Remember last year’s lights out episode on Union Street in Park Slope? Probably not, given the mayhem in Astoria that followed. Nonetheless, the lights did go out on a block of Union Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenue in Park Slope for 16 hours on July 17 and 18. Among the victims was the Park Slope Food Coop. The losses at the Coop were tallied at $22,756.73 worth of perishable food that was spoiled. When the Coop tallied up the loss of food, repairs to the refrigeration system and added payroll and other expenses, the losses hit $27,000. In any case, the Brooklyn Eagle reports the convoluted tale of loss, initial rejection of claim, appeal to Councilman David Yassky and Community Board 6 and, finally, the issue of a $7,000 check by Con Ed. (Con Ed rejected the claim but relented after the Yassky and CB6 intervention.) Why $7,000? That is Con Ed’s limit on such losses.
[Photo courtesy allysonmurphy/flickr]

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

• Jane Jacobs, Amanda Burden & Atlantic Yards [AYR]
• Ombusdmania Comes to Brooklyn [Daily Intel]
• Council Member Charles Barron to Run for Brooklyn Borough President [NYT]
• Ninth Street Bike Lane Dispute Continues [Streets Blog]
• Uses For Those G Train “Service Notice” Signs [newyorkshitty]
• Park Slope Dog Kills Tree? [Gothamist]
• Urban Outfitters Looking at Dumbo Too (Sort Of)? [Brooklyn Enthusiast]
• More Details on Rejection of Arabic School in Park Slope [Brooklyn Eagle]
• Building Brooklyn Award Winners [Brownstoner]
• The Best Bread in Brooklyn [1 Stop Over in Brooklyn]
• Lady of Bedford Revealed [Bed-Stuy Blog]
• Carlton Avenue Behemoth Hits Market [set speed]
• Coney Island Community Center Renderings [Kinetic Carnival]
• Brooklyn Greenway Gets Underway [Brooklyn Record]
• Fake Veterinarian Offered Psych Counseling Instead of Jail [NYT]
• More on the Fake Brooklyn Veterinarian [NYP]

The city may be considering the deeply contaminated Public Place site between Smith Street and the Gowanus Canal as a site for housing and the community may have other ideas about using the space as a park. The Brooklyn Brewery, however, may be eyeing the land as a new site for its operation. The brewery has been angling for land as part of the possible Red Hook Piers redevelopment, but its owner told the Daily News’ Jotham Sederstrom that he’ll take his brew shop to Gowanus if the Red Hook plan sinks. Mr. Sederstrom writes:

Steve Hindy – president of the brewery long expected to be an anchor tenant at an overhauled Pier 7 – may instead relocate his brewery to Fifth and Smith Sts. if negotiations between government officials and maritime leaders hit a stalemate.

“I believe the Economic Development Corp. is committed to bringing us and our distributor, Phoenix Beverages, to Pier 7, but the dispute between the Port Authority and American Stevedoring shows no sign of resolution,” Hindy said.

The nationally renowned brewery has long been expected to play a significant role on the waterfront alongside docked cruise ships and other maritime interests.

But the Carroll Gardens location, just blocks from the Gowanus Canal and a
warehouse that could be incorporated into the plan, could provide space for the brewery, a beer garden and daily tours, Hindy said.

“The brewery would be a good buffer there between the heavy industrial uses
and the residential portions of the neighborhood,” said Hindy of the spot known as the Public Place site…The 8-acre lot in Carroll Gardens, which has sat unused for decades, was heavily contaminated when it was the site of a gas plant, but could soon be developed as affordable housing or retail or commercial space.

“Most people are expecting the site to be developed for a variety of uses because it’s that large,” said Community Board 6 District Manager Craig Hammerman. “But exactly what is going to go in there, no decisions have been made.”

The waterfront plan has seen recent delays, Hindy believes, because American
Stevedoring, a lessee whose contract has expired on Pier 7, is appealing a decision by the Port Authority not to renew the lease.

For months, the Federal Maritime Commission, the body charged with ruling on
the appeal, has operated without a chairman, a presidentially appointed
position. No decision will be made until the seat is filled.

The Public Place site is, in fact, one of the most polluted sites in all of New York City, having served as the home of a manufactured gas plant that left behind a toxic soup of contaminants as deep as 150 feet. The site would require an extensive cleanup and the nature of the remediation and the safety of using the site for housing and other purposes are the subjects of debate in the community. The most likely solution is a partial removal of soil and a capping of the pollutants that are left in place. While such a cleanup method is common, its long-term safety is increasingly being questioned. There was another in a series of meetings between the city and the community about the site’s future last night.

