It is that time of year when God (aka the Department of Transportation) speaks and releases its 2009 Alternate Side Parking Calendar. The calendar is posted on DOT’s website, which can be found by clicking here. It apparently can be downloaded in formats that allow import into Outlook, Google Calendar and iCal (look at our tech savvy bureaucracy). All told, there are 34 legal and religious holidays in 2009 when Alternate Side Parking regs will be suspended. You can click the links below to get your  own copies.

• html version 2009
• PDF format 2009
• html version 2008
• PDF format 2008

Click right here to see the calendar right here on good, old GL.

What with it being the holidays, now, you may notice the dullness of the cold cast over our fair borough (especially today)… but, that’s a good reason for the lights and colors and decorations to come out. And boy is the Borough Hall a beaut this fine season! The lights and 40-foot tree have been torched up in green, white and blue while a bunch of folks sang “Jingle Bells” in an array of languages. Nothing like Borough Hall to brighten up the holidays, even if one has to look beyond what goes on inside from time to time.
—Vaduzuvunt

[Photo courtesy of nifty pete/GL Flickr Pool]

Somewhere in Park Slope.

We love anniversaries because they can be so meaningful. Well, tomorrow (12/10) marks the Fifth Anniversary of the announcement of the Atlantic Yards project. For those who enjoy taking trips down memory chain, we highly recommend the Curbed Atlantic Yards Timeline of Despair, which only runs through this spring, but rather hits on many of the key moments since the troubled (officially halted) project was pronounced “a done deal.” The official announcement was for millions of square feet of office, residential and arena space to take over the Vanderbilt Rail Yards in Prospect Heights. Bruce Ratner predicted his Nets arena would open in 2006. Oops. To mark the event, the Council of Brookyn Neighborhoods “will be holding a press conference announcing recent inquiries into the state of the project. As you might imagine, there is a lengthy list of invited officials. But the most important attendee will be YOU! Please come out!” The time is 9:30AM at Sixth Avenue and Dean Street.

We will avoid the temptation that to say that this makes Rudolph a hipster reindeer because that would be lame, but he’s only a block from Enid’s.

There’s nothing like a comedy night get our minds off the doom and gloom of the recession. Add a little beer into that mix and you have perfection. We were excited to learn that stand-up comic Pat O’Shea will be launching his new comedy CD “Not Friendly” with “a whole mess of funny folks.” Featured Comics: BARON VAUGHN (Comedy Central’s Live At Gotham, ESPN Bronx Is Burning); CARLA RHODES (The Today Show); CHARLES STAR (Upright Citizens Brigade); D.C. BENNY (NBC’s Last Comic Stand, Comedy Central’s Premium Blend); SUSAN PREKEL (Comedy Central’s Live At Gotham). With music by THE BITTER POET (The Howl! Festival). But Wait, there’s more! At midnight there will be a screening of “Invasion Of The Dead” (1984), 15-Year-Old Pat O’Shea’s Film Debut! This all happens on Friday, December 12, from 9:30PM-12:30 AM. Admission is free. The location is Freddy’s Bar & Backroom, which is located at 485 Dean Street.
—E.C. Stephens

Attention Greenpoint Doctors Immediate Care, you might want to tend to your little billboard on Lorimer Street. Maybe.

We turn now to an email from our close and valued friends at Park Slope Parents who are always supplying Slopians with valuable information. This is about people showing up to fix a boiler that no had asked to be fixed. Sounds like a set up for a robbery about which the community should be aware. We go, as always to that staple of the highest form of journalism they taught us in J-School, the copy & paste:

Our nanny informed us that two young men rang the doorbell this afternooon and said they were there to fix the boiler. She said they must have the wrong address. They insisted they were at the right house and showed her a piece of paper with our address on it, but no names. She refused to let them in. We are calling the 78th precinct to let them know about this suspicious situation, but want to caution other families as well.

Thank you Park Slope Parents. Through the miracle copy-paste, the commmunity is now warned.

This is a vid of fake snow during Park Slope’s “Snowflake Celebration” on Thursday. Sadly, we didn’t get a pic of the real snow in Williamsburg last night.

There are not many things in this world about which we are certain and we think our level of certainty decreases with each passing day. However one thing we know with absolutely certainty that we love are the Gowanus Canal ducks. There is nothing new about the ducks or other wildlife on the Gowanus. It’s just that every time we see them, they put a big smile on our face, no matter how low we might be feeling. That having been said, there were probably a couple of dozen duck on the Gowanus when we shot these photos and they did manage to life our spirits. Though, we always wonder, do they know that Prospect Park isn’t that far away, as the duck flies, so to speak?

