We found the map below courtesy of Gothamist, which located it on the Brooklyn Properties website. For the handful of you that haven’t seen it, we’ve been meaning to run it for days, because we find it compelling in terms of testing our neighborhood knowledge. How many of these Brooklyn neighborhoods do you? How many could you place on a map? How many of them have you visited? Fun stuff.

We nodded and said that the building had been gone for several months.

“I know,” he said. “I used to own the Old Dutch Mustard building.”

That plot, plus several others were sold to Steiner Equities for $25 million.

“You owned it?” we said. He was modestly dressed, driving an non-descript car.

He explained that he’d owned the property since the 1950s. “There was a time it was nothing but a nuisance. Then it was worth $1 million and all of a sudden $4 million. That was some building too. They had to work to get it down.”

“It was a nice building.”

“They wanted to save it. They really wanted to save it, but there was no way they could make it work.”

He looked at GL, with two cameras, asked us what we did. We could have explained the whole blog thing and that, ironically, we’d covered the Old Dutch demolition blow-by-blow.

“I’m a photographer.”

We chatted a bit more, talking about development in the neighborhood and about the old Domino Sugar plant down the street.

His wife got out the car and called him. He turned, telling us to have a nice day, and we didn’t have the presence of mind to ask him to pose for a photo. We told him it was nice talking with him.

Of all the random encounters we could have in Williamsburg, it was more than a little ironic to have run into the former owner of Old Dutch coming back for a nostalgic look at the property he’d once owned.

“What’s up?” we asked.

“Aren’t you that reporter that was here when we had that trouble?” he asked.

“No. I’m just a photographer. What trouble?”

We’ve been past the gate, but given that Ikea had “trouble” on Friday in the form of stories about missing (possibly toxic) rubble and dirt, GL as very curious.

“Somebody got hurt a few months ago in the drydock,” he said, referring to a worker hurt on the site.

“Right, I remember that. Actually, I’m shooting pictures of the dome.”

This was not a lie. We were shooting photos of the dome and didn’t have a good angle into the Ikea for a shot of the (possibly toxic) rubble. Last time we tried shooting picture through the gate one of the security gaurds became moderately rabid. Which is why the idea of 15 dump trucks full of rubble being snuck past them seems a bit odd.

“That’s coming down,” he said.

“Well, have a great day.”

As he walked away, we could see him saying something into a two-way radio. Was it an innocent encounter because he thought we looked like a reporter that had been on the site before (which we haven’t)? Or is Ikea taking a keen interest in who’s taking photos on public streets? We’d assume it’s the former, but the insistent way the guy approached us in the first place, makes us wonder.

Dr. King:

• I Have a Dream (above) [youtube via A Sad Day for Birds II]
• MLK Speech MP3 Download Links [Brooklyn Vegan]
• Text of King Speeches [stanford.edu via AYR]

Everything Else:

• Planner Amanda Burden: From Cotillions to Reshaping NYC [NYT]
• NYT Burden Profile Maintains Atlantic Yards Myth, Suffers Curious Cut [AYR]
• Planning v. Designing [Polis]
• Property Tax Increases Hit Low Income Brooklynites Hardest [NYPost]
• Park Slope Child Care Collective Needs Temporary Space [OTBKB]
• Record Sale for Prospect Heights Condo [Set Speed]
• Newtown Creek Alliance Meeting on Jan. 23 [Green Brooklyn]
• Coney Island in Winter [Dave Beckerman Photography]
• Cruise to Coney [Lexiphane]
• Electronic Signs on L Platforms [Sun]

423 Smith weighs in with a fun neighborhood post called “Carroll Gardens: Land of Video Stores (many of which are closed, or supported by many other services).” With that kind of title, no need to explain what it’s about, right? A small taste:

The Carroll Gardens area is known for many things; for instance, its brownstones, French bulldogs, and lard bread. But one thing this area doesn’t get recognition for is its burgeoning and bustling scene of closed-up video shops as well as video shops who clearly have to do way more than rent videos in order to stay in business.

What follows is a not to be missed tour of the neighborhood video rental scene. (That picture above from 423 Smith? That’s the former Video Corner.) Put this post on your must-read list.

The Post takes a look at the Brooklyn real estate game today and notes some of the projects making it hot. A sample:

Bruce Ratner last month received final state approval to break ground on the largest development project in Brooklyn’s history: a $4 billion plan to build an NBA arena and 16 skyscrapers along the Prospect Heights/Fort Greene border.

