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

• Profit Versus Affordability and the Future of Atlantic Yards [AYR]
• “Delicate Beast” of Atlantic Yards Unravels [DDDB]
• Call for Affordable Housing in Downtown Brooklyn from Markowitz, James & Yassky [AYR]
• Alternate Side Complaints [Kensington Brooklyn]
• Brooklyn Meeting Tonight to Plan “Day of Outrage” [Sun]
• Suspect in Prospect Park and Other Rapes Arrested [NYP]
• Park Slope Courier Attempting Park Slope Putsch? [OTBKB]
• When Bad IT Happens to Good People [newyorkshitty]
• A Look Underneath Bay Ridge [Nathan Kensinger Photography]
• Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park Cormorant [Self-Absorbed Boomer]
• Exciting Times for NYC Transit Planning [Brooklyn Streets]
• Happy First Birthday Clinton Hill Blog [Clinton Hill Blog]
• Three Days Until Barge Pool [BK 11201]

That didn’t take long. The Issue Project Room, which hosted its last event in its Gowanus Canal space on Carroll Street on Saturday night, is opening in a new location tomorrow night. The new space is in the wonderful Old American Can Factory at Third Avenue and Third Street (which is where the rooftop film screenings take place). The email we got from the IPR people says it’s “a temporary, beautiful residence in a space inside dubbed ‘The Sanctum.'” The opening night–Tuesday, July 3 at 8PM–features a mixed media collaboration between Gibby Haynes of the Butthole Surfers and the poet Joe Wenderoth, best known for his masterpiece Letters to Wendy’s. We don’t know how the new series that opened at the Carroll Street silo space yesterday went, as we were in Williamsburg for the Pool Party at McCarren Pool. If anyone attended the Gowanus show, please share your thoughts/reviews.

The annual Canada Day show took place at Celebrate Brooklyn last night. The Stills were one of the bands that performed. We have a slide show below, but here are a few shots of The Stills show for those of you that don’t want to deal with it. You can, of course, find the full flickr set here.

The Stills played the annual Canada Dayshow at Celebrate Brooklyn on Saturday night. Here’s a slideshow of 74 shots. Should the slideshow be glitched up, you can go directly to the flickr set by clicking here.

Yesterday evening, we reported that there were 16 separate instances of litigation in 2005 and 2006 about injuries sustained by people walking on what we like to call Coney Island’s trip and fall boardwalk. The city was sued seven times and settled nine cases. One can expect significant lawsuits this year as well, as parts of the boardwalk are still in horrendous shape and some are frighteningly deteriorated, in the sense that someone might fall through boards and drop 6-8 feet. On Friday night, a tiny segment of the boardwalk near Astroland was in the midst of repairs that started this week, as the photo above shows. If you want to see what we said about this issue last year, you can click here, and to see what we said earlier this year, click here.

We didn’t understand in previous years why the situation was addressed and we stil don’t understand why it’s better to continue a situation that is injury and lawsuit bait, rather than fixing the problem. A few weeks ago, we sat and watched a particularly bad spot for about fifteen minutes. During that time we counted 12 people that tripped (no one that fell, however), four of them stubbing toes hard enough to shout or course.

Related Post:
City Sued Repeatedly Over Injuries from Coney’s Trip and Fall Boardwalk

The finances and future of the Atlantic Yards development are in the news today, partly thanks to the “Ratner Carve Out” given to the project by legislators in Albany.

While there are a number of different ways one can count the public cost of the Atlantic Yards development, the total of the taxpayer-back financing and public subsidy is a fair indicator of the level of public support of the $4 billion project. The so-called Ratner Clause in the 421-a tax abatement that has generated controversy would add another $300 million, give or take, to the public’s tab for the development. Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn has been keeping a tally of the costs as it counts them, and they have calculated that the total now stands at $2.11 billion, or more than half of the project’s announced cost. They write:

Since government has been unwilling to tally the full cost to the taxpayers of the Atlantic Yards project, and with the latest 421-a Ratner Clause added, we’ve updated our ongoing tally and best estimate.

Click here to download the pdf: Atlantic Yards: Government Backed Financing and the Cost to the Taxpayer (as of June 30, 2007).

The known government backed financing and public cost for the taxpayer that we’ve calculated is $2.119 billion. The unknown public cost and government backed financing could amount to more than that.

Remember, the project, according to Forest City Ratner, costs $4 billion.

