Time to dust off the wisecracks about how Red Hook is going to smell like a deep fryer. The biodiesel plant that has been proposed for a site near the Red Hook Ball Fields has gotten city funding. Crains reports that Tri-State Biodiesel, which will make biodiesel fule, will get $3.96 million in tax-exempt bonds and $5.2 million in real estate and sales tax benefits to build a 12,900-square-foot manufacturing and warehouse facility.

The enterprise will collect used cooking oil from restaurants and process it with methanol and petroleum to create diesel fuel. More than one million gallons of waste oil could be collected in Brooklyn every year according to a 2004 Cornell study. The fuel produces 78 percent less carbon-dioxide emissions than standard diesel.

The biodiesel people say the plant won’t smell like rancid oil or cause Red Hook–which has seen its share of undesirable enterprises like waste collection stations–to smell like the exhaust of a McDonald’s deep fryer.

Related Posts:
Next Up in Red Hook: Biodiesel Fuel Production?

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

• Hoyt Street Goat is Safe & Sound [Brooklyn Vegan]
• Brooklyn Goat Escapes Slaughterhouse [Farm Sanctuary]
• Heartbreaking Story of Carroll Garden’s 94-Year-Old Dominick Diomede [Brooklyn Papers]
• Judge OKs Sale of Notorious Brooklyn Apt Complex to Former Mets Slugger [NYDN]
• La Vida Scarano on 23rd Street [Brownstoner]
• Lovely Fourth Avenue Boutique Hotel [Random Brooklyn]
• Driver’s License and US Passport Not Enough to Rent Brooklyn PO Box [Clinton Hill Blog]
• OTBKB and No Words Interviewed by Dane [OTBKB]
• House on Fenimore, Needs Work [My Life in Brooklyn]
• Freelancers Loft in Williamsburg [Brooklyn Record]
• Brooklyn: An Official Tourist Trap? [About Brooklyn]
• Williamsburg’s CB I Hate Perfume [Gridskipper]
• Hungry Cabbie Eats Defonte’s Sandwich Shop [Gothamist]

No, this isn’t another Joe Sitt and Thor Equities post. It’s about an animated film apparently being created by director Ralph Bakshi called “The Last Days of Coney Island.” The film is described on IMDB as “a hardboiled tale of a NYPD detective, the Lady of the Evening he alternately loved and busted, and the seedy characters that haunt the streets of New York City’s run-down amusement district.” We take no credit for coming across this. That goes to the person who posts on the Coney Island Message Board as made_in_coney78. Dick Zigun of Coney Island USA notes, in the same thread, “Ralph Bakshi visited the sideshow last year and introduced himself. Said he was working on a coney movie and wanted to use the sideshow. I gave him my card. Wondered if it was a combo of live film and animation…never heard back from him.” Bakshi has made dozens of films, among them Heavy Traffic and Fritz the Cat. The latter was an x-rated animated film about a libidinous cat. According to IMDB, Bakshi was born in Haifa, but grew up in Brownsville after his family came to New York to escape World War II. He went to Thomas Jefferson High School and the High School of Industrial Arts and graduated, from which he graduated with award in cartooning in 1957. You can check out his website here.

CONEY ISLAND BONUS: There is continued talk of running a ferry from Battery Park to Coney Island. Read about the latest on the possibility of ferry service to the Coney Island Aquarium “and other beach destinations.”

We’re a little late in coming to this party, but this week’s Village Voice has an item about Gowanus that we’d be seriously remiss in not mentioning. A snippet:

Gowanus, the industrial district surrounding the Gowanus Canal, has long been the ugly stepsister to next-door Carroll Gardens, Boerum Hill, and Park Slope. The canal itself was notorious as an alleged Mafia dumping ground and a communal latrine; locals sardonically dubbed its putrid and polluted waters “Perfume Creek” and “Lavender Lake.” And yet from the late 19th century until the mid 20th century, the canal was a crucial link to Red Hook’s port, with industry thriving on its banks.

The name Gowanus is thought to derive either from Gowane, a Canarsee tribe leader, or the Dutch word for bay, gouwee. The Gowanus Canal was built in 1848 to join Red Hook’s port to the interior of Brooklyn. Barges carried sandstone and lumber down the waterway, bringing in the raw materials for the stately brownstones of Carroll Gardens, Boerum Hill, and Cobble Hill. These neighborhoods gave back to the Gowanus, piping raw sewage from houses directly into the water. According to local lore, if you ran down to the canal after using a bathroom in Carroll Gardens, you could see your feces entering the stream.

