August 10th, 2006 · Comments Off on Building a Park on the Queens Side Newtown Creek
The first park planned for the Queens side of Newtown Creek–the sadly polluted body of water that forms the boundary between Queens and Brooklyn–is coming along. New Yorkers for Parks reports that residents and public officials met recently to talk about “conceptual plans” for a creekfront park at the end of Vernon Boulevard in Long Island City. The park would add about 5,000 square feet of green space to the area and be directly across the creek from a park being developed at the end of Manhattan Avenue in Greenpoint.
GL caught a ride up the creek in July and got an up close look at its curious status, which is somewhere between post-industrial wasteland and busy industrial area. (Newtown Creek, for those of you keeping track, is the site of a 17 million gallon oil spill originated at an Exxon Mobil site 50 years ago.)
The Newtown Creek Alliance–made up of community members from both the Queens and Brooklyn sides of the bi-borough creek–is working to improve both the Creek’s water quality as well as to improve shoreline conditions. Queens Council Member Eric Gioia has allocated $3,000 for design of the park.
There will be more two more meetings about designing the Vernon Boulevard street-end park. A final plan is due in October.
Gowanus Lounge would personally urge a retractable pedestrian bridge to span the creek in order to connect the Queens and Brooklyn parks and to provide a convenient way, particularly, for Greenpoint residents to access the subway lines that pass through Long Island City.
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August 10th, 2006 · Comments Off on Tonight’s Free Concert: The B-52s Play Coney Island
Reminder: The B-52s are playing a free concert tonight at Asser Levy/Seaside Park in Coney Island. (If you haven’t been, it’s at West Fifth Street and Surf Avenue opposite the Aquarium.) It’s part of the 28th Annual Seaside Summer Concert Series. The listed start time is 7:30.
The show is part of a very small mini-tour, and the band is going into the studio next month to record a new album soon that will be produced by Steve Osborne. Regardless, we really like the idea of seeing the B-52s in Coney and look forward to hearing Fred Schneider sing, “Pass the tanning butter,” a stone’s throw from the boardwalk. Hot Lava, Private Idaho and Rock Lobster by the sea. What more can one ask for on an August night in Brooklyn?
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We almost wet ourselves when we saw the story in the Sun that mentioned those ugly Coney Island drawings that we shared last week. You remember, the ones that made Coney Island look like a Times Square themed shopping mall? The drawings with highrises so tall they make the Wonder Wheel look like a little toy?
Well, as it turns out, we weren’t supposed to see them after all. (And, boy, do we understand why, given how awful they are.) The drawings were “inaccurate” and “posted erroneously.” (Was the rogue poster of the drawings taken out and spanked?) What’s interesting is that it turns out that Miami-based Arquitectonica–which designed the 45-story Westin Hotel in Times Square–has been “quietly working” on Coney plans for the Coney Island Development Corp. How this fits in with the work that Ehrenkrantz Eckstut & Kuhn has been doing for Thor Equities, the developer with the big Coney plans, we’re not sure. What is more clear is that they aren’t talking to each other.
Left hand, meet right hand. Right hand, meet left hand. Now, go play.
So, a spokesperson for the architect (which posted the now disowned drawings) and for the developer called the posting on the EE&K website “unauthorized.” Said spokesperson is suggesting that there will be new “official” drawings after Labor Day. Although, again, we’re not clear if they’ll be Arquitectonica’s or EE&K’s or another secret consultant. Maybe, the dynamic between the two will turn out to be Coney Island’s version of the Danny Libeskind-David Childs World Trade Center Site Fest ‘O Love.
What GL wants to know is, does this mean that the really tall buildings in the swag drawings really don’t exist? Or only that they’ll look like Times Square Westin instead of a standard-issue Thor Equities highrise?
August 9th, 2006 · Comments Off on That Deja Vu All Over Again Feeling
We’re not going to be too pissy about this because it’s in the context of a good article about Atlantic Yards–and a headline that turns Bruce Ratner into “Ratzilla”–but we had an odd feeling that we’d seen one of the renderings in the New York Magazine story on the Brooklyn mega-project before. Turns out that we had. As we were doing our nightly Perusing of the Blogs, we came across an item in onNYTurf that pointed out that NY Mag had, well, gotten their inspiration from some work that he had done that was partly based on the work of illustrator John Keegan. OnNYTurf writes:
I have to say, I was a little surprised that there was no mention of onNYTurf anywhere in the article – at least not that I found using a quick text search of the pages. Unspoken internet karma rules would suggest that some credit was in order. Despite criticism from the big media, big media these days actually relies more and more on the blogs for content and content ideas. It not only would be good karma, but it would be good business sense to keep up our enthusiasm by mentioning their blog sources when they get ideas and content from them.
