Not only does Celebrate Brooklyn kick off on Thursday night (6/14), but the Metropolitan Opera is going to be performing Faust in Prospect Park next Tuesday, June 19. OTBKB kindly relates the details from the Met. The series actually opens in Central Park today (6/12) and tomorrow (6/13). And there are six additional performances in the city and in New Jersey, but the easiest Brooklyn one is next week’s. So, if wish to supplement your rocking out at Celebrate Brooklyn, here’s your chance. The performance starts at 8PM.

Last year, around this time, we posted about a building that we dubbed the Sub-Zero Building because it bore an odd resemblance to everyone’s favorite high-end kitchen appliances. The Sub-Zero Building is in Greenpoint and finished with a shiny metallic finish. Some people like it. Some people don’t. We were wandering Williamsburg a couple of weeks ago and snapped a photo of the building above on Conselyea Street, then promptly forgot about it. Until our Greenpoint Correspondent wandered past the same building, took a photo and emailed it (that’s her photo above), calling it the “Son of the Sub-Zero Building.” In any case, we’re certain that some will like it. Some will like it less. And some will dislike it.

Here’s a little taste of a local religious procession that passed down Franklin Street in Greenpoint on Sunday. It happened during the Forgotten New York tour of Greenpoint. If you’re a Brooklyn resident, you run into these processions from time to time. At least, we do. We enjoy and appreciate them.

Will the beloved Red Hook vendors be subjected to a competitive bidding process that could result in the loss of yet another Brooklyn institution? Cesar Fuentes, the head of the vendor’s group will be meeting on Tuesday with Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe (who has so far been silent on an issue that has been prominent in the media and on which even U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer has weighted in), Brooklyn Borough Commissioner Julius Spiegel, City Council Member Sara Gonzalez and others. Food blogger Porkchop Express, who has reviewed all of the Red Hook food stands in detail, has also apparently been invited in order to offer his perspective on the vendors and their importance to the community.

Mr. Fuentes, ironically, became head of the vendors’ group after an attempt during the Giuliani Administration to evict them. At the time, he was 21 years old and working as an assistant cook at a stand run by his mother and his step-father. He said that Mr. Spiegel and Parks Department official in charge of the Red Hook park were “instrumental in giving us a chance provided that someone would represent the vendors.”

He says that the Red Hook vendors are gratified by all the support they have gotten from the community since word spread last week of the possible loss of their permits. “I think we’re going to have this resolved on Tuesday,” he says. “I’m confident we’re going to win the battle, but maybe not the war.” Mr. Fuentes believes that there are threats to the vendors long-term existence in the Red Hook park as the neighborhood changes, particularly with the opening of the Ikea next year.

The vendors are scouting Red Hook for possible rental space, in part so they can stay open year round. “It needs to have some green space and grass and a mercado feeling,” Mr. Fuentes says.

GL can think of any number of parks in Brooklyn where the Parks Department could encourage the opening of similar ethnic food markets. Sunset Park and McCarren Park both come to mind immediately. Prospect Park would be another place where ethnic food stands could thrive. In Queens, Flushing Meadow Park would be a natural location.

In fact, the more we think about it, a Let a Thousand Food Vendors Bloom policy that encouraged mom & pop ethnic food stands like the ones that have become a community asset in Red Hook, would be the ideal antidote the sterility of New York City street fairs and the fact that it’s hard to get more than a pretzel, a hot dog, ice cream and soft drinks in most New York City parks.

We participated in what was officially known as Forgotten Tour 30 yesterday. It was Forgotten NY‘s walk around Greenpoint. Writer and Forgotten New Yorker Kevin Walsh led the tour with an assist from Miss Heather of newyorkshitty. Among the things we learned is that it impossible to walk the streets of Greenpoint in a large group without attracting a lot of attention from curious residents. Encounters ranged from the gentleman who hung out his window and shouted about about the need to get rid of the local drug dealers and the guy who (we are not making this up) humped his window to the woman that showed off and explained her handmade “Rot in Hell” sign directed at a thief and the elderly woman in her third floor window demanding to know why we were looking at her building and insisting that we make sure we called the place downstairs that had probably been closed for 40 years “a restaurant” rather than “a bar.”

