Images:

• Waiting for Godard [Bluejake]
• Desktop Day: Flatbush [Brit in Brooklyn]
• Proteus Gowanus II [seriously excited!]
• Under the Kosciuszko [chicapoquita/flickr]
• Novo Park Slope [Park Slope Street Photography]
• Two Chairs [Lex’s Folly]
• Coney [Englishman in New York]
• Beverley Road [Brit in Brooklyn]

Not Strictly Images:

• Bklyn Links [110 Livingston]
• Now They’ve Gone Too Far: Dept of Health Shuts DiFara!!!! [Lost City]
• Brooklyn Bridge Park Won’t Get Subway Entrance [NYDN]
• Reflecting on Sunset Park’s Victory Over Developer [Green Brooklyn]
• The Most F*king Awesome House in Greenpoint [newyorkshitty]
• City Taking Bids on BAM Plaza w/ Underground Parking [NYDN]
• Mysteries of Brooklyn: The Painted Kiosk [Blather from Brooklyn]
• Nightmare Involving the Wonder Wheel [Erica’s Blog]

These are two of a series of fascinating photos posted by someone named foz on the Coney Island Message Board. They were shot in February, 1990. The photo above shows Stillwell Avenue, looking north from the boardwalk. A large bath house that was demolished is on the left. This is the corridor currently being demolished by developer Joe Sitt of Thor Equities. The photo below shows Stillwell as well, from the roof of Nathan’s. The coaster was called the Jumbo Jet; it ceased operation in 2002 and is said to be residing in an amusement park in China. The large empty parcel was later occupied by the Go-Kart Tracks and Batting Cages that are now being demolished.

On election day we had a large bonfire in the lot at Columbia and Huntington Streets. Hundreds of people gathered in the lot at night to watch the fire. During the year prior to election day we would obtain items to burn. One year we took many wooden barrels from a barrel place down by the grain factory, tore down some wooden gates from the neighborhood, had a war with rocks with the pointers (we were the creekers) and took their election items they had stored in cellars, and took some of Mr. Bartlett”s lumber and wagons from his lumber yard. Stacked the items two stories high. Twisted barrel hoops around the Johhny pumps. Willie Morrisey climbed to the top of the stack, poured gasoline or was it kerosene over it climbed back down to earth and hurled a lit rag wrapped stick at the pile and the crowd roared as the fire shot up into the sky in a fiery fury.

The crowd booed when furious firemen went about the task of removing the twisted steel barrel hoops from the johnny pump but the crowd went away happy they had viewed once again a famed red hook election day fire.

Wow.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! We won’t list all of the Irish spots to which you might repair today in order to tie one one after trudging through the accumulated sleet, but if you click over to About Brooklyn, you’ll find a nice list of places to go, like Farrell’s on Prospect Park West and the Salty Dog on Third Avenue in Bay Ridge. When all is said and done, you will find enough Irish spots for a decade’s worth of St. Patrick’s Days in King’s County. On a parade note, the annual Brooklyn St. Patrick’s Parade hits the streets of Park Slope on Sunday (3/18), starting at 1 o’clock. The parade route runs from Prospect Park West and 15th Street, down 15th to Seventh Avenue. It runs along Seventh Avenue to Union Street, then turn up Union Street to Prospect Park West. It continues down Prospect Park back to 15th Street, at which point, Farrell’s get very, very, very crowded.

Nearly 500 people turned out for a Community Board meeting in Park Slope last night to oppose a Department of Transportation proposal to turn Sixth and Seventh Avenue into one-way streets. More than 160 people squeezed into an auditorium before doors were closed to chants of “Let them in! Let them in!” Another 200-250 people listened in a vestibule outside the auditorium and even more people stood outside on the sidewalk in the rain. The meeting was held at Methodist Hospital in Park Slope.

The DOT plan was presented by Deputy Commissioner Michael Primeggia. He faced a sometimes hostile and mocking crowd and presented the rationale for making Sixth Avenue one-way northbound between 23rd Street and Atlantic Avenue and for making Seventh Avenue one-way Southbound between Flatbush Avenue and Prospect Avenue. “First and foremost it improves safety,” Mr. Primeggia said to jeers from the skeptical audience. Under the plan, he said, “half of all pedestrian crossings will be unopposed and conflict free.” The B-67 bus would also have to be re-routed because of the change. The DOT Deputy Commissioner listed added benefits adding parking spaces where bus stops are eliminated, introducing muni-meters, giving more “green time” to lights on cross streets. (There is an overall perception in the community that the proposal is being made to eventually ease the flow of traffic through Park Slope to Atlantic Yards.) Another proposal, to eliminate a lane of traffic in each direction from Fourth Avenue and to use them as turning lanes we greeted more openly by the audience.