There is much cross pollination going on, and most of it is good. Nonetheless no one wants to find their work clearly coopted without any credit being supplied, especially in a case like this, where it’s pretty blatant.
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Do you take a dim view of 40-story buildings on the Williamsburg waterfront? If so, this is a week when you will be muttering, “There goes the neighborhood.” Construction is now underway on both the Palmer’s Dock/Northside Piers highrises and “The Edge,” a development between North 5th and North 7th streets. (Work has been underway on the former for months.) Pile drivers were parked on the property when we did our usual Sunday morning look-see, and Williamsburg blogger imnotsayin,imjustsayin has posted an entry about the construction-related hell developing across the street and the impending Loss of View. As a resident, imjustsayin can say it with a lot more authority than us:
Our beautiful, unobstructed East River vista was permanently pierced by the first salvo of ugly steel piles today – the beginning of what’s to become two forty-story residential towers called “The Edge”. The next couple of years – if we decide to stay – promise to include perpetual sleepless mornings, truck fumes and construction noise, and a gorgeous view (and sunlight) that shrinks daily until its completely obstructed by Miami Beach-style high-rises. We know we’ve been blessed with a million-dollar view for the price of a Brooklyn rental for the past 20 months; still, its sad to see it go…
Yes, the Williamsburg that everyone knew and loved over the last decade is going to get edgy, and not in a good way.
August 9th, 2006 · Comments Off on Bill de Blasio Endorses Batson for Assembly Seat
City Council Member and Park Slope resident Bill de Blasio has endorsed Bill Batson for the 57th Assembly District. Batson is a grassroots candidate for the Assembly seat for the assembly seat, which is up for grabs this November. (The district includes the Atlantic Yards site.) Batson is an outspoken opponent of the Atlantic Yards project and has fought a plan to use of eminent domain to turn an Underground Railroad site in downtown Brooklyn into a parking garage. Interstingly, de Blasio and Batson disagree on Atlantic Yards, with deBlasio supporting the project.
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August 8th, 2006 · Comments Off on Gowanus Lounge Talks Red Hook on WNYC’s Brian Lehrer
Well, after a one-hour Bush-related delay yesterday, Gowanus Lounge and writer Gabriel Cohen spent twenty minutes talking about the past, present and future of Red Hook yesterday on Brian Lehrer’s WNYC program. It was fun, and Brian (above) was his always excellent, intelligent and engaging self. It was wonderful meeting Gabriel Cohen, who is a talented writer, has great knowledge about Brooklyn and is a nice person. Meanwhile, the highlight was sitting in the control room during the first 90 minutes of the show, watching Brian’s superb production team–including Senior Producer Nuala McGovern, Jim Colgan, Priya George and Lisa Allison–in action. If you’d like to hear GL and Gabriel you can get the podcast or click over to the Brian Lehrer Show’s audio archive page on WNYC’s website or just click on this link to download the MP3 directly. GL’s story on Red Hook for the Brooklyn Papers, by the way, should be out in this week’s upcoming edition.
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No one will argue that the Atlantic Yards mega-project and the surrounding controversy aren’t finally being aired out a bit in the print media after being relentlessly covered, day in and day out, by the Brooklyn Blogade.
The New York article, written by political reporter Chris Smith, is a lengthy look at some of the players and the issues surrounding the raging Atlantic Yards battle–one that has kept the project from becoming the “slam dunk” for which supporters had long ago hoped.
It’s interesting to read as the writer talks to the key players and concludes that Atlantic Yards will be a disaster for Brooklyn:
But why—living where I do, looking at ten years’ worth of construction trucks chugging down my block, followed by increases in traffic, noise, school crowding, and buildings that will blot out the sun, not to mention 15,000 new neighbors—should I like Atlantic Yards?…in the end I can only conclude that Atlantic Yards is a bad deal…As a political reporter, I know that money and spin usually win. But in looking at Atlantic Yards up close, it’s outrageous to see the absolute absence of democratic process. There’s been no point in the past four years at which the public has been given a meaningful chance to decide whether something this big and transformative should be built on public property. Instead, race, basketball, and Frank Gehry have been tossed out as distractions to steer attention away from the real issue, money.
