Among the issues the Department cited are no hot and cold running water, not enough ice to keep food cold, vendors operating without mobile vendors’ licenses and some vendors preparing food at home. Solutions include portable running water and a freezer truck or more coolers with ice. The vendors would also need a mobile kitchen truck, individual food service pushcarts or be require to prepare food in a DOH approved establishment (restaurant, community kitchen, etc.). Vendors (and assistants) would also have to get licenses and get all the training required by the Health Department.

Here’s some of what Mr. Fuentes writes:

DOH inspectors have been assigned to come down and observe our operation every weekend since these meetings took place. They have done so religiously, inspecting every stand and making on-the-spot corrections (about food prep. & handling) to each vendor as needed. A temptative agreement was reached between DOH and our committee, by which DOH would allow our operation to continue until the end of the season, provided all vendors(and their assistants) take a 2-day, 8 hour food protection course and be in compliance of the critical issues mentioned above. All vendors & assistants committed their time and effort to attending this course, which was set for 8/20 & 8/21. I am proud to report 60+ people attended & passed the required test.

While we are fully commited to meet and\or comply with any rules or regulations that may govern our affair in order to preserve & continue this most beloved tradition, we feel it is very important to portray our perspective on this situation. For most of its 33 years of existence, the Red Hook food vendors have -and continue to- operate from small, modest, and traditional food stands that reflect traditional Mercados (food markets or Bazaars) found in small towns across Latin America. Very little has changed in its appeareance throughout the years. Although to some it may seem unappealing, or even unsanitary to eat from these food stalls, some of the most authentic, delicious, and traditional Latin American dishes that are now becoming part of the American culinary mainstream, such as the taco, pupusa, and huarache, hail their origins -and earned their fame- from such establishments. Much of the methods involved in the preparation of this ethnic dishes are still faithful to their origins.

In complying with DOH regulations, these artisan vendors are now faced with the difficult task of adapting tradition in order to meet these standards. While some of these regulations are common sense and easy to comply, such as licenses & permits, some others–such as a possible requirement of heavy mobile equipment or push-carts for each vendor, or the provision of permanent running water–will be more difficult as it may require major capital investment that the vendors or our committee cannot afford. In addition, and provided we are successful in winning the Parks permit which would grant us right to operate our affair for seasons to come, DOH won’t allow our affair in its current form and without every vendor and their assistants being fully licensed.

It is important for us at this moment to assure all our patrons that the quality of the foods served by the food vendors is still held at the same standards–as it has been for over 30 years–our patrons have come to exect. There is love, care, and tradition behind every plate served by the artisan vendors.

It is also very important to understand DOH’s enforcement was not caused by a food-related complaint. Their explanation of this sudden enforcement is based on the fact that our humble affair went under their radar until we became prominent. We understand that their intention is to protect the consumer & we agree with that. In addition, we must thank their decision not to strictly enforce and close our affair at once. Instead, their decision to train the vendors, accommodating to their schedules & waiving a fee shows good will towards the vendors. Parks Dept. has also been increasingly helpful and sensitized to our needs, assuring our group assistance and support to help comply with DOH’s demands and\or requirements.

In all truth, it is because of your staunch support, advocacy, and requests to local elected officials on our behalf that we still have a fighting chance to preserve our affair.

We truly hope that all of the extra demands being placed on these mom and pop vendors doesn’t end up making it infeasible for them to continue–assuming the Parks Department’s bidding process doesn’t kill the entire affair.

The meeting will take place on Thursday (8/23) at 6:30PM. It will be held at the Scotto Funeral Home, which is located at First Place and Court Street in Carroll Gardens and is the site of the Carroll Gardens Neighborhood Association’s regular meetings. GL won’t be able to attend the meeting because of our travel schedule, but if anyone wants to forward some notes, we’ll be able to post the coverage on Friday morning. You can reach us, as always, at gowanuslounge (at) gmail (dot) com.

