The new Prudential Center in Newark, which was beset by cost overruns and controversial public subsidies could provide some very interesting and valuable lessons for Brooklyn. Let’s start with the 33 percent cost increase…–Atlantic Yards Report

• A History of “Coney vs. The City” [Kinetic Carnival]
• Opposition to Coney Plan is Crystallizing [Brooklyn Daily Eagle]
• Bay Ridge Insists on Calling Its Tree a “Christmas Tree” [NYDN]
• Floyd Bennett Field Center to Get $4.8M Overhaul [GerritsenBeach.Net]
• Former Arabic School Principal Suing City [Sun]
• Fired Principal of Brooklyn School Sues [CityRoom]
• The Big Reveal of 175 Kent [Brownstoner]
• Bay Ridge Store Cleaning Up Its Act [NYDN]
• Vid of the Day: Q&A on Bedford with T&A [Gothamist]
• Lofty Pursuits [Brit in Brooklyn]
• Brooklyn Heights Minister Sworn in By Cell Phone [McBrooklyn]
• Brooklyn Snow Videos [Icky in Brooklyn]
• No Meat at Foodtown [Bay Ridge Rover]

Here’s a scary tale we came across on the Boerum Hill group email list that’s from someone who was caught in the middle of an armed robbery in Park Slope late Saturday night:

I just wanted to share a pretty scary thing that went down on Saturday night in the Park Slope `hood. At 2 am, I was on the way back from a show, stopped into Stop & Fifth Deli at the corner of 5th Ave and 5th street to use the ATM, and 3 tall young guys in hooded sweatshirts wearing bandanas over their faces came in rather briskly. The first guy who came in had a pistol in his hand, and I believe the second one did too. They robbed the store’s register and swiped a bunch of sundries and took the wallets and cell phones from the clerks. At the same time, the second guy tapped me in the back of my head with what I think was a gun, grabbed the cash I just taken out, and forced me again to take out as much money as I could (which wasn’t a huge amount, thankfully, and somehow I slipped my wallet back into my pocket, so thankfully it wasn’t taken either). He then had me lie down on the floor while they ran outside into a car with a driver that was waiting for them, and they took off up 5th street. It was a silver 4 door, maybe a camry or a Mitsubishi, no one saw the plates. The whole situation lasted less than a minute, and the cops came about 7-8 minutes later. I doubt that they will be caught, I’m just glad to be OK, but I’m a little freaked out about the whole situation. I have always thought of the Slope as a relatively safe place until now, just want to encourage you to be careful. You never know where or when crazy shit like this will go down.

Just another late Saturday night.

The weather interfered with the opening of the Wollman Rink in Prospect Park last year and it appears to be up to the same tricks again this year. We got an email from the Prospect Park Alliance sayind that “Due to weather conditions which have hampered the ice making process, the opening of the Wollman Rink is delayed.” The rink was supposed to open tomorrow (11/21). The Prospect Park website will have more info on the opening. (We posted the schedule info last week for when it does open.) In the meantime, you can “experience winter on a Flatbush Farm” at the Lefferts Historic House on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, November 23 – 25 from 1 – 4 p.m. each day. Our email says:

Get ready for winter as they did in the 19th century farming village of Flatbush. Kids learn how to make candles, start a patchwork quilt, and prepare old-fashioned food. Visit with the Spinster as she spins flax into thread, and enjoy Dutch treats made from an 18th century Lefferts family recipe. There’s even a special appearance by St. Nicholas on horseback on Nov. 25 @ 3 p.m. Lefferts Historic House is located at the Children’s Corner, inside the Park’s Willink entrance, at the intersection of Flatbush Avenue and Empire Boulevard.

More info about activities in Prospect Park is always available at the park’s website.

[Photo courtesy of ginatrapani/flickr]

Miss Heather is fed up and it turns out that the straw that broke the camel’s back was a New York Post photo of and article about some street sneakers she’d found and featured a couple of weeks ago. “I haven’t been schooled in Blog-Trolling 101— which is clearly one of the tricks of the trade print journalists employ nowadays. Why bother finding this stuff on your own when a blogger can do it for you? For free, no less! It’s like having hundreds of involuntary unpaid interns at your every point and click. Ingenious!”–New York Shitty

At it’s core, under the ruse of having more “contextual nature to the street scape of the 5 boros and flexibility for better design,” the AIA has made recommendations that fly in the face of what the majority of the contextual rezonings in the city have attempted to accomplish: lower density and lower height which equal more light and air.

