A GL reader sent us an email noting that Mary Star of the Sea Church on Court Street was robbed on Monday night and that the police are looking for help in solving the crime. He wrote:

Two NYPD detectives just informed me that Mary Star of the Sea Church, at Court and Luquer Streets, was robbed last night. Some cash and a cable box were stolen. Please spread the word that if anyone saw or heard anything, they can call Detective Bonilla at 718 834 3221.

The church was dedicated in 1855. You might interested to know that in 1918, gangster Al Capone was married there.

[Photo courtesy of H2D2/flickr]

Check out this video of a Coney Island lover’s “last ride” on the Astrotower. If Astroland closes for good on September 9, there will be many last rides this weekend.

Nature:

• Gowanus Nursery Under Threat [Flatbush Gardener]
• Arborcide on Boerum Place [110 Livingston]
• Cool Clinton Hill Trees [Clinton Hill Blog]

Not Nature:

• The Coney Island-Atlantic Yards Developer Contrast [AYR]
• Develop Don’t Destroy Fundraiser with Local Writers on Sept. 15 [No Land Grab]
• Will Boymelgreen’s Crest on Fourth Ave. Clean Up? [Brownstoner
• Brooklyn Arabic School Opens [Metro]
• Man Dies in 17-Floor Fall on Flatbush After Confrontation with Cops [NYT]
• Nate’s Pharmacy Coming to Vinegar Hill [Dumbo NYC]
• Coney Hoopla Links [Kinetic Carnival]
• Neighborhood Foodtown Renovation Meeting [Kensington Brooklyn]
• Organizing a Running Group in Bed-Stuy [Bed-Stuy Blog]
• Fresh Squeezed Lemonade Goes Great with Vodka [Lost City]
• When Fiorello LaGuardia and Pete McGuinness Played Baseball [newyorkshitty]
• Sad About the Impending Closing of 7th Ave. Books [lornagrl]
• Herman Behr Residence in Brooklyn Heights [McBrooklyn]
• The Greens Closed in Brooklyn Heights, Island Grill Coming [Brooklyn Heights Blog]
• Brooklyn Motor Inn [Big Sky Brooklyn]

Apple picking and getting “up close and personal” with hawks are on the list of activities for Prospect Park this fall. We’ll let the Prospect Park Alliance explain:

Prospect Park has two great weekends of fun and education lined up for kids of all ages. September 15 – 16, it’s apple picking time during the first weekend of the Harvest Days Festival at the Lefferts Historic House. Help harvest apples from our very own apple tree and make apple cider, apple pudding, applesauce, and apple butter. Learn how to preserve apples for the winter months. 1 – 4 p.m. both Saturday and Sunday. Free.

The Harvest Days Festival returns to Lefferts Historic House, September 22 – 23, and this time potatoes are what’s “hot.” You can harvest and cook potatoes, churn butter, run potato sack races, watch a spinster spinning flax into linen thread, and participate in a gourd instrument making workshop. 1 – 4 p.m. both Saturday and Sunday. Free.

Also September 22 – 23 it’s Hawk Weekend at the Prospect Park Audubon Center. Fast and powerful, hawks are the undisputed rulers of the skies above Prospect Park. Get up-close and personal with live birds of prey and learn about the resident raptors of Prospect Park. Discover how these creatures raise their young, catch their prey, and build their homes. There will also be plenty of fun activities, including hand puppets, hawk costumes, interactive games, and crafts. 12 – 5 p.m. both Saturday and Sunday. Free.

More about these another activities, as always, at the Prospect Park Alliance website.

The Red Hook waterfront is happening in September. For starters, you can enjoy the Red Hook Discovery Kayaking and Shoreline Cleaning on a number of days, including:

Saturday, September 8 (1:00pm-5:00pm)
Friday, September 14 (6:00pm-8:00pm)
Sunday, September 23 (10:00am-2:00pm)
Wednesday, September 26 (6:00pm-8:00pm)

You can take a canoe or kayak out for up to 20 minutes within the protected area of Louis Valentino Jr. park and pier, help clean the shoreline and take in some very cool views of the Statue of Liberty and New York Harbor. For more info, check out the Red Hook Boaters website.

This Saturday (Sept. 8) is the second annual Kayak Valet sponsored by PortSide New York. You’re invited to paddle to Red Hook and PortSide volunteer will watch your kayak as you hang out in Red Hook. The event runs from 11AM to 6PM, and you can also take out one of the above mentioned kayaks on that day. More info over at PortSide New York.