Another hot-shot developer, Joe Sitt, continued to gobble up properties along the Coney Island boardwalk – including the famous Astroland Park – as part of his $2 billion bid to turn the rundown summer amusement area into a Vegas-style, year-round entertainment complex.

And while Brooklyn’s commercial real-estate market continued to boom, residential sales did even better – despite a market slowdown nationwide.

The most interesting thing, though, about the article is the map, which is fun for those that are visually inclined. We’ve reproduced a smaller version above, or click here to see the full-size image.

Here’s a fun video we came across courtesy of the Coney Island Message Board. It’s a video from 1990 of the B&B (Bishoff & Brienstein) Carousell, which was bought for $1.8 by the city and will be reopened at some point as part of the “new” Coney Island. Click on this link or on the embed.

BONUS: If you want to read an interesting item about the Carousell (spelled that way because that’s the way its builder spelled carousell) click over to this webpage. There are some wonderful photos and a lot of information.

It’s Sunday. Time to hit Craigslist for this week’s best Missed Connection. Our search brings us to a party in Bushwick:

Rooftop party last Saturday you were blonde and from South Oregon – m4w – 25

This might be a longshot but I ended up at a random party in the Williamsburg/Bushwick area. You were with a couple of your girlfriends, one of them had some Heinekens with her. We were drunk, had a fun conversation and were smoking purple haze in the stairway (it was too chilly on the rooftop). You and your friend were talking about how you guys were in Stuttgart, Germany (your dad was there for the army or something), you also told me how they put you in jail for 14 days in Oregon for drunk driving or something like that. You were wearing a green tank top. Wish I could have stayed longer but my friends were dragging me to another bar.

We’ll drink to that.

Photos:

• Water Towers [Lex’s Folly]
• Bus Stares [Park Slope Street Photography]
• No Words_Daily Pix [Hugh Crawford/OTBKB]
• Atlantic Terminal 9AM [seriously excited!]
• Grain Elevator [Atomische]
• Polar Bear [Native Eye]
• Coney Murals [jason/myspace]
• Belgian Blocks [Dumbo NYC]
• The Horror at Red Hook [Brit in Brooklyn]

Words:

• Daily Eagle Column Says Flaws in Atlantic Yards Process are “Falsehoods” [AYR]
• Sunni and Shiites on Atlantic Avenue [NYT]
• OTBKB Goes to Bay Parkway [OTBKB]
• Burnt Sugar [Polis]
• Red Hook Biodiesel Plant Closer to Reality [Green Brooklyn]
• Who’s the Guy with the Dog? [Brooklyn Heights Blog]
• Latest Wave of Williamsburg Restaurants [NYT]
• New L Train Signs! [Gothamist]
• Mo Vaughn Sets Out to Clean Up Brooklyn Complex [NYPost]
• Coney Island Memories, AKA, Why, Astroland, Why [Pablo da Whipper Whip/myspace]
• Second Lives: The Mary Whelan [Tugster]
• Finding a Condo on Bedford [The Hunt/NYT]

We have already noted a prayer service taking place this afternoon in Park Slope to remember the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., on this national holiday weekend. There are some worthwhile programs going on today and tomorrow. One of the more interesting ones takes place today (Sunday 1/14) from 4-7 PM at the Brooklyn Museum. It will be a panel discussion called “Looking for Martin: Are Dr. King and His “Dream” Still Relevant?” Among the participants are Kevin Powell, Brooklyn-based community activist and author (Someday We’ll All Be Free), and WNYC’s Brian Lehrer. On Monday, the Brooklyn Academy of Music is holding its 21st annual tribute to Dr. King. It starts at 10AM and seating is first come, first served. Among those attending are Gov. Spitzer. Finally, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden will have a free performance of spirituals by the Great Day Chorale led by Louvinia Pointer in the Plam House. Performances are at 11 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. There’s also a special tour of African plants at 1 in the Steinhardt Conservatory. We thank Neil Feldman and his superb Not Only Brooklyn Enewsletter of events for info on some of the events. Email arbruner (at) aol (dot) com to subscribe. It’s absolutely worth it.

Here are a couple of vids of the ongoing demolition of the Revere Sugar Dome in Red Hook that were posted by parabolic223 on youtube. The top one is about 2:16. The bottom one is only :29. They were shot back in December during an earlier stage of the demo.

[Photo courtesy of Soupflowers from her superb Revere Sugar Refinery flickr photoset]

Brooklyn Paper reporter Ariella Cohen writers a beautiful piece this week as the result of a visit inside the Revere Sugar factory, which is slowly being demolished by developer Joe Sitt. The column notes that Mr. Sitt still isn’t saying whether any buildings on the site will be saved–and there are structures of historical signficance on the site other than the iconic dome, which he is having demolished.

