The Brooklyn Animal Resource Coalition Shelter is having a fundraiser at The Gutter, the bar/bowling alley at 200 North 14th Street in Williamsburg. Doors open at 6:30. All proceeds, of course, go to benefit BARC. For more information, click here.

We love our devoted readers that send along information, tidbits, photos and all sorts of tips. Without them some of our best items would never come into being. GL’s tipline is open 24 hours a day, seven-day-a-week. It goes without saying that we welcome your stories from every corner of Brooklyn. Is there a development on your block we don’t know about? Did you discover the fate of the warehouse on the corner that’s been empty since 1985? Is someone stealing the wheels from cars on your block? You can reach us at thegowanuslounge (at) gmail (dot) com. All tips are strictly confidential, unless of course, you want credit for your story or photo, in which case, we’re happy to oblige.

Someone finally posted a clean copy of that “Downtown Brooklyn 2012” video narrated by Sir Ian McKellen on YouTube without commercials or the New York Post logo, so we’re embedding it below. Regardless of how one feels about the vision that’s presented–strongly pro, strongly con or somewhere in between–it’s definitely worth five minutes of any Brooklynite’s time.

Developer Shaya Boymelgreen is opening the first Brooklyn branch of his LibertyPointe Bank on Coney Island Avenue in Midwood with another planned for Borough Park. “As he comes down this way, there is no telling what he has in store.”–Brooklyn Junction

Don’t look now, but people–well, at least, a handful of people–are fishing in the Gowanus Canal, catching fish and taking them home and eating them. We are not making this up. A very reliable source tells us that the fishermen put their hooks in the water near the Third Street Bridge and that they are catching bluefish up to a foot long. This, in and of itself would be interesting if that were the beginning and end of the story. It is not. The men are said to take bring the fish home and eat them. We’re told that they say that since the fish don’t actually live in the Gowanus (they swim into the Gowanus and leave), they are no less safe than any other fish that might come out of the East River or New York Harbor. Personally, we’ve always wondered about the safety of eating fish caught in, uh, local waters, but we know that plenty of people fish in Red Hook, Long Island City and other locales. But, the Gowanus Canal? It’s unknown if the fishermen are older people who figure that their time horizons are shorter anyway. No more than one meal of bluefish from the East River per month is recommendation because of PCB concerns. We do not believe there are established standards for Gowanus Canal Bluefish. Foot-long bluefish, friends.

(The fish picture here is a bluefish. The water is that of Gowanus Canal. However, the fish and the water did not previously exist in the same photo.)

The evidence is starting to mount that the Toll Brothers are making a move in Gowanus or, at least, starting the process of trying to sway politically-influential supporters in advance of zoning decisions.

Sign #1: The closed door, invite-only meeting with Gowanus “activists” that was reported in the Brooklyn paper on Friday to preview the McMansion buildings plans for a mixed use development between Carroll and Second Streets and Bond Street and the Gowanus Canal. Building heights are said to range up to 12 stories near the canal.

Sign #2: Found in Brooklyn reports that two businesses in Toll-owned buildings that would be in the development footprint are closing. Found writes, in part:

I received a “courtesy call” from the dry cleaning facility (a wholesaler that also had a walk in business for locals) located on the corner of Bond and 2nd Streets yesterday. They said that “I should come and get my clothes today or tomorrow because they are relocating.”…It seemed to be a pretty hasty exit as the place seemed to running as normal the last time I went in about two weeks ago. The woman said the other business on the block “Fiberwave” is moving out as well.

Unrelated specifically to the Toll Brothers, but clearly related to the rezoning, there are a significant number of buildings on Bond Street currently on the market.

Are the moves by the Toll firm related? Are the closures indicative of the coming of bulldozers? Are the developers trying to line up support for building heights that are certain to spark controversy in both Gowanus and Carroll Gardens? Stay tuned.

