If you read GL, you might know of our doings over at Curbed. Here’s a small selection of this week’s Brooklyn output over there:

Here’s Williamsburg’s Metropolitan Cinema & Apartments
Big Bird Statuary Freakin’ Owns Greenpoint
Bushwick Building Has MySpace Page for Its Bedbugs
Barge Pool Ditches Brooklyn Heights for Bayonne & the Bronx
For the Brooklyn Nabe With Everything: A Pink 3-Wheeled Car
Brooklyn Fast Food Neighborhood React-O-Matic
Checking In: Luxe + Pop + Windows at The Smith
Kent Avenue #2: More Plywood and a Fence at 184
Kent Avenue #1: Northside Piers Adds Brick to Glass
Williamsburg’s Finger Building Gets Some Fingers
Bedford Avenue Character Lives On #2: Real Estate Edition
Bedford Avenue Character Lives On #1: Video Rental Edition

• Tour of the set of USA-TV series Law & Order: Criminal Intent for two. Hosted by writer producer Diana Son.
• KYLE STAVER original painting
• TISH COTTER, Woodcut, in collections (among others) at Yale and the Nantucket Historical Society and soon to be at the Smithsonian.
• LISA STIMPSON, Verre Eglomise (reverse gilding and painting on glass) original Lisastimpson.com
• JOHN INWOOD, Director/DP “SCRUBS” Still Photograph
• JONATHAN LETHEM 2 copies of “Fortress of Solitude” to be signed by author.
• MONA FAFARMAN, acupuncture session
• SHAY MELIA, haircut and color in your home. Formerly of Arrojo Studio.
• Fashion Consultant Lynne Curtis will give a closet overhaul

Of course, there will also be an update on the status of the Atlantic Yards eminent-domain and environmental lawsuits. You can RSVP to maura (at) mthreetv (dot) com.

More information here at dddb.net. DDDB’s Third annual Walk Don’t Destroy Walkathon will take place on October 14. More information here.

The other news is that the Park Slope Civic Council is still trying to get the retailer’s attention and voted last week to try to enlist elected officials to convince the chain to build a more environmentally friendly stores. Park Slope Neighbors and the Civic Council have asked Whole Foods to include a green roof or solar power in the stores, but the retailer hasn’t responded. Currently, the roof is slated for a parking lot. The groups also want Whole Food to significantly reduce the amount of parking it plans and to include a shuttle service for Park Slopers and free delivery.

Eric McClure of Park Slope Neighbors produced figures showing the store will have more parking than most, rather than less. The 64,000 square foot store would have 420 parking spaces. Whole Foods estimates it will generate 500,000 car trips a year–which is about half of the traffic that the Atlantic Yards arena is projected to generate. By comparison the Red Hook Fairway only has 300 parking spaces for a 52,000 square foot store. The argument is that fewer parking spaces and other transportation and delivery alternatives will encourage fewer people to drive and generate less traffic.

Do the construction delays mean more opportunities for residents to have an impact on the project? Stay tuned.

We won’t reproduce the entirety of Mr. Zigun’s letter, as it is quite long and is posted here. (We suggest reading the full letter if you’re interested in Coney Island.) We are posting a few excerpts, given his deep roots in Coney Island and the role he has played in its revival thus far:

Coney Island can change, of course, but it must remain true to its calling; first and foremost as an amusement park and not as primarily a shopping mall or residential neighborhood.

As you may know, in the next couple of weeks the City and the Coney Island Development Corporation are expected to roll out their long awaited zoning recommendations for future development in Coney Island. For all of us who have worked so hard to preserve this unique place, this is great news and I, for one, have faith that the city will do the right thing for Coney Island…

Unfortunately, Coney Island’s historic and current interests are most certainly not on the mind of the single largest land owner and bully within the amusement district: Thor Equities and its principal, Joe Sitt…Based on my own personal experience with Mr. Sitt and my understanding of both Thor’s history and their plans, I fear for the future of Coney Island…My personal experience suggests again and again and again that the man is dishonest…

…while we’re likely to see a lot more fancy drawings and likely to hear tons of empty promises about jobs and integrity from the folks of Thor, what we’re probably not going to see from Thor is an acceptable or realistic vision for the neighborhood we all love so much.

Interesting words from one of the pillars of the Coney Island amusement community.

If you want to read a letter posted in reply by Lee Silberstein, the former Thor spokesperson that strongly defends Mr. Sitt, you can click here. It says, in part, “It is also unfortunate that some of Thor’s tactics allow some to view Joe as a bully. I am firmly convinced that Joe’s heart and his head are in the right place, and that his vision is right for Coney Island — even if some of the tactics Thor is using are not.”

