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You might remember that it was supposed to be open last year, but that local blogger INSIJS, who has followed the status of the waterfront green space, which occupies part of the site of the former Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal, found officials saying that the sod hadn’t taken yet.

Well, yesterday, the state confirmed that the park will be open 10AM through 8PM from Saturday through Memorial Day and that it will be open weekends after that. This is a low-budget park for now: no staff to keep it open weekdays, no furniture whatsoever and only portable toilets.

Some verbiage from the press release announcing the opening:

All the work on grass and plantings at the new State Park in Williamsburg over the past year is really starting to take hold. As a result, though there is still some work to do at the site to open full time, State Parks will be opening the park on a trial basis, during weekends, starting Memorial Day weekend, from 10 AM – 8 PM. A more formal opening will come later in the summer.

To protect the young park through this transitional phase, activities on the site will be largely limited to passive uses including, relaxing, picnicking, enjoying the terrific views and open space. Therefore, State Parks respectfully asks folks to leave their pets, skates and skate boards at home. We ask that bikes be walked through the park and please, no one may go in the water. Comfort facilities are not yet available.

A huge, huge cheer for the opening. We hope that the state park authorities, who tend to rule with a heavy hand, allow the new park to reflect the neighborhood vibe.

Call us weird, but we look for signs of oil in development sites in Williamsburg and train our noses too. Yesterday, someone left a comment about a smell of oil so strong on N. 5th Street near Bedford Avenue this weekend that the Fire Department was called. It’s worth noting, as it’s not the first such notation of oil smells in the neighborhood that we’ve seen:

The Fire Dept was called to the Mini Mall bldg corner of Bedford and N 5th street across from Urban Green project on Sunday may 19th after about an hours or so of rain…due to smells of “petroleum” said one of the apt residents of bldg. The NYFD came after the Gas Co had been called and said after checking the source was not a gas leak. The NYFD could not figure out source of smell either…They just hosed down the gutter…Note the gutter drainage by the bldg taps into the bigger drainage system in the neighborhood…Could it be that the as all the big dev happens here, they are disrupting the multiple oil leaks/pools that lie underneath williamsburg for decades?…some known, some forgotten…Now when it rains and the water tables rises there are often “petro” ordors…and as they set to break ground on more condo towers…how much of the toxic oil pollution will get displaced and spread under existing homes that to date have had not problem…What a fu*king mess. Where is Bloomberg?

We are not naive about the neighborhood’s industrial heritage and all this entails, yet what surprises us is the official disinterest in what might or might not be underfoot. There is a long-circulating story about an oil spill that originated long ago with the Astral Oil Works, which was located roughly where the Bayside storage facility is today near the Bushwick Inlet. There are also multiple ruptured fuel tanks that show up on environmental maps and surveys. We were right around the location mentioned on Sunday and didn’t smell anything, but it was before any rain, so who knows. Greenpoint residents have long noted one can smell oil from the Greenpoint-Exxon/Mobil spill when it rains.

it sits in the footprint of the Atlantic Yards development site, inside the Vanderbilt Railyards. Empty lunch rooms, abandoned offices, ransacked archives, all with the lights still on. The train yard and nearby tunnels are still in use by the Long Island Railroad, but this shop seems to have been empty for years.

Very, very, very cool stuff.