Ms. Cohen files an evocative report, which does with words what a handful of other people that have made their way onto the site have done with pictures. It’s a wonderful read in its entirety, but we reproduce a small sample here:

To be inside a factory on the verge of demolition is like visiting a place of worship emptied by earthquake. The ceilings are high. Unfiltered sunlight washes over everything: chairs that once held people, stray leather shoes, a suit jacket, ink-stained ledgers, bashed-up books. A sapling grows in the arch of a broken, scroll-shaped window.

At the Revere Sugar refinery on the new gold coast of Red Hook, the high ceiling is a silver dome over the South Brooklyn waterfront. Look past the tree growing in that window and see how the Statue of Liberty shines on the water, see the skylines of Manhattan to the north and Sunset Park to the south.

Revere went bankrupt in 1985 and the plant was wrecked by fire some years later. Clearly, no one has come back for cleanup duty in the cathedral built by a sugar king from the Philippines. Now, a real-estate developer from Brooklyn, Joe Sitt, has begun tearing it down.

So soon enough, the ledger books scribbled with notes about fusty boilers and sugar orders that were late in 1982 will be gone. In due time, the signs will all be removed (one, near the exit, warned workers to be careful because “a fire could put us all out of work”).

Beautiful words paying homage to an oddly stunning place.

(For two other amazing visual looks inside slowly falling Revere dome, check out the flickr photosets posted by Gowanus and Mercurialn.)

[Photo courtesy of Frank Lynch/flickr]

Photos:

• Soda (above) [Frank Lynch/flickr]
• Then it Rained [A Test of Will]
• Red Hook Salt Mountain [Atomische]
• Thor’s Playland [Brit in Brooklyn]
• Quest Mechanical Corp. [bluejake]
• Robot Operator, Gowanus Canal [seriously excited!]
• Graving Dock [Lex’s Folly]
• Brooklyn Bridge Photo Pool [Dope on the Slope]
• Atop the Gowanus Cement Chute [callalillie/flickr]
• Park Slope Construction Scene [seriously excited!]
• Beard Street Art Panorama [jakedobkin/flickr]

Not Photos:

• Tenant Lawsuit Filed Against Atlantic Yards [NYT]
• “Almost no chance” Developer Would Abandon Yards Project [AYR]
• L Train Platform Electronic Signs Will Tell You How Screwed You Are [NYDN]
• Wal-Mart Still Hot for Brooklyn [Courier-Life]
• Lucky Dumbo Artists Can Design Works to Match Hallway Carpets [Daily Intel]
• Where Does a Tree Stand in the Development Hierarchy [Brownstoner]
• Manhattan Beach…. [ctphoneshome]
• Is Greenpoint’s Guernsey Inn Chic or Crappy? [Brooklyn Record]

• Dumbo’s Beacon of Light Offering Rentals (above)
• Red Hook Roundup, Toxic Mystery Edition
• Fourth Avenue G-Slope Hotel Blends with Surroundings
• $3.8 Million Record Condo Sale at Aurora Should Liven Party
• Williamsburg Party Smackdown: Northside Piers v. Aurora
• Greenpoint’s Tahoe Triangle Taking Shape
• Williamsburg Update #2: 55 Berry’s Friend Gets Bigger
• Williamsburg Update #1: North8 Gets Brick, Glass
• Why Isn’t Forest Hills Hip Like Red Hook?
• Greenpoint Nautical Update: Aqua Still Has Boat
• Finger Building Getting Hip Black Exterior

For the record, we do not condone, support or advocate feeding beer to cats. Or dogs, for that matter. Or hamsters. Or (fill in the pet of your choice). It should also be noted that the cat in the video doesn’t actually appear to be drinking beer so much as licking the bottle, although he would certainly appear happy to drink up if he were able. All that having been said, well, watch the youtube video by clicking on the embed below or on this link. The video is silly, but oddly compelling and has that Brooklyn beer angle.

Missing: 500,000 pounds of rubble, last seen at the planned Ikea furniture store site in Red Hook. Could be toxic.

Police are investigating the apparent theft last week of a brownstone-sized mound of concrete and brick left over from the demolition of about 10 mostly Civil War-era buildings.

“It’s definitely a larceny,” said an Police Department spokesman who said the debris that disappeared from Beard St. is valued at $2,000 to $3,000, and likely required 15 trucks to haul away.

“No leads yet,” he added.

The four-story mound had been at the site since summer, when the historic buildings were knocked down to make way for an Ikea parking lot.

