The Gowanus Canal’s World War II rescue boat also known as the Empty Vessel Project has been moved north of the Carroll Street Bridge. You might recall that the boat was threatened after the city evicted it from its berth at the foot of Second Street, where it had been moored most of the year. After that it was moved to a mooring off a private truck lot a bit to the south. Yesterday, a reader emailed to say:
I wanted to let you know that I helped move the boat formerly known as the “emptyvesselproject” back next to the Carroll St Bridge, I guess someone bought the boat.
We went to check on the boat yesterday and found it moored with two other boats between the Carroll Street Bridge and Union Street Bridge. We also emailed the Empty Vessel Project, but haven’t gotten a response, so we don’t know if the boat was, in fact, sold or has simply been moved to a different mooring. Perhaps the good people at the Empty Vessel Project, or a reader who knows, will let us know. The EVP staff has been looking for a solution to finding a home for the little boat. Hopefully, this is part of the solution rather than a further manifestation of the problem. We’d be sad to see the Empty Vessel Project boat gone from the Big G.
December 18th, 2006 · Comments Off on Major Groups Join Those Asking Public Authorities Control Board to Delay Atlantic Yards Vote
With a final vote by the Public Authorities Control Board on Atlantic Yard possible on Wednesday, more groups are calling for a delay in the decision. There will be an event at City Hall today at 1PM at which a group of “citywide and national civic groups — joined by new voices and elected officials” calling on the obscure, yet very powerful, Public Authorities Control Board “to vigorously scrutinize the financial details of Forest City Ratner’s Atlantic Yards project before voting on it.” The verbiage is from a Municipal Arts Society press release as conveyed by No Land Grab.
Among the groups now calling for a delay are the Regional Plan Association, the Natural Resources Defense Council and New Yorkers for Parks. Says the release: “Citing the absence of a full financial disclosure for the project and a failure to meaningfully address issues identified by the environmental impact statement, the groups will unite to urge the three PACB members to refrain from voting on the project at their next scheduled meeting on Wednesday, December 20.”
The event is clearly aimed at Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who is the only member of the PACB who might try to delay a final vote, and at Gov.-elect Eliot Spitzer. Both Silver and Spitzer have voiced support for the project, but might want to scrutinize it further. Silver is the only person on the three-member board whose vote to approve Atlantic Yards is not a given.
What will Mr. Silver do? Will his known dislike for Gov. Pataki lead him to deliver a parting blow? What has Gov. Spitzer asked him to do? Will hard lobbying by pro-Atlantic Yards factions make a difference? Has the “scrutinize more” crowd had an impact? Are the major groups that are now aligned against a rushed Atlantic Yards approval before the end of Gov. Pataki’s term going to make a difference?
So many questions, but we’ll know on Wednesday. Or, possibly, December 28, which would be the next PACB meeting after Wednesday.
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December 17th, 2006 · Comments Off on Weekend Fun in Mr. Sitt’s Neighborhood
The Revere Sugar Plant in Red Hook is being taken apart piece by piece, packed into huge dumpsters and driven away, as a prelude to a much more dramatic tear down. The iconic dome that defined Red Hook’s waterfront for generations, has already had a half-dozen square holes cut in it. We will have more tomorrow, but for today, here are a few photos from Death Row the site that developer Joe Sitt is clearing. The truck scene (above), the executioners demolition workers and some onlookers.
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December 17th, 2006 · Comments Off on Disconnected in Brooklyn on Craigslist: I’m Terrified of You, You’re So (Possibly) Cool
It’s Sunday and, so, time for the pathos, comedy, sadness and longing of Missed Connections on Craigslist. Today, we don’t have a specific loction, just, well…you’ll see:
I noticed you after I moved to Brooklyn a few months ago, and I have been secretly smitten ever since. I don’t know who you are, what your name is or anything about you, but I do know that you make my heart flutter and my stomach flip. Today, when you were sitting next to me, my legs were shaking involuntarily because I was so nervous. I hoped you didn’t notice and unfortunately, it only made me more timid about talking to you. I’m also afraid that the reality won’t be as savory as my fantasy because in reality, you probably live with your girlfriend or are a real jerk. You don’t look like a jerk though, you look like the kind of guy I want to make out with immediately. I assure you that I’m not a crazy stalker, we just happen to have corresponding schedules, but admittedly, I do spend an extra two minutes getting ready hoping that I see you. Let’s talk one day soon, I think it would be fun.
