The Red Hook section has just gotten major new additions, including a lot of Todd Shipyard before and after Ikea demolition photos.

Here’s some of what the site says about Red Hook:

…The western Brooklyn neighborhood is now in line to get some high-income spillover action from neighboring Cobble Hill. Will high rents and million dollar condos vault over the Gowanus Expressway and and engulf this isolated province, whose quiet, not-quite tree-lined streets have been silent since the big cargo ships stopped docking at Erie Basin? Will the coming of Fairway Supermarket and perhaps, Ikea furniture turn Red Hook into a big parking lot with its narrow roads crammed with Cobble Hillers and Sunset Parkers looking for lettuce and night tables?

Well, let them come, because in Forgotten NY we’ll record perhaps the last days of Red Hook before it becomes a soccer mom or trust fund kid mecca. On this page, we’ll concentrate on the more desolate areas of Red Hook, before they become less welcoming to people with a Forgotten NY income.

Highly recommended.

A couple of minutes of video shot out the window of a train crossing the Manhattan Bridge. Interesting if you don’t do it much. Probably torture if it’s your daily commute. Click on the embedded vid below or on this link.

Notably, the group sells produce raised at the Red Hook Community Farm, which is near both the Red Hook soccer fields and the demolished Todd Shipyards, at a Saturday Farmer’s Market. The market runs from 9am-3pm and is stocked with Red Hook-grown nectarines, plums, tomatoes, eggplants, collard greens, zucchini, cucumbers and other produce. It also sells brownies and carrot cake made by the young women of the Lower East Side Girls’ Club.

(The market appears to be surviving the Fairway onslaught, although it has cut a midweek selling day.)

If you feel the urge to seriously garden in Brooklyn, volunteers are invited help out weeding, seeding, building plant beds and caring for the crops.

All the info is at the Added Value website.

Visual:

• Rained In [Brit in Brooklyn]
• No Words_Daily Pix 08.31 [OTBKB]
• Ode to Williamsburg [Runs With Scissors/flickr]
• Stillwell Avenue, Gravesend [Frank Lynch/flickr]
• Brooklyn 2006 Photoset Slideshow [Soupflowers/flickr]
• Alcohol as Stilllife Slideshow [i’mjustsayin/flickr]
• What About Popcorn and Junior Mints? [Brooklyn Record]
• Knife Truck on Wyckoff [seriously excited!]
• Family in the Southside [justiNYC]

Not Visual:

• Brooklyn Papers Endorse Yassky [Brooklyn Papers]
• Taking it to the Streets in Park Slope [Brooklyn Record]
• West Indian Carnival Festivities [About Brooklyn]

Not Smart:

• DOT Investigates Self, Finds It Put Up Mystery Dumbo Parking Sign [NYDN]

This gem is brought to you by polandkorearelations.com, the boyfriend-girlfriend team that has produced gems like the guide to their Brooklyn apartment and a slew of videos. In this case, our friends hang on the Gowanus and, particularly, atop the Empty Vessel Project boat. Just click on the embedded video below or go over to their site to see their whole body of work.

If you want to waste an interesting 6 minutes and 45 seconds today, think about doing it with this video, which is an excerpt from a Bill Moyers documentary about the 1964-65 World’s Fair in Flushing Meadow, current site of the U.S. Open. As a bonus, it contains footage of an interview with everyone’s favorite New York Planning Satan, Robert Moses, and of Civil Rights protestors at the Fair. Click on the embedded vid below or on this link.

This event tomorrow afternoon (Sunday, 9/3) on the Big G is being promoted by Nublu, an Avenue C bar. Six of its performers will be doing a gig at the Issue Project Room space on the Big G. Artists include Forró in the Dark, Love Trio and Karina Zeviani. The show runs from 2 to 9 PM. The Issue Project space is next to the Carroll Street Bridge at 400 Carroll, which is between Bond and Nevins. For more info, check nublu.net. Tix are supposedly available only in advance, but in any case, it’s a cool poster.

“Appropriate” is Gowanus Lounge’s Weasel Word of the Week, making an appearance in not one, but two, interesting explanations of things.