Ratner’s team has mounted an elaborate road show before community boards and local groups, at which people have been allowed to ask questions and vent, and the developer has made a grand show of listening, then tinkering around the edges. But the fundamentals of the project—an arena plus massive residential and commercial buildings—has never been up for discussion. Ratner, with Gehry’s aid, has built a titanium-clad, irregularly angled tank and driven it relentlessly through a gauntlet of neighborhood slingshots. And Bloomberg and Pataki—-our only elected representatives with the power to force a real debate about Atlantic Yards-—instead jumped aboard early and fastened their seat belts. What at first seemed to me impressive on a clinical level-—a developer’s savvy use of state-of-the-art political tactics—ends up being, on closer inspection, truly chilling.
We were also glad to see that Smith gives blogger/reporter Norman Oder–the creator of the vital Atlantic Yards Report–his props, as they say. Smith writes that Oder “has spent at least 25 hours a week dissecting the details of the Atlantic Yards plans and posting his analysis at atlanticyards report.blogspot.com. Oder is a skeptic in the tradition of I. F. Stone, proving how much can be accomplished with a URL and an obsession.” As an admire of the thorough reporting that Oder is doing, the important topics he is covering and the vital record he is creating, it is gratifying to see his work get some of the recognition it deserves.
When all is said and done, Smith provides us with an excellent send-up of Atlantic Yards that makes the Times perfunctory editorial endorsement look intellectually challenged and ethically suspect.
We keep wondering whether one article or endorsement trumps another, but the real question may be whether any of this matters. The Atlantic Yards battle is likely to take place inside a courtroom and on the pages of massive legal briefs unless, of course, a powerful New York political leader experiences some sort of epiphany and turns on the project. It is hard to imagine Eliot Spitzer or Christine Quinn doing more than questioning the shut-up-and-take-your-medicine nature of the Atlantic Yards process.
As Smith points out in the passage quoted at length above, Atlantic Yards has turned into one of the most anti-democratic development processes to come down the pike since a man named Moses held sway. So, when push comes to shove, we can all huff and we can all puff, but the Governor, Mayor, Borough President and Developer have put togther a project that can transcend public opinion because, in their construct, the opponents don’t matter.
The Center for an Urban Future, a Manhattan-based think tank, has further spelled out what most of us already know: Street fairs suck because they’re generic affairs dominated by a small group of vendors and produced by a few firms. So, it’s not just Gowanus Lounge that despises the vast majority of them. In this, we feel vindicated. All this time we had assumed we were cranky and picky.
The report calls the fairs “bland and generic” events that “do not reflect what’s unique about New York City.” It finds that fairs are “dominated by a handful of the same vendors selling items like tube socks, knockoff purses and gyros, and that a surprisingly high percentage of vendors are based outside the city.” The report says the city should make changes in street fairs that would include more city-based entrepreneurs and artists.
According to city data analyzed by the Center, nine of the 20 vendors with the most food permits were based outside of the five boroughs. Similarly, a quarter of all vendors who have a permit to sell merchandise (other than food) at street fairs come from outside the city. The report found the biggest reason why New York’s street fairs are so generic is that the same vendors dominate most of them. Specifically: 20 vendors hold 46 percent of all the permits to sell food at street fairs. Seven vendors each have more than 200 food permits.
And then there’s this: three large production companies will organize more than 200 of the 367 fairs held in the five boroughs this year. And the system is structured so that “local businesses have no clue how to participate in street fairs.” Even those that do “are often stymied by bureaucratic hurdles when applying for a city permit.” Virtually nothing can be done online, and “in person” permits can eat up an entire work day.
None of this breaks new ground, of course. It simply adds a level of detail that fleshes out the deadening sameness known as the New York City street fair.
If ever there were a case for a radical systemic lobotomy, this is it.
August 8th, 2006 · Comments Off on New Coney Island Shortcakes Interview: Shoot the Freak Freaks
Our friends at Coney Island Shortcakes are at it again, posting another entry in their Coney Island Interview Series. Today, they talk with Eric & Julian, who work as the “freaks” at “Shoot the Freak,” the Coney Island boardwalk attraction that offers the opportunity to shoot “freaks” with paintballs. You can watch the video by clickin below or by visting the Coney Island Shortcakes blog, which is always a fun thing to check out, or by clicking on the youtube link to the video.