Related Post:
Gas Pains: Underground Toxic Threat in Gowanus, Other Neighborhoods
Toxic Brooklyn: Are Current Cleanup Methods Safe?

[Photo courtesy of poopreport/flickr]

Being the Gowanus Lounge and having the Big G as one of the many Brooklyn locales that claims our attention, we’d be remiss if we didn’t not that last night was the release party at Galapagos for the new book, Poop Culture. We’d noticed the crapper above–which was created for the event–in the window of Galapagos but were so tired from shooting photos all day that we didn’t give it a second thought.

Regardless, the full title of the book by Dave Praeger is Poop Culture: How America is Shaped by its Grossest National Product. It no doubt includes everything you always wanted to know about crap, but were afraid to ask. You can find more about it here. As we said, it might be considered off-topic for us, but anything having to do with crap it totally right up our alley, given the vast amounts of the stuff that flows right into the Gowanus when it rains.

Behold Williamsburg, as per the Urban Green website. It’s hard to know what to make of using Banksy to sell $900K condos on N. 6th and of picturing Bedford Avenue full of stroller moms, but we do know we can have fun pointing it out. (This is not to be confused with the Toll Brothers’ “Williamsburg All Grown Up” approach.) The Banksy in question, by the way, is the one that was painted over and then became the site of various Splasher attacks. As for the stroller moms, well, we hadn’t realized that Bedford Avenue was looking so Park Slope.

Related Post:
The End of Williamsburg: The Evidence is Online

Williamsburg and Greenpoint are gifts that keep on giving in terms of routine construction violations. A neighborhood source called us over the weekend to note much commotion on N. 7th Street, so we did make sure to swing by in doing our appointed rounds. The trouble spots included 229 N. 7th where our source indicated that interior demolition work was going on without a permit (and from which two women in their 80s were evicted after a third tenant in whose name the lease was died) and 205 N. 7th Street, which is under a Stop Work Order for unsafe construction work and undermining the sidewalk, but where work was going on. (Working while Stop Work Orders are in place is an Olympic sport in Brooklyn.) This is the building known as The Modern, where two bedrooms are on the market for $1.1 million. We found a forelorn cat that appeared trapped inside the big work pit and stuck atop construction supplies and heavy equipment tracks in the soil that were clearly less than 24 hours old. The cat, by the way, was staring into a pit that is probably 20 to 30 feet deep and at walls at least ten feet high.

You thought that a reported visit to Coney Island by Bruce Ratner and Frank Gehry to allegedly have a hot dog at Nathan’s would go unnoticed? No, it hasn’t. While it hasn’t caused a frenzy of speculation, it has led to some interesting thinking out loud. On the Coney Island Message Board, the poster known as Switchback writes:

If Sitt is actually interested in building at Coney then he would need to bring in a partner or partners that would actually do all the building while all Thor would really do is provide the property and get the zoning changes. If what Sitt was really after was to put the land back on the market the second he got the desired zoning changes then he would need buyers lined up. Either way you will probably be seeing every developer from Ratner to Trump taking a tour of Coney as a prospective area to build more condos in.

Mr. Trump, you might recall, is said to be interested in a Brooklyn project if he finds one “worthy” of the “Trump name.” There would certainly be irony in the return of Trump fils to the place where Trump père invited people to throw rocks through the glass of Steeplechase Park to start the demolition. You should also check out Kinetic Carnival’s thoughts about what Brooklyn’s Dynamic Development Duo were up to in Coney. They couldn’t possibly have gone to Coney Island just to eat some hot dogs, could they?

Related Post:
Ratner & Gehry Go to Coney Island (for a Hot Dog)

The following appeared on Vox in an item called Not Overheard in New York:

“No, I don’t care for children or dogs. What? Yes, I’m entirely sure that I live in Park Slope, not Gowanus.”

So, we repeat our rule of thumb, without getting into the entire bit about neighborhood boundaries: If there is a hill, it is Park Slope. If it is flat, then it’s Gowanus. Seriously, though, by our rule of thumb, anything on the west side of Fourth Avenue or beyond is Gowanus. (This accepts the definition of Park Slope as reaching down to the east side of Fourth Avenue.) By some measures, though, mostly advanced by those trying to sell real estate and get more money for it, Park Slope already extends to Third Avenue. We reject this notion, but it’s out there, which is why the Gowanus Holiday Inn Express is called the Park Slope Holiday Inn Express by the hotel chain.

