This event will provide Commissioner Martin Horn a community-wide forum to present the DOC’s plans to reopen the currently closed Brooklyn House of Detention, and plans to expand the inmate capacity of the HOD — from 759 to 1,479 — in a new facility on State Street. The Commissioner’s presentation will be followed by a panel discussion, and those attending will be given an opportunity to present questions and comments.

The city has requests “expressions of interest” from developers interested in participating in the project.

Related Post:
Meet the Really Big House on Atlantic Avenue

• Coney Developer Drops Condo Plan [Sun]
• Coney Island Condo Plan Beached [NYDN]
• NYC Developer Revamps Plan for Coney Island, Nixing Condos [AP/Metro]
• Coney Island Plan is Scaled Back, but Critics are Skeptical [NYT]
• Condos Nixed from Coney Revamp Plan [NYP]
• New Thor Drawings “Condos Out–Hotels & Time Shares In” [Kinetic Carnival]

In any case, the image above shows the amusement zone as being the areas in red (to the right of the Parachute Jump and Keyspan Park) and in pink. The new Thor plan shifts its “hotel” highrises to the west of Stillwell Avenue in the zone defined in the Strategic Plan as the “Stillwell Midway.” The image below, explains the plan’s vision for the Amusement Area.

That petition calling for express F Train service in Brooklyn that started by the blogger behind Brooklyn Streets, Carroll Gardens has gotten 1,300 signatures in about five days. That certainly seems to indicate there’s some support in the community for the idea. The MTA has indicated, however, that the earliest an express train could be started is 2012 because of work on the Culver Viaduct over the Gowanus Canal. On Friday, Brooklyn Streets reported that the MTA is looking at ways to create express service before 2012. (The issue was broached with the MTA about a decade ago, as well.) The Brooklyn Eagle has a story on the petition drive here. Nonetheless, the petition campaign could use signatures from everyone that supports the idea. If you’re interested, go to the petition here and sign it.

Non-Mayhem:

• Ward Bakery Encased in Scaffolding [Set Speed]
• Ratner Plays Pretend at Seventh Avenue Street Fair [AYR]
• Carroll Gardens Residents Seeks F Train Express [Brooklyn Daily Eagle]
• Kudos and Concerns About the Brooklyn Waterfront [Brooklyn Heights Blog]
• Apartment Hunting! [Aesthetic/Esthetic]
• Meet Some Very Serious Cyclones Fans [NYT]
• Upcoming Dem Debate Watching Party [Bed-Stuy Blog]
• Now at the Edge: Extreme Jenga [INSIJS]
• Daily Stoopendous: So, What’s the Solstice? [OTBKB]
• Kitty Shopping at BARC [Brooklyn Enthusiast]
• Great New Book: Walking Brooklyn [McBrooklyn]
• Turtle with Party Hat in McCarren Park [ABL]

Mayhem:

• Three Awful Brooklyn Crashes [NYP]
• Three Struck by Cab on Sidewalk [NYT]
• Toddler Mowed Down by 84-Year-Old Driver [NYP]
• 18 Month Old Run Over in Driveway [NYT]

You know we’re going to click on video called Ride the Wild Gowanus when we come across it by accident on YouTube. It’s got urfing clips edited with shots of the Gowanus with a surf soundtrack.

After listening to the comments, questions and concerns of members of the Coney Island community, as well as people all over the country and throughout the world, Thor Equities has completely eliminated the residential component of its proposed plan. Thor will instead focus on amusement and entertainment uses worthy of Coney Island’s spectacular legacy.

Thor now has a plan that is compatible with the City’s strategic plan and looks forward to working with the community and the City to return Coney Island to its former glory.

-Tom Corsillo
Spokesman, Thor Equities

Kinetic Carnival has also reported the news:

This is super exciting news for Coney Island. Now we are all anxious to see what new preliminary plans and designs Thor Equities will release.

It’s been said by many that there are ways to make profit on amusements. And that residential components in Coney Island is not a solution to Coney’s seasonality issues. Coney was never about building amusement retail for the residents down the street. Coney (like a CIUSA poster pointed out) has always been about going to Coney Island. There have been many wonderful ideas talked about on the Coney Island USA bulletin board.

Us, we’re too stunned at the moment to react and await details of the revised plans. More in the morning.