Speaking of PortSide, the Red Hook waterfront event of the year is coming up–the performance of Il Tabarro, the opera on the tanker, with stevedores, skyline views and more. The performance dates and times are:

Friday September 7 (5:00pm reception, 7:00pm show)
Sunday September 9 (5:00pm reception, 7:00pm show)
Friday September 14 (5:00pm reception, 7:00pm show)
Sunday September 16 (5:00pm reception, 7:00pm show)

The performance is from the Vertical Player Repertory (VPR) in collaboration with PortSide New York and American Stevedoring. Il Tabarro is described as “Giacomo Puccini’s steamy maritime opera about adultery and murder.” Tickets are $25 for the opera, $35 for the reception and $60 for both. You can get them here.

The organization–which now has an annual budget of $750,000–recently assumed ownership of its building, which was purchased for $3.6 million after it received a grant from the city.

Mr. Zigun, who is a member of the Coney Island Development Corporation, which will issue recommendations on the critical zoning that will determine its future, is very supportive of redeveloping Coney Island. In fact, he told a group gathered at the Coney Island Museum on Sunday for his “State of Coney Island” address that development should be supported. “If you know the history of Coney Island,” he said, “wanting to preserve it at the lowest point it its history is wrong.” The CIDC zoning recommendations were originally supposed to be released to board members in late August and publicly released this month. The release has been delayed until October, leading to widespread speculation that they are being delayed so that a deal can be reached between the city and Mr. Sitt.

Mr. Zigun, however, did not have kind words for Mr. Sitt. “Thor has been dishonest, has lied to us and my experience has been extremely negative.” He challenged the developer to “Let my building go.”

While it’s likely that condos and fairly tall buildings will be allowed west of KeySpan Park, Mr. Zigun said he believes it is unlikely that housing will be allowed in the amusement core between the Coney Island Aquarium and the minor league stadium. He also endorsed the idea of a land swap that would trade Mr. Sitt’s holding in the central amusement area–whose use has been at the core of the controversy about Coney’s future–for land west of KeySpan Park where Mr. Sitt would likely be able to build retail and condo towers. “I wish it would happen,” he said of the land swap. “Everyone would get what they want.”

Some rides on Mr. Sitt’s property–including the Zipper and Spider rides that survived this season–are likely to be removed as early as next week now that the summer season is over. Mr. Zigun acknowledged that “next year will clearly be different” but noted that Wonder Wheel Park, the Coney Island Museum and other attractions would remain open. The future of Astroland remains up in the air. He also suggested that city has added leverage in terms of negotiating with Mr. Sitt or any other developer for zoning variances they would need to build and that the city has the power to deny the developer demolition permits on the property it currently owns.

Mr. Zigun chided opponents of development in Coney Island and referred to “people blogging in their underwear at 2AM. “This neighborhood has been decimated and rebuilt again and again and agin,” he said. “The history of Coney Island is change.”

He lauded Mayor Bloomberg, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz and City Council Member Dominic Recchia, who represents Coney Island. “The city wants to do something for Coney Island and solve real problems.” Among the big projects slated for the amusement district is a major renovation of the New York Aquarium, a pavilion beneath the Parachute Jump and major streetscape improvements. He said that “it’s not the city’s fault” that Mr. Sitt bought up about three-fourths of the land in the amusement district and that landowners with long histories in Coney Island decided to sell to the developer.

The city’s decision about zoning and the shape of any deal with Mr. Sitt will determine the nature of future development. Mr. Zigun urged those trying to influence the future development to “create an objective statistical model of Coney Island in 2007” by doing a “ride count.” He said that a tally of the number of adult rides, kiddie rides, arcades and food stands should be the yard stick against which any future development is measured.

“This is a game with very big stakes for the future of our community,” said Mr. Zigun, who has been in Coney Island since 1979. “The game ain’t over yet.”

Here are some nice flicker sets, posted so far:

Mardis Gras Brooklyn [miss_picture_this]
West Indian Carnival Photos [Dietrich]
West Indian Day Parade [mcbnyc]
Caribbean Carnival [PayPaul]
Parade Photos [First Rate Kate]

We took in Dick Zigun’s “State of Coney Island” remarks on Sunday (and held them until everyone was back from the long weekend today). We summarize them in another post above, but here are some video excerpts for those of you that are interested.