But we digress. Mr. Walsh, who is New York City’s foremost expert on what once was and the interesting history of buildings we see and places we go every day, offered a running commentary during a marathon four-hour excursion. (Truth in advertising: We parted in McCarren Park to shoot some photos of Williamsburg as the group continued for another hour or so with a final destination being the Graham stop on the L Train.) “They just don’t make this kind of thing anymore,” Mr. Walsh said, for instance, pointing out the Ionic columns and the “Green Man” on the former St. John’s Parish House. At another stop, Mr. Walsh noted that FNY deals in ephemera. “This is like a time warp from 1965,” he said, pointing at an old storefront. “Enjoy it while it lasts.”

FNY’s pages on Greenpoint can be seen here and here. We will put more photos in a flickr album and will link them here when we do. We strongly recommend that you keep an eye out for future FNY tours. They’re great fun, Mr. Walsh is an excellent tour guide and, at $5 per person, they may be NYC’s best bargain.

Former St. John’s Parish House with Ionic columns.

The “House within a House,” an exterior built around an exterior.

Church said to undergoing a condo conversion.

The group, with Mr. Walsh holding megaphone.

That bit of sidewalk at Bedford Avenue and N. 7th Street in Williamsburg is going in fast. It’s noteworthy because, according to Streets Blog, it’s the first time in New York City that parking for cars has been cut to make room for parking for bikes. The project was in the making for three years, but now that the city is actually working it, it’s going very quickly. The 560 square feet of new sidewalk space will provide space for 25 bikes at the entrance to the Bedford Avenue L Station.

The Landmarks Preservation Commission has declined to get involved in the issue of the buildings on Duffield Street in Downtown Brooklyn that many historians believe were sites on the Underground Railroad, but which the city wants to demolish in order to build underground parking. A consulting firm hired by the Economic Development Corporation and paid $500,000 to conduct a study said it found no conclusive evidence the buildings were part of the Underground Railroad. Supporters of the houses say the consultants overlooked evidence.

In any case, an email sent out last week to the President of the New York Landmarks Conservancy included the letter reproduced above from LPC Chair Robert Tierney that says, in effect, that the site should be commemorated by a plaque after the houses are torn down. The email said in part:

Today, we suffered a major setback in our advocacy. Peg received an unusually prompt and decisive reply from LPC Chair Tierney. In the attached letter, he declines to have his agency become involved.

It is important to note that LPC could take other steps than landmark designation to foster preservation. It could require comprehensive archaeological research. It could ensure that the buildings and site are fully documented, in photos and measured drawings. Or it could ask that the houses be spared and moved to another site. It could even espouse an alternative design that would spare the houses.

But instead, the plans for an underground garage, 1.5 acre open space, and “program of memorialization” will go forward, unconstrained by LPC. This is very discouraging.

The city intends to take the properties via eminent domain.

Related Posts:
State Historic Preservation Office Never Contacted About Underground Railroad Homes
Consultant Paid $500K to Write Report

We wandered into the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory‘s new location on Commercial Street in Greenpoint over the weekend and ice cream maker Mark Thompson giving away mini-cones of all his flavors. The shop, which is at 97 Commercial Street (at the end of Manhattan Avenue) has been open since Memorial Day Weekend, in fact, with the maker of what we think is Brooklyn’s best ice cream giving out free samples. There are until some license issues left over from the previous tenant of the space, Bleu Drawes, that are being hammered out. Mr. Thompson told us he decided that he’d rather give away his ice cream than pay a lawyer to expedite the solution.