Case Number One: This week’s Gotcha’ Moment, in which Brownstoner caught City Council Member and Congressional candidate David Yassky moments before he was about to attend a fundraiser hosted by architect Robert Scarano. The fundraiser was iced after Brownstoner reported it because, a Yassky spokesperson explained, “the campaign didn’t think it was appropriate.” It was later explained that the event was approved by a campaign aide who didn’t know any better and that the campaign as “hundreds” of staffers. We’re guessing it’s more appropriate if the developer checks are written and passed on quietly. We wonder: Would it be inappropriate to reassign the anonymous low-level and oblivious staffer who keeps the candidate’s schedule to handing out leaflets through September 12?by

Case Number Two: This week’s Dress the Pigeon as a Duck and Hope They Believe It Quacks Moment, in which the Empire State Development Corp. extended the public comment period on Atlantic Yards by a week because it’s “appropriate,” in the words of ESDC’s spokesperson. Not only “appropriate” in this case, but, um, legally required? Apologies if the question is inappropriate.

For these reasons, GL thinks it’s appropriate to make appropriate the Weasel Word of the Week.

We say this in jest, because we already knew that prostitutes still frequent Third Avenue under cover of night, but we nonetheless find the discussion over at Daily Slope, which has been ongoing all week, enlightening. The writer writes:

A few nights ago I was walking my dog at somewhere between 10 and 11 at night. I headed down to Gowanus just for a change of pace – I usually walk the dog in Park Slope. As I was walking along St Johns between Third and Fourth Ave, a man in a truck slowed right down, leered and then asked me “how much?”. When I looked at him with disgust and started to run away, he looked extremely embarrassed. WTF. I was wearing sweatpants and an old t-shirt at the time too…

One response says:

Apparently your curb crawler jut woke up from a deep freeze. That box area, from Atlantic & Nevins to 4th Ave to Nevins & Carroll up to 3rd Ave was a notorious streetwalker back in the day before you gentrifiers brought up real estate values. Up until five years ago, maybe a little more.

To which the following response says:

I’m not sure how bad it was 5 yrs ago but I’ve seen pleny of hookers on Nevins St. from about Dean st. to Union St. in the very recent past. Like yesterday. They hang out by the factories. I usually shoot down Nevins on the way home late at night. Not a great place to walk the dog.

All of which is well and good, but there are currently hundreds of Brooklyn-based prostitutes erotic services providers advertising on Craigslist like “Brooklyn Showing You’ll Love” and “Beautiful Feet Available for Worship” in Park Slope. Get thee to a computer, gentlemen.

Fun:
This Weekend in Brooklyn [Brooklyn Record]
Five Day Carribean Party Getting Underway [Brooklyn Record]
Hungry Cabbie Eats Jordan’s Lobster Dock [Gothamist]
Staying Close to Home for the Holiday [NYDN]
Sweet Melissa’s Set to Open [OTBKB]
The Oracle is Back [3 Bikini]
Prettiest Subway Station in Brooklyn [Across the Park]

No Fun:
State Not Discussing Atlantic Yards Shrinkage With Ratner [Brooklyn Papers]
DOT Investigating Mysterious No Parking Sign in Dumbo [NYDN]
What’s Up at the Smith? [Brownstoner]
Dog House from Hell on Bergen Street [Daily Heights]

As it turns out, the “affordable housing” promise of Atlantic Yards that ACORN and other supporters trumpet loudly, may be more smoke and mirrors than reality for at least a decade, if not more. Norman Oder’s Atlantic Yards Report analysis of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement contains the following startling conclusion: The Atlantic Yards project would include a relatively small amount of affordable housing–some 17%–in the first phase and just 162 low-income rentals over four years.

Let us repeat: 83 percent of the housing in Phase I of Atlantic Yards–which would include five towers and the arena and be completed (if the current schedule holds) in 2010–would be luxury and market rate units.

This is because the developer is front-loading the high-profit luxury and market-rate condos and rentals into the project. Oder writes:

Forest City Ratner and its partner ACORN have offered no specifics regarding how much affordable housing would be built in Phase I…The DEIS, however, provides strong hints. In attempting to estimate the effect on community facilities such as schools, the DEIS in Chapter 5 offers these projections (above; click on all graphics to enlarge):
–1946 market-rate units, both rentals and condos
–162 moderate- to high-income rentals
–80 low-to-moderate income rentals
–162 low-income rentals

That makes for nearly 83% luxury, market-rate units. If you add the 162 moderate-to high-income rentals, which would easily rent for more than $2000 a unit for a four-person family, that makes 2108 units, or nearly 90% of 2350 total units.

The entire picture is far, far bleaker overall for those who think Atlantic Yards will produce affordable housing for low-income Brooklynites. So, no problem if you are comfortable with affordable housing by 2016 in a phase of the project that is the most speculative. But, if you were thinking that there would be significant affordable housing as part of the mix by 2010, think again. Mr. Oder’s full analysis is absolutely worth a read in its entirety.