[Photo courtesy of mikime/GL Flickr Pool]

We have no idea what this is except that it was placed in our GL Flickr Pool by mikime and was found in Bushwick on a walk home from Third Ward. There is a set of photos of the beasts, as there are apparently two of them.

· Bus Driver Murdered in Brooklyn is Buried [CityRoom]
· Failing PS 27 in Red Hook to Be Shut, Won’t Graduate a HS Class [NYDN]
· Arsenal Found in Bath Beach “War Zone” [NYP]
· Vito Fossella Sentences to Five Days for Drunk Driving [NYT]
· Portside’s Mary Whalen Celebrates 70 Years [Eagle]
· Dude Spends $7,500 to Fight $115 Brooklyn Parking Ticket [AP/NYP]
· Fingered: Finger Building Likely to Get Green Light for 16 Stories [Curbed]
· Ice Skating in Prospect Park [Flatbush Vegan]
· Wow!!!!! “Brooklyn Winters” is in Arkansas [Brownstoner]
· CI-Bound Avenue U & Neck Road Closing a Year [GerritsenBeach.Net]
· Caroling on Montague St. Wednesday Night [McBrooklyn]

[Photo courtesy of 66squarefeet]

Uh oh. Those are icicles. The picture was taken today at the Bergen Street subway station as our correspondent Marie Viljoen was waiting for the F Train. First comes the ice. Then comes the winter. It’s fair to say that summer is officially over. Guess the trip to the Hamptons this weekend is going to have to wait.

A new DNA Footwear & UGG Shop should be opening in a matter of days in the old space that housed Beacon’s Closet on Fifth Avenue near President Street. We saw the new windows going in and signs are now open they’ll be open the second week of December. That’s the interior above at about 7:00 last night and a shot of the exterior below.

This is not the first time we’ve posted about relatively open access and weird things at the landmarked building at the corner of Third Avenue and Third Street in Gowanus on the (maybe) Whole Foods site. The building is not owned by Whole Foods, but at various times, windows have been removed, the front doors have been left open and its condition has been deteriorating. Brownstoner has reported via the Daily News that there is an agreement between the owner of the building and Whole Foods about improving it. Whole Foods says the building’s owner hasn’t communicated with them about his plans for the building. Now, a side door of the building has been ripped off. It is behind a fence that, well, has sometimes fall down, so it’s not out of the question that people can be in the building or could damage it. This photo comes to us from GL Correspondent Max Casey who practically barked at us that the door has been open for more than a week.

Yesterday, Curbed dug up a number of renderings of the new Ismael Leyva building that would rise at 150 Fourth Avenue where a row of old apartment buildings was demolished earlier this year. In fact, last week, we posted about an adjoining building that has had to be vacated because it was so badly damaged during the demolition work for the Leyva project, rendering a number of families homeless. The Leyva building would rise to 12 stories and have 95 units. If construction financing can be secured.

Another rendering of the building, ahead.

Yesterday, the one-and-only Brian Lehrer had Renee Giordano, executive director of the Sunset Park Business Improvement District, on his WNYC radio show. Giordano talked about how the neighborhood is trying to boost holiday shopping, including playing holiday music. Per an email from Dave Buckszpan at the radio station: “As usual, they’ve hung speakers from the lampposts that blast Christmas cheer—much to the joy, and dismay, of many shoppers. One particularly vexed caller asks if it’s even constitutional to play Christmas music. Renee replies that she’d be happy to play any kind of music the caller would like: Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist…? When the caller replies that she’s atheist, host Brian Lehrer suggests—what else—atheist holiday music.”

“The authorities are investigating the beating of a 31-year-old man in Bushwick, Brooklyn, on early Sunday morning as a hate crime, saying the man’s assailant shouted anti-gay and anti-Latino epithets before the attack, officials said. The 31-year old man, who the police did not identify, was in ‘very critical’ condition on Monday at Elmhurst Hospital Center, according to Dario Centorcelli, a spokeswoman for the hospital….at about 3:30 a.m. on Sunday, the man and his brother, described by officials as Ecuadorian immigrants, were walking at Kossuth Place and Bushwick Avenue when a carload of men pulled up nearby. The brothers, who had been drinking, were walking ‘arm-in-arm’ to support each other, the official said. A man who got out of the car yelled anti-gay and anti-Latino epithets at the brothers, then broke a bottle over the 31-year-old man’s head, the official said. His brother ran, and at least three other men who were in the car set upon the 31-year-old, beating him with a baseball bat and kicking him, the official said. The beating stopped when the brother returned, holding his cellphone, and told the attackers he had just called the police, the official said. All the attackers were black, the official said.”–CityRoom

[Photo courtesy of Rubys Host/GL Flickr Pool]

Utterly stunning.