Regardless, if you’ve ever wanted to get some free Brooklyn Ice Cream factory ice cream without waiting in a line and with a chance to get into a discussion with Mr. Thompson about how he practices his craft, this was your chance. We learned, for instance, about the machine that Mr. Thompson uses (it’s the best on the market, he says, and he can fix it quickly if it breaks), the shockingly high cost of vanilla extract (it was $257 a gallon a couple of years ago and now it’s $58 a gallon), the farms from which he purchases his fruit and the fact that his turbinado sugar comes from a distributor on Kent Avenue that handles most of the country’s turbinado sugar. We sniffed vanilla and the sugar. And, we sample his vanilla chocolate chunk, chocolate chocolate chunk and peach ice creams.

And, all we had planned to do was go in to buy a dish of ice cream without standing in the twenty minute line you find at the original Brooklyn spot.

The Greenpoint branch of the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory will be open from 3-9PM, Thursday through Sunday at the outset. Mr. Thompson plans to use the new space to expand the number of flavors that he can offer and to make ice cream cakes. (His ice cream is also being sold in the food court at the Aviator Sports Complex at Floyd Bennett Field.) He’ll also have a crepe cart outside in the future. A tremendous amount of work went into prepping the lovely space, which now has exposed brick walls, and will allow Mr. Thompson to expand far beyond what he’s able to do at his Fulton Ferry Landing space, which he says he’s outgrown.

Mr. Thompson told GL that he hopes to open three new locations over the next two years. (Alas, they are all outside of Brooklyn–in the Bronx, Staten Island and New Jersey.) The space next to the new ice cream store will be used to serve food. There are several possibilities, including one that would send a buzz through the Brooklyn foodie world. We won’t jinx anything for Mr. Thompson, but will say that it’s someone who is loved by a lot of people for his contributions for Brooklyn cuisine.

The new Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory outpost should open for real business on Thursday.

We were on the Wonder Wheel when we first noticed that developer Joe Sitt and Thor Equities are doing more land clearance on the property that they semi-demolished over the winter that is now hidden behind plywood fences. Concrete has been dug up and piles of dirt have appeared. Presumably, it is in preparation for that giant water slide Mr. Sitt has promised to open by the end of the month and for the Cole Bros. Circus that will be setting up for about ten days later in the summer.

Related Posts:
Circus Coming to Town?
Here’s the Water Slide Thor Says It Will Put Up in Coney Island

Carroll Gardens residents will be talking about the Battle of 360 Smith Street at a meeting of the Carroll Gardens Neighborhood Association tonight. It should be a spirited discussion, with residents trying to work out their expectations for the building, particularly its height along both Second Street and Second Place, and the future of the plaza at the entrance to the Carroll Street subway station. It would have originally been eliminated by the new building, but the developer has apparently agreed to preserve it. Some residents would also like existing trees (which are large and provide a great deal of shade) to be saved, rather than cut down and replaced by new trees that will take decades to grow. While the height of the building along Second Place has been reduced somewhat, residents of Second Street are concerned that they don’t bear the brunt of the full building height. Plans for the building have been rejected by the Department of Buildings, but one resident that wrote GL said many in the neighborhood fear that DOB will reject the plans until they suddenly approve them when the developer needs to break ground. The meeting starts at 7:30PM. It will take place at the Scotto Funeral Home at 106 First Place. In case you wish to attend a different local meeting tomorrow night, the Friends of Bond will be having their monthly meeting at 6PM. That meeting takes place at Proteus Gowanus, which is located at 543 Union Street.

Ah, yes, McCarren Pool as a swimming pool. (The image above is a little something we created last summer when it was very, very hot.) Now that there’s likely to be money in the city budget for returning McCarren Pool to its intended use, the process of figuring out how to do it is more than an academic exercise. There’s a design charette for the pool on Wednsday (6/13). It’s billed as “your opportunity to sit down with your neighbors and give your input to what the future McCarren Park Pool should be” The likely architect will be on hand. Here’s some of the official release inviting people:

Community Board #1, The Open Space Alliance (OSA), and Parks & Recreation invite you to an open public design and planning charette for McCarren Park Pool improvements:

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 13, 2007
5:00 PM & 7:00 PM (two sessions)
SWINGING 60’S SENIOR CITIZEN CENTER
211 AINSLIE STREET
(Corner of Manhattan Avenue)

Rather than simply responding to a design proposal, we invite you to participate in creating the design. Parks will give a summary of the schedule for the project, and discuss budget considerations. Audience participants will break into small groups, with each table hosted by two facilitators that are architectural professionals for assistance. Each table will have a large scale plan of the pool area, templates of an Olympic size pool, a multi-purpose building, tracing paper, markers, etc.

