRs, DVD player, cell phones and more. However, they can’t take household appliances like microwaves and toasters. Media such as disks and tapes goes to www.greendisk.com, through which one can also directly send media for recycling. Materials will be recycled via the Lower East Side Ecology Center’s partnership with BuildItGreen. Sustainable Flatbush is a sponsor of this event.

The suspension of East River service by New York Water Taxi is not sitting well with others. There’s a meeting this morning at Schaeffer Landing in Williamsburg to talk about getting some service restored before May 1, 2008.–Brooklyn 111211

Update: The sign is the work of artist Brad Downey, who has installed some very cool things around Brooklyn and Queens.

A couple of old timers recall Coney Island. Totally worth watching.

There were many big stories in Brooklyn this year, but there was less drama in 2007, particularly with so many critical and controversial decisions having been made in 2006. Clearly, the Coney Island drama was the top development story of ’07, but it was followed closely by the continuing saga of Atlantic Yards, which could still end up as a very different project than the one announced four years ago. Last year, we said that 2006 was symbolically as important as 1957 when the Dodgers played their last game at Ebbets field. This year, we will say that 2007 was more like 1958–the year that reality started to set in. For instance, an entirely new Williamsburg–which currently resembles a construction hell more than a neighborhood in places–started to emerge and Fourth Avenue between Park Slope and Gowanus started sprouting a series of condos. There was certainly less drama in 2007–there were no Greenpoint Terminal Market infernos or caustic and divisive public meetings about Atlantic Yards–but the change that continued to wash over our borough has been no less dramatic and will alter the very fabric of Brooklyn for many decades to life.

1) Coney Island. The year started with developer Joe Sitt sending in bulldozers to clear land, but by year’s end, Mayor Bloomberg and Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff had declared that Mr. Sitt was toast in terms of Coney’s amusement district. The Brooklyn story of 2007 shows every sign that it could be the story of ’08 too as a huge battle shapes up.

2) Atlantic Yards. If 2006 was the year that this mega-project created deep divisions in Brooklyn, 2007 was the year of delays, new questions and construction prep work. Will 2008 be the year that ground is officially broken on the project that will change Prospect Heights, Park Slope, Fort Greene and environs forever? Or will a court decision, credit crisis-related issues and a softening real estate market throw more curve balls at this development? Stay tuned.

3) The Rebranding of Williamsburg. The Next Wave of change in Williamsburg, from hipster enclave to Luxury Condo Outpost continued went full speed in ’07 and along with it came more embarrassing marketing efforts to sell Williamsburg to an entirely different demographic. More to come in 2008 as more of the unnamed developments under construction start coming to market.

4) The Brooklyn Construction Crisis. From South Brooklyn to North Brooklyn and everywhere in between, the Number One quality of life story in 2007 was the collateral damage of the Brooklyn Building Boom and the Department of Building’s inability or unwillingness to do anything to police the process in any meaningful way. While the Department claimed to make strides, it was outgunned and outsmarted at every turn by an onslaught of development that turned the borough into a Darwinian land of survival of the fittest if the construction and demolition contractors got to work on one’s block.

5) Landmarking. After 2006 saw the destruction of landmarks like the Greenpoint Terminal Market, Red Hook’s Todd Shipyard and Williamsburg’s Old Dutch Mustard Factory, preservationists could finally point to some important wins and buildings saved from the wrecking ball. In Williamsburg, several important buildings of the old Domino Sugar Plant (although not all significant historic structures) were landmarked as was McCarren Pool. Significant new landmark districts were also created around the borough in Dumbo, Greenpoint and Crown Heights to name a few.

6) The New Domino. The year started with concerns about the demolition of the historic Domino Plant in Williamsburg. By early summer, developers trotted out plans for the New Domino, with 2,400 apartments and towers up to 30-40 stories tall. It would be the second biggest new development in Brooklyn after Atlantic Yards and would add up to 4,000 residents to Williamsburg.

7) The Flatbush Corridor Boom. No longer the stuff of renderings, the Flatbush Corridor/Downtown boom started in earnest in 2007, with major new buildings breaking ground or underway. The towers will be rising in 2008, forever changing the looking of Flatbush Avenue and surroundings.

8) The Remaking of Red Hook. Anyone who hasn’t been on Beard Street in a couple of years will be forgiven for thinking they’re in Elizabeth, NJ. Ikea has risen. The Revere Plant is gone. And, the odds are better than 50-50 that quiet Red Hook will be home to endless traffic jams at this time next year.

9) The Carroll Gardens Development Revolt. The plan to build at 360 Smith Street sparked a serious movement to put the downzoning of the entire neighborhood on the fast track. This one isn’t over by a long shot.

10) Toxic Brooklyn. From the hideous Exxon-Mobil Oil Spill in Greepoint to smaller problems like the Roebling Oil Field and the horrors underfoot in Gowanus, there were a myriad of environmental issues attached to booming residential development in formerly industrial neighborhoods with relatively lax regulatory supervision. How many developers will strike oil in Williamsburg in 2008? Will buyers be interested in luxury condos on sites with questionable environmental pasts as the market softens? So many questions.

11) The Hotel Boom. From almost nothing to thousands of rooms in development, 2007 will go down in history as the year thousands of Brooklynites began to think about being able to find mom and dad a room right in place like Gowanus.