UPDATE: Tomorrow’s New York Times reports that the plan contains three hotels with about 400 time share units in buildings ranging from 25-32 stories tall.

The headline that our friends at GerritsenBeach.net put up caught our attention: “Manhattan Beach and Their Bunker Mentality.” Why, you might ask? Because Dr. Ron Biondo, President of the Manhattan Beach Community Group, is holding a emergency meeting on Thursday, June 21 @ 8:00 PM, in response to “graffiti, litter and other destruction.” (There apparently was some sort of issue with teenagers coming into Manhattan Beach and much dispute about what happened or didn’t.)

So, what’s the answer? Some clean up crews? Getting the Parks Department to do a better job? Nope. As it turns out, there is some sentiment in the community to privatize the beach, put police on the bridge leading to Manhattan Beach to check IDs and close the beach “on a moments notice” when “the thugs” arrive. (Manhattan Beach’s beach is a public one run by the Parks Department.)

“The thugs”?

We almost thought we were seeing things when we stopped skimming and actually read the notice. Now, these are all called “ideas” that are “in play,” but we’ve got say this is the most, shall we say, fascinating group of suggestions we’ve seen in a long time. In case you’ve never been, Manhattan Beach is an affluent community on the Brooklyn shoreline next to Brighton Beach and across the water from Sheepshead Bay. In any case, here are the ideas that are “in play”:

1) Privatize the beach
2) Charge an admission
3) Close the beach on a moments notice once the thugs, oops I mean people start to arrive
4) Have NYPD barricades along Oriental Blvd to remove them from the neighborhood and prevent them from strolling down the side streets
5) Surveillance cameras
6) Arrest them for truancy
7) Set up one entrance to the beach and have metal detectors.
8) Have NYPD @ both sides of the bridge checking ID’s.

ENOUGH ALREADY.

In addition to the shooting there was graffiti, litter and other destruction as well.

PLEASE REACH OUT TO EVERYONE IN MB TO COME DOWN. I think this is one issue that unites us all.

There’s been some very strong reaction on the Sheepshead Bay/Plumb Beach Civic Association discussion forum, most of it strongly condemning the “ideas.” For instance:

Metal detectors at entrances to the beach?!?!? Why stop there? Let’s set up gun turrets and a razor wire fence at every entrance and turn Manhattan Beach into a bunker! There’s a little something called fundamental rights in this country, and if it were up to the good doctor, we’d trample all over them for a safe, litter/graffiti free world….

Folks, Newsflash! MANHATTAN BEACH IS NOT A DANGEROUS NEIGHBORHOOD!…Checking IDs on the footbridge? And beyond that… uh… what?!?!? What purpose does checking IDs at the footbridge serve? Want to know where people are coming from? That’s a slippery slope down a dark road. And honestly, what business is it of yours where I come from, Dr. Biondo? None, I say.

Wow. We’re betting this is a bunch of “ideas” that are going to reverberate.

This isn’t so much a Brooklyn Missed Connection as a rant, but since this is the thing we saw this week that moved us the most on CL Missed Connections, we figured we’d go with it. It has that certain something that only a rant can have:

Slobber King and Queen at Buttermilk.
Ever thought about getting a room? Your makeout fest is getting old. It’s making our drinks unappetizing. Please go slobber over each other in private not over the bar or at least do your business in the bathroom. Next time, we’re taking bets on how far you go. You aren’t in high school anymore. It’s not the Springer show either. Where were you raised? A trailer park. Get some class fast please.

The other bar patrons.

Runner Up:
“I Like Your Robot,” “I Like Your Dress” Conversation at Sound Fix

Here’s a selection of a few comments left by GL readers in the last seven days:

What GL Said to BL About Blogging, Pete Hamill, Etc. “I’ve long been admirer of Pete Hamill. It depresses me to hear him saying something so—I’m sorry—stupid. It makes me think he’s become uninformed and out of touch, too stuck in his 1950s-1970s view of the journo world. Newspapers and reporting are in a very different place today than when he pounded the sidewalk. The main reason I started my blog “Lost City” was because those editors Hamill speak of refused to, or were not interested in, covering the New York stories that I felt were important.” [Brooks of Sheffield]