Nice image, that. Other parts of the article, which you can read here are a bit more positive.

There is a deal to save Broken Angel, the endangered Clinton Hill landmark. The New York Times reports that an agreement was reached yesterday in a meeting in Brooklyn Supreme Court and that owner Arthur Wood will submit engineering plans by next Wednesday to remove the 40-foot structure on the building’s roof. The Times also reports that Mr. Wood has a tentative deal “to share ownership” with Shahn Anderson, a local developer. Mr. Anderson would “turn most of the building into condominiums,” according to the Times, which spoke with a spokesperson for City Council Member Letitia James, who has been representing Mr. Wood pro bono. The new Broken Angel would include community space, studio space for Mr. Wood and a place for Mr. Wood and his wife to life.

Mr. Wood told the Times that this was not his prefered solution. He said he wanted to raise money to bring the building up to code himself.

But he was running out of time and afraid the buildings department would tear down his home. “I have to do something,” Mr. Wood said. “Everything I own is there: paintings, thousands of dollars worth of equipment.”

The building could be Brooklyn’s answer to Antonio Gaudí’s whimsical, unfinished Sagrada Familia basilica in Barcelona. Mr. Wood, an artist, considers the building his primary canvas, as well as the home where he and his wife reared two children.

They bought the building, the former Brooklyn Trolley headquarters, in 1979, and it has been a work in progress ever since.

Architects and students from the nearby Pratt Institute have been donating services to help save the structure.

Related Post:
Broken Angel News: Wood Says It’s On Sale, Very Threatened

With all the plans by Thor Equities and other developers to bring a major upscaling, including luxury housing, to Coney Island, plans for a long awaited community center will be unveiled today. The 40,000-square-foot facility will be built on Surf Avenue and include two pools and a basketball court. Details are reported by Jotham Sederstrom in today’s Daily News:

Beside the pools, the two-story center is slated to include an aerobics center, computer lab, social room, training room and a basketball court, beneath 150 units of co-op housing, developer Larry Hirschfield said.

The housing, which will help fund the center, will cost from $89,000 to $500,000, for a three-bedroom unit, said Hirschfield, who said construction won’t begin for a year.

The center, which will be built on vacant, city-owned land and operated by the YMCA, will be managed in a similar fashion as a community center in Brooklyn Heights that also includes low-income and affordable housing. The housing, which will help fund the center, will cost from $89,000 to $500,000, for a three-bedroom unit, said Hirschfield, who said construction won’t begin for a year.

The center, which will be built on vacant, city-owned land and operated by the YMCA, will be managed in a similar fashion as a community center in Brooklyn Heights that also includes low-income and affordable housing.

The facility has been said to be in the works for some time.

Lurking the editorial section of yesterday’s Sun was a long editorial that hones in on the Toll Brothers zoning dilemma in Gowanus and uses it as the jumping off point to make the case that regulations subjecting such developers to a long and arduous regulatory process is the reason they only build million dollar condos.

Where to begin?

Let’s start with the choice of the Toll Brothers firm as the torch bearer for an overwhelming desire on the part of developers to build affordable housing that is stiffled by government. (Nothing personal, but a focus on the high end of the market is a focus on the high end.) Next, there are the details of Toll’s frustration with the slow process of rezoning in Gowanus–which we’d already been told about in general terms. (The Tolls and Leviev Boymelgreen–which hopes to build Gowanus Village–had apparently been hoping for a quick-and-dirty rezoning of their properties apart from a Gowanus comprehensive plan some 12-18 months ago.) The Sun writes:

Toll Brothers Inc., a Pennsylvania-based developer famous for sprucing up the Jersey suburbs with upper-middle-class subdivisions, has been waiting since 2004 for the Department of City Planning to certify the rezoning of a two-block slice of land along the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn.

Toll Brothers recently had to withdraw an application for a state-funded environmental cleanup of the site because of the city’s tardiness. And even if Toll Brothers gets city approval to go ahead with rezoning, it will still have to embark on a 7-month process of more hearings and reviews before it can begin building the mixed-income urban village of townhouses and apartments it has planned.

Toll Brothers doesn’t want to talk about its problems in Brooklyn (“Use your imagination,” one of its vice presidents, David Von Spreckelsen, said). But the situation is an example of how politicians, while intoning about the need for affordable housing and proposing more rent and construction subsidies and other handouts, operate a system of onerous and costly zoning and landmark regulations that drive developers like Toll Brothers away from this city.