The debris was to be used to fill a dock, but the rubble collected dust until last week, when it was stolen from the site.

Red Hook Civic Association Co-Chairman John McGettrick charged the debris was contaminated and said the site itself needs to be investigated for traces of the rubble.

And the Post reports:

Tons of dirt are missing from the construction site of Brooklyn’s planned Ikea megastore, and cops are investigating if and why the potentially toxic soil was stolen, a company spokesman said yesterday.

The 300 cubic yards of soil were made up of crushed concrete and debris, according to Ikea’s Joseph Roth.

John McGettrick, of the Red Hook Civic Alliance, which opposes the project, said toxic materials, such as asbestos, oil and mercury, have previously been found at the site, and demanded an investigation.

Roth said the site is safe and has been monitored by several agencies.

The item presents so many interesting questions: Who would take toxic dirt? If it wasn’t stolen, where did it go? Nobody noticed somebody driving off with 15 trucks full of stuff? How bad is the toxic issue at the Ikea site?

The possible dirt theft aside, the most interesting thing about the story is the toxic Ikea site angle (AKA Toxic Ektorp), which is a fascinating companion to the big box store angle, the Graving Dock angle (which merges with the toxic rubble angle), the landmark destruction angle and the overwhelming Red Hook with traffic angle.

How about a new furniture line called Toxisk or Giftig, which a handy online English to Swedish translation tool tells us are Swedish for toxic?

Williamsburg blogger I’m Not Sayin’ got a visit from The Edge this week. If only it had been U2’s guitar player rather than a representative of the developer throwing up the mega-development on Kent Avenue in Williamsburg known as The Edge. The Edge didn’t specifically come to pay a courtesy call so much to scope out extra real estate, but the information imparted was valuable in allowing one to envision the day about 18 months from now when at least five 30+ story highrises will extend from N. 5th Street (Northside Piers) to N. 7th Street (The Edge). I’m Not Sayin’–who does a great job covering the waterfront–writes:

The folks bringing Williamsburg’s “The Edge” had advertised a Spring 2006 groundbreaking; but aside from a week or two of exploratory pile-driving, we were spared from real construction. We’d convinced ourselves that the recently-flaccid condo and co-op market had spooked our new neighbors into a catatonic state of wait-and-see. But the Grim Reaper came a callin’ today.

Bottom line, according to a Douglaston rep named Leah:
– the project will break ground in February
– all four towers will be built immediately; no phased-in construction nonsense like nextdoor at Northside Piers
– the units will be condos
– the sales office will be at the corner of Kent Avenue and North 6th

Imnotsayin may be looking for new digs very soon…

At last count, The Edge will include 892 residential units in the four buildings and 100,000 square feet of retail (if we were to wager, we would wager that this would be a prime location for a new Whole Foods or other large grocery).

Truly, you could spend your entire life obssessively and compulsively tracking and blogging all of the construction-related glitches of the Great Brooklyn Building Boom of the Early 2000s from run-of-the mill violations like illegal demolitions to more profound things like destabilized buildings. (And, with a new surge coming, it’s only going to get better.) Here’s the latest on the ongoing situation at 406-408 15th Street (source of the infamous Eighth Avenue crack building) and a fun item about tremblors in Boerum Hill that was reported yesterday by the Brooklyn Record and, then, expounded upon by its readers.

1) 406-408 15th Street AKA the Cause of the South Slope Crack House. Concerned Citizens of Greenwood Heights reports that there is still no action despite assurances of a Stop Work Order on the building that is causing huge cracks in the walls of neighboring buildings, opening sinkholes and knocking over trees. “Still NOTHING from DOB,” they write. “We were told a chief inspector was to come out yesterday and ‘confer with the Commissioner,’ with a verbal SWO in place (huh?) and a real SWO immanent. Boys were back and working today, no SWO, no new inspectors, ALL 311 complaints still open. Grrr! Will reconvien with CB7 in the morn.” Given the amount of damage to neighbors in the South Slope, the lack of action is interesting. The bright side is that it’ll make for fantastic blogging when one of the buildings collapses!

2) The Great Boerum Hill Quake of 2007. The Brooklyn Record reports that “one reader is complaining that her whole apartment has been vibrating since 7:30 this morning. She is also experiencing some power surges, so she is corresponding with us via an unplugged laptop. “It stops for a few minutes, then starts again,” our reader laments, but she’s still looking on the bright side: “I just hope they’re building something awesome.” The epicenter of the quake is believed to be a former Enterprise Lot at Atlantic and Nevins where pile driving and other construction is underway.