Here’s a mashup of an Atlantic Yards map with projected completion dates of buildings through 2016. Atlantic Yards Report’s Norman Oder, who posts this today, notes of the completion dates that “time will tell whether it’s a valid reference or a fantasy.” Estimates of the timeline for the full project range up to 15-20 years, which would put the completion dates in “Phase II” well past 2016, into the 2020s. If the 20-year estimate is accurate, children born on the day of the parapet collapse last week will be in college before a building is ever built on the site. Put another way, blocks of what used to be Prospect Heights will sit as “interim surface parking” for almost two decades. The graphic was created by Abby Weissman at southoxford.com.

The Second Annual Brooklyn Blogfest is next week, on May 10th at 8 p.m. at the Old Stone House in JJ Byrne Park. OTBKB, which is organizing the event, has posted this cool poster, which should be appearing in some different spots around Brooklyn. The poster was created by blogger, Lisa Di Liberto of Urban Seashell. For more info on the Blogfest, click over to the blog that OTBKB has created for it.

• Pink-a-Boo [Dope on the Slope]
• Sakura Matsuri [Brit in Brooklyn]
• Ward Bakery Loses a Wall [AYR]
• Revisioning Atlantic Yards [I’m Seeing Green]
• Times Takes Note of Local Blogging [NYT]
• City to Offer New Residential & Commercial Bldgs. with Reopened Atlantic Ave. Jail [Sun]
• Development on Ocean Avenue [My Life in Brooklyn]
• Contemplating Gentrification in PLG [Kensington Brooklyn]
• Lola Staar Reborn Hoopla [Kinetic Carnival]
• A Day at the Beach [Found in Brooklyn]
• Recap of Gowanus Zoning Meeting [Park Slope Courier]
• Outdoor Life Again at the Third Street Cafe [OTBKB]
• Transit Worker Hit and Killed by G Train [Metro]
• Space Invader in Dumbo Area [Dumbo NYC]
• Need a Subway Elevator? Not Necessarily at Clark Street [Sun]
• Issues with Late Night Construction Noise [NYP]

[Photo courtesy of Walksbklyn]

A GL reader who got in touch some time ago as he was moving to Gowanus, emailed to let us know that he’s started a new blog. It’s called Walkbklyn and the blogger respectfuly acknowledges that the name “was delicately lifted and then modified from Runs Brooklyn…I just don’t have the stamina to actually run Brooklyn.” In any case, Walksbklyn features the bloggers walks around the neighborhood with his dog, which gets at three of our very favorite things: information about Gowanus and environs, cool neighborhood photos and cute dog pics. How can you possibly go wrong? There have been 37 posts so far in April, so blogger and dog (Chester) have already covered some territory. We are told, however, that Chester is in Boston for a couple of weeks and his “parents” are traveling a bit, so enjoy the April posts and look for more upon everyone’s return to Gowanus.

Any coverage of the awful Exxon-Mobil Greenpoint Oil Spill is to be applauded, and so we were interested to get an email from WNET announcing a definite Tivo moment: an episode of New York Voices on the Greenpoint Oil Spill this Friday, May 4 at 10 PM.

The email about the show says:

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…

New York Voices joins chief investigator Basil Seggos from RiverKeeper, an environmental watch group, on a tour of Newtown Creek. Seggos discusses the damage caused by the 17 million gallons of oil (50 percent more than the amount that saturated Alaska’s coast from the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill), and the danger this kind of pollution poses to the surrounding areas, homes, businesses and people of Brooklyn and Queens. Riverkeeper is suing ExxonMobil, among others, to hold the corporation responsible for the spill and enforce a long over-due clean-up.

Greenpoint residents are frustrated with the lack of attention given to the spill. They believe there is a strong connection to the alarming trend among family members and neighbors who are sick with cancer and the oil vapors and toxic soil found under their homes. The New York Health Department has known about the spill since 1978 but they have never conducted an official health study…

Should be interesting viewing. Speaking of which, if you didn’t catch the superb vbs.tv series on environmental issues in Williamsburg and Greenpoint, make sure you watch the seven episodes of Toxic Brooklyn. Knowledge may not change anything, but at least, you know.

Check out this video of “Williamsburg Under Construction.” Even though it will come up as being quite long, the vid itself is a little more than a minute. The rest is the Hot Hot Heat track used under the visuals.