The charge for the evening will simply be that the designs must:

1) Provide swimming
2) Provide year-round use
3) Preserve and reuse the existing buildings

Other than that, everyone is free to dream (within budget constraints). Each table has 30 minutes to sketch and discuss — then each table will be given 5 minutes to present their ideas to the room. The recommendations will be synthesized by the project architects and presented at a follow-up community meeting.

The Parks Department’s accommodation of public participation over the last couple of years in planning the use of the pool has not been exactly overwhelming. It’s refreshing to see the public invited for an important planning session.

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

• Could Atlantic Yards Affordable Housing Income Mix Change Again? [AYR]
• Atlantic Yards Construction Update [No Land Grab]
• Call for Probe of Mass Arrest of Brooklyn Teens [Metro]
• Some Old Time Mob Flavor in Bensonhurst and Bath Beach [NYT]
• Two Carroll Gardens Neighborhood Meetings Tonight [Found in Brooklyn]
• New Townhomes on Lexington [Bed-Stuy Blog]
• Times Urges You to Stop in Dumbo During Your 36 Hours in NYC [Dumbo NYC]
• Condos with Killer Views of Death [Big Sky Brooklyn]
• Rally for Barron Aide Accused of “Assassination” Threat Against Queens Pol [NYP]
• Man Shot Dead on the Street in Bushwick [NYT]
• Don’t Mess with Greenpoint Girl [newyorkshitty]
• Nude Peeping Tom Still on the Loose in Kensington [Metro]
• Driving an L Line Robo-Train is Not Going to Be Hard [NYP]
• Atlantic Avenue Art Walk Wrap Up [McBrooklyn]
• Another Book Store Bites the Dust [I’m Seeing Green]
• 10th Anniversary Union Writing Group Reading is Tonight [OTBKB]

The only thing we can say about the AP story about Joe Sitt and Coney Island is that you’ve got to read it. You can draw your own conclusions when you do. Here are a few excerpts, highlighting Mr. Sitt’s comments:

“Yeah, OK, it’s a little bit grimy, etcetera,” says Sitt, his voice rising with an enthusiasm belying his surroundings. “But it’s got so much potential, calling out for someone to do something. I want to bring it back.”…Sitt conjures something even more breathtaking, more bombastic, more Brooklyn: A year-round resort unlike anything previously seen in his native borough…

“Everybody has a labor of love, something that they do in life,” Sitt explains in a voice still bearing a trace of Brooklynese. “Playing with cars, sports, whatever. Other guys like going to the beach and creating a castle, even knowing there’s a chance the water’s going to come and wash it away.

“They do it for the passion. For me, that’s what Coney Island is.”

Thor Equities has spent more than $100 million to acquire about 10 acres of Coney Island real estate over the last several years. Construction equipment is already on site, where a variety of projects — including a high-end hotel (perhaps shaped like a roller coaster), a water park, retail outlets and residential property — are under consideration.

Sitt’s company still needs a city zoning change for its residential and hotel components; if all goes according to plan, the project would open in 2011.

On a weekday morning, Sitt — in a dark blue pinstriped suit, lighter blue shirt and striped tie — appears incongruous with the local environment, strolling up Stillwell Avenue toward the beach. But it soon becomes clear that he’s equally at home on the boardwalk as in the boardroom…”Every single time I come out here, I get another vision,” he says. “Restaurants, theaters. Everything comes off another visit.”