While opponents repeatedly raised concerns that the plan would increase the volume of traffic on Sixth and Seventh Avenues and lead drivers to speed through the neighborhood, Mr. Primeggia said that “We don’t believe extra traffic will be generated.”

A parade of elected officials, including Council Members Bill DeBlasio and David Yassky, State Sen. Eric Adams and Assem. Jim Brennan all spoke against the proposal for Sixth and Seventh Avenue. Borough President Marty Markowitz, who is a Park Slope resident, did not attend, but sent a representative.

Mr. Yassky asked if DOT was open to pursuing non-controversial parts of the proposal like installing muni-meters and, even, creating the turning lanes on Fourth Avenue. Mr. Primeggia flatly rejected the idea, saying “We believe this is a nice package. All of the elements complement each other.” At times, the crowd outside the auditorium, which was listening to statements on speakers, could be heard cheering opponents and jeering Mr. Primeggia’s statements. “There has been a lot of misinformation,” Mr. Primeggia said. “I’m convinced that we’re not going to induce traffic to come off Fourth Avenue and Third Avenue that doesn’t want to come to Park Slope.” He joked that people won’t come from New Jersey to drive through the neighborhood because of the plan.

“A lot of us are profoundly uncomfortable with this proposal,” Mr. DeBlasio said. “It would change the character of our neighborhood” by making traffic faster and putting more cars on side streets. Mr. Primeggia’s response that “We do not believe this will increase speeds” was met by booing and shouted questions like “What about Prospect Park West?” and “What about Court Street?” (Both are one-way streets that are believed to be less safe for pedestrians because of being one-way.)

Sen. Adams, who is a former police captain, said the proposal was part of “a pattern that’s extremely disturbing” that ignores community sentiment. “It may look great from 57th Street in Manhattan,” he said, but the view from the impacted community is different. “I find one-way streets is an invitation for drag racing and for increasing speed.”

Opposition was also voiced by Methodist Hospital’s Lyn Hill, who said the hospital was opposed to the proposal and that it is “nearly intolerable to the hospital” because of the negative impact it would have on emergency medical vehicles and the increased safety risk for patients coming to the emergency room.

Park Slope Civic Council President Lydia Denworth noted significant community opposition to the plan. “This community has come together over this in a way that is extraordinary,” she said. “We are completely united.” She characterized the neighborhood response as “intensely and overwhelmingly negative.” She also said that DOT’s presentation “left out the 800-pound gorilla” known as Atlantic Yards.

Eric McClure of Park Slope Neighbors presented petitions without 1,500 signatures asking that the proposal be dropped that had been collected in little more than a week. Aaron Naparstek, whose Streets Blog initially broke the story about the proposal and who has covered the issue intensively, asked Mr. Primeggia about DOT delays in improving safety on Third Avenue, where a little boy was recently killed by a car. He said Park Slope’s “No. 1 pedestrian safety concern is the speed of cars and difficulty crossing Prospect Park West and Eighth Avenue.” Mr. Primeggia did not respond to the specific questions but said “to suggest the Department has turned its back on pedestrian safety is a little harsh.”

The meeting ended abruptly when the Community Board’s Transportation Committee took a vote on a muddled motion to voice opposition on the one-way proposal for Sixth Avenue and Seventh Avenue and to ask the Department of Transportation to work with the Community Board on changes to Union Street and to lowering speeds on Eighth Avenue and Prospect Park West.

The full Community Board will vote on the proposal next month and the plan won’t go forward without its support. “I somehow doubt we’ll ever see either of these avenues as one-way,” said Transportation Committee member Jerry Armer. After the meeting, Lumi Rolley of No Land Grab, who was among those who listened from outside the auditorium, presented a big sheet to the Community Board signed by those unable to get in.

For excellent and detailed coverage of the meetings, see “One way? NOOO way! 400+ Slopers deride DoT plans for Sixth and Seventh avenues” at Atlantic Yards Report. Also, check out Streets Blog’s coverage of the meeting, including a lot of photos of the big crowd that was unable to make it inside. And, check out a full set of Jonathan Barkey’s photos by clicking here.

There will be another Community Board Meeting on March 29 to discuss DOT proposals for Grand Army Plaza, for creating bike lanes on 9th Street and on Prospect Park West. It will be held at Old First Church. A full Community Board vote on the proposals will likely take place in April.

