We made our first visit to the increasingly well-known Red Hook Ball Fields this weekend. The scene is going strong and, this year, they’ve moved the food stands into the park, which gives it a nicer, more open feeling. If you’re not seeing the slideshow, you can go over to the flickr photoset here.

Among the many places those new glassy bus shelters have popped up in recent weeks is Columbia Street in Red Hook. We’re still not sure how we feel about them as part of the streetscape, although we suppose we more like them than not. We like that they’re labeled as to location of the stop, which is a help to riders who may not know the bus route they’re using, and we think they’re nicer than the shelters they replace. Regardless, we might as well get used to them as 3,300 of them will be installed over time.

Ah, summer in Brooklyn. Nice walks around the neighborhoods. Outdoor parties. Celebrate Brooklyn. And, monster swarms of mosquitoes from the construction site next door. We’ve spied a couple of these water-filled babies in Williamsburg and thought they would be God’s gift to mosquitoes as soon as the season arrived. Now, from the South Slope comes the following e-missive:

With the warm weather coming, that means the mosquito’s are not far away. I am sure this problem will exist with other properties around the neighborhood with similar partially dug foundations, but I am especially concerned with the one at 230 16th street. There is a partially dug foundation at the 3 unit property at 230 16th street that has resulted in a concrete pool being left that probably has about 7 feet of stagnant water in it currently.

We have initiated a few calls with 311 with little luck so far, trying to get them to act on either forcing the contractor to pump the water out or treat the water to prevent a massive mosquito incubator.

If anyone has a few minute, please log a 311 complaint about this property. If anyone is aware of other large stagnant pools in partial construction sites, please let us know so we can open tickets on those as well.

A neighbor of the mosquito pond emailed this comment:

I saw that pond today. I happened to catch the gate open. It’s huge!…Last year the mosquitoes were the worst ever in my backyard on 16th.

Excellent!

Arabic School Fight Continues:

• Arabic School Fight Moves to Boerum Hill [NYT]
• No Room in Boerum Hill Either for Arabic School [NYP]
• Rev. Meeter is “Very Unhappy” with BP Coverage of Arabic School Issue [Old First Blog]

Other News & Info:

• Activist Journalism and Brooklyn Roots [AYR]
• The Vans Are Better in Greenpoint [newyorkshitty]
• Exploring Colonial Williamsburg [Daily Intel]
• Carlton Avenue is Now Two Way [Myrtle Minutes]
• Trouble at Hello Living? [Set Speed]
• Rally to Make Washington Avenue Bldg Shorter [Brownstoner]
• More Adventures in Non-Contextual Architecture [Bed-Stuy Blog]
• BKLYN Designs 07 Recap [Dumbo NYC]
• St. Ann’s School Finally Loses the Scaffolding [BHB]
• New Brooklyn E-Newsletter! [Clinton Hill Blog]
• Coney Island Fixture Makes Dallas Paper [Coney Island Reporter]
• Brooklyn War of the Roses Update [NYP]
• A Concert on the R Train [Bay Ridge Blog]
• Remove That Memorial From This Little League Field [Gerritsen Beach.Net]
• My Beautiful Badass Brooklyn [Erica’s Blog]
• Local Musicians Tour Less, Blog More [Brooklyn Record]
• Little Boy Falls from Window at Red Hook Houses [NYP]
• Young Brooklyn Girl Fights Off Attacker [AP/Metro]

The most recent of the properties–173 Kent Avenue and 224 Wythe Avenue–were transferred on April 26, for a sale price of $4.1 million, according to property records. The name on an application for a fence that just went up around the property is Chetrit VP Jeff Gdansky.

If you know Kent Avenue, you know this property as the big cement plant across the street from 184 Kent Avenue. It was the home of Brooklyn Ready Mix and was slowly demolished during the winter. It was a curious demolition process, with no fences up and the site wide open to anyone. Yesterday, the new fence on the property was still open and the property was being used for a photo shoot. Some demolition is also underway at the 224 Wythe Avenue building, which until a few weeks ago was a furniture warehouse.

The property is zoned for medium density residential development, with a current buildable square footage of about 193,000 square feet. About two-thirds of the full city block is now under the control of the new owners.