Mr. Zigun’s words foreshadow a potentially very difficult road ahead for Mr. Sitt and his plans as publicly presented thus far.

If you have a car and you live in a Brooklyn neighborhood where each side of the street is cleaned twice a week rather than once a week, here is news that could make you smile: the city is going to cut street cleaning in Community Board Six. The news is in today’s Daily News. It means that alternate side regulations twice a week on a street will be cut to once a week. Here’s a short copy/paste from the article:

Drivers in Park Slope, Carroll Gardens and Red Hook are savoring a sweeping victory that will slash unpopular street-cleaning regulations across the area.

“I’m ecstatic,” said Craig Hammerman, district manager of Community Board 6, which has been fighting for the changes for 20 years. “This is probably the longest-running battle we’ve had with any city agency.”

After a Daily News report last month, Sanitation Department officials finally agreed to reduce the frequency of street sweeping on all residential streets in Community Board 6 from four times a week – twice on each side – to two times a week.

The move comes as a growing number of community boards across the city are pushing to get the unpopular street cleaning regulations reduced – especially after Mayor Bloomberg last month announced that streets have reached record levels of cleanliness.

Parts of the area had their street-cleaning service cut in 2000 as part of a pilot program that Sanitation Department officials agreed to after years of lobbying.

The new changes will bring the reduced schedule to the rest of the community board’s area.

“I think it’s great. It was definitely overkill,” said Red Hook activist Lou Sones, who looks forward to having to move his car just twice a week. “It was unnecessary to sweep the streets four times. I don’t think this will make the streets any dirtier.”

Sanitation officials said yesterday they expect to implement the new regulations “in a matter of months.”

New signs have to be installed first.

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

Read This:
Toxic Challenges at Williamsburg’s Domino Plant [Brownstoner]

Read These Too:
So, Where Will Apple Open a Store in Brooklyn? [Racked]
More on the Big Greenpoint Oil Spill Report [Gothamist]
Assem. Brennan on the F Express [Brooklyn Streets]
37 North Henry is Really, Really, Really, Uh, Not Nice [newyorkshitty]
“Listening to the City” and Atlantic Yards [Atlantic Yards Report]
The G Train Effect [Greenpointers]
Ghosts of Williamsburg Tour This Weekend [Newsday]
Plywood Up at Atlantic & Court [BK 11201]
A Deal in Lefferts Manor [Across the Park]
Brooklyn Artist Turns Sanitation & Parking Tix Into Sculpture [NYP]
Brooklyn Heights Mansion on the Market [McBrooklyn]
Sold in Victorian Flatbush [Living in Victorian Flatbush]
Coney’s Council Member Recchia Running for Fossella’s House Seat [NYP]
Fear of Voodoo Hex Led to Brutal Brooklyn Murder [NYP]
79th Precinct Report Card [Bed-Stuy Blog]

The lower roadway of the Manhattan Bridge will reopen to vehicular traffic on Monday, October 1 after being closed since October 2006 for repairs. The lower roadway of the bridge is opening two weeks ahead of schedule. In order to reduce traffic congestion and improve travel times, the DOT is creating an HOV2+ lane for Manhattan-bound cars and buses with two or more passengers that will be in effect from 6:00 am to 10:00 am weekdays. New truck access regulations will also reduce congestion and improve safety; these will be in effect from 5:00 am to 3:00 pm weekdays.

There’s more info if you click here.

It’s already been blogged about extensively, but it’s always worth posting a reminder that the Brooklyn Book Festival will take place on Sunday (9/16) at Borough Hall and other close-by locations from 10AM to 6PM. There are a lot of publishers and book sellers that set up shop at the fest, but the real draw are the presentations, readings and panel discussions. You can find the full program here by clicking on 2007 Events. The biggest problem will be deciding which events to attends as there is a lot going on simultaneously. Us, we’re going to post two or three highlights from dozens:

3:00 p.m., Borough Hall Courtroom, MY LIFE.
Three revered authors discuss their new books that detail experiences from their own lives and their respective paths to personal growth, creative expression, and political activism. Featuring Edwidge Danticat, Mike Farrell, and Katha Pollitt.

3:00 p.m., St. Francis College, 180 Remsen St., BROOKLYN BRIDGES TO EUROPE
Brooklyn authors Jonathan Lethem and Jonathan Safran Foer, in conversation with their French and German publishers, explore the appeal of their work to European audiences. Presented with The Cultural Services of the French Embassy, the French-American Foundation and the German Book Office in New York. Moderated by literary critic Liesl Schillinger.