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We were unhappy when we learned that the Empty Vessel Project, the restored World War II Navy rescue boat being turned into a community space on the Gowanus, may lose its berthing space on the Big G. We’ll let them explain:
We have berthed EV at the disused end of First Street since January 2006. Since our arrival, the street is safer and cleaner. We have created an access point for the pubic to use the water and a lovely perch to watch the sunset on the relics of gowanus history. Unfortunately, our berthing spot, is in peril. Berthing at the end an unused street is restricted by the City Commissioner and the Dockmaster, an employee of the Department of Small Business Services. They have been very generous to EV and appreciative of the positive impact we have had on First Street. But on August 12, they may ask us to move. We have two options – convince them to let us stay or find an equally inviting new perch on the Gowanus edge. Can you help us do either?
You send an email to dcotto@sbs.nyc.gov, Dockmaster Dennis Cotto, expressing your aproval of EV’s berthing and asking him to forward your message on to anyone who has the power to let us stay. Please cc pz@emptyvesselproject.org on your message. Or you can send tips about a new home for EV to as@emptyvesselproject.org.
The Empty Vessel is a proud little boat with a wonderful history. It is exactly the kind of thing we need to keep on the canal.
Please, please, please take five minutes to send an email to Mr. Cotto expressing your support for the continued berthing of the Empty Vessel at the foot of First Street on the Gowanus. It is an amenity that has brought safety, joy and life to an otherwise dead street. Show the people whose actions can have an impact on the outcome of where the EV Project boat lives that people care about its fate.
The Maclaren stroller pushing mommies of Park Slope–long the victims of a snarky comment here about their human-powered baby SUVs or a derisive put-down there about their gang behavior at neighborhood playgrounds–have arrived in a big way over the last few weeks.
Of course, we had the Legend of Momma Bean, the Park Slope Mommy who threw a can of beans at a car that nearly swiped her and her stroller and cracked the back windshield of the offending car. The incident was chronicled in multiple blog postings and even made it into a story in the United Kingdom about “Mommy Rage.”
What is really pushing Park Slope Momdom to the fore, however, are the Park Slope moms that are writing and blogging about their lives, either positively or negatively. We have Amy Sohn, the former New York Mag sex columnist turned mommy who is turning her talents as a writer to writing about how awful it is to be a Stay at Home Mom and how all the Park Slope Stay at Home Moms are vaguely insane, Zoloft eating zombies. One suspects more words in the self-hating mommy genre will be coming from Gawker, which has just started up a “Diary of a Park Slope Mommy.” We’re definitely not expecting joyous odes to Park Slope motherhood to be coming from this corner. Here’s a few words from the blog entry introducing the new feature:
“Diary of a Park Slope Mommy” will chronicle the angst, despair, and corrosiveness to the soul that raising children and living in Park Slope engenders.
Positive coverage Park Slope mommy coverage (to the clear frustration of some who’d like to see the column turn into the Chronicles of a Raging Mother) is the territory of Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn’s Louise Crawford, who writes the engaging, thoughtful and clever Smart Mom column for the Brooklyn Papers.
Yesterday, Sunset Parker noted that the “mommy controversy” ranges “from a Mommy who hurled a can of beans through the back windshield of a car that almost side-swiped her while she was pushing her toddler; to the widely-disseminated screed of one Mommy-hating Mommy.” Sunset comes down squarely in the corner of Park Slope’s moms, even sending the moms a shoutout.
We fully expect a NY Times Magazine cover story about the Park Slope Mommy Phenomenon, not to mention an awful lot more blogging and new stories about the Maclaren Army. And, maybe, a reality TV show. Brooklyn 11215 or Third Street, anyone?
We don’t know what’s going on at 588 Union Street–which is across the street from the new Gowanus Holiday Inn–except that a reader emailed us with the following:
If you haven’t seen, check out 588 Union St– just a coincidence that it’s across from the Holiday Inn but…You’ll hear from me again if anyone threatens Holy Land Auto Repair next door, hah.
We stopped by this weekend and shot the image above of the now-boarded up building. Records show the building was built in 1931 and is owned by Cbbbs Hosiery Corp. The last sale record for the building we were able to find was in 2001. It certainly appears as if the now-former tenants of the building are the latest victims of the slow creep of gentrification through Gowanus.
Gowanus Lounge will be on WNYC’s The Brian Lehrer Show today (8/7) sharing thoughts about the state of things in Red Hook along with writer Gabriel Cohen, author of Time Out New York’s recent article on the “hot” neighborhood. The segment–barring last minute changes–is slated to air at 10:40AM. Is Red Hook hot or not? What the future of this fascinating Brooklyn neighborhood? Tune in tomorrow morning to hear our own toughts, unfiltered by the ability to edit them before posting them online. Tune in to 93.9FM or AM820. We’ll post a link to the segment once it’s available in the WNYC archives, unless we don’t sound so good, in which case, it never happened.