So, talk to the guy already.
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December 17th, 2006 · Comments Off on GL Weekend Curbed Roundup
Some of you may know that we post over at Curbed from Monday through Friday. Here are links to some of this week’s Brooklyn postings over in Curbedland:
So, let’s say you can’t get enough of the train. We’ve got just the thing for you: an oddly riveting series of videos now being posted on youtube shot out the front window of trains on various subway lines. It’s the new Railtrip NY Series posted by tripgas and they’re a must-see if you’re a look out the front window of the train kind of person. Or, even, if you’ve never taken the A to the Rockaways, for instance, and wonder what the view is like.
The vid embedded below is the M train going through Bushwick. There’s also a cool vid of the F going to Smith-9th and vids of the A going across Jamaica Bay to the Rockaways, the A in the Rockways and the N to Astoria. We found this through Random Brooklyn, which featured the F Train video recently, and the creator has been busy posting a lot more. Truly, we love these videos. We’ve watched a lot of Brooklyn subway vids, but there are easily the best.
December 16th, 2006 · Comments Off on Williamsburg Rocks
Fort Greene may have big rocks and some might even be on sale, but Williamsburg has got them too. We’ve been watching large numbers of them unearthed at the big construction site between N. 6th and N. 7th Street, between Bedford and Berry. Now the big pile of rocks is fascinating, but even more so is the large structure that is going to rise here, spanning the width of the entire block. The address on the big site is 146 N. 6th and the architect is Howard B. Spivak.
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December 15th, 2006 · Comments Off on First Blows Landed in Red Hook Port Smackdown
For some time, we’ve been saying that the fight over the future of the Red Hook Container Port–and the plan to redevelop 1.1 miles of waterfront–would be one of the big Brooklyn development fights of 2007. Yesterday, the first serious blows were landed in a major political context. (As opposed to the smaller community meetings which have been ongoing and contentious). Yesterday featured a rally on the steps of City Hall and major criticism at a City Council committee hearing. The Sun was impressed enough to suggest that incoming Gov. Eliot Spitzer would ultimately have to step in to referee the fight. The immediate issue is port jobs–but there are many, many others in the community ranging from housing to the nature of the development itself.
The fight centers around Piers 7-12, various plans to shut the 42-acre container port and replace it with everything from a second cruise ship terminal to a brewery and a plan to build a smaller replacement facility in Sunset Park. The Economic Development Corporation said on Wednesday that it wouldn’t rezone the area west of Columbia Street for housing and it also dropped a hotel proposal.
The rally and testimony yesterday, however, were about the overall plan to buy the port from the Port Authority, close it and redevelop the land. At the hearing, Rep. Jerry Nadler blasted the city for “a short-sighted and capricious attitude toward development.” He said the current facility handles 200,000 containers a year while a replacement would only handle 50,000.
Thor Equities spokesperson Lee Silberstein apparently filled in a number of blanks when he spoke to Community Board 13 about developer Joe Sitt‘s plans for a massive Coney Island redevelopment. Five key points emerge from the Brooklyn Graphic coverage by Stephen Witt:
1) Thor is hiring a firm called Thinkwell Design and Production to assist with its plan for the development. Thinkwell designs, develops and manages theme parks, museums, sports franchises, casinos and hotels including Universal Studios in Japan and Florida. We have more about them in the post below.
2) Thinkwell’s first job will be designing a fence that Thor is going to build around the Astroland property. It will be a nice fence, Mr. Silberstein told people at the meeting. Mr. Witt writes that it will have “an aesthetically pleasing look and create a buzz for the year-round entertainment plan.”
3) The development will be, in Mr. Witt’s words, “a New Orleans-style Bourbon Street area on both sides of Stillwell Avenue (excluding the Nathan’s site) down to the Bowery. The area would include a carousel, water park, restaurants and shops. There would be glass panels that open in summer and nice weather. The hotel would include 30,000-40,000 square feet of conference space and movie theaters.