4:00 p.m., St. Francis College, 180 Remsen St., BORN & RAISED.
Short readings and a moderated discussion about Brooklyn’s past and present with renowned authors who have always called the borough home. Featuring Phillip Lopate, Pete Hamill, Bernice McFadden and Jonathan Lethem. Introduced by Johnny Temple, Akashic Books.

In any case, the full schedule deserves your attention.

It has been repainted. Green, but not the beautiful blue-green it was before. Inside, there are at least three chandeliers and floor-length gauze curtains. Nightclub?

So, we swung by last night to take a look and, indeed, found the building lit up inside by chandeliers and people hanging out. There was a buffet dinner being served inside and a room near the door with sofas and children playing inside. A small sign near the door identified it as the Ayyun Center. There’s no record of a sale of the building and it’s still listed on City Cribs as available.

The group’s website, which we found thanks to a GL reader, explains all of the religious services and programs at the building.

The thing that fascinates us about that building, which is a couple of blocks from the Roebling Oil Field and, in fact, has a monitoring well drilled into the Roebling Street sidewalk (these test wells are scattered about here and there in the neighborhood) is that no significant hole was dug for a foundation, which is interesting in that most buildings we see are excavated one or two stories below street level.

You might recall that there was a “Save Coney Island” demonstration at City Hall in the spring, but that loosely knit group fell silent during the summer.

This blog item manages to blend two hot button topics–the Park Slope Food Coop and having one’s child “go potty” on the subway. (We’ve previously covered the topic of them going potty on trees in Park Slope.) This blog post was written by an Upper West Side mom taking her son with her to the Park Slope Food Coop. It is on her blog, Diaper Free Adventures. We present key excerpts:

On Thursdays I take my son to the food co-op. This is an hour train ride from the Upper West Side of Manhattan to Park Slope, Brooklyn. This past Thursday I left my apartment early in the morning with my son sleeping quietly in his carrier and a rickety shopping cart in tow.

There were about six other people on the train, all of whom were nodding off or playing Solitare or Tetris on the cell phones. I was sitting in the corner comfortably taking up two seats…I took his potty out of the plastic bag hanging from my bookbag, put it on my lap and took off his diaper. There he was…my son half naked on the 2 train speeding beneath Brooklyn streets. A far cry from being in at home or in a park. I sat him on the potty and made my cueing sound, “pssssss.”

I looked to my right, not one person was looking at us. “Psssssss,” I said into his hear.

He leaned forward, bounced his right leg up and down against the potty and after a few minutes did a good sized pee-pee. Again, I looked to see if anyone was looking, but not one person stirred. I later told my hudband that in New York you have to rely on the fact that many people are too self-absorbed to notice you…even if your 5 month old son is peeing in a bright red potty just a few feet away!

Okay, so it’s really cute that he’s only five months and doing this, but would going pee-pee in his diedy on the train have been a better option? We don’t know the answer, but it’s an interesting question, indeed.

The EPA has finally confirmed what environmentalists have said all along: the Exxon-Mobil oil spill sloshing around under Greenpoint is significantly larger than the originally estimated 17 million gallons. It could, in fact, be as large as 30 million gallons. The EPA also reported the results of testing, including the fact that methane gas is present in some industrial buildings (much of the spill is under an industrial part of Greenpoint) and that chemical vapors were found in all of the properties that were tested. The report clocks in at 85 pages and the Daily News has posted it for those who wish to peruse the many unsettling findings. The EPA did not do any of its own mapping of “the free-product plume.” The exact boundaries of the oil flow are not entirely known.

Links:
Brooklyn oil spill may be larger, leaking toxins into homes [NYDN]
EPA says Brooklyn oil spill may be larger than previously thought [Metro]

1). Will neighboring buildings, which are wood frame and old, survive the excavation and pile driving?

2). Will the developer strike oil?

As for Number One, who knows. As for Number Two, we will simply note that 5 Roebling is diagonally across the street from the Roebling Oil Field, and there is every indication that there is a significant amount of “free product,” as they call spilled oil without any sense of the deep and rich irony it deserves, gurgling underground in the general area of N. 11th Street and Roebling. You can guess what we would wager if we were to bet.

Do you have any old cell phones sitting around? Most of us have one or two old ones stashed in a drawer. Well, City Council Member Bill de Blasio is helping collect them for the Phones for Life program. Donated cell hones are given to senior citizens and victims of domestic violence, who can use them for free, including to make emergency calls. You can drop off the phones at Mr. de Blasio’s office at 2907 Ft. Hamilton Parkway between 10AM and 5PM from Monday through Friday. For more information you can contact tagray1 (at) gmail (dot) com. It’s a great program, which makes it very easy to do a good deed with something you don’t even use anymore. The donation, of course, if tax deductible.