We looked up on Union Avenue on Sunday to find workers at 525 Union Avenue climbing up the scaffolding and the sounds of power saws, hammering and other construction noise emanating from within. This is only interesting in that 525 Union‘s Sunday work had been tormenting parishioners at Our Lady of Mount Carmel and has been an issue before. We have a short vid here, made at about 10:45AM on Sunday. The Department of Buildings dismissed one complaint saying it “found no construction activity upon inspection” and has one open complaint from May on the after-hours work issue. (Hint to DOB: Show up on any Sunday after about 10:45 AM). If you’re there around 11:00 AM, you can get a nice juxtaposition of church bells and construction noise. Call it the Concerto for Bells, Hammers and Saws.

LABOR DAY LABOR BONUS: We don’t know about Williamsburg, but there were a lot of reports of construction work being done on Labor Day in the South Slope, which offers irony, if nothing else. Reports were circulated in emails of work being done at 406 15th Street, 23 Caton Place and 599 Fourth Avenue (AKA the Olive Garden Building). The Department of Buildings apparently confirmed that work is allowed from 7AM-6PM, Monday through Friday, even on the Labor Day holiday.

2) The N.6 & Bedford storefront which, to our great joy, housed the Toll Brother’s North8 Condo sales office for about a year, still has a for rent sign, but there are clear signs that it is being renovated into a store. (In fact, by the looks of things, signage could be up today or in a few days.) We saw clear evidence of wine racks within, so we’re thinking it could be a wine shop. Or, at least, some sort of business that uses shelving that looks a lot like wine racks.

West Indian Parade:

• Labor Day Carnival: Daytime Edition [Brit in Brooklyn]
• West Indian Summer [NYP]
• West Indian Parade Draws More Than a Million [NYDN]
• Man Shot Twice at West Indian Parade [Sun]
• Reveler Shot in Leg at West Indian Day Parade [AP/Metro]

Labor Day/End of Summer:

• Goodbye Joys of Summer, Some Possibly Forever [Lost City]
• Labor Day in Brooklyn [McBrooklyn]
• Buh Bye Summer [Brooklyn Heights Blog]
• Laboring Hard Not to on Labor Day [Daily Gotham]
• Coney Lifeguard Rescues Baby Shark [NYDN]

Neither:

• Brooklyn’s First Couple are Broke Up [Gothamist]
• Friends of Firefighters Wants Closed Degraw Street Firehouse [NYT]
• One Brooklyn Bridge Park is Taller and Darker [Dumbo NYC]
• Bloomberg Wants to Develop Cycling as “Viable Transportation Alternative” [NYT]
• Driver Held in Little Boy’s Hit and Run Death [NYP]
• Arrest Made in Hit and Run Death [NYDN]
• Waiting on the Brooklyn Whole Foods [Brooklyn Enthusiast]
• Signs of Life at Cornerstone [Ditmas Park Blog]
• Sunset on Second Avenue [Big Sky Brooklyn]
• An East Villager Discovered Bushwick [Bushwick BK]
• First Day at Arabic Academy [NYP]

The 14th Regiment Armory at 8th Avenue between 14th and 15th streets was designed by William Mundell and built between 1891 and 1895. The U.S. Army’s 14th Regiment was organized in the 1840s and was known as the Red Legged Devils, since their dress uniforms were based on the flamboyant Zouave style favored by the French at the time, featuring bright blue jackets and red pants.

The “Red Legged Devils” were the only regiment to fight in all three days of the Battle of Gettysburg. They have been honored by having three monuments erected at National Battlefield Park in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

The web page includes a large number of photos showing the wonderful detail of the Montauk Club, which is one of our favorite buildings in Park Slope, like the photo above.

BONUS: Forgotten New York’s 32nd Tour will take in Atlantic Avenue as it runs through Boerum Hill, Cobble Hill and Brooklyn Heights. The date is Sunday, September 16 at 12:30. The cost is $5. We can vouch for the fact that they’re fun and informative and, at five bucks, the best tour deal in town. RSVPs to erpietri (at) earthlink (dot) net.

The location is the end of Second Street at the Gowanus. In addition, the Dredgers are still running their Gowanus Discovery Tours. Upcoming dates are Wednesday, September 5 from 6:00pm-8:00pm and Sunday, September 30 from 10:00am-2:00pm. According to the Dredgers, you can “Explore the Gowanus estuary, canoeing at your own pace and enjoy discovering the canal’s unique mix of wildlife and urban waterway infrastructure.” Use of the canoes is free!