The issue of Engine Company 212 in Williamsburg (AKA The People’s Firehouse) has faded from the headlines, except in the context of the city’s plans to dispose of the fire house and several others that were closed. Neighborhood activists who fought to keep the fire station open are still smoking about the closure and make a compelling case that the neighborhood is now less safe without it, despite a fast rising population and major new developments. One of the leaders of the campaign to save Engine 212, Phil DePaolo, sent out an email last night about “The Story of Mural Mike.” As it turns out, yesterday was the anniversary of one of the more interesting incidents in the failed effort to save the fire house on Berry Street. Here are excerpts of the long, but very, very fascinating story:

Four years ago today the Save Engine Company 212 Community Action Group put this portrait of Mayor Bloomberg up next to closed Engine Company 212. Artist Scott LoBaido created this artistic expression of the community’s outrage over the closing of six engine companies three months earlier. Mayor Bloomberg was going to Israel the weekend we put the mural up. But his motorcade drove by to see the mural the morning he left.

I later learned that the Mayor had told Ray Kelly that the mural had to be gone by the time he returned.

The Save Engine 212 CAG had a tent set up in front of the closed firehouse to keep the city from removing the Engine from its home. Community residents took four hour shifts 24 hours a day at the tent and it actually became a gathering place for activists and residents who were concerned about a reduction of a vital service. The building where we put up the mural was a textile factory that was owned by a Hasidic family that gave us permission to hang the mural from their building.

So, the second night we had the mural up Friday four guys walk up to the tent at about 10:00pm announcing that they were here to remove what they called a sign. “We just spoke to the owner and he wants the sign down” one of the men muttered. So I told the man, how long ago was just spoken to. He said about 20 minutes ago. So I stated that there was no way they could have spoken to Issac or Simon since they went to Kingston NY on Friday and Saturday for religious observance and had no phone and could not speak on the phone during religious observance. I then asked if they had a work order. They said no…Then I offered this to the men: If you want the mural removed let’s wait till we can speak to the owners. If they want it removed we will take it down ourselves, then I asked them if they were cops. Three of the four guys I was speaking to suddenly started to walk away and the fourth guy who was doing the talking said, let me make a call. He them went down to Kent ave where he met the other three men.

He came back about 10 minutes later and said we will see you Monday 11:00 am. I agreed and they left. Saturday was uneventful as was Sunday but we had an increased presence around the tent just in case. I received a phone call Sunday Night about 1:30am from Pete Susol who lived around the block from Engine 212 and was on watch at the tent.

‘Phil get down here! The cops are breaking in the building and they are going to take down the mural, they have some Hasidic guys here the cops are saying its Issac and Simon but its not them! Now we had been having trouble with the T.A.R.U unit coming down to film us when the city would attempt to try to take the engine so we had a camcorder in the tent to film them. Pete get the camcorder go to the corner across the street and film what you can, Don’t let then see you or they will take the camera! It took me about 10 minutes to get dressed throw some water on my face and run the four blocks to the firehouse. By the time I got there the cops were gone as was our mural but we had it on tape! We had the then 94pct captain Theresa Shortell and community affairs officer John Lisa on tape with a man who they claimed was the owner but we later found out was a man named Manny Weiser who was a member of the Hatzolah ambulance service and according to one source “He’s was at Brooklyn North more than that Captain”. So we turned the tape over to the media. (Here’s a NY1 clip I found on the removal of the mural that includes our footage.

The mural was kept at the 94pct till the artist Scott LoBaido showed up to claim it. He was then charged with being an unlicensed sign hanger. We went court on October 27, 2003…The Judge dismissed the case, citing LoBaido’s first amendment right to free speech. So we got the mural back.

I gave the mural to the People’s Firehouse Inc. on Berry St. to store it for safe keeping or so I thought. I was told a woman named Lynn Graham took the mural from the Peoples Firehouse Inc. and no one knows her present whereabouts. Shortly after the mural was removed, former 94th pct Capt. Shortell got a double bump to Deputy Inspector for her efforts and got reassigned to Chelsea where she then got a job as a consultant on the TV show The Shield advising Glen Close on her role as a female Captain. Community Affairs officer John Lisa got promoted to detective and was reassigned to Brooklyn North. And Manny Weiser got a gun carry permit for his efforts. So everyone got something except the communities of Greenpoint and Williamsburg who lost a vital firehouse and now have towers going up right down the block from the closed Engine company that so many people since the 70’s fought to protect. We had another piece of cloth on the building. It was a quote from the Late Adam Veneski who led the fight to reopen Engine 212 in the 70’s.