It can be hard to tell its fall when you live in New York. So we’ve teamed up with our favorite organic chef extraordinaire, Kelly Geary of Sweet Deliverance, to bring you a celebration of fall on the Gowanus Canal. Come join us for the first Gowanus Harvest Festival on October 14th, a fall-themed extravaganza to take place on our favorite Brooklyn waterfront. The Yard, perched on the banks of the “gurgling” Gowanus, will host a slew of Autumnal activities: with canoe rides on the canal, pony-rides, pumpkin carving contests, local vendors, organic produce, live music and DJs, the day will pay a lovely homage to fall in Brooklyn. Everything packed into one day, and even better there will be a local beer tasting & a complete menu of organic delicacies.

Admission is $5. The Yard is located next to the Carroll Street Bridge at 400 Carroll Street between Bond and Nevins.

Did they say “gurgling” Gowanus?

UPDATE: Thanks to a sharp-eyed reader for point out the error in the date for the Harvest Festival, which is actually October 14. An email from the producers contained the wrong date, and we didn’t notice the mistake. Our apologies.

Yesterday, we noted the Conflux Festival in Williamsburg, which kicks off today. Well, we came across some promotion for a “CIA Cell Tower” being put up by a Williamsburg art gallery to “capture, monitor and rebroadcast wireless signals in the internet-savvy neighborhood of Williamsburg Brooklyn.” The location is 121 Roebling.

The release says:

Possible terrorist cells close to the east river are targeted as candidates for Wi-Fi “eavesdropping” to ensure our safety. Proponents of the tower point to the August 3rd scare of a homemade submarine coming within striking distance of The Queen Mary 2 which was docked on the Brooklyn side of the East River.

“Though they are not involved in the construction or operation of the tower, government agencies such as the NSA and the CIA can benefit from its use,” said John Leo from Capla Kesting Fine Art whose gallery contracted the construction of the tower based on illustrations and paintings from their exhibiting artist Travis Lindquist. “It is not an invasion of privacy but, a symbol of how far our government is willing to go to ensure our private space is an extension of their ability to protect us.”

Local developers competing for rental and loft sale revenue have been offering free wireless internet services as an attractive addition to their properties, unknowingly exposing themselves and their users to potential snooping.

“Developers are prime candidates for assisting in the use of this tower, they will provide a broad spectrum of internet users to spy on and the unsecured wireless signal in which to use,” said David Kesting, director of the Capla Kesting Fine Art gallery.

Congress’ recently approved changes to the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act allows the NSA to monitor domestic conversations and e-mails and provides the legal standing for the cell tower’s construction.

“The tower allows groups like the NSA to collect data intercepted through e-mails and internet traffic on unsecured Wi-Fi connections without having to approach internet service providers such as AT&T Inc. This will eliminate the U.S. government’s alleged complicity in current class-action lawsuits filed by consumers who feel their privacy has been violated,” explained John Leo.

We have no idea whether it will be clever, funny or lame, but the publicity certainly got our attention.

Mr. Scarano’s name was hardly mentioned for most of the Carroll Gardens Neighborhood Association meeting which Mr. Stein attended in Carroll Gardens Monday night, and the Council Member did not bring up the subject. After resident and blogger Katia Kelly asked about the architect, the developer spent some time addressing what he called “the Scarano issue.”

“I hate to be in a position of defending someone who has become so reviled in the community,” Mr. Stein said, noting he has known the architect, who he referred to as “Bob,” since the 1980s and that “people all over Brooklyn are living in Scarano Architects buildings.” He said that Mr. Scarano had done some “questionable” things regarding the zoning code. He added that “complicit with the mistakes Scarano has made are the developers that ask for them.”

Mr. Stein is not the first person to make the case that the architect has been personally held responsible for things over which he has no control and which should logically be the responsibility of developers, contractors and the city’s various regulatory systems. He argued that the press has attributed all problems at buildings designed by the architect to him personally, even being blaming for damaging a subway tunnel in Williamsburg at the troubled Modern project on N. 7th Street. “The architect doesn’t do the excavation on the job,” he said. “That was the contractor.” He said that a New York City Transit official had told him he had advised the developer of the Modern not to hire the contractor that has run into problems at the site because “he was a cowboy.” When the problems occurred, Mr. Scarano ended up being blamed, Mr. Stein said.

Regardless, Mr. Stein said that he would hire an outside safety consultant to supervise the project. “I will not have Scarano responsible for anything that has to do with safety,” he said.

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