The School Report Cards are out. Here are some posts showing some of the grades. They range from some As to a lot of B’s and C’s. Schools in North Brooklyn, at a glance, seem to have done a bit better than South Brooklyn:

• Grades–Brooklyn 11211
• Now I Know My ABCs — Schools Report Cards Released–Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn
• Area Schools Graded by Chancellor–Brooklyn Junction

The Radegast Hall & Biergarten on N. 3rd Street and Berry in Williamsburg is clearly almost ready to open. There are even candles on the tables in the biergarten part of the operation, that will have the roof that opens during nice weather. Coming soon, which is why they have that sign about good things coming to those who wait must be about.

This is not the first time we’ve come across a bike displayed in Williamsburg in protest of confiscations by the NYPD or by the Transit Authority in the periodic, ongoing skirmishes between bicyclists and public agencies. This bike is attached to the entrance of the Bedford Avenue L station at N. 7th Street and Bedford.

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

• Serious Street Closures at Newark Arena [AYR]
• Major Opposition to MTA Fare Hike in Brooklyn [NYP]
• Plans for Big Multi-Use Complex at the Brooklyn Navy Yard [Brownstoner]
• Dumbo as the Next Photo District [Dumbo NYC]
• Umbrage Editions Moving to Dumbo [BrklynStories]
• Retail is Migrating Down Flatbush Ave [Brooklyn Junction]
• Bay Ridge Residents Not Feeling Bargain Clothing Store [NYDN]
• RIP, Dry Cleaner [BK11201]
• Youth Waterproofing [Icky in Brooklyn]
• Arty Facts at Brooklyn Museum [About Brooklyn]
• Painted Pink in Bed-Stuy [Bed-Stuy Blog]
• Joaquin Pheonix and Gwyneth Paltrow Shooting Film In Coney [Kinetic Carnival]

We will hand it to Carroll Gardens group known as CORD for using the wall at the Carroll Street station to urge people to vote in an election so under the radar that it could be in the subway tunnel below. (The amazing wall, which doesn’t have many equivalents, has been active since the development at 360 Smith Street became known in late May.) For the record, today is Election Day. Races in Brooklyn include one for a Justice of the Supreme Court and several for Civil Court judges. Also, Matthew Eugene is on the ballot for a full City Council term in the 40th District. Polls are open from 6AM-9PM. There’s a voter help line run by New York Public Interest Research Group and Common Cause New York at (212) 868-3692, which can provide locations of polling place. The number for the New York City Board of Elections is (866) VOTENYC (866-868-3692).

Meet a “guy who totes his painfully adorable children in a customized kiddie coach while beating a star-shaped tambourine at the intersection of Manhattan Avenue and Norman.”–New York Shitty

The photo above and the one below are from an exhibition called “Goodbye Coney Island?” at the Brooklyn Museum. It consists of more than fifty photos from the museum’s collection and “traces traces the evolution of this fabled part of New York over the past 125 years. Coney Island has undergone many transformations since it first became a popular resort in the nineteenth century and a prospective redevelopment plan may yet again change this section of Brooklyn.” The photos will be on display from November 28, 2007–April 6, 2008, in the Visible Storage Study Center of the Luce Center for American Art. About a third of the photographs are prints of digitally scanned late nineteenth and early twentieth-century glass-plate negatives from the Brooklyn Museum collection.

If he looks familiar, perhaps you’ve seen our earlier video of him a couple of week earlier?

This is about plastic bags and, uh, other kinds of bags. “I’m wondering if I’ll ever get over my addiction to plastic bags. I have an entire cabinet stuffed with Key Food bags, they fall out when I open the door…”–Brooklynometry

Yesterday was the last day for public comment in the (redone) eminent domain proceedings for a variety of properties in downtown Brooklyn. We got a copy of the comment submitted by Phil De Paolo of the New York Commmunity Council and thought we’d share a couple of short excerpts:

We see a gross injustice taking place on Duffield St…There is a long oral tradition of the buildings on Duffield St being part of the Underground Railroad, and while it is certain that a family of abolitionists, the Truesdells, lived at 227 Duffield Street, that venerable building is scheduled to go under the wrecking ball, along with 231 and 233 Duffield Street, to make way for a parking lot that would serve a hotel now under construction nearby…A city funded report that denies any Underground Railroad activity along Duffield Street isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on. The report, issued in April by AKRF, said that 227 Duffield St., as well as neighboring buildings, was not used to spirit 19th-century slaves to freedom. The city and the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership are simply trying to hide the inconvenient truth of Duffield Street’s Abolitionist history. It would be a terrible shame to tear these buildings down, there needs to be more research, an archaeological study.