In case you are somehow unaware, the West Indian Carnival takes place today along Eastern Parkway. The parade starts at 11AM near Rochester and Eastern Parkway and doesn’t end until 6PM. The wrap up point is at Grand Army Plaza, and there’s a stage at the Brooklyn Public Library. That would make for about three miles of marchers, bands, floats and vendors, not to mention several million spectators. Brit in Brooklyn has some early photos, shot around dawn near the Brooklyn Museum. Honorary Grand Marshals include Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, among a large cast of others. Gothamist has some helpful parade viewing tips.

Brooklinks is a daily selection of Brooklyn related information and images. Happy Labor Day and Happy Carnival Day!

• J’Ouvert: Labor Day Early Edition [Brit in Brooklyn]
• West Indian American Carnival Day [Gothamist]
• Ratner Goes Caribbean [AYR]
• Happy Labor Day from Greenpoint [newyorkshitty]
• Labor Pangs [Right in Bay Ridge]
• Moving Day [Esthetic/Aesthetic]
• Anybody Know a Good Subway Tile Guy? [Living in Victorian Flatbush]
• Little Boy Hit and Killed by Two Cars in Bushwick [NYT]
• My Computer Always Bit Me in Chess [Dope on the Slope]
• Sorry, No Vegan Place on Seventh Avenue After All [OTBKB]
• Img: F Station at York [Dumbo NYC]

The official last day of the summer season wouldn’t be complete without some Coney Island videos. Here are some new ones recently posted to the YouTube. Enjoy.

Here on this gorgeous Labor Day when it’s hard to sit by a computer, are a few vids related to different Brooklyn topics that have been uploaded to the YouTube in the last couple of days.

Here’s a pretty video of Coney Island at night from the Astrotower, that includes the Friday night fireworks as seen from above.

We don’t know if there are more bicycle-related Brooklyn Missed Connections on Craigslist this week or if we just noticed them more. By our count, however, there were 13 this week. Like this one:

cute girl on track bike with deep V’s, ATM bedford/N7th sat.night – m4w – 32

i don’t know if the girl with you on the other track bike was your girl, i couldn’t tell if you were a lesbian or straight….you loved my shoes…you loved my shoes “thats all you said continiously…..it was funny…..i was with like 3girls which probably made you think i was gay….

no harm, i would just like to ride bikes with you……

oh, and i think you had yellow flat bars, and your wheels were unmachined….the bike was dope and i’m just curious as to who you are….when you spoke to me…i got nervous and locked up…

sorry

Since we’re dealing with a theme today and going all Streets Blog in our Missed Connections feature, we also dig this one:

boys riding bicycles across the bridge on a serene evening! – w4m – 23

I’m riding across the bridge headed to manhattan and it’s nighttime, a clear night, the skyline all aglitter. It’s cool and temperate so I’m nearly sweatless… You pass me across the river, you’re going to brooklyn and I make briefest eyecontact with one, two three of you… I always wear a dress with shorts underneath and your eyes hesitate on my thighs for only a moment… or perhaps it’s wishful thinking.

I’ll be returning later in the evening, but I want to stop you to mention that we should simply travel together. I know it may be difficult to hold hands while on such a peregrination, or to even ride side by side in casual conversation. I’m happy enough to ascend more quickly than you, arriving at the plateau only to have you race past and beat me to the other side. My legs grow stronger every day, but I can’t deny that chasing after a righteous man should aid my ever flourishing musculature.

Why are the boys who find my tail a tantalizing chase lacking in bicycles? Instead they tend to smoke too much pot, watch episodes of the simpsons and mystery science theater on repeat, shop at H&M compulsively, wash their hair with disconcerting frequency, attempt to woo me with irritating songs on a harmonica, and offer to take me to whitecastle for a slider in the car so we won’t have to move our legs in the slightest. But I want to move my legs! How long it’s been since I’ve ridden with a boy, side by side, over bridges and across pleateaus, through valleys and over mountains… How much I miss these pleasures! I want to ride with you, arriving cool and vigorous and in a state of subtle ecstatic bliss! Or maybe we’ll never arrive, only to adventure through the night and into the early morning dawnlight. Exercise, heartsplosion.

Next time you see me, one of us should turn around. Better times are inevitable.

Pedal on.

If you’re inside and sitting at your computer at some point on this gorgeous Labor Day Weekend Sunday, then you might consider giving 5:20 to this vid posted on YouTube. Or not.