The fact that much of the property for the proposed Brooklyn Greenway has been acquired is a small miracle in and of itself, given the number of owners, agencies and entities involved. The good people at Streets Blog and Streets Films took a tour of the proposed route this weekend and have produced a vid. Do take a look.

In case you thought you missed it, or in case you didn’t know about it, the WNET 13 New York Voices show on the nasty Exxon Oil Spill in Greenpoint was postponed from Friday May 4 until Friday May 11. It will air at 10PM. Here’s some of the promo copy:

For over 50 years, residents of Greenpoint, Brooklyn, have been living on top of an astonishing 17 million gallon oil spill that contaminated the waters of Newtown Creek, left behind from the oil refinery industry in the 40’s and 50’s, and seeped into the surrounding land. Many residents are claiming that they and the people around them are sick with cancer as a result of the spill, yet little has been done to rectify this situation.

Of all the Brooklyn environmental issues–and there are many serious ones in other neighborhoods like Williamsburg and Gowanus that get little coverage–the Greenpoint Oil Spill and its 17-30 million gallons of underground oil is one of the nastier ones.

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

Blogs:

• ESDC Plans Atlantic Yards Ombudsman, Other Oversight [AYR]
• Novel Idea: Safety Measures for Atlantic Yards [Gothamist]
• New Transportation Commissioner and Congestion Pricing [Streets Blog]
• Ocean Parkway Architecture [Kensington Brooklyn]
• Look Out for Things That Fall From Brownstones [Brownstoner]
• The 1898 Greenpoint Sausage Factory Lard Conflagration [newyorkshitty]
• Yellow Office, Closed Today [Velvet Sea]
• Coney Island History Project Upcoming Events [Kinetic Carnival]
• BKLYN Designs 2007 is Coming This Weekend [Dumbo NYC]
• Brooklyn Bookfest is Back [Brooklyn Record]
• Meet Butch, the Carroll Gardens Troubadour [Esthetic/Aesthetic]
• Car Service Haiku [Big Sky Brooklyn]
• A Look Around Williamsburg on Cinco de Mayo [Built Environment Blog]
• Clinton Hill House Tour Wrapup [Clinton Hill Blog]

Mainstream Mayhem:

• Bed-Stuy Woman Murdered Before Fire [NYP]
• Woman Found Dead in Bed-Stuy Fire [NYT]
• Two Die in Separate Brooklyn Fires [amNY]
• Fire Kills Baby in Illegal Basement Apartment on E. 15th Street [NYP]
• Illegal Basement Apt Fire Kills Little Boy [NYT]
• Brooklyn Wife Beaters Will Be Tracked [NYP]

N. 6th Street, Williamsburg

Sorry, readers, we really thought we were done with Roebling Oil Field photos–for the uninitiated, it’s our favorite development site, at N. 11th Street and Roebling in Williamsburg–given that the entire site is nearly covered in concrete. That was before a neighborhood source called us over the weekend and directed our attention to the space between the soil and a concrete wall on the Driggs Avenue side of the construction site of the condos that are tentatively named McCarren Park Mews. So, we looked around, and lo and behold, found black gold pooling behind a recently poured concrete wall. Black, oozing muck. We’ve provided a directional arrow in the photo below should anyone have a hard time finding it.

Here’s a bonus photo: If you do go to the Driggs Avenue end of the construction site looking for the oil, don’t step too hard on the edge of the sidewalk, as you might end up having a bad day. The sidewalk has been undermined. There is nothing under the edge of that sidewalk but oil, about fifteen feet down.

Related Posts:
Roebling Oil Field Update: Drilling Begins
From Where Might the Roebling Oil Have Come?

Look for up to 18 new bike racks to be coming to Park Slope, mainly on Seventh Avenue, Fifth Avenue, Union Street and 9th Street. The new racks will be the product of footwork done by the Park Slope Civic Council, which has worked to identify local businesses that will accept bike racks in front of their stores or restaurants. The city will actually pay for and install the bike racks. Among the establishments that will have new bike racks are La Villa on Fifth Avenue, C-Town on Ninth Street, Rice Thai on Seventh Avenue, Ozzie’s on both Fifth and Seventh Avenues and Pizza by the Park on Third Street. The Park Slope Food Coop, which suffers from a shortage of bicycle parking (in addition to regular parking issues), will be getting added bike racks.