• Even the Prospect Park Planning Mtg is, Somehow, About Parking [Streets Blog]
• Details on Domino Plant Preservation Progress [WPA]
• Will Domino be a Sweet Landmark? [Empire Zone]
• Robert Moses Legacy Discussion Tonight [AYR]
• Is Mr. Guttman Cutting Corners at 155 Water in Dumbo? [Brownstoner]
• Brooklyn’s Most Interesting Couple Has Plumbing Issues, Stinky House [NYP]
• Brewery Digs Brooklyn [NYO]
• Fake Brooklyn Veterinarian Gets Probation [NYT]
• New Neighborhood Bike Lanes! [Myrtle Minutes]
• Added Bed-Stuy Parking Options? [Bed-Stuy Blog]
• Mixed Income Bushwick, Circa 1880 [BushwickBK]
• A Lot of Dirt at Cadman Plaza [BHB]
• A Lot of New Businesses in Greenpoint [newyorkshitty]
• Greenpoint Grocery Stores [11222]
• Attending the Bill deBlasio Fundraiser [OTBKB]
• Checking Out the Chocolate Bar [Clinton Hill Blog]
• Curb Your Freaking Dog [Brooklyn Enthusiast]
• Brooklyn Bridge Park Summer Film Series Preview [Brooklyn Record]
• A Look at the F Train Cemetery Stop [Big Sky Brooklyn]
• Brooklyn Mortgage Fraud Trial Before Haitian Murder and Torture Charges [NYP]

There’s a planning workshop for the Greenpoint and Williamsburg portion of the Brooklyn Greenway coming up tomorrow night (5/24). It starts at 6PM and will take place at the Brooklyn Brewery at 79 North 11th St. The meeting is described as follows:

Join residents and organizations of Greenpoint and Williamsburg to help shape the plan for the Brooklyn Waterfront Greenway. Many elements of the greenway are provided for in the Parks Department’s Waterfront Master Plan for Greenpoint-Williamsburg. This workshop will consider those elements which are not yet programmed.

Brooklyn Greenway Initiative and Regional Plan Association will provide background information and studies to support the discussion of planning options. Participants will break into groups with maps, aerial photographs and diagrams to brainstorm, explore possibilities and achieve consensus on route location, configuration, design features and user facilities.

You can check out the Brooklyn Greenway website for more information about the meeting and about the project, which is coming along quite nicely, given the large number of private and public land that involved in creating the greenway. (If you pick up a copy of the User’s Guide to the Brooklyn Greenway, GL contributed a couple of the photos, of the Gowanus and of Newtown Creek, naturally.) There’s apparently a free beer tasting after the workshop, if that’s an incentive.

Meet the Greenpoint Party Sign, a little upside down one-way number that comes with its own party hat. It’s on Quay Street and it comes courtesy of the sharp eye and busy camera of our Greenpoint correspondent, the indefatigable Miss Heather.

The expected purge of Community Board 6 by Borough President Marty Markowitz has taken place. City Council Members David Yassky and Bill de Blasio also did not reappoint members. The CB6 members have reportedly been purged in retribution for their opposition to the Atlantic Yards development, although other reasons are likely to be offered for the dismissals. GL has received a list of members that have non been reappointed as part of what could be called The Atlantic Yards Saturday Night Massacre. Mr. Markowitz removed five CB 6 members. Council Member Yassky removed three CB6 members and Council Member de Blasio removed one.These are the members that have been purged (BP means they were appointed and removed by Mr. Markowitz, 39 means CM de Blasio and 33 means CM Yassky): Jerry Armer (BP), Angela Beni (BP), Pauline Blake (33), Bill Blum (BP), Al Cabbad (33), Barbara Longobardi (BP), Madelaine Murphy (39), Marilyn Oliva (BP), Theresa Ricks (33).

More details tomorrow.

Greenpoint has a baby billy goat. It’s cute too. We don’t know if the goat lives in Greenpoint or if it was just visiting the neighborhood, but the photo was taken on Manhattan Avenue in front of a building that has some structural integrity issues about which we’ve previously written. The Greenpoint Billy Goat photo comes to us, as all good things from this corner of Brooklyn do, courtesy of our Greenpoint correspondent.

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Wrong.