Brooklynites will now have an extra week to digest the thousands of pages of verbiage contained in the Draft Environmental Impact Statement on the Atlantic Yards mega-development. The Empire State Development Corporation abruptly announced the seven-day extension yesterday. The extension changes the deadline from Sept. 22 to Sept. 29. ESDC spokesperson Jessica Copen told the Brooklyn Papers that, “We thought it was appropriate, and wanted to give the public more time to review and comment on the project.” A number of prominent New York officials, from City Council Speaker Christine Quinn to State Attorney General and Democratic Gubernatorial Candidate Eliot Spitzer have called for an extension of the public comment period (by more than seven days, however.)

Gowanus Lounge believes that the Atlantic Yards battle is devolving into a game of appearances on the part of project backers. In ESDC’s case, this involves trying ot make it look like they are vaguely sensitive to public concerns about ramming Atlantic Yards down Brooklyn’s throat Robert Moses-style while doing nothing to change the Mosesian nature of the process in any substantive way. But, in this case, we’re probably wrong in making that assumption. Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn offers a very practical reason for the switch in time that has nothing to do with appearances–a letter from their lawyer reminding them the law requires an extension. Specifically:

The ESDC had recently added a new public hearing on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) on September 18th. By law the ESDC must hold written public comment open for ten days after the public hearing. Until today that comment period was scheduled to end on September 22nd. The ESDC would have been breaking the law if it maintained that date. So today it announced the new written comment deadline is September 29th.

The latest Time Out New York hits us up with a cover story on street art and four individual covers. (The latter clearly being a sales gimmick, but it’s fun.) It’s a citywide story, but given that parts of our own borough are excellent outdoor galleries for street art and our own fondness for photographing it, plus the fact that the article is bound to give certain members of the City Council (Peter Vallone Jr., for instance) and Bloomberg Administration agita, we figured we’d give it some play.

Also, you can check out the coverage over at Animal, which has excellent images of each of the four covers.

For the handful of you that haven’t seen it on Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn and in the interest of spreading the news, we offer this e-mail about grassroots Assembly candidate Bill Batson. It comes from Daniel Goldstein and Shabnam Merchant:

Dear Friends,

I am writing to you because, you – like me – oppose the proposed Ratner arena/highrise project.

In our opposition to that project, there is something very key and timely we can do.

IF WE CAN GET THE WORD OUT VIA EMAIL TO EVERYONE WE KNOW,THEN BILL BATSON WILL WIN THE 57th ASSEMBLY DISTRICT RACE ON SEPT 12.

This assembly race has greater impact on the Atlantic Yards fight than any other race this year. Other politicians and most importantly Sheldon Silver will have to listen to Bill as the District’s rep, when he is making his decisions about the project.

Please forward this email to every single person you know who is opposed to the Ratner project, and ask them to forward it to everyone they know.

That way this will get to as many people as possible in the 57th Assembly District.

There are 5 things we each need to do

1) PRIMARY DAY
Take the day off from work on Primary Day, Sept 12 to volunteer with the Batson campaign.

2) VOLUNTEER
Between now and election day the campaign needs volunteers to help do door-to-door canvassing for Batson and phone calling for Batson to secure voters. If you can only give a few days or hours September 9, 10, 11 are key days. (You will not be sent out alone; and if you can’t handle canvassing, then make phone-calls).
Please – please let’s each put in at least 4 hours before primary day ; Bill does not have money for “paid volunteers” to do this.

3) VOTE
Come out and vote on Sept 12 for Batson and the candidates listed below, and urge everyone you know to do the same

4) DONATE NOW
This coming Tuesday Councilwoman Letitia James will endorse Bill Batson at a press conference!!

If the Batson campaign can do a mailing about this, it will seal the deal!

But they can’t send a mailing unless they can raise an additional 4 – 6K

If you, like us, believe that Councilwoman Tish James’ endorsement can make the difference, then donate now!!

Visit www.batsonforbrooklyn.com to make an online donation and get the word out about the endorsement.