The editorial goes on to compare the “svelte” zoning code of 1916 with today’s 2,520 document and suggest that the building boom of the 1920s is a fairly good model to follow. Of the Toll Brothers problems it continues that developers:

are almost guaranteed to have to seek rezoning for their projects. As in the case of Toll Brothers, the rezoning process can take years, and the environmental impact review alone takes an average of 18 months. All of which helps make million-dollar condos about the only new housing developers will touch.

We will not wade into the swamp of why a lack of zoning made Houston the great city that it is, but will say that we have long wondered if major Gowanus projects would get the zoning they needed and go forward independent of the overall Gowanus planning process, rendering the plan yet another document whose main contribution to life is to kill more trees and use up hard drive space for storing big PDFs. Far from being driven from New York City, the Toll Brothers are in up to their eyeballs with major projects in Manhattan, three highrises and a smaller luxury development in Williamsburg, a significant project in Long Island City and others.

The moment we saw the Brooklyn Paper story about the Toll Brothers “withdrawing” their application for a cleanup of the Gowanus site we sensed a ploy to apply pressure to get a rezoning independent of the Gowanus plan. Or, maybe, it’s just an innocent coincidence of timing.

Related Post:
Toll Brothers Getting a Little Testy in Gowanus?

The victimization of writer Douglas Rushkoff by a mugger in Park Slope on Christmas Eve and the subsequent declarations of intent by he and his wife to leave Brooklyn is one of those things that reverberates. We’re even guessing that there’ might even be a person here and there that doesn’t know much about Mr. Rushkoff’s body of work that now knows about what happened and the subequent local furor. Mr. Rushkoff expounded more as a guest on the Brian Lehrer show on Monday, telling BL that “Park Slope is dark; it has residential streets that nobody walks on” and that when he lived in the East Village “I knew which drug dealers are on which corner, and I actually had a relationship with them. In Park Slope, there’s a tension in our relationship … I don’t think they consider me part of the same neighborhood.”

Interestingly, both of the original posts by Mr. Rushkoff and his wife Barbara, the latter on her blog, A Girl Grows in Brooklyn, have been pulled. We found them with the help of Google’s cache and reproduce them below in their entirety in case any of you that are curious never got the chance to read them:

First, Mr. Rushkoff’s, from December 25, originally posted on his blog, called “Merry Christmas, Give Me Your Money”:

I got mugged at knifepoint while taking out the garbage Christmas Eve at 9pm.

I negotiated with him for my health insurance card – not only because it has my Social Security number and was really hard to get, but because I knew that such a request would humanize me in the mind of my attacker, and make it harder for him to stab me. Such are the benefits of studying human behavior. All I lost was my phone, cards, and money.

Getting a knife pushed into your ribcage now and again is just part of the price we pay to live in a city, and New York is supposedly one of the safer of the bunch. But I have to admit, it makes me question working two extra gigs (I won’t divulge which ones they are) in order to pay the exorbitant rent this part of Brooklyn – when the streets are less safe than they were in the supposedly bad parts of Manhattan where I used to live.

It may just be the humiliation of not fighting back that’s getting me down, but I fear that Brooklyn may be a crock. And with a two-year-old daughter, I feel a strong urge to spend my effort elsewhere.

Merry solstice to all. Things should get brighter, soon.

And, now, Barbara Rushkoff’s, also from December 25, which was called “I May Have to Renname This Blog,” which was originally on her blog A Girl Grows in Brooklyn:

Picture it. Christmas Eve in picturesque Park Slope, Brooklyn. Our street is a row of brownstones. You can have one too if you have 2 million bucks laying around (we rent.) Gorgeous decorations, old world charm, the works. Have that picture in mind?

Ok, now picture this. My husband goes outside at 9:00pm Christmas Eve to throw out the trash. It has been an exhaustive weekend as Mamie got sick smack dab in the middle of her birthday party on Saturday. She has a terrible cold and a fever. We have not slept well. Neither has she. The cold air feels good to Doug. He ponders the idyllic scene outside.

Then he gets mugged.

Right on our stoop.

At gun point.