It certainly looks like it’s full speed ahead, especially given the appearance of workers on the roof of one of an adjoining building (who were dressed in some kind of hazmat gear to do their work) and the appearance of a construction trailer on the property. That would be the trailer, above, which is on the site of the former Red Hook Crushers operation. The cleanup plan for the site has also been approved by the Department of Environmental Conservation. (Some of Whole Foods cleanup took place long before the plan was approved.) There are traces of carcinogenic benzene in groundwater at the site (whose source has not been pinpointed) and a variety of “volatile organic” contaminants left over by decades of industrial use of the property. Most of the store is being built below street level and is not subject to any city review or approval. The grocer has rejected neighborhood requests for a green roof and other environmentally-friendly measures.

The store is still supposed to open in 2008, although it seems like an ambitious target.

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With the Domino Refinery in Williamsburg in the process of possibly being designated as a landmark, there will be a “Don’t Demo Domino” concert fundraiser on June 3 from 2PM-8PM in Grand Ferry Park in Williamsburg. The email we got says, in part:

Community leaders and local rock bands will gather on the Williamsburg waterfront on June 3, 2007, to participate in a benefit “friendraiser” concert to save the historic Domino’s Sugar Factory from demolition. Concert organizers Act Local have partnered with the Waterfront Preservation Alliance to produce the event. The lineup includes nationally known acts like Nada Surf, The Wau Wau Sisters, and The Hungry March Band, as well as emerging acts Cheeseburger, Vic Thrill and the Saturn Missile, and The Black Tie Party.

More details to follow.

There’s good news and bad news about the L Train from the MTA. The good news is that, eventually, there will be more trains and your life will become slightly less unpleasant. The bad news is that there won’t be any relief until 2010. At which point, thousands of additional residents along the L corridor could render the service improvements moot. The New York Times reports on a report given to the MTA yesterday that said:

an additional 64 specially equipped subway cars cannot be fully up and running before January 2010. The additional cars would allow fuller use of a new high-tech signal system intended to increase the line’s capacity.

The crosstown L line, which stretches from Eighth Avenue and 14th Street in Manhattan to Rockaway Parkway in Canarsie, Brooklyn, currently runs with 15 trains an hour during the morning and evening rush, or one every four minutes.

Once more of the computerized trains are added, the authority will be able to run as many as 26 trains an hour on the line during the rush…That works out to one every 2 minutes 18 seconds. Mr. Fleuranges said the agency expected to have the new cars up and running by mid-2009. But a consulting engineers’ report to the authority’s board said the system was not likely to be fully operational with the new cars until January 2010. He said that in the interim some conventional trains will be added to the line later this year to increase peak capacity to 17 trains an hour…

The L line has added riders at a faster pace than the subway system as a whole, according to data from New York City Transit. The busiest station on the Brooklyn part of the line is Bedford Avenue, in Williamsburg, which had 4.99 million riders pass through the turnstiles last year, the agency reported. That was a 139 percent increase from 1995, when 2.09 million riders entered the station. Over all, subway ridership increased 46 percent in the same period.

Hey, 2010 is right around the corner.

Let’s put it this way: If you’re looking for a place with a rock solid, drop dead move in date, we wouldn’t necessarily suggest putting your eggs in the Urban Green basket. Especially if the job ends up having any nasty safety-related construction issues. The photo below shows the sidewalk on the N. 5th Street end of the site. The good news is that since the hole was filled in, it would only be a ten foot drop if the sidewalk collapsed. The bad news is that there is nothing underneath that jagged concrete so there is a slight chance you could feel the ground move beneath your feet.

Yesterday, we noted a protest and public hearing about the Underground Railroad Houses on Duffield Street in Downtown Brooklyn. Well, the Eminent Domain hearing is today. (The city wants to take the property via eminent domain so it can build underground parking). The hearing takes place today (5/22) at 10AM at New York City College of Technology in the Klitgord Center Auditorium & Gymnasium, which is located at 285 Jay Street (at Tillary Street) in Brooklyn. There are full details about the hearing at the Historic Districts Council Blog.