The Number Two Problem on Bergen Street. “About a month ago I had to chase a young drunken newly minted college boy type from shitty op the doorstep of my neighbor’s house in Williamsburg! (Northside). When the neighborhood was poorer and not hip this crap never happened…Its like it has become a stink hole of drugs booze and shit in their kakhis or 7evens scene that killed the east village.” [Anonymous]

Pumps & Lawsuits, but No Answers at Roebling Oil Field. “You knuckleheads amuse me. brooklyn’s waterfront neighborhoods were heavy industry for 150+ years – back when my great grandfather was born here – before you people found them fashionable. where do you think everything went for those 150+ years? IN THE GROUND! get used to it.” [Anonymous]

Here’s a News 12 report from a couple of weeks back about oysters in the Gowanus Canal and the Gowanus Oyster Garden Stewards, which is how they are getting there.

For a beautiful June Sunday, we offer some YouTube vids taken in Prospect Park. Selections include the Neville Brothers and TV on the Radio at Celebrate Brooklyn, fireworks, drummers and more.

• J Condo Does Lunch in Dumbo or Something (above)
• Gowanus’ Hotel Le Bleu Ready to Ooze
• Brooklyn Waterfront Joins List of 11 ‘Most Endangered Places’
• ‘Pink Blob’ at Atlantic Yards: Gehry, Christo or Glitch?
• Will Carroll Gardens Fight ‘South Beach’ Look?

The Astral Oil Works, which was founded by Charles Pratt (yes, the Pratt Institute Pratt) once sat, roughly, where the Bayside Oil facility near the Bushwick Inlet is today. It is said to have possibly spilled a lot of oil under Williamsburg. One theory holds that some of the oil being found today under the neighborhood could have its origins with spills at the Astral Oil facility. Regardless of the bigger spill theory, however, the Oil Works left an underground legacy in it immediate environs. The Oil Works merged with Standard Oil in 1874. One reminder of the past is the Astral Apartments on Franklin Street in Greenpoint which Pratt built in 1866 as model worker housing. Forgotten-NY provides more good background:

The Astral takes its name from the Astral Oil Works, a refinery built by Charles Pratt in 1867. Astral Oil’s slogan was, “the holy lamps of Tibet are primed with Astral Oil.” Largess from the oil works was later used to create Pratt Institute, one of NYC’s most prestigious art schools, in Bedford-Stuyvesant. Astral made Pratt a multimillionaire, but he later sold to a bigger one, John Rockefeller’s Standard Oil.

In any case, the clip below is from the Brooklyn Eagle on January 14, 1880. It details a massive explosion at the Williamsburg Refinery, which was described as “the most terrific explosion which probably ever occurred in Brooklyn…the earth within a mile and a half quivered…”

Representatives of the Red Hook food vendors and City Council Member Sara Gonzalez met with Park Department officials yesterday about the future of the vendors whose plight has drawn citywide attention. Red Hook Vendors Committee head Cesar Fuentes told GL that although “there is still no answer to our plight, we have good hope that there will be a positive outcome.” He described the meeting as “positive” and “good.”

The meeting was attended by First Depty Commissioner Liam Kavanagh, Brooklyn Parks Commissioner Julius Spiegel, Council Member Gonzalez. Mr. Fuentes was joined by another Vendor’s Committee member and a representative of the Urban Justice Center, which runs the Street Vendor Project. Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe did not attend.

Mr. Fuentes said Parks Department officials are keenly aware of the strong public reaction to the possibility the vendors, who have been in Red Hook for nearly three decades, will be displaced. “This has become an issue larger than just some food,” Mr. Fuentes said. “This is about a cultural heritage. It’s about preserving something that’s been there for decades.”

Department officials noted that they are required to put the permits out for competitive bid and can’t making an exception solely for the Red Hook vendors. Still, Mr. Fuentes told us that “they do do understand the importance of the vendors…and they’re willing to work out something.” He said he is confident that “something is going to happen.”

The Department did not set a timetable for reaching a decision. The vendors were originally told their temporary use permits would not be extended beyond September 8, although their “season” runs through late October. Mr. Fuentes said they want to remain in the park for the full season as well as finding a long-term solution with the Parks Department.