The image to the right is a rendering of the McCarren Park Mews building that is rising at N. 11th and Roebling in Williamsburg. You might better recognize the building by the name we gave it because of the oil oozing out of the ground into the construction site: The Roebling Oil Field. The building is designed by Karl Fischer, architect of nearby Karl Fischer Row and a several other buildings on Roebling, which we are thinking of renaming Karl Fischer Boulevard. This building would bring the total of Karl Fischer designed structures within a six or seven block stretch in the neighborhood to about ten. Best to like Fischer buildings in this part of Williamsburg, because there is very good chance that the new building you look up and see will be–surprise!!!–a Karl Fischer. In case you need a refresher, that’s the Oil Field, below.

Related Posts:
Roebling Oil Field Update: Still Oily
Oil Still Oozing into Williamsburg Condo Site

1) The Triple Crown “Coffee, Bar & Lounge” (above) has reimaged itself at 108 Bedford, in a building that has long had some cool wall murals.

2) Area Kids is now open in the Mini-Mall on Bedford Avenue, making it the fourth major children’s store in the neighborhood and the umpteenth Area Kids in Brooklyn.

3) In the restaurant openings category, Silenth has finally opened in the old Oznot’s Dish space and has gotten, as we noted yesterday, good reviews for its food and some decidedly negative reviews on service. Also, a new sushi restaurant is due to open by weekend at 106 N. 6th Street, a few doors down from SEA in a space that has been empty for a couple of years.

4) Up Greenpoint way, where Starbucks has put up a sign proclaiming that it’s coming soon, a vegetarian restaurant will be opening on Calyer Street. The name is said to be the William Howard Taft Restaurant, which is very presidential in a beginning of the 20th Century kind of way. (Taft was a patient at John Harvey Kellogg’s Sanitarium in Battle Creek, where vegetarianism was the order of the day.)

• One Way? Nooo Way! 400+ Park Slopers Turn Out for Meeting [AYR]
• Boerum Hill Association Critical of DOT Delays [110 Livingston News]
• Ratner Now Wants Brooklyn Tech [No Land Grab]
• What’s Up with Double Parked Cars in Park Slope? [Velvet Sea]
• Cool Renovation on Waverly [Clinton Hill Blog]
• Ten Percent Off at One Hanson [Brownstoner]
• Park Slope Parents Clear Things Up [OTBKB]
• More Deuce Seven [All City]
• Prospect Park Photo Tour [About Brooklyn]
• Coney Island by Professor Solomon [Coney Island Reporter]
• Online Petition to Support Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden [Kinetic Carnival]
• Unique Antiques on Atlantic [Brooklyn Record]

If the weather today seem, um, a little unspring-like, don’t worry. It’s right around the corner. Evidence: There will be an “Opening Day” Little League Parade on March 31 in Prospect Park and the Carousel, Electric Boat, Lefferts Historic House and Prospect Park Zoo will be “open for Spring.” From Prospect Park comes word:

Before the Yanks or the Mets take the field for their home game openers, nearly 2,000 Little League players will start the 2007 baseball season in Prospect Park. The pint-sized players will be joined by their friends, families, local community leaders and elected officials for a parade through Park Slope and on into the Park. Everyone then will gather at the Prospect Park Bandshell for a ceremonial first ball toss to start another great season of baseball and softball at the seven fields in Prospect Park’s Long Meadow and the six fields at the historic Parade Ground.

The Little League Parade gets underway at 10 a.m., starting at Seventh Avenue and Carroll Street, then moving along Seventh Avenue to 9th Street before turning up 9th Street into the Park and ending at the Bandshell. The Opening Day ceremony at the Bandshell will begin at approximately 10:45 a.m.

Also worth cheering for are Prospect Park’s dedicated volunteers who will be holding an Opening Day Clean-Up, March 31, from 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. Anyone wanting to lend a hand can meet near the Tennis House. Call or email for more information: (718) 965-8960, volunteers@prospectpark.org.

Ignore the fact that winter is clinging desperately to life today.

Back. To. The. Future. In. Greenpoint.

So, I noticed some wood fencing on the corner of 3rd ave & President street. Does anyone know what’s going to be there? I keep hearing rumors of another hotel. Also, a property 2 houses over between Pres and Union has been completely gutted.