I am in bed, attempting to sleep before Mamie wakes up and cries because she can’t breathe. I bolt up, and the migraine starts. Calmly he cancels all his credit cards, stops his phone service (the guy took his cell phone) and looks at me to say “what else?” I couldn’t say much except that what if he had been shot? I fast forward to me taking care of a child by myself. Without a husband.

“I want out of here,” I said.

Brooklyn, Schmooklyn. Yeah, it’s pretty here, but we are surrounded by crime. Kings County (Brooklyn’s county) is one of the highest crime areas in the country. Insurance is more here than almost any other place. It costs $2000 a year to insure my wedding ring. Most other cities it would cost $150. The other day we saw a coke deal go down in front of the post office while Bugaboos passed. The diner up the street (the one next to the hospital) was robbed on Friday night. Nah, I am not liking it here much now.

As a kid I couldn’t wait to move to New York. I dreamt of having a family here and raising a city kid. I spent 20 years of my life living in Manhattan and didn’t get mugged once. I felt safer there than here. Why is that? Oh right, because we live in a ridiculously overpriced neighborhood surrounded by people being forced out. That’s what the cops today said anyway. The deep dark secret about Park Slope is that there’s tons of crime here. According to the detectives from today, Manhattan is safe, but Brooklyn is decidedly not.

We called in the mugging the next morning. One cop was really defensive, acting as if Doug was in the wrong for not calling immediately last night when it happened. I tried to explain that we had a sick kid, that we were freaked out, but he was like, “you’re making my job harder.”

“I want to move out of here,” I said again. Hello, we’re the victims here. Hello?

Then I yelled at the cops, asking what was the problem. This guy was taking the whole bad cop thing a little too far for me. I held Mamie in my arms tight. She was still hot from her fever. They grilled Doug some more and made him come down to the precinct to look at mugshots. I stewed at home, watching way too much Noggin with Mamie. It was the Oswald episode where Katrina sees snow for the first time that finally broke me down.

When Doug got home a few hours later we talked about moving out. We have this talk every so often: when we realize how ludicrous getting Mamie into school here is, when we try to find a place to buy and only see crap (for a million bucks to boot), and when shit like this happens. am a city girl, I want a city kid, but lately it doesn’t seem worth it.

It’s not cowardly to leave a place you love because you have a family now. I say it’s brave. It’s hard to leave what you know, who you know, the city you once loved, for a calmness, a stability, a not so fast pace that might be a little boring. But we are a family now, and it’s not about being close to Manhattan. Mamie doesn’t know from Manhattan. She wants to be outside and not in a park where rats roam as soon as the sun goes down. She wants to be a kid. And I want to give that to her as safely as I can. Is it worth staying here knowing that she will most likely see muggings, and most likely get mugged herself? Do I want her seeing dope deals go down right around the corner? Will I have to buy her pepper spray for her bookbag? I don’t want to think about things like this, but if we stay I will have to.

Yes, I’m upset, and yes, I may be overreacting. But man, I am too old and tired for this.

We outta here.

[Photo courtesy of the great Brooklyn food blog, The Porkchop Express]

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

Food:

• Christina’s in Greenpoint: Excellent Kielbasa [Porkchop Express]
• Wednesday Food and Drink Roundup [Brooklyn Record]
• 67 Burger is ‘Yummy’ [VocalLizzy/Chowhound]
• Dispatches from the Front Lines: City Sub [Clean Plate Club]
• Bagels on DeKalb [Clinton Hill Blog]
• “Eat Industry” Screening at Farm on Adderly [Living in Victorian Flatbush]
• ‘Pleasantly Surprised’ by Raga on Smith [heightsmama/Chowhound]
• Pig ‘N Out Barbecue on Henry Goes Belly Up [Brooklyn Heights Blog]

Not Food:

• What Do You Do with Disgarded South Slope Crack Monitors? [IMBY]
• Bye, Bye Empire Roller Rink, Hello Costco? [Across the Park]
• New Phrase: Getting “Rushkoffed” Out of a Neighborhood [Gothamist]
• That Choking Dust Cloud? It’s an “Unmitigable Signficant Adverse Impact” [DDDB]
• The Prospect Heights Dust Problem Might Mask the Crap Problem [Gawker]
• Dogshit Queen of Greenpoint Wants Photos, Especially “Big Brown Skidmark” [newyorkshitty]
• The Future of the Atlantic Armory [Brownstoner]
• Pratt Post Office: A Trip Down Memory Lane to 1904 [Clinton Hill Blog]
• Park Slope Sterling Place Crash Condo: The Vermeil [Brownstoner]
• Second Rent Stabilized Tenant Suit Says Yards Relocation Plan Inadequate [AYR]
• About That MLK Service in Park Slope [Erica’s Blog]
• J Condo Wants Art [Dumbo NYC]
• Any Sculptors Interested in Mentoring a Teen? [OTBKB]
• Five Hours in Red Hook [Gridskipper]