4)Thor would like to builda “limited amount” of housing–“hundreds and not thousands”–of units on a new street they would call Front Street between the Bowery and the Boardwalk. Mr. Silberstein says housing is needed to make the project financial viable. He added that Thor does not intend to build any affordable housing as subsidized units would not help build the rest of the project.
5) Mr. Sitt wants to build highrises and some of them may be taller than the Parachute Jump. (This is not a surprise given that buildings as tall as 40 stories have been mentioned in the past; the Parachute Jump is only 21 stories tall.) “If people have an attitude that height was a problem, the Parachute Jump would have never been built,” he said, adding that any design would allow for view corridors of the Wonder Wheel, Cyclone and Parachute Jump.
Coney Island developer Joe Sitt of Thor Equities has hired Thinkwell Design & Production to work on the Brooklyn mega-project. Thinkwell is the company that staged the interesting and well-covered M&M store opening in Times Square that featured people being spraypainted like M&Ms. The company plans, develops and manages theme parks, museums, sports franchises, casinos and hotels, including Universal Studios in Japan and Florida, and Cirque de Soleil worldwide. (The photo above, from the Thinkwell website, is of something called Ski Dubai–an indoor ski and winter park in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. The one at the bottom is something called iPort Caesars Singapore.)
If Thinkwell were being hired to do theme park work, the results might actually be interesting. The Coney blog Kinetic Carnival cheers the firm’s hiring, noting:
Things may be starting to look brighter now that Thor has called upon the imagineers to do the dream work. It’s a matter of time before the release of some concrete master planning. Hopefully, they will inspire and enthrall us!
We will keep an open mind until we see their plans, hoping that they will produce something more than a Times Square-by-the-Sea. Meantime, here’s some verbiage from the firm’s website that gives a sense of them:
Made up of creative executives from Universal Studios, Cirque du Soleil, the Chicago Museum of Science & Industry and elsewhere, Thinkwell started in a loft over the historic Pasadena Playhouse in Pasadena, California. Before we opened our doors we were creating immersive new experiences for Nike, Dreamworks SKG and others. In 2002 Thinkwell opened Thinkwell Europa, our sales and project management office in Barcelona, Spain to service Thinkwell’s projects in Europe and the Middle East. In 2004 Thinkwell received the experience design industry’s Academy Award, the Thea, for Outstanding Educational Experience for the 50,000 square foot traveling educational attraction, Jurassic Park Institute Tour. By 2005 Thinkwell reached an important tipping point and the very companies Thinkwell’s team came from were the clients that allowed us to innovate new immersive experiences, attractions, exhibits, rides, visitor centers and resorts.
Whether this means that Ehrenkrantz Eckstut & Kuhn–which has produced some of the early Coney drawings–has gotten the boot, we don’t know.
December 15th, 2006 · Comments Off on GL Brooklyn Holiday Gift Guide: Red Hook Edition
The profusion of stories about Red Hook in the last week or so, and the impending loss of the Revere Sugar Plant got us to thinking about Red Hook-related holiday gifts. So, here are a few (very selective and subjective) ideas:
Operation Christmas Cheer. For the third year in a row PortSide New York (more about supporting them in a moment) will bring cookies and newspapers on Christmas Day to people working on tugboats and barges. Apparently, the tug and barge crews work 24/7 for up to two weeks at a time. “They frequently work national holidays and keenly miss their families on those days,” Portside writes.” They also feel the burden of working in obscurity, bringing you the stuff you use. The simple gesture of being remembered on Christmas means a lot to them. ” Just another way to give a different kind of gift that will mean something to someone else.
Portside New York. You can also give the gift of supporting PortSide on someone’s behalf. The group runs a variety of programs that are oriented both to New York City’s and Brooklyn’s maritime tradition and to the Red Hook community. It is also currently renovating a tanker, the Mary A. Whalen, to use as a museum and community facility. You can donate to Portside or support it by making purchases at several sites including igive, not to mention their Electronic Book Store set up through Amazon, which has a bunch of waterfront-related gift options.