There was a public hearing on the proposal in June and some of the documents have, apparently, been slow in coming to some community boards. Public comment is due by January 7, 2008. One can only assume there will be some as the details become known. The AIA’s webpage on the changes is here. A full PDF on the changes (WARNING PDF) can be found here. The New York Chapter of the American Planning Association and the Municipal Art Society helped prepare the amendments.

Here’s all the detail you need about Blackpool, England, the coastal resort that is fascinating model for what Coney Island could be. It even comes with glitzy renovation plans.–Kinetic Carnival

Simeon Bankoff, Execetive Director, Historic District Council
Ben Baxt , Baxt and Ingui Architects
John Graham, Director of Special Projects, Landmarks Preservation Committee
Craig Hammerman, District Manager Community Board 6
Diane Jackier, Landmarks Preservation Committee
Everett Ortner, Park Slope, Brownstone Revival Committee
Roy Slone, Cobble Hill Association & Land Use Committee of CB 6

The extent to which the discussion will cover the broader Carroll Gardens rezoning issues is unclear.

The decrepit, rotting Coney Island boardwalk has claimed another victim. A woman in her sixties was walking on the rotting planks when her leg plunged through and she was injured. She is at least the eighth victim of the boardwalk in the last two year. Another lawsuit has been filed.–NYP

Williamsburg’s Giant Fart Cloud Building is gone, collapsed into a heap of bricks and splintered wood on Roebling Street, across from the Roebling Oil Building (aka Warehouse 11). The Department of Buildings halted the demolition because it was going forward in an unsafe way. Blogger Bad Advice had emailed us last Thursday, saying that residents in her building were terrified by the demolition via heavy equipment and fearful their building would damaged and that they would be rendered homeless. The photo above shows that the fear may not have been unfounded and also shows some of the phone lines that were ripped down during the demolition. There’s additional detail in the photo below and a wide view of the scene as well.

So, maybe it was a tad early, but there were Danish Christmas celebrations at two churches in Brooklyn Heights this weekend. “The scene was very wholesome, and could have been taking place in Duluth, Minnesota. Long tables with red paper tablecloths filled with families eating Danish delicacies. Said delicacies were served at another long table by the kitchen from the hands of a series of nice, middle-aged Danish women.”–Lost City

Kensington residents petitioned Astoria Federal to plant some trees, but the bank has told the neighborhood to drop dead. “AF said don’t want to water them and they don’t have the “resources” to clean the garbage in the tree planters if and when it collects. They just have ‘no interest in that at all.’ Neat.–Kensington Brooklyn

• Cops Shoot & Kill Man in East New York Brandishing Broken Bottle [NYP]
• Cops Kill Man in Brooklyn Armed with Broken Bottle [NYT]
• See the 465 Dean Street Demolition [No Land Grab]
• City Finally Funds North Brooklyn Anti-Displacement Initiatives [Brooklyn 11211]
• Brooklyn Brewery Owner Steve Hindy Traces Son’s Fatal Path on Manhattan Bridge [NYP]
• No Love Here for the Brooklyn Paper [Icky in Brooklyn]
• Following Up on NY Shitty’s Nov. 14 Photos of a Mass of Hanging Sneakers [New York Post]
• Pony Rides, Plus Construction, at Kensington Stables [Ditmas Park Blog]
• Community Board 14 Monthly Meeting Tonight [Brooklyn Junction]
• Which is More Vital: A Milliner or a Sock Exchange? [Lost City]
• Another Friendly Gowanus Parking Sign [Velvet Sea]

There’s been a record $20 million land deal that could mean “the landscape of Sheepshead Bay is about to be changed forever.” The site could end up with a 100,000 square foot retail center.–GerritsenBeach.Net

Most local politicians and even many neighborhood residents will tell you that the advent of these multi-story apartment buildings in Sunset Park represents the area’s ascension in the past few years into a Brooklyn neighborhood to be reckoned with. I hope the ones that move into the apartments with the terraces whose right side faces a brick wall concur. Great view of the graffiti or, to be politically correct, street art…These developers are the real bad boys and they have arrived in Sunset Park at last.

Check it out here.