The annual Court Street Fair, sponsored by the Gowanus Canal Community Development Corporation, was yesterday. It’s one of the more low-key ones with neighborhood flavor. Not a tube sock stand in sight.

We’ve shown this Greenpoint building before, but in a different context. Now, our Greenpoint correspondent reports a commotion at the site and sends along new photos. She writes:

When I walked by there, a bunch of firemen were milling about. Two engines had even condoned off traffic on the block. Don’t know why they were there, but maybe the fact that the contractors are (were?) bricking over the next door neighbor’s window(s) has something to do with it???

We’ve never had it happen to us, but we can only imagine that it sets the blood pressure to spiking. We haven’t seen renderings of the new structure, and we can’t tell from the photo below if windows were bricked up on the right side of the building, because the job was so complete. However, unless the building is going to be lopsided, could be more window loss on the left.

A couple of retail and food developments to flesh out on Court Street via a walk yesterday and a dinner last week:

1) Lee Lee’s Valice at 368 Court Street (at President) had its grand opening this weekend. The boutique occupies the space vacate by the Bleach House, whose demise has been much noted. The new shop is billed as a “full service boutique” that specializes in clothing for women sizes 12-24. Seems like only yesterday the Bleach House signage came down.

2) Cafe Chili, a new Thai spot that seems more like N. 6th Street in Williamsburg than Court Street in terms of the vibe, opened a week ago in the space formerly occupied by Siam Garden. The new restaurant–which serves average, if nicely present Thai food–is actually under the same ownership as the former. It’s light years away from its predecessor, though. If you’re familiar with the former and take a peak at the latter, you’ll know exactly what we mean. Meantime, the menu is about two-thirds Thai and, alarmingly, one-third American and Italian. We stuck to the Thai part, which is fairly standard for Brooklyn Thais.

3) Our friends at the Brooklyn Record report had noted both of these and also report the coming of the unfortunately named K & Y Fruit & Vegetables between Douglass and Degraw. The Record notes that “The unfortunate name brings to mind KY personal lubricant (not really something we want to be thinking about as we peruse the cucumbers), but this end of the neighborhood could seriously use a decent produce shop.”

There’s something special about the wide-open demolition site at 296 N. 7th Street, owing to the particularly nasty and dangerous conditions inside the building that is open to the public. On the other hand, it looks like a really cool place for an edgy late-night party. We found the fence so poorly secured on Sunday that a very large person could squeeze through without even inhaling. The new building itself will be a four-story number from…God, here we go again…Scarano Architects. Regardless, if you’re looking for a spot to hang or to scavange, this is definitely it. Looks like some sort of interesting machine in the back that could look ironic in the loft.

Kiss housing goodbye in terms of any redevelopment of the Red Hook Piers. The initial proposal as floated by the city’s Economic Development Corporation included 350 units of housing on the west side of Columbia Street. The concept was not entirely greeted with open arms by the community. In any case, the Carroll Gardens Courier reports:

“At this time, we don’t feel residential [development] can be incorporated into the plan,” David Kuart, a senior planner at the city’s Economic Development Corporation told the Red Hook Civic Association.

Initially, the EDC, which is leading the $330 million plan, proposed 350 new units of residential housing on the western side of Columbia Street.

But that idea was withdrawn after loud public outcry at a meeting in November. Critics said housing would overwhelm the area, and instead called for more parks and open space.

But housing elsewhere in the 120-acre site was never officially discounted—until the EDC’s announcement to the civic association. A “number of issues” have led officials to scrap the housing component entirely, Kuart said.

Many, many more developments to come.

Last time we checked in on Gargiulo’s, the Italian eatery in Coney Island, there was a story in late December that Thor Equities had bought the property. The same day, a source called us to say the published report was wrong and a follow-up “nevermind” was published, along with suggestions from the owner that someone was trying to sabotage his business. Well, the rumor mill is buzzing again, this time courtesy of the Coney Island Message Board, which is where a lot of the juicy information originates. In any case, a posting notes an “unconfirmed rumor” that “Gargiulo’s is moving,” although it is clearly noted as a “rumor” and as something heard via “the grapevine.” The poster known as Sandcastle writes:

Rumor mill is heating up again. Is Gargiulo’s moving to another location in Coney Island? Can anyone confirm this rumor and give a date when this is expected to happen? Is anyone willing to go have lunch or dinner there and confirm this rumor? This is almost unbelievable!