5) SPREAD THE WORD
Forward this email and ask your friends to do the same

To VOLUNTEER contact:
Batson For Brooklyn
Abeni J. Crooms, Deputy Campaign Manager
767 Washington Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11238
917-609-6700 phone
abenicrooms@gmail.com

PS – other candidates who oppose the Atlantic Yards proposal are:
Chris Owens for Congress (11th Congressional District)
Ken Diamondstone for State Senate (25th Senate District)
Charles Barron for Congress (10th Congressional District)
—
Your friends, Daniel Goldstein and Shabnam Merchant

Based on what Gowanus Lounge has seen and heard from Mr. Batson, he is exactly the kind of neighborhood-based, civic-minded and community-spirited elected official Brooklyn needs in Albany.

Let’s go to the words:

I am subletting this apartment from a 79 year old Polish man who is away in Poland. This apartment has not been renovated in 40 years and some of its fixtures may even be a hundred years old. For instance, my bathtub is right in my kitchen, right next to the door to the apartment. Everything else is very old too, including the antique furniture and the stove. This is just a very dingy place and it’s so hard to keep clean since it looks dirty to begin with.

But anyways, I love this apartment, and I decided to make a virtual tour/walkthrough of it so you too can experience it. This “Brooklyn Apartment” is a drama art-piece. In each episode there will be more places to explore starting from my apartment, and more scenes which will clue you in to the unfolding story. Watch the drama unfold in this one of a kind interactive art piece. Next episode is coming on October 1st.

Why so long, we don’t know.

Question of the day: Do they live like this? Or is it part of the “interactive art piece”?

If you read Gowanus Lounge, you know we often cite Robert Moses and use his name as a pejorative, frequently to refer to the arrogant planning process surrounding Atlantic Yards and the community-violating nature of some of other big projects going up in Brooklyn. The superb Brooklyn Heights Blog offers up some wonderful background on Moses in an item called Heights History: Nabe vs Robert Moses. We’ll share some excerpts:

Among his accomplishments, Moses built the Belt Parkway and replaced Brooklyn’s shorefront towns with horrific high-rise apartments worthy of the Eastern Bloc.

His 1947 master plan for the BQE would have cut through Brooklyn in a manner similar to his borough hacking construction of the Cross Bronx Expressway proposed at about the same time.

Moses succeeded in destroying a portion of Hicks Street by laying down his 6 lane highway through Red Hook. He met with little opposition from the poor, immigrant Italian community there who feared retaliation — or worse, deportation — from City Hall if they protested…Here in Brooklyn Heights, more affluent and influential residents were able to persuade Moses to accept a compromise — one with roots dating back to Hezekiah Pierrepont’s plan in the 1820s to build a vista point near the water to rival Manhattan’s Battery…The “Power Broker” came to an agreement with the community, resulting in the construction of a two-tiered highway and the creation of the Brooklyn Promenade. Both opened in 1954. Reconstruction of this section of the BQE is scheduled to begin next year.

You can find more about Big Bob at Wikipedia and, of course, by reading Robert Caro’s The Power Broker, which ascribes virtually everything that is wrong with New York to him.

[Photo courtesy soupflower/flickr]

Via Community Board 7 comes notice of its 8th Annual Waterfront Festival, which will be taking place on Saturday, September 16th from 11:00AM-6PM on the Brooklyn Army Terminal Pier at 1st Ave. and 58th Street. The festival, dubbed “Celebrating our Success” will highlight Sunset Park HS, the proposed waterfront park, downzoning and the refurbishing of the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal. It’s billed as, “the biggest event ever with featured dance and music performances representing the different cultures of Sunset Park; a Petting Zoo; NYC Police and Fire Department Demonstrations including the “Smokehouse” ; vintage MTA busses; a treasure hunt; and many CBO’s will be on hand with information about services for Sunset Park.” Call Community Board 7 at 718-854-0003 for more information.

Money, Politics and Power:

• Yassky Campaign Cancels Fundraiser at Last Minute [Sun]
• Robert, Why Does it Have to be So Big? [Brooklyn Heights Blog]
• More Atlantic Yards “Bogus Points” [No Land Grab]
• Community Benefits Agreement Accountability: No Reports [AYR]
• Anti-Atlantic Yards Candidates Coalesce Around Batson [AY Voter Guide]

Everything Else:

• Brooklyn’s Changing Ethnic Mix [NYDN]
• Some Brooklyn Parks Getting Dirtier [NYDN]
• Green Acres: An Ecosystem Grows in Brooklyn [Brooklyn Record]
• New Area Blogger Nabbed [Across the Park]
• Sunset Park Keeps Winning ’em Over [Sunset Parker]
• $4.6K/Month Retail Space on Berry Street [Brownstoner]
• Weekly Food and Drink Round Up [Brooklyn Record]

We found “Rezoned So You Can Own” while trawling around on You Tube, and it’s definitely worth a few minutes of spare time, if only for its funny bitterness about the entire issue and its take on gentrification in Williamsburg and Greenpoint. Click on the embedded video or on this link. The vid comes from Null Set Films.