Even in the large scheme of things, the 421-a subsidy is significant. Also today, the Times turns its attention to the finances for project, taking note of the fact that details are trickling out via different documents and that the project entails some significant risk, some of which would imperil the housing that is planned at the tail end of the project. (These are points that observers have been noting for a long time.) Norman Oder tackles the Time coverage too in Atlantic Yards Report, calling it “murky.”

Last week, we skipped our Brooklyn Missed Connections feature because we were swamped by Mermaid Parade and Mermaid Parade Ball photos. This week, well, our Missed Connection is from the Mermaid Parade and it’s the first time we’ve found ourselves with a photo the subject of the missed connection ad. Here it is:

Candy-Striped Postcard Girl – 2007 Mermaid Parade

I saw you all red, white and magnificent in and about Surf Ave. and the Boardwalk throughout the afternoon on Saturday. You were kind and let me “pop” a few snapshots. We spoke a little, mainly about that place for posting photos that starts with an “f”. I’ll post your photos there because you said it was OK, but I won’t post them here, as we didn’t talk about it.

Drop me a line, postcard girl: I want so much to be your pen pal.

There were actually 11 Mermaid Parade-connected Missed Connections in the last week if anyone is counting.

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

• Officials See Possible Risk in Atlantic Yards Project [NYT]
• Times Article Leaves Impression Ratner Deserves Long Leash [AYR]
• Williamsburg’s East River State Park To Stay Open for Fireworks!!! [INSIJS]
• Once, Canarsie Was a Coney Island Too [NYT]
• Cafe on Clinton Updates [BK 11201]
• William Taft to Go [A Test of Will]
• A Fountain at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden [Blue Jake]
• Customer Advisory Panels Privately Discuss Crappy Brooklyn Postal Service [NYT]
• Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory [A Test of Will]
• Checkout a Badasssss Pink Shirt [newyorkshitty]
• Gowanus Canal Jellyfish Sighting [Dope on the Slope]
• Considering NYC Street Fairs [Metroblogging]
• The Call of the Wild Ride at Coney Island [NYT]
• Flatbush Avenue BID Street Fair Today [Flatbush Gardener]

Coney Island, Brooklyn

Once a week, we highlight a few of the comments that readers have left on GL items. Here’s a small sample from the last seven days:

Carroll Gardeners React to Smith Street Permits. “I think lack of action was by neighborhood. The building has been in works for years and on Scarano’s website. So why all this b.s. at last minute? Why don’t all you complainers work on making rest of Smith St. south of here more attractive instead?” [Anonymous]

Real Estate Firm Already Improving Park Slope. “We are losing yet another Premiere Corner location to …no not a cool boutique or restaurant but to a REAL ESTATE OFFICE!!! Why Park Slope needs another real estate office is beyond me. There must be 15 firms with offices in the neighborhood. People cried when the first Starbucks opened, yet there seems to be so end to RE BROKERS. Bank, Duane Reade, Starbucks, Real Estate office, rinse repeat.” [Da Chef]

Dead Rats and Dog Crap in Boerum Hill. “People seem to think all trash cans are public property in Brooklyn. Frequently people dump loose trash, half eaten foodstuffs and the like into my trash cans – which are always behind a fence and away from the sidewalk. This is in Clinton Hill.” [Anonymous]

If you read GL every week (and, thanks, if you do), you know we post at Curbed on weekdays. Here’s some of the Brooklyn content we’ve posted there that hasn’t appeared on GL:

• Burg’s Hipster Park Opts for Full Work Week (above)
• Fun in Park Slope: A Rooster Moving Sale
• Carroll Gardens #1: Hell Building Goes to the Rats
• Landmarking Progress & Details on Burg’s ‘New Domino’
• Catch the Vibe on ‘Groovy’ Cortelyou Road
• Boerum & Cobble Hill Rumors: Pumpkin & Cream Cheese Muffins and Egg McMuffins?

If you read GL, you know we’ve written quite a few items over the last year or so about the awful condition of the boardwalk in Coney Island. GL has learned that the city was sued seven times in 2005 and 2006 over injuries that occurred as a result of fall due to the boardwalk and settled nine other cases. We don’t know what the total bill to taxpayer’s has been because of the Parks Department’s failure to keep the boardwalk in good condition.

This is what we wrote about it last June:

The Coney Island Boardwalk–other than the very small portion that was replaced for $500,000 over the winter–is in a disgraceful state of disrepair. We’re not talking about a couple of loose boards here and there, either. We are talking about it being in such a sad state that all an ambulance chasing lawyer has to do to get new clients is find a particularly odious part of the boardwalk and stand there and wait for people to trip and fall. These spots are easy to locate. They’re the ones where boards are see-sawing up and down as people walk on them or where there are holes where the wood is rotted or where bolts are sticking out.