Do you live in a sponsor-controlled coop or condo? If so, there’s a meeting coming up on Wednesday (12/10) at 6:30PM in Carroll Gardens that might interest you. It takes place at MS 142, 610 Henry Street in Carroll Gardens and will be lead by Theresa Racht and Al Taffae, attorneys and partners in Racht & Taffae, LLP. They will help resident shareholders draft complaint letters to the Attorney General. Here’s a bit about the issue from the Resident Shareholders Unite blog:

In the very loose credit market that has now ended, it might have seemed like sponsor-controlled co-ops weren’t really such a bad thing — after all, if the building is comfortable to live in, who cares that the sponsor is running a free market rental business with half the apartments, or controlling the building finances? Now that we are in an era of extremely tight credit, banks will have much more stringent policies about lending in co-ops, preferring to see over 50% of units owner-occupied. When shareholders cannot sell or refinance their apartments, the sponsor is causing very direct harm to shareholders.

If this is an issue for you, read what you should bring to the meeting, ahead.

[Image courtesy of New York Public Library]

This is identified simply as “Brooklyn Winter Scene, 1817-1820.” It doesn’t identify any neighborhood and there are not any landmarks that can be identified except that it appears to be a little hilly.

Bedford Avenue near N. 9 Street yesterday around 4:20 with winter clouds that early late autumn sunset glow. Let’s just say it was cold as hell in the Burg yesterday.

And, now, some musical options from today through Wednesday:

Monday 12/8/08
The Bell House: Monday Night Vinyl Club: Bring your 38/45/78 rpm record and spin one side. Free!!, 8:00pm

Jalopy: Country Blues Jam: Bring you fiddle, accordion, banjo, washtub, mandolin, guitar, or maybe even spoons and participate in an open jam session. Free!! 9:30pm

Tuesday 12/9/08
Bar 4: Open Mike Night: Hosted by Tanya Buziak. Pre-list @ 6:15pm, Sign up @ 8:00pm, Start @ 8:30pm (mostly Singer-Songwriters) Free!!

Barbes: Jenny Scheinman (Violinist/ Composer) $10, 7:00pm; Slavic Soul Party (Funk/Gypsy-Jazz/Balkan/Soul) $10, 9:00pm

Music Hall of Williamsburg: Beach House (Ambient/Folk/Indie) $14 Adv. / $16 D.O.S. 9:00pm

Wednesday 12/10/08
Union Pool: Lucinda Black Bear, Ghostfinger, .357 Lover, The Assault (indie) $8, 8:00pm
—Dan Bennis

[Exclusive photos for Gowanus Lounge by Ted Guslavic]

This is Littlefield, the upcoming club on Degraw Street in Gowanus between Fourth and Third Avenues. Our correspondent Ted Guslavic reports that he stuck his camera under the gate at Littlefield, was mildly menaced by a worker who caught him, but still came away with a few shots of the what the exterior looks like. The club has been promising a “fall 2008” opening. While we don’t have shots of the interior, by the looks of things, they may not be far off target, though we’re going to guess Winter is perhaps most likely. Correspondent Guslavic has earned himself a free drink on GL at Bell House.

More exclusive photos from Ted Guslavic ahead.

Oh, there were so many CL Missed Connection choices this week. Yesterday, we focused on the scumbags that pissed us off. (Vitriolic? About people with sphincters for souls? Us? Never!) But we digress. Here’s a fun one we passed up in favor of our bitterness about the lowlife scumbags laughing at a poor homeless dude who pissed himself:

HOT punk girl in Brooklyn and on Bedford – m4w – 29 (Brooklyn (L))

I doubt a girl like you would ever check Missed Connections, but I’ll give it a try. I see you everywhere: at Rock Star bar, different shows, twice I’ve stayed on and saw you get off at the Morgan stop on the L (but your always listening to your headphones which makes it hard to approach you). Whenever I see you off the train you’re always surrounded by guys who seem to enjoy your company. Don’t know if that means you have a partner or not.

Yesterday, I saw you on Bedford and was trying to come up with an excuse to compliment you on your combat boots Or compliment you on anything. But you walked into a coffeeshop and I was headed in another direction. You have this tough facade but I know it must be that cos you’re so tiny and cute that it must be part of the act (Granted you could probably kick some ass). YOU: Have fair skin black hair, dark eyes, a septum piercing and typically wear all black. Your eyes are beautiful! Dear short and dark haired punk girl with the Conflict patch on the back of your jacket, I’m not punk or goth but I think you’re banging. I want you to be my Sheena. If anybody sees this and knows her show her. Or at least tell me where I can bump into her. Seeing her on the L train time and time again is starting to drive me crazy.

Sheena. Sheena. Sheena.