It was created in 1849 (finished in the 1860s) by narrowing its predecessor, the Gowanus Creek, into a one and a half mile long commercial waterway to provide commercial access to Gowanus Bay. Developer Edwin Litchfield formed the Brooklyn Improvement Company for the express purpose of dredging the Gowanus Creek, then a fresh stream, and making it navigable. With the creation of the new waterway, barges brought in sandstone from New Jersey that was used to build the beautiful brownstones that today still line the streets of surrounding Boerum Hill and park Slope. Unfortunately the buildup of the area contributed to the pollution of the canal, which would go on for over a century: the surrounding area’s raw sewage would be pumped directly into the canal, and the new gasworks, coal yards and soap factories along the canal’s length also dropped tons of pollutants directly into it as the years went by. As early as the 1880s the canal was foul and miasmic and its color had changed to a dark Pepto-Bismol shade, prompting locals to call it “Lavender Lake.”

So, now, you know, in case you didn’t.

Coney Island fashion designer and boutique owner Dianna Carlin is the subject of a fascinating new Q&A conducted by Jonathan Bowles, the Executive Director of the Center for an Urban Future. In the interview, the owner of the Lola Staar boutique on the Coney Island boardwalk talks about her business, obstacles she faced setting up shop on the boardwalk, the neighborhood and her insights and opinions about the Coney rebuilding plans.

Here’s a sample of what Carlin said she’s had to endure, which certainly was a bit of an eye opener for Gowanus Lounge:

I don’t even know how my business has survived through six years, because there are tremendous obstacles here. I know firsthand from my experience here that there are some really corrupt, crazy things going on here. And those just have to be moved out in order for any small business like myself, for anything positive to open up here. I’ve had tremendous problems. Every year, there’s somebody threatening me, trying to extort money out of me, people putting glue in my locks. Every year, there’s something. And it’s because people here feel threatened by me, because I’m new and I’m a woman and I’m not from Coney Island.

The people that own businesses here don’t want to see anything new. They see this newness and this change as something that’s going to threaten their businesses, which have sold the same products, as charming as they are. I mean, I love Coney Island and I love what’s here, despite everything. Coney Island has always had that dichotomy between the bright, circus lights and the dark, seedy underside. There’s been corruption—Sodom by the Sea has been its name since the beginning. There’s always been that element here. And that’s part of what attracted me to it. But I know for sure that if new businesses are going to open up here, there are many things that need to change.

Carlin’s comments about Coney redevelopment and why she is basically supportive of the Coney Island Development Corporation and Thor Equities plans for Coney are very much worth reading.

As for the Center for an Urban Future, if you’re not familiar with their work, they’re absolutely worth getting to know as they do some of the most perceptive and interesting research around about important New York City planning, community and quaility of life issues. The organization’s most recent study took a hard look at New York City street fairs, concluding that they are seriously lacking because a handful of firms have a stranglehold on them. The Q&A with Carlin is actually part of an ongoing series of interviews.

If you’re in Coney check out Lola Staar, then head over to see our friends Dan and Kalene at Coney Island Shortcakes, who continue selling their excellent shortcakes and putting words and photos up on their always-fun blog. In fact, they have an item and some photos right now on their blog (from which we borrowed the one above) about Lola Staar, who is one of their neighbors.

Of all the fascinating things swirling around the hyper-controversial Atlantic Yards project in the days since last week’s public hearing, the most interesting is the discussion about a possible scaling back of the project before it goes to the Empire State Development Corporation‘s board for a certain vote of approval.

Is the talk of shrinkage a spontaneous move on the part of public officials who have heard the drumbeat of opposition in Brooklyn? Or is it calculated ploy by the same powerbrokers so they can say they listened to the public while, in reality, simply cutting fat that was pre-built into project plans in anticipation of this day?

Most likely it’s the latter, but the volume and staying power of opponents has no doubt made an impression on both the public officials that have steadfastly supported Atlantic Yards and those that have supported it but have raised some questions about the top-down, unresponsive nature of the planning and approval process (either because they’re genuinely troubled by spectre of Robert Moses hovering over the process or because they find it politically expedient to make it look like they are).