Any new development would join its neighbors, 184 Kent, which is being converted to a 320-unit luxury rental building, Northside Piers and Douglaston Development’s big Edge development.

UPDATE: As it turns out, our friend INSIJS and GL posted about Chetrit and the Kent Avenue property within ten minutes of each other this morning. INSIJS’s post contains a lot more background detail than our. We’d change the “exclusive” label, because clearly this is a co-exclusive at best, except that the way blogger works, we’d end up breaking some links.

No less than three garden shops are now open in the Hook. The Chelsea Garden Center Brooklyn has been operating for a couple of weeks at 444 Van Brunt Street, a block from the Red Hook Fairway. The Gowanus Nursery, which lost its space on Third Street, reopened last month at 45 Summit Street. And, this weekend saw the Grand Opening of the Liberty Sunset Garden Center on Pier 41 at 204 Van Dyke Street. We found about this because a van with ample signage was parked two store away from Chelsea (below), and signage for the Liberty Garden was also on display on a telephone pole. Red Hook Geranium War, anyone?

Three garden centers in Red Hook, plus the longstanding Red Hook Community Farm. (Not to mention the nearby corporate competition, which we won’t.) Who would ever have thunk it?

We know that irony is in the eye of the beholder and we’re also aware that timing is everything. And so, we’ll say up front that we missed the fun at the opening of the excellent Brooklyn Waterfront Artist’s Coalition show this weekend by about 45 minutes. Nonetheless, we arrived to the story of how Borough President Marty Markowitz had posed for some photos in front of an exhibition of pics taken by one of our favorite Brooklyn photographers, Nate Kensinger, who goes by the flickr name Gowanus. Mr. Kensinger, who also has his own photoblog called Nate Kensinger Photography, is exhibiting some photos celebrating the disappearing industrial heritage of Red Hook. We know that he is not photographing the neighborhood to cheer its redevelopment for Ikea and Bed, Bath & Beyond. Like other photographers, Mr. Kensinger is chronicling the disappearance of a landscape whose loss is mourned by some Brooklynites and whose big box replacements like Ikea are not universally supported. The photo in front of which Mr. Markowitz posed included the Red Hook Graving Dock (now filled in for parking) and the demolished Revere Sugar Dome. The Borough president, however, said the photos show the great development progress being made in Red Hook. “Come back to this neighborhood in 10 years, and you won’t even recognize it,” he said.

To which we simply say: Exactly.

1) Moim, a new Korean restaurant (“Modern Korean Cuisine,” actually) is getting ready to open at Garfield and Seventh Avenue after a massive construction and renovation effort. One neighbor who watched the work joked that so much dirt and other material was taken out of the building during the building of the new restaurant (in a space that used to house a laundromat) that he thought “they were building an Olympic-sized swimming pool inside.” Moim, pictured above, has a very non-Seventh Avenue front and contrasts rather strongly with its Old School Mexican neighbor Rancho Alegre. The restaurant’s website isn’t active yet.

2) Seventh Avenue pizza and pasta eat-in, carryout and delivery staple Pizza Plus had a significant fire late last week that not only burned out the eatery but also made all the residents upstairs homeless. The sad news was conveyed by OTBKB, which is also trying to coordinate donations for the victims of the fire and the workers rendered temporarily jobless by the fire. The eatery will rebuild and reopen. GL wishes them a speedy return.

Today’s Information:

• Meet Non-Hipster Williamsburg: 47% of the Population Gets Public Assistance [amNY]
• Atlantic Yards Keeps Coming Up in Brooklyn Development Discussions [AYR]
• Park Slope Arabic School Controversy Spreads to Dean Street [Sun]
• Jehovah’s Witnesses Cashing in on Brooklyn Heights Real Estate [NYP]
• Kensington is a Good Place to Open a Business [Kensington Brooklyn]
• Can’t Afford Park Slope? Get Thee to Windsor Terrace [NYT]
• If You Have $1.96M, Here’s a One Hanson Condo for You [Set Speed]
• Third Annual Tour de Brooklyn Coming June 3 [Streets Blog]
• Red Hook Lane De-Mapped, Can Memory of It Be Preserved? [McBrooklyn]
• On the Trail of the Norwegians in Bay Ridge [Lost City]
• Mother’s Day, Greenpoint Style [newyorkshitty]
• When a Body Floats Up in Sheepshead Bay [Erica’s Blog]
• Pedestrian Footbridge Haiku [Big Sky Brooklyn]
• Pervert Burglar Busted [NYP]