Is Monteleone’s Bakery at 355 Court Street, which has been closed for some time, about to reopen? There are hopeful signs. A brand new sign has gone up. A poster named ssamantha reports on Chowhound:

Walked by Monteleone’s Bakery yesterday and there was a spanking new sign up – Monteleone’s & Cammareri. Guess Cammareri is still involved after all. Court St. Bakery is filling in nicely during the wait to re-open.

We’ll be glad to see them back, and really hope that it remains a real Court Street bakery.

Development in the South Slope is the gift that keeps on giving, possibly because the people being tormented by it send out significant quantities of email, call the city about violations, blog about the problems and post youtube videos showing them whereas residents of other neighborhoods–say, Williamsburg–aren’t as vocal in public. In any case, the development at 406-408 15th Street, which has caused significant damage to neighboring buildings continues to exact a cracky and dangerous toll. The long suffering building at 1504 8th Avenue, which was vacated last summer, has now been cleared out again as “imminently perilous to life.” (This is the building whose life on crack has been detailed by local blog IMBY; the fact that it is has not fallen apart from the excavation induced cracks is incredible.) And, a 20-foot-long crack has appeared in the wall of the adjacent Memorial Baptist Church on Eighth Avenue (And, there are sinkholes on adjacent properties, trees falling over, etc.)

If you’re not impressed, picture waking up one morning and finding that such a horror is about to transpire next to your apartment, condo or coop.

In any case, here’s a bit more narrative from Concerned Citizens of Greenwood Heights, whose members go the mats every time they notice a violation or problems (which is to say they are very, very, very busy):

After much calling about, with help of Community Board 7 and CM DeBlasio’s office, a DOB inspector came. Could not gain access (go figure) but did goto a neighboring property, survey the damage and promptly sated “I Cannot Do Anything!” (of course I paraphrase here)

“WTF!” residents remark (politely, of course) and they are told that since no one is working on 406-408 15th Street, in the pouring rain, he cannot issue a citation for ALL or ANY of the damage…even though he acknowledged additional violations. Without waiting to meet the minister of the Baptist Church, he promptly took off.

WTF! (less politely) was my response. Since when can a DOB inspector turn a blind eye to violations he himself points out to the neighbors he is with?

We have seen sites shut down for expired permits, let alone massive damage to adjacent properties with no workers on site.

We’re guessing that if the development were causing damage to the Park Slope Armory, which is across the street and getting $20 million worth of city renovations, the city might be more proactive in saying no to crack?

Related Post:
Park Slope Armory Athletic Center to Open in September

UPDATE: As of this morning, the Greenwood Heights group says they’ve heard from Community Board Seven that the Department of Buildings issued a Stop Work Order for the 406-408 15th Street project and was sending someone to check the 20-foot crack in the church. Workers, though, were still on site working and no inspector had been there.

Work is going forward on the Park Slope Armory, and the facility seems to be on target to reopen as an athletic, recreational and education center in September. Local City Council Member Bill de Blasio estimates that the project’s cost will be $20 million “when the smoke clears.” (The original cost was said to be $16 million, but Mr. DeBlasio used the $20M figure, so we’re not clear what wasn’t included in the original estimate or what has changed.) The Armory is located on Eighth Avenue between 14th and 15th streets. The renovated facility will include track and field, basketball, volleyball, tennis, gymnastics, badminton, boxing, fencing, judo, table tennis, tae kwon do, handball, weightlifting, wrestling and aerobics. The renovated facility also retains a women’s shelter. An RFP is going out soon to select an entity to run the facility and everyone’s still trying to find a balance between individual community users and use by schools and youth leagues. The big redo is a partnership between Take the Field, a nonprofit, and the Departments of Education (DOE) and Homeless Services (DHS). The result should be a spectacular community facility in the massive 110,000 square foot space.

The opening of the new facility should come as a relief to neighbors, given that 15th Street around massive building has been the site of drug dealing (still ongoing) and other unsavory activities. On the other hand, part of 15th Street across the street is a big construction pit that is causing its own problems for neighbors, but via a different kind of crack.