The Waterfront Museum. If you’ve been to the Red Hook Fairway and seen the little barge nearby in the water, that’s the Waterfront Museum. They host exhibitions, circus and musical performances, do maritime education and more. Memberships for the Red Hook lover in your life start at $20. Plus, the membership gives you a reason to go to this part of Red Hook more often, which puts you across the street from Sunny’s.
Added Value. We mentioned Added Value before, but they are worth mentioning again in this context. They run programs for young people in Red Hook and operate a community farm and farmers markets–but you can certainly make a contribution to the cause in someone’s name. They do exceptional and valuable work. Helping them would make a cool gift. Check out their donation page here.
Red Hook by Gabriel Cohen. Here’s an excerpt from Gabriel Cohen‘s wonderful mystery novel: “The Gowanus Canal was a bilious green. Long ago, Brooklyn kids had jumped in off its narrow banks to shout and splash around, but more than a century’s worth of raw sewage and pollution from the adjoining factories had rendered the water unfit for every living thing except some algae and a tiny perverse species called killifish. Its opaque depths kept many secrets, but by a stroke of luck this corpse was not one of them.” (The link above brings you to Amazon and donates some of the proceeds to PortSide.)
Red Hook: Confessions of a Brooklyn Eaglet by Richard Gambino. Amazon describes it thusly: “Red Hook is a humorous, poignant, whimsical account of growing up in a long-ago neighbourhood which was as improbable a place as any one might imagine. Jumping back and forth from one age to another, it is presented through the eyes of a boy as he lived and saw life there. Red Hook describes experiences which would not ordinarily be associated with living in New York, or any other large city. (Again, buying via the Amazon link donates some of the money to PortSide.)
Red Hook University T-Shirt. The Red Hook University shirt comes in sizes up to XXL from the southbrooklyn.net online store, which has bunches of other Brooklyn things too.
Erie Basin. This gorgeous and really cool new shop at 388 Van Brunt has some killer cool antique and contemporary jewelry and other items. The shop itself sparkles on Van Brunt at night. It’s not cheap, but the selection is pretty awesome.
Pier Glass. Pier Glass has an awesome selection of handcrafted glass that is produced by the design studio and gallery run by Mary Ellen Buxton and Kevin Kutch. The gallery is in one of the most gorgeous spots in all of Red Hook. You can also purchase an “glass blowing experience” for someone–a one-hour class with Kevin during which you get to make your own glass object with Kevin’s expert help. GL did it this summer and it is way more than cool. They’re at 499 Van Brunt, which is at the very end, through the gate and on the water in the old warehouse.
LeNell’s. This little shop is known around the area for its incredible selection of bourbon and other spirits, NYC’s biggest bourbon selection, in fact. They’re at 416 Van Brunt and they really, really know their stuff.
Saipua. This boutique soap maker opened this summer at 392 Van Brunt. You know someone that would dig some pure olive oil and other soaps? Come to Red Hook.
Baked. Give killer cupcakes and cookies. Or a Baked t-shirt. Or a baked mug. Or a tea pot. Or other things. They are at 359 Van Brunt.
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We’ve had our share of fun with the Gowanus Whole Foods, especially when dwelling on the irony of the environmental condition of the site on which the store will rise. But, how about a green roof for it? Seriously. It’s a great idea and there’s a new Green Roof Whole Foods Market blog pushing the proposal. It is a much more compelling idea than the retailer’s plan to put parking on the roof (in addition to a 480-car parking garage on the site). The green roof would save energy, be good for birds and butterflies and help reduce the flow of garbage from storm sewers into the canal. (Blacktop is a major contributor to increasing storm runoff and hence a major source of pollution in the Gowanus.) Green also fits with visions of Gowanus’ future. The Gowanus Canal Community Development Corporation emphasizes green industry and environmentally-friendly buildings. Marni Horwitz and Madalyn Warren, who have developed the proposal, write that “with the support of the immediate communites effected by Whole Foods Markets and the greater Brooklyn area, Whole Foods will be receptive to Brooklyn’s specific environmental concerns and to green roof design.” Here’s hoping they’re right.