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[Photo courtesy of jukeboxgraduate/flickr]

An item about a new vegetarian restaurant in Greenpoint deserves its own item in GL. So it is with the interestingly named William Taft Vegetarian Diner and Deli at 155 Calyer Street. The restaurant bears the name of U.S. President William Taft, who was a patient at John Harvey Kellogg’s Sanitarium in Battle Creek, where vegetarianism was the order of the day. Blogger and jogger Gary Jarvis emails us that:

The place now looks very close to opening. I’m of two minds, though…It’d be terrific to have a place like this only a couple of blocks from home. On the other hand, I was was wondering there’d be enough interest or demand to sustain such a venture. I am aware, however, that Williamsburg has extended a long exploratory tendril up Franklin Street, and that the hipster crowd has been moving northward along it and colonizing the western reaches of Greenpoint. But will this be enough? I sure hope so — I’d really like to see this place succeed. I mean, assuming the food is good and the folks there are nice and all that.

In addition, the excellent 11222 to which we haven’t paid nearly enough attention (and for which we will be making amends), includes an item on the Taft. 11222, from whom we lifted the photo here, notes:

A few months back, the shuttered space had a sign taped to it, announcing the William Taft Vegetarian Restaurant. We weren’t sure if it was a joke or not. Walking by once to find people inside cleaning, we asked when the place would open and were told April 15. That day came and went, and I just assumed it was another NYC restaurant venture that just never got off the ground.

A few weeks ago, we noticed that the bright red FRANGELLO’S awning had been removed. We hoped that meant progress.

Given that the nearest vegetarian options are in Williamsburg, the Taft should be a welcome addition for those closer to Newtown Creek.

• Considering the Arabic School Controversy in Brooklyn [Sun]
• An Atlantic Yards Lie, Circa 2003? [AYR]
• A Lot of Brooklyn Artists, Not Much Brooklyn Public Art [Brooklyn Daily Eagle]
• Downside of Summer: Noise [My Life in Brooklyn]
• Burglar Leaves Resume at Dep. Brooklyn Borough President’s House Break In [NYP]
• Red Hook: Then and Now [NY1]
• When Bureaucracy Met Reality, 1906 Edition [newyorkshitty]
• Will the Real Chocolate Factory Please Stand Up [Clinton Hill Blog]
• The Lush Life in Saratoga Park [Bed-Stuy Blog]
• Bed-Stuy Rezoning Details [Brownstoner]
• Officials Lukewarm on Carroll Gardens Rezoning [Carroll Gardens Courier]
• With the Norwegians in Bay Ridge [Brooklyn Record]
• Jane’s Carousel is Open for the Season! [Dumbo NYC]
• Nashville Warbler (the Bird) on Eighth Avenue [OTBKB]
• Inky, the Roebling Oil Field Cat Doing Well [Bad Advice]
• What Happened to Frank & Son? [11222]
• Lincoln Road Gets Green [Across the Park]
• Brooklyn Student Endures “Hernia Hell” Courtesy of NYPD [NYP]

May 22nd, 7 PM @ Phoenix House, which is located at 174 Prospect Place (between Carlton and Vanderbilt) in Prospect Heights. The showing is sponsored by the Prospect Place Block Association.

June 1, 6PM @ Spoke the Hub Re:Creation Center, which is at 748 Union Street. It will be part of the Local Produce Festival, Sponsored by Spoke the Hub, RSVP: 718-408-3234.

June 3, 7PM @ 322 Union Avenue. Sponsored by UnionDocs as part of The Documentary Bodega Series.

June 13, 6PM Reception & 6:30 Screening @ 87 Lafayette Street, NYC, Sponsored by Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project.

June 15, 7PM @ Spoke the Hub Re:Creation Center at 748 Union Street. Part of the Local Produce Festival (sponsored by Spoke the Hub), RSVP: 718-408-3234.

June 22, 7PM @ Spoke the Hub Re:Creation Center at 748 Union Street. Part of the Local Produce Festival (sponsored by Spoke the Hub), RSVP: 718-408-3234.