A Little More Brooklyn Blogfest:

• Brooklyn Blogfest: The Video [Cruxy]
• 2007 Brooklyn Blogfest Recap [urbanseashell]
• Guide to Blogfest Coverage [Flatbush Gardener]
• Monthly Brooklyn Blogger Socials, Anyone? [OTBKB]
• Have You Ever Thought of Bathroom Walls as Blogs? [Dope on the Slope]

The city’s plan to close the Red Hook container port and redevelop the waterfront for a variety of uses seems to be taking another curious twist. Today’s Sun reports that the city is “backing away” from some expansion plans, including adding another cruise terminal, and considering “a dramatic scaling back.” It may even consider keeping the container port open, the paper says. Here are a few excerpts:

The city is backing away from plans to expand the new cruise ship terminal in Red Hook any time soon, a signal, critics say, that amounts to a dramatic scaling back of the Bloomberg administration’s bold plans for that slice of the Brooklyn waterfront…

The residential component of the city’s plan for the waterfront was dropped late last year, and without enough growth in the cruise industry to justify expansion, city officials told The New York Sun that the addition of a new cruise dock is not likely in the near future, though it remains a long-term goal…

The administration also seems to be taking a softer stance about its intention to close the existing container port on the Red Hook waterfront, operated by American Stevedoring, sources said. While the city has wanted to bring a beer and beverage distributor to a space within the container port’s footprint, officials acknowledged last week they were considering moving the distributor, Phoenix Beverages, to another location temporarily, and did not rule out the option of leaving the container port in place, at least in the short term…

That, at least, is today’s version of the status of the plan. It could be repudiated and replaced by a newer update within days, if not hours. Stay tuned.

Related Posts:
Red Hook Piers Housing Torpedoed
Red Hook Piers Plan Taking on Water?

Perhaps the biggest wow factor lately comes from seeing a show at a former oil silo on a stretch of the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn. Occupied for the last two years by Issue Project Room, an experimental arts organization, the silo is hidden behind an imposing metal gate with a small sign just off the Carroll Street bridge. Between the lapping (if occasionally stinky) water, the courtyard filled with poplar trees and the warm glow emanating from the two-story performance space — the top floor is reached by an exterior metal ladder — it’s as far from mainstream clubland as you can get.

Rebecca Moore, a singer and violinist active in the protests over the closing of the Lower East Side club Tonic, performed at the silo last week. “I am very grateful for Issue Project Room,” she said from the stage: a rug at the front of the room. “We couldn’t get away with playing staplers at many other places.”

And that’s exactly the point, said Suzanne Fiol, the founder of Issue Project Room. “We are trying to be a breeding ground for experimental work, and we need spaces like this to nurture it,” she said.

(Issue Project Room will leave the silo in July, but another group, MeanRed Productions, will move in. An outdoor concert series is planned; Nicodemus, a D.J. and founder of the traveling party Turntables on the Hudson, is already booked for Turntables on the Gowanus.)

Outdoor concerts and Turntables on the Gowanus! Should be okay until the flushing system goes down for repairs. At which point, run for the hills or bring a gas mask to the show. We understand that the Issue Project Room is looking for a new space in Gowanus.

BROOKLYN MUSIC BONUS: Bumper Shine–which is actually based in Park Slope!–has posted the final schedule for Celebrate Brooklyn. Go here to check it out.