And, this is what we wrote a few weeks ago:

there are still ample opportunities to break your face or sprain an ankle and get a chance to meet one of the many nice and friendly NYPD officers patrolling the boardwalk as they call EMS to cart you away to the Emergency Room. We haven’t seen any statistics, but it is our understanding that there were a large number of injuries last year and, to judge by the bad condition early in the season, this year probably won’t disappoint. The city has cited the unusual wear and tear caused by the NYPD driving on the boardwalk as well as the fact that sand is directly underneath the boards and contributes to rot. What we don’t understand, however, is how it is cheaper to settle trip and fall injury lawsuits than it is to fix the boardwalk. (Not to mention why it is okay to allow conditions to persist that allow people to become injured.)

Repairs seem to have started on a small segment of the boardwalk near Astroland this week. Just last night, we were walking on the boardwalk and felt boards sagging under our feet. We looked down and saw you would fall least six to eight feet in that particular spot and wondered how long it will be before the boards split open and someone plunges through. The good news is, the victim will be able to sue or the city will settle!

Related Posts:
Coney Island’s Trip and Fall Boardwalk is Back for Another Season
Tripping (and Falling) in Coney Island

The Coney Island Friday Night Fireworks series kicked off last night with a fun pre-Fourth of July display. The crowd was a little smaller than usual thanks, no doubt, to the cool, breezy and cloudy weather. We’re always surprised by how long and how nice the displays presented, in part, by Astroland are. We noted that, this year, Taconic Investments–one of the big Coney Island developers–is a sponsor. The fireworks will take place every Friday night between now and Labor Day, and we must say that they’re a fun way to end a summer Friday.

Opponents of that controversial building at 360 Smith Street have gathered 850 signatures on a petition calling for zoning changes and a moratorium on new buildings more than fifty feet tall. The Carroll Gardens Petition Blog, meanwhile writes:

This week has seen a flurry of new activity for CORD! The petition ‘s call for a moratorium on the building of or alteration of any structure to a height of over fifty feet until WE can be presented with and decide upon the type of zoning or landmarking that will reshape our beloved neighborhood, is rapidly spreading! Numerous blogs, newspapers, and people on the street are carrying the word, and to date we have 800+ signatures in under a week and we are still collecting!

We urge, no, we BEG you to please keep spreading the word.Encourage your Carroll Gardens neighbors to get informed.If you love living here, love the neighborhood we have all made, and what we say makes sense to you,please sign the petition.

It’s the Fourth of July so why not reflect on what the word DEMOCRACY means to you and your family, friends and neighbors? For a democracy to work for the benefit of ALL THE PEOPLE concerned, the people must speak up! Why not make an effort and contact the POLS over the next two weeks and let them know how you really feel about this important movement?

A resident emailed us to say:

We are giving people the two weeks to do this as we know that most Pols are off on expensive yachts selling brooklyn brooklyn piece by peice while the
rest of us make BBQ hotdogs in our backyards this weekend so we wanted to account for that “time difference.”

There some local print media coverage too, but the story isn’t posted online yet.

The huge fence that Thor Equities has put up around the properties it has demolished in the heart of Coney Island’s amusement district has been painted blue. More interesting, though, is that people are already finding a way to use the aesthetic monstrosity as something other than a streetscape killer. It gets at the issue that the Coney Island Development Corp. should have already acted to encourage vendors and others to use the space and keep it alive for the summer season, which is now in full swing. While W. 12 Street, which is in this photo, still has life because rides are open, Stillwell Avenue is a depressing dead zone. It serves as a block-long passageway and parking lot devoid of fun or life. It also stands as a depressing, if not alarming, omen of what Coney Island could be like next year if demolitions are allowed to go forward and the city takes no action to replace what is destroyed.

Yes, it’s only a fence, but sometimes, a fence is a lot more than just a fence. It’s a glimpse into the inner workings of an entire process.

Not all the changes made in Albany by the special interests and others that attacked the 421-a developer tax break legislation are bad ones. We have always believed that the huge tax abatements that developers receive are a holdover from a 1970s/80s mentality of desperation that fail to reflect in any way, shape or form the reality of New York City–and, especially, Brooklyn, in the 2000s. The tax break both provides an unnecessary giveaway of taxpayer money to developers and affluent buyers, it can serve as a taxpayer-financed tool to promote displacement. Residents in some neighborhoods are, in effect, contributing their taxes to the buildings that will force them out and the affluent buyers who won’t have to pay property taxes for years to come.