Most curious, of course, are the comments of Borough President Marty Markowitz, who has been Atlantic Yards Cheerleader-in-Chief while voicing vague concerns about the project’s density. Markowitz used the public hearing to declare that some of the buildings need to be scaled back, that Miss Brooklyn shouldn’t exceed the Williamsburgh Savings Bank tower in height and that transportation planning has been seriously flawed.

Forest City Ratner officials including Jim Stuckey reacted by laughing, according to community activist Philip DePaolo who was sitting behind Mr. Stuckey and took note of the fact they found the Borough President’s remarks funny. One can only conclude that (a). Ratner’s people knew ahead of time that Markowitz would be making these remarks in order to do some damage control or (b). They thought that Markowitz’s modest suggestions were, well, laughable or (c). They find Markowitz himself a joke. (Note to Marty: You should ask Ratner staff people not to laugh at you in public. Or, at least, not to laugh when you’re not telling jokes. It looks bad.)

For the record, Gowanus Lounge believes there are many, many things wrong with Atlantic Yards as currently proposed, and the height of several of the buildings is just one of them. This is why the project needed a locally-based planning process and why we find the ram-it-down-their-throats approach of the Empire State Development Corporation and the Pataki Administration offensive.

Others, including City Council Member David Yassky, are suggesting a scaleback of up to 50 percent. (Yassky, for instance, told Atlantic Yards Report’s Norman Oder that a scaling back of 50 percent might be in order.)

Of course, it is worth pointing out that the project has grown since it was first proposed, perhaps in order to find ways to make it look like it is being shrunk without actually shrinking it. To a many observers, the project is so huge that cutting it by half will still leave Brooklyn with an oversized and far too dense project. In his Atlantic Yards Report today, for example, Mr. Oder engages in a perceptive discussion about a 50 percent scaleback, saying “there’s a certain ridiculousness to the exercise–a reduction in scale wouldn’t be accomplished by shrinking the buildings; it would be accomplished by various forms of surgery. Had the project proceeded via the city’s land use planning process, a ceiling would have been set by zoning at the start.”

Gowanus Lounge will go out on a limb and predict a 25-33 percent reduction in density from what it currently is on paper. Call us crusty and cynical, but that’s probably in the neighborhood of the “shrinkage” everyone had in mind from the very beginning. That way, the developer still has a project that will produce hundreds of millions of dollars in pure profit. And the public officials like Markowitz and Governor Pataki and Mayor Bloomberg who’ve been the project’s biggest supporters can say they listened to the public and took heroic steps to get the developer to make the project smaller and better.

Just a hunch, of course.

Maybe it was the bad press from Brownstoner and The Politicker that did it? Or the call from the Daily News?

First, Brownstoner reported that Congressional candidate and City Council Member David Yassky would be holding a fundraiser with Robert Scarano, the controversial Brooklyn architect who recently gave up the right to self-certify his work after a number of complaints about odd things about some of his buildings were filed with the Department of Buildings. Then, The Politicker reported that the event was cancelled. Specifically: “The fundraiser which had been tentatively scheduled for tonight has been cancelled because the campaign didn’t think it was appropriate.”

“Tentatively scheduled”? There was nothing “tentative” about the invitation quoted by Brownstoner, which called Yassky the “Council’s most accomplished, progressive legislator… We need to help him now since he is a supporter of our industry.” (Emphasis added.) Among the industry supporters of Yassky are Moishe Kestenbaum, the owner of 184 Kent in Williamsburg, whose de-landmarking Yassky championed, and Joshua Guttman, owner of the ill-fated Greenpoint Terminal Market.

Candidate Chris Owens told the Daily News that the fundraiser and its abrupt cancellation is indicative of “Yassky campaign games with developers, and playing games with people who are willing to cut corners to make money.”

Shrinkage, Flyers and Videos:

• Imagining a 50% Atlantic Yards Scaleback: Shrinkage is Not Surgery [AYR]
• Ratner “Liar Flyer IV” is in the Mail [No Land Grab]
• How to Rig a Public Hearing Video [Freddy’s Brooklyn Roundhouse]
• How to Rig a Public Hearing (This Links Directly to the Video Download)

Everything Else:

• Markowitz Calls Out DOB on Enforcement [Brownstoner]
• Accepting No (Sugar) Substitute [Brooklyn Record]
• Rusting Brooklyn Bridge Awaits Paint Job [Sun via About Brooklyn]
• Hipsters Rent in Greenpoint [newyorkshitty]
• Brooklyn Heights Flickr Group Seeking Photogs [Brooklyn Heights Blog]