Mr. Fuentes was upbeat, however, about coming to an agreement that will save the vendors and said that all of the people that make food on the weekends have been touched by the outpouring of community support. “To everyone who supported us and sent emails and petitions–it worked,” he said. “They received it and they’re very aware. Without the bloggers support I don’t think we would have gotten a chance to get this type of attention.”

Council Member Gonzalez is said to be pressing for a speedy resolution. We certainly hope they are not stalling until press interest in the vendors diminishes so they can make a negative decision in a month or so when the storm has passed or, even worse, that they will extended the vendors’ permits for the full season (a good thing) and then put the permit out for competitive bid in the dead of winter when no one is looking.

You know blogging, the blogosphere. When I teach at NYU I try to tell these young potential journalists: don’t waste your time with blogs because you need to be somewhere where there are editors, where you are getting paid. A blog might be useful therapy, but it’s not, at this stage of its development, journalism. I think that is a big mistake to be doing that kind of stuff.

To which we say: Not so. About the only thing which Mr. Hamill said with which we can agree is that one should be getting paid for his or her work.

Therapy? Hardly. Certainly, there are very personal blogs, but there is also very serious reporting on blogs. Bloggers post stories precisely because blogs lack newsroom hierarchies and editorial priorities that may have nothing to do with the news. We constantly hear from both reporters and from community activists about good, solid stories in Brooklyn that are killed by editors or that are discouraged in the first place. (It reminds us of an editor many years ago, from whom we learned a great deal, but who told us not to write up our Q&A with Slobodan Milosevic during the war between Serbia and Croatia because we’d already written too many stories from the war zone and no one cared that Milosevic guy. Excellent call.)

On Brian’s show, we said that perhaps five percent of the important stories in Brooklyn are reported in the press every week. We seriously misspoke. The figure is probably less than .5 percent. The fact is that there are countless stories in Brooklyn from environmental issues in Williamsburg and the demolition of historic structures to neighborhood development fights and illegal construction that wouldn’t get any coverage without blogs. At the very least, the stories would never see the light of day unless they were written up in blogs like Brownstoner, Curbed, Gothamist and GL first.

Could the coverage be more in-depth? Absolutely. Could there be more “shoe leather” reporting? No question. But the fact is that without blogs there would no coverage or reporting of any sort, either facile or in-depth.

Few writers today approach the genius of Mr. Hamill, Jimmy Breslin, Murry Kempton and their peers. There are many reasons for that, one of them being that the editorial marketplace doesn’t place the same value on that sort of writing, analysis and column writing anymore. That having been said, there are some damned good writers and thinkers plying their trade online. To the extent there are reporting limitations, they stem from the fact that most bloggers also have day jobs (another story in and of itself) and that they simply can’t devote the time that someone earning his or her primary living from a news operation can. This is going to start slowly changing, we think, in the next several years.

Are there shortcomings? Absolutely. There is not enough diversity among bloggers by race, ethnicity, socio-economic background and even neighborhood. There are too many newcomers to neighborhoods writing about them and not enough lifelong residents. We are all creatures of our own backgrounds, and like it or not, we see the world through the glasses we wear.

That having been said, blogging is nothing short of the ultimate democratization of journalism. We said on Brian’s show that Mr. Hamill would go into a bar and talk to someone and tell that person’s story. Today, the person in the bar has the ability to go online and tell his or her own story without having to wait for Mr. Hamill to find them and tell the tale.

That is nothing short of a revolution.

(You can listen to the full segment here. We are in the second half):

“Uncertainty shrouds the original America’s Playground…” Blah, blah, blah.

“..no one is quite sure what will become of it in the fall.” Blah, blah, blah.

“Coney Island has fallen long and hard from its apex…” Blah, blah, blah.

“But Sitt, who lived within walking distance of Coney Island as a child, insists he’ll make the place vibrant again and is even considering ways to build his complex without housing.”

Woah. Play that back.

HUH? No housing? Say what?

Here’s the paragraph in question:

But Sitt, who lived within walking distance of Coney Island as a child, insists he’ll make the place vibrant again and is even considering ways to build his complex without housing. “This is one of the most important pieces of American history,” he says. And his critics seem willing to drop their opposition if he drops housing. “Joe Sitt can still be a hero,” says local historian Charles Denson. “He could go down in history as someone who saved Coney Island.”

Thor is considering a Coney Island plan without housing? Maybe Mr. Sitt wants to share with us?