The corner property hasn’t changed hands in decades, but plans were recently submitted for an 18,000 square foot, four-story hotel designed by architect Michael Kang of Flushing. Mr. Kang has worked quite a bit with Samuel Chang of McSam Hotels. In fact, Mr. Chang has developed both the Holiday Inn Express on Union Street and the Comfort Inn on Butler Street. (That’s the Holiday Inn Express poking over the other buildings in the photo.) McSam and Mr. Chang, however, appear to have nothing to do with this hotel; legal documents show a gentleman named Sanjay Patel as the principal. Things might go a little slowly, however, as submitted plans for the hotel were disapproved in late February. (As for the other building the reader mentioned, records show it’s owned by the Fifth Avenue Committee, so it’s safe to assume it will be one of the CDC’s affordable housing developments.) The new hotel would also be within shouting distance of the Hotel Le Bleu, soon to open on Fourth Avenue. Who knew Gowanus would turn out to be such a hotspot for hotels?

If you see something interesting in your Brooklyn neighborhood, Gowanus Lounge is all ears. Get in touch with us at gowanuslounge (at) gmail (dot) com.

Why has the sign gone missing? Where did it go? Neighborhood correspondent Chris Curen, who previously provided us with photographic evidence that Ikea’s construction crews have been busy little beavers and have filled about 3/4 of the Graving Dock, writes that there are several local theories:

1) IKEA noticed people taking pictures of the sign, and decided that ANYTHING (read: public art on the wall, or starting to fill in the graving dock during daylight hours) that garnered the attention of a camera was bad.

2) Somebody actually familiar with the acute misinformation-through-ommission that the marker represented tore the thing down.

3) The sign was actually an extremely clever form of satirizing IKEA’s bold-faced BS campaign – which is, actually, how I initially read it. Until I recalled how utterly ham-fisted IKEA is.

We’re thinking that Theory No. 1 is a good candidate as we’ve personally been approached by security while standing on the other side of Beard Street. Once, when we walked by the site’s main gate with our camera and stopped to take a photo of the Revere Sugar Dome another on-site security officer started shouting at us from inside the Porta-Potty in which she is stationed asking us what we were doing.

This hyper-sensitivity to cameras (in completely public places) makes some sense if you consider that Ikea began filling the Graving Dock with weeks of a lawsuit being filed to prevent them from doing so.

Related Posts:
Ikea’s Left Hand Digs While Right Hand Fills
Three-Fourths of Graving Dock Filled by Ikea

The building is across the street from another property that could soon be demolished and developed into condo. That site, which is pictured below along with renderings of the possible new building has the working name of McCarren Park Estates and would go up on the site of the old Manhattan Chocolate facility. It would be six-stories tall and have 121,000 square feet and 62 apartments. Plus parking for 44 cars. Initial plans, however, have been rejected as of late February. Architect is Kutnicki Bernstein.

One of favorite flickr photographers, who goes by the name of Gowanus, has started his own photoblog under his real name, Nathan Kensinger Photography. He starts with a cool feature called “Ikea Rising” that is totally worth checking out, because it offers both excellent shots and perspectives you’re just not going to get on your own. In addition, Mr. Kensinger has a screening on March 19 at 7PM of a film he produced, Bolerium, “a day in the life of one of the most important bookstores in America devoted to preserving the history of the world’s social movements, and follows its owners as they direct their staff of activist historians and interact with a colorful parade of booksellers and collectors.” It’s showing at the Brooklyn Independent Cinema Series at Barbés, which is at 376 9th St (at Sixth Ave) in Park Slope, Brooklyn. For more info on the screening and the series, click here.

[Photo courtesy of INSIJS & i’mjustsayin/flickr]

Brooklinks is a daily selection of Brooklyn-related information and images. On Thursdays we focus on food.

Food:

• Making Sense of Williamsburg’s New Sushi Scene (above) [INSIJS]
• New Japanese on N. 6th Opening [A Test of Will]
• “Disgusting” Veggie Burger at Bonnie’s Grill [Chowhound]
• Wednesday Food & Drink Roundup [Brooklyn Record]
• Nita, Nita is Wonderful [Bad Advice]
• Reports on Babouches, New Park Slope Moroccan [Chowhound]
• 94 Restaurants Closed After the KFC-Taco Bell Ratfest [Newyorkology]
• Williamsburg’s New Vietnamese, Silenth, is Very Tasty [INSIJS]
• Silenth’s Food is Good, but the Party Animal Service is Nightmarish [Bad Advice]

Not Food:

• One-Way Plan Draws Ire in Park Slope [Sun]
• StreetFilm: One Way is Wrong Way [Streets Blog]
• Questions About Brooklyn Bridge Park’s Big Price Tag [Metro]
• Ratner Sends Top Gun Lawyer to Brooklyn [AYR]
• New Park Slope Academy Wouldn’t be a “Jihad School” [OTBKB]
• Storm Surge City [Gothamist]
• Special City Council Election on Again for April 24 [Across the Park]
• More Deuce Seven [All City]
• Cool Stuff on Myrtle [BedStuy Blog]
• Sustainable Flatbush Kickoff Party at Vox Pop on Friday [Flatbush Gardener]
• McGolrick Park’s Crapper of Death [newyorkshitty]

We’ve been shooting photos of the Revere Dome in Red Hook every Saturday since demolition permits were issued in December. The quick, 39-second vid below is a series of photos shot from the same vantage point at one-week intervals. The dome itself doesn’t change much at first, then goes very quickly.

Related Post:
Revere Dome Relocated to Gowanus!!!
Revere Sugar, Then & Now

Ah, rats. We’re bored with restaurant rats, even though the Sixth Avenue KFC and its globally famous rats created great memories and the fallout hitting other restaurants has been interesting. Our own favorite rat sighting spots are subway stations. There are some Brooklyn stations in which you are guaranteed to see a rat if you stare at the tracks long enough. Try it, for instance, at Jay Street-Borough Hall. (Our best staring time comes on the Coney Island-bound F train platform.) Two-three minutes of looking is almost certain to produce a running rat or rats. Sometimes 15-30 seconds is long enough. At times, we’ve observed what we are certain was adult rats playing with little rats. On the other hand, our closest ever encounter with a subway rat came at the elevated Smith-9th Street station–the highest station in the subway system–during the summer when one practically ran over our feet, which was especially creepy because we were wearing sandals. Do you have any stations that are especially good for rat watching?

Related Post:
Park Slope Neighbors Say “No Way” to One Way Streets

We don’t know the extent to which developer Joe Sitt and Thor Equities were hoping for a smooth approval of their $2 billion Coney Island redevelopment scheme–or at least of the necessary zoning changes–but it doesn’t seem to be the route which the project will take. Coverage of the project–driven by online sources–has been thorough for some time. In the meantime, the developer seems to have been following a strategy of leaking renderings and some stories to print media outlets. Interviews criticizing the city for moving slowly on rezoning have followed. The most recent curious example was the story that appeared in the New York Observer last week in which Planning Director Amanda Burden seemed to have been ranked among “folks at the junior-most levels of government.” The approach would seem to be in marked contrast to that used by developer Bruce Ratner in signing on key public officials and community groups as allies in the process of getting Atlantic Yards approved. (At least, we don’t recall any instances of Mr. Ratner calling Empire State Development Corp. Chair Charles Gargano, for example, a bureaucratic stooge. Then again, he didn’t have to, as Mr. Gargano never uttered any public doubts about Atlantic Yards.)

We digress, however. Our point is simply to say that opposition seems to be galvanizing. Case in point is “Save Coney Island,” a new group that is taking shape to oppose Mr. Sitt’s vision of housing in Coney Island’s amusement zone. It’s planning a theatrical “No Condos in Coney” protest outside Thor headquarters that should draw plenty of cameras. We hear the protest could take place within a few weeks.

• City Abdicated Its Role on Atlantic Yards, but There’s Still Time [Brooklyn Speaks]
• Lawyers of Tenants Challenging Atlantic Yards Demolition Face Skeptical Judge [AYR]
• Starrett City Rumble [NYO]
• Is DOT’s Park Slope Traffic Proposal Atlantic Yards Planning? [Streets Blog]
• Get the Party Started and Save Coney [Kinetic Carnival]
• Save Coney Island: The Party Begins [Brit in Brooklyn]
• Passing Along the Gowanus Community Info [Found in Brooklyn]
• Deep Analysis of 321 Prospect Place [Built Environment Blog]
• Robert Moses Lives [Metropolis Mag]
• Stuffy Montague Street is Fading, Needs a Dose of Smith Street [NYO]
• Hidden Treasures at Lockaway [Clinton Hill Blog]
• Evidence of Change in PLG [Across the Park]
• Koolman Fire in Williamsburg Threatens North Brooklyn Summer [INSIJS]
• New Indie Bookstore on Court: Pranga [423 Smith]
• Dogshit in Details [newyorkshitty]
• Bo Concept Opening Celebrations and Charity Event [Dumbo NYC]