Sitt heads heading back toward Stillwell Avenue, where a white trailer houses Thor’s local operation. A nondescript wire fence surrounds the property, where rows of yellow school buses sit idly within a seashell toss of the beach.

“The Future of Coney Island Project” reads the lettering on the trailer’s side. From Sitt’s perspective, that means tapping into its past, too.

“Everybody else is trying to create a Coney Island,” Sitt says. “We are the real thing. You know? We’re the real thing! Anything else is a knockoff of this.”

You’ll have to read the part about Mr. Sitt talking with a German tourist and saying “Auf wiedersehen” in the story itself. Auf wiedersehen, indeed. Arrivederci and au revoir too.

Red Hook, Brooklyn

It was anything but a typical Saturday at the Red Hook Ballfields as Sen. Charles Schumer dropped by to demand that the city drop plans that could lead to the eviction of its Latino food vendors. The vendors’ most prominent and politically influential advocate was joined by Red Hook Vendors Committee director Cesar Fuentes, Assemblyman Felix Ortiz, food writer Ed Levine and chef Andrew Carmellini. About a half-dozen TV crews and assorted bloggers, print journalists and photographers took in the scene.

Last week, the Food Vendors Committee of Red Hook Park, which represents the 13 vendors who set up the wildly popular stands on weekends, found out that their temporary use permits, which are renewed every two weeks, won’t be renewed after September 9. The Parks Department intends to switch to a long term use agreement and put it out for competitive bid. The vendors pay $1,500 a week for their permit, but the total cost of the operation for the season, including cleanup, is about $30,000. The vendors say they can’t afford much higher overhead and could easily be outbid or driven out of business by higher permit cost.

“We’re mom and pop stores,” said Carlos Fuentes, who is head of the Red Hook Vendors Committee. “We can only afford so much and we’re a very small group of vendors with very limited resources.”

Sen. Schumer, who visited each of the vendors and sampled a number of dishes after he spoke, said that the vendors are a “prime example of New York grit and immigrant ingenuity. There are a lot of reasons why New York is special and many of them are rolled into one place here.”

Sen. Schumer said the vendors had been part of the transformation of Red Hook from a neighborhood where notorious crimes had taken place to a safe and stable community. “We’re not here to bash the Parks Department,” he said. “We’re here to ask them to listen to us. This is a happy place and we want to keep it this way.” He called the food stands at the ballfields “a vibrant culinary and recreational landmark” that has gotten national attention. “It would be a travesty to dispose of it,” the Senator said.

As Sen. Schumer spoke, he attracted a large crowd of onlookers who had come to the park to eat.

“Removing this makes no sense at all,” said the Senator, who called on the Parks Department to “change the process” and not simply consider the highest bid, but the value something brings to the community. “Use common sense, not dollars and cents,” he said. “I urge the Parks Department to go back to the drawing board and to preserve and protect this scene, not to replace it” with something sterile. The vendors have been in the park for three decades.

Assem. Felix Ortiz said, “We’re going to stand together to makes sure that we can put a stop to the Mayor of the City of New York.” Food writer Ed Levine and chef Andrew Carmellini of A Voce also called on the Parks Department to protect the beloved Red Hook institution. Mr. Levine said that the food at the ball field is “the epitome of honest food made by real people.” Mr. Carmellini added that “This kind of soulful cooking is what keeps me inspired.”

A Parks Department spokesperson told the Post that “Our intention is not to push out the vendors, who we appreciate and want to keep, but to comply with concession regulations.” One person we spoke with accused the Parks Department staff of “elitism” in its approach to the Red Hook vendors and said the mom & pop, grassroots operation doesn’t fit the department’s “upscale” vision for the parks.

Sen. Schumer said he hoped the Department would find a way to make an exception to the regulation for the vendors and offered to help them find a way to do so.

Mr. Fuentes said the move to change the park to competitive bidding was “the byproduct of gentrification.” The neighborhood has begun to draw more visitors in recent years and a big new Ikea will be opening down the street next year. “We thought this might eventually happen,” he told GL. “This decision is about money.”