The city’s conclusion that there’s no evidence of Underground Railroad history is fundamentally flawed and, therefore, cannot form the basis for the destruction of what many believe to be an Underground Railroad station where abolitionists helped runaway slaves hide and escape to freedom…our environmental review process is being corrupted by biased and incompetent consultants who prepare environmental impact statements that are framed in a way that take us away from reality.

(All of the comments submitted were directed to a gentleman named Jack Hammer, which is utterly fascinating in the case of controversial potential demolitions.) The city was moving ahead with the eminent domain process before it was forced to stop and go through the hearing and public comment process again.

Summer is officially over. The Gowanus Yacht Club on Smith Street closed down for the season on Saturday night. Next comes the sale of Christmas trees, but that’s still a couple of week off.–NYT

This alternate side of the street parking sign in Williamsburg appears to be the victim of some work on the sidewalk and curb. We like the way it was cleanly amputated in order to get it out of the way.

Water and sewer upgrades are about to take place on Dean Street. Doing all that work and spending the money of local taxpayers “before knowing if that project’s dense influx of people will come to fruition seems to be a wild waste and risk of public money.”–DDDB

We got an email from a GL reader late last week that there was activity on the highly toxic Public Place site between the Gowanus Canal and Smith Street. Our reader wrote that “a large amount of the underbrush (trees, weeds, shrubs) have been cleared away, at least on the Smith Street side.” A trip to the future site of a big development in which hundreds of people will live (after a massive cleanup that will ostensibly render the land fit for habitation) found that vegetation is being cleared and that there are black barrels that can be used for the storage of both hazardous and non-hazardous waste on the site. (It is impossible to see from a distance how they are labeled.) Presumably the work is either routine housekeeping (which would be odd, given that we haven’t noticed any in the last few years) or has something to do with testing or cleanup. RFPs for developing the site were due last month. The site was once the home of a manufactured gas plant that left behind a stew of very toxic substances underground. It will require a very complicated cleanup before any development can happen and, even so, all of the toxins will never be removed.

We checked out the 2007 New York City Marathon yesterday from vantage points on Fourth Avenue in Park Slope, Greenpoint and Williamsburg. We have some pics below.

If you don’t like the browser/slideshow embed, you can go directly to our 70+ photo flickr set by clicking here.

A little Brookvid video we made of the 2007 New York City Marathon as it went through Park Slope on Fourth Avenue and through Greenpoint and Williamsburg. You can access it directly by clicking here.

Here’s a look at some NYC Marathon photos, blog items and news stories with a mostly Brooklyn focus:

• 1,128 (So Far) 2007 New York City Marathon Photos [flickr]
• City Has Lucrative, Festive Marathon Day [Sun]
• New York City Marathon [Velvet Sea]
• Marathon Day [Yanksfan vs. Soxfan]
• NYC Marathon: Park Slope [Brit in Brooklyn]
• 2007 NYC Marathon Runners [Denton Taylor/PBase]
• NYC Marathon-British Women [Bay Ridge Blog]
• Bay Ridge Honors Marathon’s Unsung Heroes [Right in Bay Ridge]

We were taking some photos of the emptiness that is the site of the old Revere Sugar plant and dome in Red Hook when we looked up and saw a Stop Work Order. It is almost two weeks old, but we haven’t noted it before. The problem stems from “hazardous conditions” at “Building 9.” Given that there is almost nothing left standing on the site, there are only a couple of possibilities, the most likely being the historic structure left standing on the flattened property. (It’s the building all the way on the right in photo below, and its ultimate fate is unknown.) The Ye Olde Stop Work Order against Thor Equities and developer Joe Sitt applies to the building in question.

Draw a bull’s eye over Downtown Brooklyn. A Target at the new development at the Albee Square Mall, called City Point, is now confirmed. And there’s word that JCPenney, Kohl’s and Nordstrom “eying spots in the Fulton Mall.”–NYDN