One way to turn some of these lemons into lemonade, however, is to extend the exclusion zones that require developers to produce affordable housing in return for getting the tax breaks as widely as possible. For the Bloomberg Administration to object to the expansion of the exclusion zones pushes the limits of credulity. There are things in the bill to object to (keep reading), but the bigger exclusion zones are to be applauded. If you’re not going to kill the developer welfare turkey known as 421-a, affordable housing should be a minimum requirement in every building anywhere in the city that gets one of these generous tax breaks. Failing that, the exclusion zones should be as big as possible. If anything, the bill in Albany still doesn’t go far enough in adding gentrifying neighborhoods to the exclusion list. If the Bloomberg Administration succeeds in killing the added exclusion zones, it will be just as scandalous as the special tax breaks that Atlantic Yards supporters got written into the law.

In today’s Atlantic Yards Report, Norman Oder takes a look at the 421-a issue in the context of Bushwick, the Village Voice investigation of displacement in the neighborhood and the marketing effort for the building at 358 Grove.

All that having been said, however, one of the more fascinating lessons in special interest perks is the creation of a slew of exemptions and special tax breaks for Atlantic Yards. So, who was responsible for Forest City Ratner’s Christmas in June in Albany?

No Land Grab looks at the likely suspects identified so far:

VITO?

The prevailing wisdom during the past week was that it was State Assemblyman Vito Lopez’s fault. Lopez is the Chairman of the Assembly’s Housing Committee that drafted the bill, a project supporter and has received campaign contributions from Bruce Ratner’s brother and sister-in-law.

The NY Observer reports:

What the apparent contradictions in the bill represent are a series of horse trades that Mr. Lopez, a loping giant of a man who carries power like a running back headed to the end zone, brokered with fellow legislators.

SPINOLA & THE SENATORS?
Todays’ NY Times advances a separate theory, which fingers the State Senate and the head of the Real Estate Board of NY (REBNY):

But many advocates, city officials and even some Senate Republicans are saying that Steven Spinola, president of the Real Estate Board of New York, betrayed the city’s effort. By all accounts, Mr. Spinola, the leading industry lobbyist, played a major role in negotiating the compromises and the tax deals for Atlantic Yards and other developments that led to Senate approval.

“SHILLY” SILVER?
There’s a third theory that starts with Lopez and leads to Sheldon Silver’s office. This week’s Brooklyn Paper explains:

Lopez’s motivations for slipping in the Ratner-favoring clause are unclear. One source said that the Brooklyn Democratic Party boss might have done it as a favor to Assembly Speaker Shelly Silver. “Silver and [Forest City Ratner lobbyist] Bruce Bender are old friends,” said the source.

The exception is so outrageous that no-one seems to have the guts to stand up and take credit.

There is some irony in the $300 million in special Atlantic Yards tax breaks that are now at issue, if not the Bloomberg Administration’s opposition to a great expansion of affordable housing provisions in the 421-a tax break bill. We have long believed that the entire Atlantic Yards process has been one of the most anti-particpatory, backroom, top-down and arrogant public processes we have seen in the United States. The process has been so wretched–and so corrosively divisive as a result of the way that it has stiffled real community input and discusision–that a generation of future planning students will be studying Atlantic Yards as a way to learn how not to do things. Why would anyone be surprised that the backroom wheeling and dealing has extended to slipping the project a few hundred extra million dollars in taxpayer money or to toying with increasing the income levels of those eligible for its affordable housing?

If anything, the 421-a skullduggery is the icing on an already nasty cake.

We’d be remiss if we didn’t not that tonight is the Issue Project Room’s last night in its current space on the Gowanus. (No reason to totally mourn, though, as it starts up next week at the Old American Can Factory at Third Avenue and Third Street.). Tonight’s show, from the IPR’s website:

SHARE celebrates ISSUE Project Room’s final night in their current location – the unique silo on the banks of the Gowanus Canal. To celebrate IPR’s time in the silo and their move to a new space, SHARE will run a multimedia open-jam, inviting everyone and anyone to join, including those who have performed at, visited, or simply love IPR. It will utilize Stephan Moore’s 16-Channel Hemispherical Speaker System and IPR’s cylinder structure for visual projections both inside and outside the space. Please come to play, hang out, or participate in many toasts!