Related Post:
South Slope Development Still Doing Crack

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

• Brooklyn Paper Website Redesigned, Check It Out! [Brooklyn Paper]
• How to Sell Real Estate Next to Atlantic Yards [Observer]
• Still Awaiting Details on Final Atlantic Yards Changes [AYR]
• Boerum Hill Property Deal of the Century at Taxpayer Expense [NYDN]
• Sneak Peek at New Williamsburg Performance Space [Brooklyn Record]
• Development Watch: 251 Flatbush Avenue Extension [Brownstoner]
• Liquors: Finally RIP [Clinton Hill Blog]
• Come On, Do You Care if the Rushkoffs Leave Brooklyn? [Daily Intel]
• Runner Visits Broken Angel [Runs Brooklyn]
• Dumbo’s Beacon of Light [Dumbo NYC]
• Eco Friendly? Park Slope ‘Has it All’ [NYDN]
• Brooklyn is Officially a Tourist Trap [Daily Intel]

The city’s Red Hook Piers redevelopment effort, which hit a bump in the road when some much-noted protests erupted over its plans to acquire and shut down the Red Hook container port, is taking the path of less resistance for now. Yesterday afternoon, The Real Estate reported that the city’s Economic Development Corporation had released an RFP to develop a marina, marina repair shop and related facilities at Pier Ten. (If you are into reading such things, you can click here for A PDF of the document.)

The RFP stays away from the more controversial “upland” piers, but notes that it’s the city’s hope to have control over them by fall and invites bidders to include a vision for developing them too. (In the city’s words, “Respondents are encouraged to include a future phase of development on a portion of Pier 10…”). The RFP also notes an intent to extend Conover Street all the way to DeGraw Streeet and also notes the intention to create a 30-foot-wide greenway. Back in December we wrote about one vision for the Atlantic Basin for a Red Hook Beach and Brooklyn Maritime Center proposed by New York Water Taxi and developer Douglas Durst. We assume they will be among those submitting proposals, which are due on February 19.

Related Posts:
First Blows Landed in Red Hook Port Smackdown
Meet Red Hook Beach and the Brooklyn Maritime Center

We dig the Brooklyn Paper, and the coverage that Gersh Kuntzman, Ariella Cohen, Dana Rubenstein, Christie Rizk and others provide of our borough, so we’re glad to help spread the word that the paper’s website has had a major overhaul. The changes put more stories online and makes content easier to access overall. Check it out. (Screencap above.) Also, if you saw this week’s print edition, you noted the new logo and a name change to the Brooklyn Paper as opposed to the Brooklyn Papers. Each Brooklyn Paper will now come as a local edition. The URL has also changed from brooklynpapers.com to brooklynpaper.com, but you’re redirected to the new site. Nice changes!

What you are looking at is the headquarters of TGI Office Automation at Third and Bond Streets. The firm sells copiers and other office equipment around New York City and in Florida, but the building has been in this state for many months. When we first saw it, we thought it was coming down for a condo development. But, the sign out front says that they’re renovating the building for the company’s new offices. (Specifically: “Pardon our appearance while we renovate our new corporate headquarters.”) The Department of Buildings website doesn’t show any active stop work orders, just some pending violations, so maybe it’s just a very slow motion job. Interesting.

The Brooklyn Interfaith Alliance–a group of churches, temples and mosques working to address social justice issues in Brooklyn–is holding a service on Sunday (January 14) to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. A member of Old First Reformed Church in Park Slope sent an email about the service. It will take place at Old First, which is located on Seventh Avenue at Carroll Street. Old First’s pastor, Rev. Daniel Meeter, will speak at the service along with other local religious leaders. Kate Wright, who sent the email writes that the Interfaith Alliance “is working to get Brooklynites of diverse races, faiths, and backgrounds to come together.” The holiday observance is called “Citizen MLK” and the flyer says, “Observe the MLK Holiday with our Pastors, Rabbis, Imams and leaders as they reflect on Dr. King – the clergyman, the countryman and the war critic – and the best way to practice democracy as a person of God. Stand together as one human family and tell our elected officials: ‘Stop Recruiting Our Kids for Iraq & Bring Brooklyn’s Bucks Back!’ Join us in a call to action concerning peace, justice and the re-distribution of our tax dollars for our local needs.” The service starts at 4PM. About Brooklyn has a list of several Martin Luther King events in Brooklyn this weekend.