Our Brooklyn Craigslist Missed Connection Sunday feature this week takes us to the 3 Train. Actually, we were going to do the G Train, until we found this. It attracted us because of its written-on-the-fly quality and lack of spill chocking spell checking. Plus the raw emotions conveyed within. Here you go:

blondie with freckles kept purposely boumping into me – m4w – 19

we echange glances and u stood extremely close to me. I didnt understand at first but wasnt completely sure even wen you went away to leave. If you only looked back i would have ran after you but nothing. If i could do it all over again i would grab you by your waist and hold you until we got who knows where. even though we barely touched i felt your emotions. If i ddint get u wrong we should go have a cup of cofee and then take the 3 together and continue from where we left off.
You
Blonde
lots of freckles 5.4? 5.5?
listening to music wearing jeans blue/green? cute shoes

ME
5.10
wearing all black
currly mohawk
with a Pearl Art bag

The waste gribbing waist grabbing is definitely the way to go on the train when being purposely boumped by a blonde.

Once a week, we highlight GL’s reader comments. Here’s a selection of some of them from the last seven days:

Radiac Redux: Fun with Low Level Radiation in Williamsburg. “I would still think that a 10-day holding period still poses a danger to the area. I won’t be totally relieved until it’s completely shut down and relocated.” [Pretzel Logic]

Selling Williamsburg Condos with Banksy and Stroller Moms. “I only see one woman with kids in this picture. Yes the street is full. Your attempt at exaggerating the issue is obvious.” [Anonymous]

“Entirely Sure” About Living in Park Slope, Not Gowanus. “Some people feel the need to justify (to their fab-u-lous City friends) that they live in the oh-so-trendy Park Slope versus The icky-smelly, sewage ridden Gowanus Canal. It just figures that these “newbies” would argue about things of this nature. Park Slope is on a ‘Slope’. The Gowanus is, well, flat.”

Photos:

• Court Street Haiku [seriously excited!]
• Game in Coney Island [Lex’s Folly]
• Greenpoint at Night [INSIJS]
• Advance Truck and Auto Repair [Brit in Brooklyn]
• Red Hook Container Port [Nathan Kensinger Photography]
• Coney Island Ride (and Model) [Wendy Ploger Photography]
• Jessica on the Coney Beach [Pop Sugar]

Compelling Read of the Day:

• Do Not, Repeat…Do Not, Ever Ride a Bike on the Sidewalk [Brit in Brooklyn]

Other Reading:

• Still No Solid Atlantic Yards Timetable from Forest City Ratner [AYR]
• A Lot of Potential on Henry [Brooklyn Enthusiast]
• Life, in Signage, in a Front Window in Kensington [NYT]
• Get Involved in Red Hook Community Sailing [Sail Brooklyn]
• Oh, Hell No: Park Slope Punks Rockers…at Maggie Moos [OTBKB]
• Now We’re Complete: Jessica Simpson Does Coney Photo Shoot [Celebs Now]
• Weekly Dumbo Linkage [Dumbo NYC]
• Victorian Flatbush House Tour Coming Up [Living in Victorian Flatbush]
• Inky, the Roebling Oil Field Kitten Update [Bad Advice]

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

• Tahoe Triangle Now Has People, Lawn Chairs, Etc. (above)
• Exclusive: 184 Kent Design Makeover Revealed
• New Brooklyn Neighborhood Blogs
• Magic’s Greenpoint Building Gets Foul, Refuses To Go To Bench?
• Party Time on Roebling…with Weed and Foreigner
• Bushwick’s Moment Generates Backlash
• Reasoning With Someone Stealing Your Shit: Williamsburg Edition
• Williamsburg’s Other Finger Gets a Finger Friend
• Check Out the Future Brooklyn Greenway

Here’s a small selection of Park Slope-related vids from the YouTube. Click on the embed below or click over to the playlist via this link:

Related Post:
Really Modern on N. 7th

Here’s an interesting one: A “four-man artist collective hailing from Austria” has been digging and refilling a big hole on the beach in Coney Island since May 7. They call it a “durational performance piece.” We’ll let them explain:

We will dig a hole in the sand, seven hours of digging, and in the evening close it again and hop on top of the sand of the closed hole to make the ground sound again. Tired and without arms, we will take the train back to Manhattan, to get some rest for the next day. The next day, we will take the train again to Coney Island and dig a hole and then close it again.

The group is called Geletin. You can read more about it here. Anyone that has seen this baby, do let us know.

Chris Curen, who brought this to our attention jokes: “Don’t these people know that digging holes in Coney Island isn’t art, it’s development?“