The evening starts at 8PM. The IPR’s silo is located on the Gowanus at the Carroll Street Bridge. The formal address is 400 Carroll Street.

1) In Park Slope, Elementi is now open on Seventh Avenue, occupying the old site of Snooky’s the old neighborhood hangout. Let the Seventh Avenue Battle of the Italian Restaurants begin.

2) Speaking of, uh, Italian restaurants, The Food of the Future reports the, er, fascinating rumor that a new 12-story building will house an Olive Garden. The massive building is rising at 500 Fourth Avenue between 12th Street and 13th Street. Who knows, maybe Red Lobster and Applebee’s will be moving in too.

3) Meanwhile, over on Van Brunt Street in Red Hook, FOF also reports that 360 is closed, possibly for good.

4) In case you missed it, both Curbed and Brownstoner reported earlier this week that a McDonald’s may be opening on Smith Street in the storefront currently occupied by the Army & Navy store. If so, one more piece of old Smith Street will be falling, this time in an especially sad, corporate way. As one Curbed reader put it, “It fucking sucks.”

We thought we’d post the Brooklyn part of the New York City greenmarkets map above, as well as an image of the market locations below. Overall, there are 44 market locations in the city, with 16 of the markets, including the one at Grand Army Plaza on Saturdays, operating year round. The markets are said to have 250,000 customers a week during “peak season.” 164 farmers, give or take, participate in the greenmarkets. You can find more greenmarket information here.

[Photo courtesy of Frank Lynch/flickr]

Visual:

• Gerritsen Beach Flickr Set (above) [Frank Lynch/flickr]
• Independence Day [Brooklyn Heights Blog]
• Burg from the Williamsburg Bridge [malarchie/flickr]
• Interactive Borough Hall 2,3 [BK 11201]
• Fourth Avenue Near Degraw [seriously excited!]
• Ninth Street Bridge Operator [Big Sky Brooklyn]
• The Corner Look, Greenpoint [Park Slope Street Photography]
• Desktop Day Double Feature [Brit in Brooklyn]

Exceptionally Visual in a Figurative Civil Liberties Sense:

• City Wants to Limit Public Photography & Filming [Gothamist]

Either Visual or Not Visual:

• 358 Grove, Bushwick Gentrification and 421-a [AYR]
• As It Turns Out, 1000s Went to the Mermiad Parade on Bikes [Streets Blog]
• New Bike Racks at the Bed-Stuy Y [Bed-Stuy Blog]
• Exxon Restarts Oil Pumping System Along Newtown Creek [AP/amNY]
• Two Restaurant Owners Busted for Trying to Bribe Health Inspectors [NYP]
• Fight Among Brooklyn Democrats Intensifies [City Room]
• The South Slope [The Food of the Future]
• Brooklyn, Your Floating Pool Awaits [NYT]
• Hepcat Buys iPhone [OTBKB]
• Weekly Dumbo Linkage [Dumbo NYC]
• Rounding Up the Flatbush Ave./Downtown Brooklyn Boom [Duffield St. Underground]
• New Noise Code Silences Parked Mister Softee Trucks, Starting Tomorrow [NYP]

We first started seeing emails about a possible greenmarket in Carroll Gardens more than year ago. Well, the Carroll Gardens Greenmarket will finally be opening on July 8 and will run every Sunday from 8 AM-4 PM. It will be open through November and take place on Carroll Street between Smith and Court. The market, which is being established by the Council on the Environment of New York City will offer up everything from vegetables to house plants. Eight farmers will be participating, two of them from the New Farmer Development Program, which encourages people to get into farming.

We return to our “Say What?” feature about signs that have been compromised by construction and/or vandalism, with this example from Williamsburg. Huh?

Is Wikipedia the neighborhood and development battleground of the future? Maybe. We say this because the Wikipedia page about architect Robert M. Scarano has become the subject of a weird tug of war between the architect (or his associates or supporters), his opponents and, increasingly, supporters and detractors of Council Member Bill de Blasio. The page has gone through so many revisions, in fact, that we can’t even keep up. (And may change yet again between the time we post this and the time you look.) We know this because when we went to look at it, we found that a whole bunch of information regarding the controversy about Mr. Scarano’s work had been edited out. The description of him as a “controversial architect,” for instance, had been changed to “an architect.” (By 5:08 PM yesterday he was a “prominent and sometimes controversial architect.”) The entire sections about “Controversies” and “Controversial Works” had been smoked. Then, an hour later, they were back. The WikiWar revolves around both Mr. Scarano and Mr. de Blasio, who is leading the charge against the architect and who, himself, is viewed by some in the community as having ignored many construction- and development-related issues.