December 15th, 2006 · Comments Off on Gowanus Lounge Pop Quiz: Name That Brooklyn Oil Slick
If you answered “Gowanus Canal at low tide,” you’re wrong. Actually, we captured the image of this bit of environmental goodness in Williamsburg and the site of the luxury condos going up called McCarren Park Mews. Although, after what we’ve seen and smelled of the site, we’d call it something more like Exxon Mews or Pennzoil Square or BP Plaza or Gaseteria Commons. We could go on and on, but it would be wrong.
December 14th, 2006 · Comments Off on Red Hook Waterfront Fight to Heat Up Today
The fight over the future of the Red Hook Waterfront and plans to redevelop 1.1 miles of land that could displace the Brooklyn Container Port will heat up today with a rally at City Hall to “Protest a Proposed City Scheme Critics Say Will eliminate Port Jobs and Threaten Economic Security.” Whenever opponents call something a “scheme,” you know they are not look kindly on a proposal. Participating in the rally are: Rep. Jerrold Nadler, Council Member Michael Nelson (Chair, Committee on Waterfronts), Council Member David Yassky (Chair, Committee on Small Business) and others. The rally is being held before a City Council oversight hearing on the waterfront.
In another development, we’ve been told that the city’s Economic Development Corp. announced last night at a meeting of Community Board Six that it was withdrawing housing plans for Piers 7-12. This will placate some and anger others, underscoring the divisions about how to go forward with waterfront redevelopment in South Brooklyn.
For the average person that has a hard time even getting a handle on the area at issue, it runs from Piers 7-12 in the map above, which is from PortSide New York. (PortSide is a wonderful organization and a good place to find information to help make sense of this sprawling issue. B61 Productions is another good site for trying to figure out the issue.) In any case, the possible redevelopment area is huge, covering more than a mile of waterfront.
An email from the rally organizers says:
Despite recent press focus concerning the strategic importance of our ports, the City and Port Authority are seeking to land-lock metro NYC and ship all of our port activities to New Jersey. Such a policy will have a devastating effect on commerce and will cause New Yorkers’ to pay extra for everyday goods. Needless increases in truck traffic on our city’s bridges will also occur, exasperating air quality and traffic conditions. Additionally, the policy causes the whole of New York City’s import supply chain to rely on a single narrow stretch of water,which is vulnerable to prolonged closure as a result of intentional and unintentional acts. The Port Authority is a bi-state agency that must consider the essential needs of both states; and the City must do its job to secure New York’s shipping connection to the rest of the world and ensure long-term infrastructure plans for the City are faithfully carried through.
The fight has already become nasty at other meetings. (A plan we wrote about yesterday being proposed by New York Water Taxi and developer Douglas Durst would preserve the container port and other working waterfront uses.) One of the key points of contention is the city’s plan to acquire the container port land from the Port Authority next year, paving the way for housing and other development. Stay tuned.
(For an update based on Thursday’s rally, Council hearing and subsequent coverage, click here.)
We’ve been in Holland plenty of times, but we’d never heard of Zaanstadt until the super-superb blog Pruned brought it to our attention. We instantly noted the similarity between the landscape lemon that Robert Moses handed to Brooklyn in the form of the neighborhood slicing BQE and and the lemonade that similarly chanllenged Dutch planners made.
Pruned, if you haven’t clicked over to it before, is a superb blog that cover landscape architecture and planning issues in an intelligent and entertaining way. They feature things like the Cold War National Park in Latvia and a former KGB Prison turned KGB Hotel and GPS Pigeons used to monitor air pollution (Eureka!!! A productive use for them!). A wonderful blog to check out if you’re motivated to think about planning-related things outside Brooklyn.
In any case, our Dutch friends converted space under their elevated highway to very community friendly spaces:
Below a highway overpass that has split a neighborhood in the Dutch city of Zaanstadt for decades, you can now find a supermarket, soccer fields, a skatepark, a fishmonger and a florist, a basketball court, and a car park…Designed by NL Architects, presumably with input from the local government and the public, the “intervention provides a quick solution to re-establishing the connection between the two parts of the divided township whilst also regenerating a space that had become dead, literally and symbolically in the shadow of the flyover.”
We’ve always loved that European planning-speak. And, before you crack any jokes about how the area under the BQE is already a “car park,” check out a couple of the photos below.