While we would fully expect another denial, the rumor is interesting in that Gargiulo’s occupies a parcel of land that any number of developers (including Thor Equities) would likely be interested in acquiring. The Shore Theater is also on the same block.

Related Post:
Sitt Won’t Be Eating Italian in Coney After All

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

• Blogs Today are Like the Voice During “Battle of Washington Square” [AYR]
• Ninth Street Bike Lanes Provoke Residents [I’m Seeing Green]
• Brooklynite Ticketed for Having an Unregistered Segway [NYP]
• Lamppost Memorializes Pedestrian Run Down on Tillary Street [McBrooklyn]
• Brooklyn Inn Mystery Solved [Lost City]
• Two Hurt in Crown Heights Fire [NYP]
• Kensington Real Estate and Rumors [Kensington Brooklyn]
• Butler Street is Totally for Lovers [Big Sky Brooklyn]
• With Watchtower Planning to Sell, People are Talking [NYT]
• Miss Julie the Kitty Relocates to South Brooklyn [newyorkshitty]
• The Food at the Red Hook Ball Fields is Back! [Lost City]
• Reviewing Uncommon Grounds in Brooklyn Heights [Brooklyn Enthusiast]
• A Bay Ridge Mansion in Ruins [Sun]
• Man Killed Outside Groove Lounge in Bushwick [NYT]
• America’s Last Side Show [Coney Island Reporter]
• Remember, Brooklyn Blogfest is Thursday [OTBKB]

So, who would spend millions of dollars on a park on Gravesend Bay while opening a trash transfer station nearby? New York City.

At issue is the proposed new Dreier-Offerman Park. We’ll let the Bay News pick up the narrative:

The city is spending millions to renovate a Brooklyn park – and open a trash facility on a nearby lot.

While local residents and politicians are overjoyed that the dilapidated Dreier-Offerman Park will finally get a $40 million makeover, they’re concerned about how future parkgoers will be impacted by the presence of the proposed Southwest Brooklyn Converted Marine Transfer Station. The facility would be built at 1824 Shore Parkway, while the park runs from Bay 44 – 49 streets between Shore Parkway and Gravesend Bay.

“I’m afraid that these wonderful plans that the mayor has [for Dreier-Offerman Park] are going to be blocked and inhibited by the devastating effects that the waste transfer station is going to have,” said Assemblymember William Colton.

Those “effects” are odors emanating from the trash collected at the station – the site will not be a landfill but rather a facility connecting trucks carrying garbage and the barges that will transport the refuse.

Of course, the trash transfer station backer say it will have state-of-the-art odor elimination systems. Do read the rest of the potentially stinky tale.

[Photo courtesy of turkeyheart/flickr]

If you are going to pay attention to what is happing in Brooklyn that is of critical importance, you have to pay attention to rezoning plans. Today’s Metro reports that plans for a rezone of more than 200 blocks of Bedford-Stuyvesant begin a public review process by the Department of City Planning today. Specifically:

The city developed the plan at the behest of Brooklyn’s Community Board 3, which wants to preserve the neighborhood’s historic brownstone blocks while increasing incentives for affordable housing and “medium density” growth along Fulton Street and Atlantic Avenue, according to City Planning officials.

“We’re interested in the fact that the brownstones have been here a long time,” said Joyce Turner, president of the Bedford Stuyvesant Real Estate Board Inc., a local non-profit that’s been active for nearly 70 years. “And we want the new properties to fit in with existing properties. There has to be consistency. … We need to put some controls on this.”

More detail within the story.

There’s an oversupply of good Brooklyn Craigslist Missed Connections this week, but we finally settled on this one because it’s got a certain something most likely having to do with the pole.

We Shared the Pole – w4m – 25

I got on the R at 59th on thursday morning around 8:30am. You were already there standing close to the door. We both switched to the N at 36th. We shared the same pole. I couldn’t tell if you were looking at me or not, but it seemed like we were both inching closer to the pole. Every time the train jerked your jacket would brush my hand. I’m sure it’s stupid, and you’ll never read this, but if that’s the case- where’s the harm? You were wearing nice jeans, a button-down white shirt and a black jack and got off at Atlantic/Pacific; thus ending my chance to at least smile at you.

Honorable Mention:
Big Hair, I Know You’re the One