Mr. Fuentes recalled that the Vendors Committee had its origins in an earlier attempt to remove the group from the park during the Giuliani Administration. He was working at his mother’s food stand at the time and stepped up to organize the vendors. They prevailed and prevented the eviction.

“We’re going to be here in one way or another,” he said. “We want to continue to bring this food and this experience to Red Hook and to Brooklyn whether it’s in this park or on the street.”

He is scheduled to meet on Tuesday with Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe, Brooklyn Park Commissioner Julius Spiegel and City Council Member Sara Gonzalez. He also said that the vendors are looking into acquiring space elsewhere in Red Hook, partly so that they can turn their immensely popular spring and summer food season into a year-round affair.

“The people have expressed their support for us and their annoyance at the system,” Mr. Fuentes told us.

You can find coverage in the Post here , the Daily News here, 1010 WINS here, and you can check out Lost City’s post here. We’ll provide a complete roundup and some additional news tomorrow.

It’s Sunday, and time for Disconnected in Brooklyn on Craigslist. This one definitely caught our attention:

SEXY CLOWN AT SPUTNIK – w4m – 28
You were in my dreams last night. I woke up thinking about you too. I’ve seen sad clowns, happy clowns, grumpy clowns…but you weren’t trying to be any kind of clown. you were just being yourself. I admire that. And you sir, are a very SEXY clown!!

I’ve been thinking about burying my nose in your bright orange clown-fro, running my tongue along your alabaster skin, kissing your sensuous red lips. Hopefully next time we can talk so I can try to figure out who lurks behind that mysterious facade.

Who says being a clown is a bad thing?

Once a week we turn to some of the comments that readers have left. Here’s a sampling from the last seven days:

The Absolute Last Straw: City Wants to Kick Out Red Hook Vendors. “My bet is that they’ll give the vending contracts to “Latino” food vendors so that they can make it seem like nothing and no one has changed. Yes, it’s about money, but race and racism are inseparable from it here. And just one small point: this isn’t a “Brooklyn-is-now-less-interesting” problem, but rather a problem of dozens and dozens of families losing valuable income every week.” [Bob]

Mr. Sitt Begins His Coney Island Blue Period. “You’re losing the bigger picture and no one will take you seriously until your reports get serious. Mud-slinging and name calling will get you no where, and to tell you the truth it’s boring and uninteresting.” [Anonymous]

Park Slope Civic Council Endorses Congestion Pricing…with Conditions. “This reminds me of when my university newspaper would write an editorial about foreign policy. Maybe the Park Slope Civic Council can tell us their stance on the ballistic missile shield as well.” [Anonymous]

Robert Scarano is Having a Bad June. I guess the rally’s are being held now because the damage that has been done in the last few years is visible as far as actually SEEING the end result of knocking down buidings and replacing them w/”Fedders” type buildings and the like. [Lisanne McT]

[Photo courtesy of Elizabeth Weinberg/flickr]

Photographer and photoblogger Elizabeth Weinberg headed out to Plumb Beach and Dead Horse Bay and puts up a whole lot of excellent photos about it. You should check out her post on Burnt Sienna here and her Dead Horse Bay flickr photoset, from whence the above photo comes, here. Meantime, here some background on Plumb Island, from prattcollaboratives.org, to which Ms. Weinberg’s flickr post directed us:

From 1891 to 1907 Plumb Island was occupied by a group of homesteaders who set up a series of shacks and tents that eventually developed into bars and inns. Because the island was outside the jurisdiction of New York City the Islanders sold tobacco and alcohol tax free. 1907 the US army was sent by the city to break up the party and evict the homesteaders. The land was then leased to the former judge Winfield Overton, who allowed the homesteaders to return shortly after his arrival. The judge quickly declared himself ruler of the island and began organizing boxing matches, which were also illegal in New York at the time. The US military was then called again to “depose the dictator ” they had unwittingly installed.