One is tempted to ask if there’s a market niche here for WikiRelations Agents and WikiGuard services. You know, the WikiRelations Agents being the ones that plant a Wikipedia entry for you so that you or your project or contribution to society will be remembered on the internet forever. And, the WikiGuard services being like Credit Guard, alerting you when your Wikipedia entry has changed. You can almost see the pitch now:

Are you a visionary controversial beloved reviled honored despised developer? Subscribe to WikiGuard now and never miss a change in your Wikipedia entry. Don’t leave anything to chance! For an additional $199.95 a month we will automatically change your Wikipedia entry back to the original language so you never have to worry about being redefined again.

More to come. Probably by evening.

Is it that there’s more of this stuff in Boerum Hill or just that we see more emails from there? In any case, last week we dealt with the issue of people taking dumps outdoors in Boerum Hill. Today, we’ve got dogshit (attention Miss Heather) and dead rats. We bring you e-mail number one:

On Saturday (garbage day), during my daughter’s lemonade stand, someone brought it to our attention that sales might be higher if it were not for the dead rat sticking 2/3 of the way out of a hole in a garbage can on the sidewalk a few doors away. I rang all of the buzzers of the house (on Bergen betw Nevins & Bond) to which the can belonged, but no one answered. This morning (Tuesday), the can is back on the sidewalk for garbage pick up and the rat is STILL sticking out of it!

Since the rat episode, I’ve begun to notice how many cans and garbage bags have these rat-sized holes with garbage sticking out. This is not a new problem, of course, and there has been much discussion of buildings and lots with very serious rat problems. I’m wondering, however, if there is something that has been done in the past to notify owners/renters that their trash is attracting rats and that they must do something about it…As of Wednesday afternoon, the garbage can is still there, with the dead rat still sticking out of it, rotting in the sun. Isn’t there something we can do about it? I’ve walked by it twice now with my 2 kids, and it’s absolutely disgusting (and probably a health hazard).

And, here is e-mail number two, about some dogshit-related issues:

Here is my experience with what happens when dog owners drop their bags or newspapers full of waste in my trash can (which happens just about twice a week, on pickup days). 1. If the garbage has not already been picked up, the sanitation folks come, take out the large bags of garbage, and leave the dog waste in the can. In the 10 years I’ve lived on Pacific St not once have the sanitation folks taken it out of my can, and I don’t blame them. 2. I can then leave it in the bottom of my can, and repeat the cycle again, (collecting more and more of these gifts from my neighbors), or start my day by a) retrieving a smeared New York Times from the bottom of my can, getting a garbage bag from inside my house, putting it in the bag and placing the bag in the can or b) carrying someone else’s dog waste to the corner trash can (which is not actually on the corner anymore but a block and a half away). I get to do one of these every Tuesday and Thursday. 3. Several times I tried leaving the lid on the can securely closed. On those occasions sanitation tried for a second or two to open the can, and being unsuccessful, just didn’t pick up my garbage. Again, I don’t blame them. A few extra seconds trying to get lids off cans would slow the system down, create a worse traffic back-up, etc. 4. Periodically I get tired of not owning a dog yet having to deal with dog waste, so I just put out closed trash bags, no cans. On a few occasions they have been torn apart by hungry animals (rats, I assume). One possibility for explaining this is that dog owners may not know what happens to bags of dog waste because they never drop it in their own can.

Ah, life in Brooklyn.

Our daily communications from Carroll Gardens residents contained some angry reactions to the news that permits are being issued for the building on 360 Smith Street that they are fighting. The residents are also suggesting–well, saying in a very agitated way–that they are not getting promised help from City Council Member Bill de Blasio. A sample of the statements:

Where is Bill when really we need him? Carroll Gardens is not stupid! We know the real issue at 360 Smith Street is “as of right” not [architect Robert] Scarano per se.

Bill, if Mr. Scarano is under investigation per your suggestion, then why is the DOB still issuing permits and approvals this week? If the “get Scarano” idea you had was supposed to “buy us some time” with 360 Smith Street, then why are we already out of time? It is looking like you were very disingenuous when you issued that statement because the permits are being issued in the very same week that Scarano is getting investigated by NYC!

Bill have you seen our petition site? Your constituents have spoken loud and clear (750 plus so far in under a week) and we are continuing to collect signatures as we speak.

To think, barely a month ago, no one had even thought about 360 Smith Street.