Holy Mother of God. Somebody pinch us to make sure we’re awake. A Park Slope mom left the following post on the Coney Island Message Board, which has got to be the ultimate triumph of optimism over reality or, at least, a sign of someone that is five-six years ahead of the curve. Here is it:

My family and I live in Park Slope and are considering spending the summer at Coney Island (we have gone upstate in the past but my kids have felt too isolated — and I got to thinking that we have a great summer spot right here in Brooklyn). Of course, we could shuttle back-and-forth to the beach etc, but it’s hard to drag kids and stuff on the subway everyday, so I’ve been wondering if summer sublets are ever available there and how best to find one (Craig’s list or are there other ideas). Any advice from you insiders out there?…

Thanks!

PS – is there a public pool in the nabe or are there other pool options — of course there’s the beach but kids sometimes like a pool too when they can get one!

Some of the responses from the regulars at the message board include: “Holy sh*t, I cannot even believe what I just read” and “You’re kidding, right?” In a more productive way, someone suggests Seagate, the gated community at the end of Coney Island.

It would be inappropriate to make a wisecrack like, “All this time, we thought the Park Slope crowd went to East Hampton,” so we won’t do that. We will simply say that some summer sublets are available in the Rockaways and in Brighton Beach and in Seagate, so why not Coney? In any case, Park Slope Mom’s post will buck up a few spirits at Thor Equities in that it’s proof that there’s a market for what they’re seeking to do in Coney Island in terms of hotels and time shares.

Just give it some time, Park Slope Mom, and you can be there.

Ah, the joys of warm winter weather. Like the discussion over at the Prospect Heights Forum, picked up by the Daily Heights, about the “Plague of Winter Mosquitos in Prospect Heights.” The original poster back in late December on the Message Board writes:

Is anyone else around here still getting mosquitoes? Two nights ago I got mosquito bites on my arm while sleeping. And last week when it was warm they totally ate my face. No kidding, I looked like I’d been beaten, with mosq bits on eyelids, lower lip and cheeks. I know lots of people on this message board were complaining about them a month or so ago. Am I the only one still getting bit?

And there was this response:

sometime last week I saw a mosquito the size of a sparrow flying around. I got a few welts, too, from the rat-fink bastard.

And this post from yesterday:

I had one buzzing around my ear last night. he must be friends with the cockroach that came in a few days ago. i think they’re throwing little global warming parties and laughing at me.

So that’s why there’s an extra special plague of Buick-sized waterbugs in Brownstone Brooklyn this winter. Miserable warm weather-loving New York City pests and vermin.

Yesterday, we brought you the War on Red Hook Rats. Today, we’ve got a couple of more photos to show Beard Street in the era of Thor Equities and Ikea. What you will notice is that someone’s been busy in recent weeks plastering up street art on the really long Ikea construction fence and that Mr. Sitt’s demolition crews are making progress in the painful and slow dismantling of the Revere Sugar Dome.

So, the longstanding mystery of that big empty lot between N. 11th and N. 12th Streets on Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg has been solved. It will soon be a big parking lot. Alternately, the site has said to be too toxic for a development, as it was the location of a chemical or paint plant back in the day, or much less dramatically, if just as potentially toxic, the subject of a dispute in the Hasidic community that dates to when the property was worth a heck of a lot less than it is today. Regardless, in the short term, it will be the spot for $7 a day parking. It should be an interesting test of where the Williamsburg market is in terms of paid parking.

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

Stinks:

• Rotten Smell Raises Alarms, Questions & Delays Smoke Breaks [NYT]
• Your Instinct Was Right: Big Stink Probably Came from Jersey [NYDN]
• Yup, Jersey Cut the Cheese [NYPost]

Doesn’t Necessarily Stink, But Might, Depending on Story:

• Park Slope Development, Part MCIX [Gothamist]
• Will Chappelle Mend Broken Angel? [Intelligencer/NYMag]
• Ex-Met Mo Vaughn Buys Notorious Noble Drew Ali Plaza [City Limits]
• Selective Nostalgia at Freddy’s [DDDB]
• Lonely Planet Shouts Out Brooklyn [Brooklyn Heights Blog]
• Oro Watch: Three Stories and Counting [Brownstoner]
• Washington Condos at Long Last [Set Speed]
• No, really, imminently perilous to life again [IMBY]
• Any News on Blue Apron Foods? [Brooklyn Record]
• Winter Wonderland [Daily Intel]
• Man Injured in Polar Bear Dive, Dies [NYDN]
• Flight 001 on Smith Street [OTBKB]