In the late 1930s Robert Moses evicted the last homesteaders, demolished all of the remaining structures and connected the island to the mainland by a strip of highway and a bridge now known as Exit 9B on the Belt Parkway, turning it into a run down rest stop. In recent years the islands parking lot has become a regular rendezvous for swingers and the surrounding woods have become a cruzing spot for gay men.

Excellent photos.

Here is a video clip of Sen. Charles Schumer at the Red Hook Ball Fields yesterday. He asked the Parks Dept. not to put the permit they use to be in the park up for competitive bid, possibly evicting them. (YouTube has been slow to generate an image for the vid, we apologize for the computer glitch look of this, but it does play and we thought some readers might be interested in it, so we posted it, image or not.)

We return again on this Sunday to our Say What feature on signage that has been compromised by construction, tagging or vandalism. This sign comes to us–like so many of the finest signs–from Williamsburg. At least, we think so, but we can’t be sure as it has been totally obliterated, leading us to say, “Huh?”

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

• Sign the DiFara’s Pizza Petition [A Brooklyn Life]
• Union Picnic also Shut by Department of Health [A Test of Will]
• Save Coney Island Mermaids Needed for Parade [Kinetic Carnival]
• Broad Channel [Brit in Brooklyn]
• Wright’s Liquors [Bluejake]
• Kensington/Windsor Terrace CSA [Kensington Brooklyn]
• Cement Factory or Public Space? [Brooklyn Streets, Carroll Gardens]
• Explaining Off the Record [OTBKB]
• Red Hook Real Estate $queezes Food Carts [NYP]
• Two New Shows at Brooklyn Historical Society [Brooklyn Heights Blog]
• So, How About That Pool/Rink in Prospect Park? [NYT]

Here are some YouTube vids of Brighton Beach, Brooklyn for this Sunday.

S
Livable streets in Brooklyn? You bet. There will be a Livable Streets in Brooklyn exhibit at the Brooklyn Public Library from June 20-August 31 by the Transportation Alternatives Project for Public Spaces & The Open Planning Project. It will be in the Lobby Gallery at Grand Army Plaza. The opening event is on June 21. There is a reception from 6:30PM-7:00PM and a presentation from 7PM-8PM. Among other things, it’s an opportunity to check out the Community Plan for Grand Army Plaza. You can rsvp by emailing streets (at) transalt (dot) org.

Here’s a fun Park Slope event. There’s going to be a 10th Anniversary Reading o f the Union Writer’s Group at the Old Stone House tomorrow, June 11 at 8PM. (That’s between Fifth Avenue and Fourth Avenue at Third Street in J.J. Byrne Park.) Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn’s Louise Crawford writes about the event, in which she is involved:

Playwright Rosemary Moore is bringing a bunch of actors to read two scenes of a new play. Barbara Ensor is reading an excerpt from her forthcoming book, Thumbelina. Marian Fontana is reading from her hilarious new memoir about dating.

–I’m reading from a story called, “Halloween Blonde.”
–Mary Crowley is reading a set of beautiful poems.
–Wendy Ponte is reading a section from her novel about a woman in search of her Portugese heritage.
–Rosemary Moore is presenting two scenes from a new play.
–Barbara Ensor is reading from her forthcoming “young adult book, Thumbelina, Tiny Runaway Bride.”
–Kevin McPartland is reading from Brownstone Dreams, a novel about gangs in Park Slope in the early 1960’s.
–Marian Fontana is reading from her new memoir about dating.

Check it out.

As you may know, we post over at Curbed from Monday through Friday. Here’s some of this week’s output over there:

• Checking on the South Slope Buildup (above)
• Another One Goes Up: Fourth Avenue Boom Marches South
• Have You Checked Out the Greenpoint ‘Toxindex’?
• Atlantic Yards Eminent Domain Ruling React-O-Matic
• Checking in on McCarren Park Condoland
• Checking in with the North Brooklyn Belvederes
• Interesting Brooklyn Building Strategy Revealed!
• Who Says Williamsburg is Going Luxe?