You can check out more information at the Brooklyn Matters website.

A: Horrendous.

Take the awful case of 18-20 Jackson Place, a small street in the South Slope between 16th Street and Prospect Avenue and Sixth and Seventh Avenues. It comes to our attention thanks to Concerned Citizens of Greenwood Heights. A neighbor is circulating a letter to try to get the Department of Buildings–whose mission is so critical to community safety and quality of life, yet which is so overwhelmed and sometimes incompetent and far worse–to pay attention. Amazingly, city records show the building hasn’t gotten a single violation or citation from DOB.

Here’s some of the text of the letter, in case the photos don’t graphically show what’s being done to the people that have to live with the building:

The property at 18-20 Jackson Place has now become a safety issue. Although the owner has said he will do the right thing, he has broken or skated DOB rules and regulations. He removed the third floor window in the front, and all the windows in the rear to intentionally leave the property open to the elements. Last year was issued a permit to demo the extension at the rear of the building, but has intentionally left most of the back open and unprotected, including a ten foot hole in the foundation. This is very dangerous, and a violation of city building maintenance rules.

Like many of the contractors, builders, and owners that are coming to our neighborhood only seeing $$, his noncompliance with the rules is effecting us all. The damage done to the adjacent is property has already become a hazard. One family was without a second floor bathroom for over two months because of his negligence, and a rodent problem is starting to be seen. The problem is only getting worse, and must be stopped. He has over fifty disapprovals by the DOB to date, and who knows what else he will do to take the money and run.

We are seeking your help in an effort to put a stop to this blatant disregard for our block and neighborhood. We are asking for the help of our community board 7, and elected officials. We must protect our families and our homes from the GREED. We are not against home improvement when it is done legally, but the rules are there to protect us all.

We are asking any and all city agencies to enforce the rules of compliance of city codes and safety.

Another average day at the wonderful intersection of Wild West Brooklyn Development and Theater of the Absurd City Government.

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This Williamsburg sign has been like this for many years, but we haven’t posted a photo of No Shitass Parking. Until today.

1) If you’re a fan of the Brick Oven Gallery on Havemeyer Street, you’ve probably noticed that it’s been closed for a few weeks. It’s always been one of our personal favorites for a pizza in Williamsburg and we’re fans of its “Brooklyn Caviar.” In any case, we went past it again yesterday to find that it’s still closed due to permit and plumbing problems. Originally, the sign in the window had a reopening date and a couple of weeks that was crossed out and replaced by “?”. Another victim of the post-Taco Bell Rat Fest Department of Health Get Tough Witch Hunt? We’re thinking the answer is most definitely a big yes. (By the way, if the Department of Health is looking for places with some real issues, we know a pizza restaurant in Park Slope that’s very popular with the stroller set that has a little bit of a mouse problem. We’ve been in there twice in the last six weeks or so later in the evening when it’s quieter and have seen a mouse scampering across the floor both times.)

2) Looks like the storefront on Bedford Avenue that the Toll Brothers have been selling North 8 condos from for nearly a year has been rented. At least, the “for rent” sign has been off the building for a couple of weeks. Anyone know what will open there when the Toll Brothers leave?

More action on the Duffield Street Underground Railroad Houses front. Those are the historic homes in Downtown Brooklyn that the city wants to demolish to make way for underground parking for hotels across the street and other nearby developments. Many historians believe the buildings were safehouses for the Underground Railroad. There is a rally today (5/21) at City Hall at Noon and a Public Hearing tomorrow (5/22) at 10AM at City Tech Auditorium, which is at 300 Jay Street. A very expensive report by paid city consultants did not find evidence the buildings were safehouses, but advocates for the houses strongly disagree and say the consultants skewed their findings. You can see more about the rally and hearing at No Land Grab and at Brit in Brooklyn.

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