12) Starrett City. Call it the Stuy Town Effect, but Starrett City residents found themselves on the winning end of a battle to preserve affordable housing at the huge rental complex. Opponents torpedoed the sale of the complex, although 2008 will determine whether it was a temporary reprieve or a real save.

13) The Rise of Fourth Avenue. It may not be the new Park Avenue, but with new condos and demolitions everywhere you look (or may not want to look, given how ugly some are), it’s definitely not the old Fourth Avenue.

14) No Way to One Way. Rarely have Park Slope residents gotten as riled up as when the Department of Transportation floated a proposal to make Sixth and Seventh Avenues one-way streets. The Slope said shove it, and DOT did.

15) Sludgie the Whale. RIP brave little friend.

So yesterday I’m home and my buzzer rings. I go downstairs to answer the door and it’s a Department of Buildings inspector! I was so excited! Christmas came late, but that’s okay. Or not. He tells me he has a report of the building shaking, cracks in the wall and apartments filled with dust. I try to get him into my two first-floor neighbors’ apartments, but neither are home, so I tell him what happened. Anyway, I’m so excited to see someone from the DOB that I told him all we’ve been going through, how horrible it’s been and how MMG [the demolition contractor] is doing all this illegal stuff and nobody seems to care.

He says there’s no proof of that. I tell him that I have video of them using a backhoe for demolition. He starts to back away, obviously not wanting to deal. I remind him that video is proof and he’s welcome to it. He tells me that I should look on the nyc.gov website and maybe there’s somewhere there that’ll tell me where to send it because it’s no good to him. He needs proof.

I ask him if there’s anything we can do when they’re working at night or on weekends or jeopardizing our building’s structure. He seriously advises me to call 311. WTF? So I just start laughing and ask him how effective that is when they send an inspector four days after the fact and refuse to even look at any proof of wrongdoing. The guy is acting like I’m a mental case! I need to point out that I was completely pleasant and was more amused at his obvious discomfort at actually having to do his job than anything approaching anger.

So I look on the DOB website today and all the complaints are marked as resolved. His parting comment to me was, “It’s going to get a LOT worse.”

Therein is the crux of the conundrum. DOB requires “proof” of illegal work or violations. Yet, they lack the resources to develop such “proof.” Hence, developers and contractors, in effect, are granted carte blanche to violate laws and regulations at will, because lacking an inspector on site during work hours and unable to respond to anything but complaints involving threats to safety and building stability in a timely way, there is never “proof.” Catch 22, anyone?

If it’s going to get “a lot worse,” we’ll be doing a lot of writing about what we will probably dub the “Williamsburg Building from Hell” in 2008, unless the DOB takes action and refuses to issue permits for a site that its own inspector indicates will “get a lot worse” in terms of doing serious violence to the quality of life of neighbors.

If you read one thing today, make it this tongue-in-cheek prediction about a new Trump Condo that will be announced next year for the Radiac site on Kent Avenue in Williamsburg: “In November 2008, Donald Trump and Councilman David Yassky announced Trump’s first Brooklyn venture: the Trump Irridium, a 29-story residential tower to be built at Kent Avenue and Grand Street in Williamsburg….At a Kent Avenue press conference, a radiant Yassky explained the historic compromise that involves preserving the iconic stucco structure by building the residential tower atop it, and demolishing the neighboring block of historic commercial buildings.” Affordable housing where the waste used to be stored, friends. It could work.–INSIJS

We could hardly contain our joy at finding banners officially proclaiming the Roebling Oil Building at the former Roebling Oil Field site at N. 11th and Roebling Streets in Williamsburg as Warehouse 11 (or W11 for short). This means the marketing and sales push are full speed ahead in 2008 for the luxe condo that has risen on the formerly contaminated site adjacent to a “localized oil plume.” As luck would have it, we reached into the hard drive archive, which has hundreds of weekly shots showing the site when it was just-plain-foul-and-polluted, and selected one taken exactly a year before the shot on top. Ah, digital memories.

• Bhutto Assassination Reverberates Around City [NYT]
• Anguish in Brooklyn Over Bhutto’s Death [CityRoom]
• Marty Markowitz Year-End Q&A [Brooklyn Paper]
• Markowitz Doesn’t Know Why Doctoroff Had Second Thoughts on Atlantic Yards [AYR]
• A Few Things About That Markowitz Interview [No Land Grab]
• Doctoroff’s Successor is a Key Lieutenant [NYT]
• Vendors Tossed from Flatbush Market [NYDN]
• Publisher Melville House Coming to Dumbo [Dumbo NYC]
• Gerritsen Avenue Will be Greened [GerristenBeach.Net]
• Ah, the Greenpoint Gas Tank Implosion [Greenpointers]
• The Three Kings in Bay Ridge [Right in Bay Ridge]
• Rustik Tavern Opening New Year’s Eve [Bed-Stuy Blog]

Early last year, the Strong Place Church conversion to condos got under way. Work is going forward, albeit slowly. “The conversion’s protracted construction schedule probably has a lot to with the developer’s pledge to be extremely preservation-conscious, though we’re wondering how it’s sitting with nearby residents.”–Brownstoner

Check out a new website produced by College of William & Mary students called Coney Island and the Modernization of America. “The website is a great source for those interested in leaning about the history of Coney Island. Their sources page is probably the only Internet site where one can find most books and articles written on Coney’s future in one place.”–Kinetic Carnival