This statement was also removed by the N.Y.P.D that fateful night. I think about this quote a lot lately as the city prepares to sell Engine Company 212. But it inspires me to fight!

An interesting tale that bears repeating.

• Car-Free Hours Extended in Prospect Park [Streets Blog]
• Road Closing in Prospect Park [NYT]
• New Restrictions for Drivers in Prospect Park [City Room]
• Brooklyn Council Members Would Vote Against Fare Hike Over F Express [2nd Ave Sagas]
• Will Two Trees Atlantic Ave. Proposal Get Chopped [Brownstoner]
• Boerum Place Sidewalk Improvements Outlined [110 Livingston]
• Your Carroll Gardens Isn’t Their Carroll Gardens [Curbed]
• Humboldt Street Maze Condo [Brownstoner]
• Coney Hoopla Links [Kinetic Carnival]
• Final Week for Dumbo Outdoor Sculpture Show [Dumbo NYC]

If you read GL, you know we dig Kevin Walsh‘s Forgotten NY. The site is full of fascinating nuggets of information, like his FNY webpage on the corner of Brooklyn known as White Sands. If you know the part of Brooklyn between Gravesend and Coney Island, you might know it as the site of a Home Depot. But, not too long ago it was an odd little neighborhood. Mr. Walsh explains:

Ever heard of a Brooklyn neighborhood called White Sands? If you haven’t, no big deal…most Brooklyn historians haven’t either! Perched in the no man’s land between Bath Beach and Coney Island, White Sands, settled around 1925-1930, lies between Cropsey Avenue on the east, Dreier-Offerman Park on the west, the Belt Parkway on the north, and Coney Island Creek on the south.

Up until a year ago, it was a collection of modest homes and bungalows arranged neatly on four dead-end streets. The bungalows were originally built on stilts above white-colored sand, which was eventually removed to fill the Coney Island beach, decimated by a hurricane in 1938. (Broad Channel still has houses on stilts). Landfill replaced the white sand, but the neighborhood’s name has remained.

A year ago, most of White Sands began to evacuate.

Why is most of White Sands clearing out? Mosquitoes? Malathion? Asbestos? No, the answer is much more prosaic. Money.

This area of Brooklyn is becoming attractive to big-box retailers, who erect vast stores on as much acreage as they can find. With its handy location next to the Belt Parkway and Cropsey Avenue, White Sands attracted the notice of Home Depot.

Check out the full FNY page on White Sands by clicking here.

There are a lot of videos of the Wonder Wheel in Coney Island posted on YouTube. We’ve tossed a random selection into the player below for your Wednesday viewing pleasure should you be so inclined, just as a reminder that it’s still August, in case the last couple of days led anyone to forget and imagine that they had gone to sleep and woken up to find that it was Fall already.

We’re fascinated by history (both recent and less so) and one of Brooklyn events that is more interesting than most is the Great Greenpoint Sewer Explosion of 1950. It happened on October 5 a little after 12 Noon. A huge explosion in the sewer system ripped a hole in the street and sent those massive cast iron manhole covers flying. Here’s an excellent description of the event from the Alan Reisner website, which also has some background on the Exxon-Mobil Oil Spill and on some of the oil facilities still located along Newtown Creek:

Imagine this: you’re walking around your neighborhood on a weekday, just past noon; maybe you’re getting lunch. Suddenly, an explosion demolishes a 10-foot section of the street and sends sewer covers flying dozens of feet into the air for blocks all around you. Hundreds of shop and apartment windows are shattered, and hordes of people run out onto the streets yelling “war!” and “atom bomb!”

This is what happened on October 5th, 1950 at the corner of Manhattan Avenue and Huron Street in Greenpoint.

Amazingly only three people were injured, but perhaps the scariest part is that the police were only able to make a vague guess about the cause: an explosive chemical leaking into the sewers. Several days after the explosion investigators were still searching for such a leak, giving little assurance against a repeat occurrence. Recently it has been suggested that the explosive chemical was one of the products leaked from the nearby oil refineries. This seems plausible given that a possible leak was eventually located at Greenpoint Avenue and North Henry Street, then in the middle of Standard Oil’s tank farm, now regarded as a likely culprit in the spill.