Related Post:
Sakura Matsuri: Not Many Blossoms, but Good People Watching

[Photo courtesy of Yanksfan v. Soxfan]

The blog Yanksfan vs. Soxfan is an unexpected place to find a long and interesting post about Gowanus, nonetheless they posted one yesterday. It’s actually about “New York’s Oldest Extant Ballpark,” which is Washington Park, one of whose walls still exists on Third Avenue. We’ll let them explain:

Extant is actually a stretch. The retaining wall pictured above is the last standing vestige of Washington Park, home to the NL’s Brooklyn franchise from 1898 to 1913. That wall, which now encloses a Con-Ed facility, runs along Third avanue between Third and Fourth streets in Gowanus, an amorphous industrial neigborhood sandwiched between Park Slope and Carroll Gardens. The ballpark that once occupied the site was a lovely affair, with a covered grandstand and seating for nearly 20,000. A previous Washington Park, just a block away, had been home to that same Brooklyn team in its earlier affiliations…the boys were occssionally referred to as “Gowanucians.” Fans came from the surrounding neigborhoods, the area was known generally as “South Brooklyn” back then, and from Manhattan, an easy commute across the then-new Brooklyn Bridge.

Click over to the full post as it’s got some nice shots of our favorite neighborhood.

Related Post:
Rays of Light and Hope for Gowanucians

Some new selections for a Sunday from the YouTube, including a couple of pieces on the Greenpoint Oil Spill and some just-posted vids of “UFOs” over Brooklyn. Click here if the player doesn’t cooperate.

As you may know, we also post over at Curbed. Here are a few Brooklyn tidbits from that part of the world this week.

• The New Look at N. 7th & Bedford Avenue (above)
• Coming to the Old Brig Site in Wallabout
• The Edge Turns Up the Volume in Williamsburg
• A Look at the Atlantic Yards Unterwelt
• How to Love Thy New Neighbor in Williamsburg

Blight Me: Is Developer Blight a New Brooklyn Tactic? “What was done in Edgemere and neighboring Arverne was criminal. For many, many years there were thriving summer bungalow colonies on the beach blocks of Rockaway stretching from the Beach 60s to the Beach 40s which were torn down for the supposed ‘development’ in the mid-1960s.” [Richard]

Good News & Bad News on Withers Street. “I can see this monstrosity right outside my kitchen window. I hope the mold grows to engulf the whole thing and suck it back into the ground.” [Anonymous]

Gowanus Lounge Turns One. “You sure are quite a sophisticated 1 year old! Looking forward to Gowanus Lounge’s terrible two’s.” [IMBY]

Pics:

• Farrell’s, Est. 1933 [Park Slope Street Photography]
• Pizzeria View [A Test of Will]
• NYC 2 Way [seriously excited!]
• Spring [OTBKB]

Words:

• Is Clinton Hill the “Bloggiest Neighborhood”? No Way. [AYR]
• Stoopendous in Park Slope [OTBKB]
• Debonaire Fashion with an Edge in Bed-Stuy [Bed-Stuy Blog]
• Shakespeare at a Park Slope Middle School [NYT]
• Rockwell Place Condos on the Market [Set Speed]
• Brooklyn Street Necrology from Forgotten New York [Brooklyn Enthusiast]
• Looking in Williamsburg, but Ending Up on the UES [NYT]
• Shiny New Trucks at the Edge [INSIJS]

Keylime Steve, who captures some interesting shots of Red Hook, posted this image on flickr of the steel framework of the massive Red Hook Ikea as seen from the water. It has now been topped out. Steve writes:

In a tradition going back possibly as far as the late 1800’s, iron workers signify the completion of their phase of construction by Topping Out (raising the American flag) the the framework to the future home of IKEA.

It amazes me how new construction like this can (apparently) apply for and receive DEC approval for sheet-piling and bulkhead restoration, whereas others who are trying to preserve and keep much of the city’s historic structures (specifically Pier 41 and the Beard Street pier) from falling into the harbor can get mired in political and legal hoop-jumping for years.

Interesting how that happens, isn’t it?

[Jellybeans on the L courtesy of Martha Martha Martha/flickr]

Images:

• Ratner Attracts Red Cross Disaster Relief Truck [Brit in Brooklyn]
• Floyd Bennett Field [Bluejake]
• Favorite Gowanus Alley [Frank Lynch/flickr]
• Wicked Sunset [Velvet Sea]
• Astroland [Atomische]
• Flower Girls [Lex’s Folly]
• Red Hook From Water, No Dome [Keylime Steve/flickr]
• Ward Bakery Accident Photos [Brit in Brooklyn]
• Hood Rich [f.trainer/flickr]

Other Stuff:

• Ward Bakery and a Tangled Tale of Blight [AYR]
• Officials & Others Seek Much More Than a Pause in Atlantic Yards [AYR]
• Time Out Called on Atlantic Yards Demolitions [NYT]
• Weekly Preservation Links [WPA]
• 110 Livingston–The Movie [110 Livingston]
• New Transportation Commissioner Will Usher in Cutting Edge Planning [Streets Blog]
• Tell Mr. Markowitz You Support the 9th Street Park Slope Plan [Streets Blog]
• Brooklyn Pols Aren’t Down With Congestion Pricing [Brooklyn Record]
• Brooklyn Ten-Year-Old Corresponds With President [NYP]
• Return of Devil’s Doodad Sauce [Clinton Hill Blog]

Here’s a nicely produced video of a visit to Coney Island posted by Rocketboom. Very cool.

The Prospect Heights demolitions being done by Forest City Ratner and the falling parapet situation at the Ward Bakery Building continue to be interesting today.

1) This morning the ESDC called a halt to demolition activities, but apparently, the call was ignored, at least as late as 3:00PM when workers were reported to still be working at 191 and 193 Flatbush Avenue near 5th Avenue. DDDB has had its eyes on the properties and asks, “Suspend means suspend, no?” Apparently not.

2) Atlantic Yards Report’s Norman Oder called the ESDC, and the agency’s Errol Cockfield says more oversight is coming. “There have been exhaustive plans under way for some time to provide increased oversight for the Atlantic Yards project,” he told AYR.

3) Forest City Ratner demolition personnel apparently called the police on a press conference today. No Land Grab reports:

Forest City Ratner contractors doing god-knows-what at the Ward Bakery building called the police to report that a demonstration without a permit was in progress. Officers, as promised, responded to the scene midway through the press conference. CBN Co-Chair Candace Carponter told the officers that the “demonstration” was in fact a press conference, and that approximately half the “protesters” were actually reporters. Officers left the scene without making any arrests.

To think, it otherwise would have been a dull and dreary Friday.

The Empire State Development Corp. has temporarily halted the demolitions on the Atlantic Yards site following yesterday’s “parapet collapse” at Ward Bakery. Curbed reported the development a few minutes ago, and a release from the ESDC is now circulating. Here’s the text of the release:

The partial collapse Thursday at the Ward Bakery building created serious disruptions. We’re thankful that no one was hurt and we recognize the need for the Atlantic Yards project to continue to progress safely, without causing disorder in the lives of residents in the surrounding neighborhoods.

To that end, the Empire State Development Corporation and developer Forest City Ratner have agreed that the developer will temporarily suspend all abatement and demolition activities until the City’s Department of Buildings concludes its preliminary investigation or the City directs us otherwise.

This incident requires a reassurance to the community of the buildings’ soundness before work can proceed at the site. We are in frequent contact with the developer and various city agencies to make sure that we have fully addressed all safety concerns before activities resume. The State remains committed to the project and to its timeline for completion.

No word on the length of the investigation and whether the delay will be for a day, a week or a month.

How many Brooklyn neighborhoods are being downzoned, upzoned or just-plain-rezoned? A lot. In fact, the list of neighborhoods that haven’t been rezoned recently, aren’t currently being rezoned and aren’t scheduled for rezoning may be shorter than the list of ones that were/are/will be.

Zoning is generally something that is only of interest to hardcore planning and neighborhood types, but the battles over the future of Brooklyn are being decided in these technical discussions about uses, density, FARs and the like. Everything that comes after the zoning decisions is just decoration on the tree. The tree itself is determined during the rezone.

Why do we bring this up? Only because when we were looking at the Fort Greene-Clinton Hill rezoning story the other day, it struck us that we’re also dealing with make-or-break rezonings in Gowanus and Coney Island, and will likely be looking at downzonings in Dyker Heights and Sunset Park.

We’ve also recently seen major rezonings Downtown Brooklyn in 2004 and Park Slope in 2003, including the Fourth Avenue Corridor, which was upzoned and is now in the middle of building boom. The South Slope, meanwhile, was downzoned in 2005. Midwood was also both downzoned and upzoned in 2006, depending on the part of the neighborhood. Bensonhurst was rezoned in 2005 and a small part of Sheepshead Bay was rezoned in 2006. And, of course, there’s the Mother of All Recent Rezonings, the Greenpoint and Williamsburg rezoning of 2005, which is currently bearing fruit in the crop of 30- and 40-story highrises rising on the waterfront. And, we know we’re leaving a number of others in Brooklyn from the list.

Related Post:
Burden Calls Gowanus “Great, Unique” Opportunity at Polite Rezoning Meeting