The one and only Forgotten-NY went out to Coney Island on Christmas Eve–actually, he first went to Midwood to check on some historic markers on Ocean Parkway and, then, to Brighton Beach–and the result is a cool new Forgotten NY web page called “Coney Island Signs…and the Death of Astroland.” The pages is full of photos of old signage and links to other pages. Forgotten writes:

Coney, in its now-diminished state, is under siege (some would say) by shopping mall developer Thor Equities, who promise to tear down most of the frontage along Surf Avenue and install, among other things, a roller coaster that runs through buildings and a double-deck carousel. The renderings all look kind of dystopian and Blade Runner-ish to me. The tawdriness and decrepitude I recognize at Coney would disappear as the big money moves in and luxury housing sprouts along the boardwalk, and I can’t help but wonder if we’re going to get Long Beach where Coney used to be. Or Atlantic City, if they allow casinos. Dick Zigun is on board, but he draws the line at condos, favoring hotels only.

This time, at Coney, I decided to show the incredible variety of signage, showing well-known characters from comic books, mythological talismans of the past like sea monks, the multi-toothed Steeplechase guy, mermaids and sea-things, and sinister clowns…many of these signs may leave Coney forever in a couple of years, if Thor Equities comes on the scene…divorced from context, they’re singularly bizarre.

Check out the new page. It’s worth a visit.

In our quest to find amusing Brooklynalia, we came across a blog called Splenetic and a post called “How Cobble Lost Its Hill.” Its a short primer on Cobble Hill Revolutionary War history. (Maybe you know the story below, but we didn’t.) There is a plaque of George Washington at the corner of Court and Clinton streets that commemorates the spot of the Cobble Hill Fort built by the Continental Army atop “Cobleshill”:

Cobble Hill was one of a number of forts built by General Nathanael Greene, who was charged by Washington to defend Brooklyn from the British. (George himself decided he would prefer to defend Manhattan, the posh toff.) For the British to take New York City, they would first have to take Brooklyn. To this end, the Brits had started ferrying their troops across the Narrows from Staten Island, and landing them in Gravesend Bay. Greene’s first idea for defense was to simply burn New York to the ground, but that didn’t go over too well…

Long story short, the Americans quickly lost Brooklyn, and then all of New York City (which the British burned down anyway, proving that Greene had the right idea). In order to ensure that the Americans wouldn’t retake the strategic vantage of Cobble Hill Fort, the Brits demolished the structure, and then levelled the hill itself.

Ironically enough, less than eighty years later, WInston Churchill’s mother was born a few blocks away from the site. The surrounding, nearly flat neighborhood was known as simply part of “South Brooklyn,” until a 1970’s re-branding to foster gentrification.

Fun stuff, that Revolutionary War history.

The coverup environmental remediation project at McCarren Park Mews at N. 11th and Roebling in Williamsburg on a site we like to call the Roebling Oil Field is making great progress. A look at the site yesterday found that netting on the fence has been repaired to close up all the holes we have been using to document the oozing oil. (There are still some openings though and you don’t need much room to stick a Cannon Powershot lens through a hole; it’s one of the reasons we have it our arsenal.) We also found a work crew on the site and that a huge amount of soil had been used since New Year’s to cover over the black oil still oozing up through the ground and the retaining walls. Meantime, blogger Bad Advice, who lives near the smelly development site writes:

This is a but a sampling of the stanky, oily dirt that is probably going to be responsible for every breeder in a six-block vicinity giving birth to flipper babies who develop cancer by age six. I cannot stress enough how nasty this lot smells. And they’ve been digging it up for months!

Note the greasy slick leading out to the street. I’m really excited that the Mews is spreading the wealth. It’s like a big old mess of stinky toxic brownie batter oozing out all across the ‘hood. Yum.

Bad Advice also has some photos of the big fill underway, so it’ worth checking out the post. Us, we’re going to miss seeing and smelling that Williamsburg Black Gold now that it is almost out of sight. But, definitely not out of mind.

Oh, and they also covered up the sinkhole that swallowed us up on New Year’s Eve, but we didn’t step on it see the quality of the work.

Related Posts:
Oil Still Oozing into Williamsburg Condo Site
Smell This: City Inspector Confuses Smell of Cabbage for Stench of Oil