Just a bit of North Brooklyn history. In any case, the entire New York City page on the site is worth checking out if you’ve got a minute.

[Photo courtesy of alexreisner.com]

Here’s the second part of our photo series on the Doors of Williamsburg. There are less of these tagged up doors in the neighborhood than there used to be, but there are still a fair number of them to be found. As you can see in the bottom pic, even residential doors get the treatment.

• Cyclists Throwing Selves Under Cars in Brooklyn [Streets Blog]
• Can’t Sleep? You’re in Luck [Brownstoner]
• Supporters Demand Reinstatement of Arabic-Language School Principal [Sun]
• Greenpoint Hotel, Part II [newyorkshitty]
• The Tale of 239 Banker Street [11222]
• Rocking the Coney Boardwalk [Coney Island Reporter]
• Next Installment of Hello Living [set speed]
• Sharp. Very Sharp. [Clinton Hill Blog]
• Four Convicted in Brooklyn Attack [NYT]
• Columbia Street Art Lot Chickens Relocated [Curbed]
• One Less Door on Smith [Lost City]
• Brooklyn Waterfront Opera [Gothamist]
• Red Hook Revisited [Self-Absorbed Boomer]
• Preparing for 26th Annual Bed-Stuy 10K Run [Bed-Stuy Blog]

Here’s an amusing vid shot in Coney Island that’s officially described as “a project with my friend’s concept: setting a balloon in the sky, a note dividing her old life in Brooklyn and the adventurous future she would pursue.” If you’ve got an issue with the embed, click over to it on YouTube here.

I spoke with the management office. She told me that the last day that Astroland will be open is Saturday, 08 September 2007, and that after that date it will be totally shut down for good, and will be dismantled.

Of course, as usual, we would expect tomorrow’s story to be that Astroland will remain open in 2008. And Wednesday’s story will be about its permanent closure. And Thursday’s story…

Allstate is canceling my home owners insurance next month because they say we live in a “flood zone” since we live less than a mile from the coast. I’ve been shopping for a new policy.

Here is the latest news:

I called GEICO since I have auto insurance with them and they recently asked me to switch to them for home owners. They recently “stopped all home owners insurance in the 718 area code”. I called the Liberty Mutual agent…Their agent says that Liberty Mutual has also started using the one mile limit. So we got rejected for the same “flood zone”… Tri State Insurance uses a 2,000 feet from the shoreline rule so we are in a “good location” BUT they will not insure any building built before 1900. The city lists our house as being built in 1899.

State Farm says our location is good BUT our house is partially wood and partially brick. They won’t insure wooden houses. I am arguing that since most of our building is brick it should be okay. They say that they might consider it.

Tower might consider us but they are twice as expensive as All State or State Farm…

Some of the trouble, of course, stems from Brooklyn’s vulnerability if (when) a major hurricane hits New York City.

Yesterday (8/19) was the last day for the “What’s the Hook?” project. (It was extended by a day at the last minute.) If you want to see some of the early results of the photo taking, you can check out the “What’s the Hook?” flickr pool. There were about 300 photos posted–like the one above that caught a remnant of an old sign for the defunct Lillie’s on Beard Street–when we checked early this morning and we’re sure there will be a lot more. We’re looking forward to seeing all the What’s the Hook results. Our only regret is that, given the thousands of Red Hook photos we’ve shot, we were unable to be there last week to shoot a few dozen for What’s the Hook. C’est la vie.

Forgotten New York weighs in this week with a huge new feature on Brooklyn’s Lief Ericson Corridor:

Bay Ridge’s Lief Ericson Park can also be called a corridor park, running between Ridge Boulevard and Fort Hamilton Parkway in fits and starts, mostly between 66th and 67th Streets. What’s notable is that the park is used for a different function on each block.

Your webmaster returned to Bay Ridge in August 2007 and walked the Lief Ericson corridor along its entire length, which I had never done while living in the neighborhood between 1957 and 1993, my first 35 years.

The feature has lots of great info and photos of Bay Ridge. Check it out.