August 7th, 2006 · Comments Off on Dumbo State Park: Let There be Light…At the End of the Summer
On Saturday night, Gowanus Lounge spent some time on the Dumbo waterfront and couldn’t help but think about–as always–how unfortunate it is that Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park is closed at night. Well, yesterday’s Daily News reported that lights are finally being installed at the state park and that it will add hours after dark. (Brooklyn Bridge Park, which is directly to Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park’s north, is open until 1AM and is quite busy until very late.) The bad news, is that the lighting won’t be in place until the fall.
The paper, which has been taking state park officials to task for heavy-handed rules in its New York City parks, writes:
The move comes after the Daily News chronicled widespread frustration among parkgoers in May who wanted the grassy spot near the Brooklyn Bridge to stay open later. The state park now closes at dusk – or earlier – while a city-run park next door is open until 1a.m. In May, the News once found the park closed at 6:30 p.m…A State Parks spokeswoman said officials will be working to install interim lighting in the park at the foot of Main St. in the coming weeks and hope to have the lights up and working by about mid-September.
Well, fall is still a nice time to enjoy the park, and there will always be next summer to enjoy those extended night hours.
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Walking on Water Street in Dumbo last night we noticed paper lanterns strung across the street. That’s because today is the third annual Tiger Beer Singapore Chili Crab Festival. Starting at Noon and running until six, the festival will offer music, food and a taste of Southeast Asian Culture. The prime attraction: Singapore’s unofficial national dish: Chili Crab, which is cooked in a sauce of chili peppers, soy, ginger, garlic and onion. They prepare it in astounding quantity for this event. The festival is held in front of The Water Street Restaurant & Lounge at 66 Water Street, between Dock and Main Streets, DUMBO, Brooklyn.
Gowanus Lounge has attended in the past and will say that while it’s not enough to be a destination in and of itself, it’s a great excuse to go to Dumbo today. You can check out the festival, have some chili crab and, then, walk a few feet to either Brooklyn Bridge Park or Empire Fulton State Park. Or, hop on New York Water Taxi boat at Fulton Ferry Landing and enjoy a nice breeze and great water views.
All in all, an excellent reason to spend a nice summer Sunday afternoon in Dumbo.
August 5th, 2006 · Comments Off on Brooklyn Arts Council Seeks WTC Images
Thanks to both the Brooklyn Record and Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn for drawing our (tardy) attention to the Brooklyn Arts Council’s call for memorial images of the World Trade Center. We’ll hope to spread the word further to the one or two people that haven’t already heard about this wonderful exhibition at those two Brooklyn blogs. The exhibition will run from From September 7- September 30th and will be called “Here Was New York: Twin Towers in Memorial Images.” It will be held at a number of Brooklyn galleries including 5+5 Gallery, Safe-t-Gallery, and Gloria Kennedy Gallery, all located at 111 Front Street Galleries in DUMBO, to mark the fifth anniversary of September 11th. From the Arts Council’s site:
“Here Was New York” seeks photos that document the Twin Towers as they appear throughout the New York Metropolitan region in vernacular expressions such as wall murals, shrines, custom painting on trucks, logos, graffiti, tattoos, merchandise display, window stickers, and so on. Curated by BAC folklorist Kay Turner, the impetus for the exhibit stems from a wish to acknowledge local forms of remembrance that keep the Twin Towers visible to us as we go about our daily post- 9/11 lives. “Never forget” means never forget that day, but in another sense it means never forget what was before that day.
This exhibit also serves as an homage and a counterpoint to “Here Is New York,” a photo exhibit which opened immediately after the attacks in 2001. Held in a makeshift gallery in Soho, that remarkable exhibit made it possible for anyone to hang their photos recording the events of September 11th. Hundreds did so and thousands came to see the pictures. “Here Was New York” acts upon the same democratic principles as its predecessor and invites anyone in the New York area to submit a photo documenting the Twin Towers as they remain visible in symbolic form throughout the city.
Photos will be accepted from Monday, July 24, 2006 until Thursday, August 31, 2006.
Cool down with this excellent short documentary about the Rockaways and surfing there in February. Good stuff. And wintery. Click on the embedded video below or on this link.
