Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia cut the ribbon at McCarren pool on July 31, saying “no pool anywhere has been as much appreciated as this one.” It was built to handle 6,800 swimmers–by 1930s standards, in any case–and cost $1 million to build. The Mayor and Moses opened one city pool a week during the summer of 1936, an interesting factoid in and of itself, given that it would never happen today without a major corporation footing the bill, because city and state government don’t invest in facilities like these–or in parks, for that matter, unless they have a “funding mechanism”– anymore.)

The Parks Department website says “the pool served as the summertime social hub for Greenpoint and Williamsburg” and that “the building’s vast scale and dramatic arches, designed by Aymar Embury II, typify the generous and heroic spirit of New Deal architecture.”

The sad fate of McCarren pool–all the years of abandonment and rot–are another matter. A 2003 article in Free Williamsburg provides a look at the hows and whys of McCarren Pool’s closure in the first place:

In 1979, the city approved $100 million to restore the entire network of pools (many of which had fallen into a state of disrepair and neglect due to the fiscal crisis of the 70’s that had forced major cutbacks in upkeep and security) so they would all be ready for the 50th anniversary celebration in 1986.

The pool was closed in 1983 to begin repairs and then the community said no. A blockade of residents protested fixing the pool up, citing the petty crime and undesirables it attracted. (I was sitting in The Charleston one afternoon at happy hour last year, talking to a long-time resident who was near me at the bar. The pool came up in conversation and he claimed [proudly] he was part of the effort to close it down back then “one way or the other, to keep the coloreds out.” Officials and other people I talked with for the article admitted times were different back then.)

Enter politics. A task force was set up to determine how to overcome the community divide. A recommendation was issued to shrink the size of the pool and demolish the bathhouses that issued out of the sides of the arch.

“That was a stupid idea. The archway and the bathhouses are world-renowned pieces of architecture. The highness of the arch to the long, low-slung bathhouses creates a unique silhouette. Besides, it was illegal to tear it down if there were no plans for its future,” explained Phyllis Yampolsky, head of the McCarren Park Conservancy, a private advocacy group.

There were no plans for its future. The demolition was put on hold, and Yampolsky began her fight to restore the arch and renovate the property. Community Board 1 had other ideas, and division ruled again.

Of the subsequent decay, Francis Morrone wrote that it was New York’s “most poignant ruin” and “a monument to shame.” The pool was finally revived last year and is hosting a full summer of programming this year, some of it not without controversy.

While McCarren Pool escaped the wrecking ball and being filled in, it’s fate is still in the balance. Returning it to use as a pool will cost tens of millions of dollars, money the Parks Department insists it doesn’t have. Unless, of course, a corporate angel wants to step up and return one of the grandest of the New Deal era NYC swimming pools to public use as a pool for Brooklynites.

• Brooklyn is a Destination for Tourists [AP/Newsday]
• Heat is on Con Ed [NYPost]
• Sunset Park Street Eats [NYDN]
• Best Pizza Contender: DiFara’s [A Brooklyn Life]
• Fire Causes Problems at Astroland in Coney [NYT]
• Yassky Un-Endorsement: Extortion Coverup? [NYPost]
• How Big “Miss Bklyn”? Look Across the River [AYR]
• City Comptroller Thompson Backs Atlantic Yards [No Land Grab]
• Luxe Housing Rising in East New York [NYPost]
• Clinton Hill Hooker Hotel to Return as Legit Hotel [NYDN]
• New Brooklyn anti-AIDS Campaign [NYDN]

Red Hook is being “reinvented” by Yale School of Architecture students, and all we can say is, well, they are only conceptual drawings. Very, very conceptual. So, we present them for those that enjoy flights of fancy, a few of which are pictured above. Otherwise, here’s a little sampling of the vision:

A naturalistic recreation park with camping, an animal preserve, a golf course, a grand canal, water sports and fishing, to selling off park space and promoting large-scale private development. One radical view unveils a “CarPark” that provides Red Hook with some additional 31,021 parking spaces and doubles as a large regional public park. Perhaps less radical, another project contemplates an “Historic Red Hook”, side-by-side with a “Street Car Suburb”, public housing, beach, entertainment and a farm. And what about those big box stores? Controversy is not avoided here. One model advocates that big box stores and the like should be not be resisted but viewed as assets with the aim of dispersing them throughout Red Hook as “smart growth.”

“Controversy is not avoided here?” Really? As if a student suggesting parking for 31,021 cars will be embraced warmly? Or a golf course? What’s a Wal-Mart compared to those? Thank God these are only conceptual drawings and plans prepared by grad students.

Should you wish to sample the drawings and models for yourself, you can catch them at the Brooklyn Waterfront Artist’s Coalition Summer Show at the Beard Street Pier. On your way over, you could always stop at the Red Hook soccer fields for some papusas, assuming no one’s turned them into a parking lot.

A couple of songs into Bloc Party’s set at McCarren Pool on Saturday night lead singer Kele Okereke looked around the vastness of the pool-turned-concert venue and proclaimed, “So, I guess this is a pool party.”

Not quite.

The “pool parties,” those would be the community-spirited free events on Sunday afternoons. The Bloc Party concert, well, that would be the corporate-produced concert that a faction within the community bitterly opposes.

In any case, Okereke could be forgiven for not knowing anything about the history of the cool space in which the band was playing, except that he was clearly amused to be playing a former swimming pool.

Bloc Party was wonderful, tearing through a set built around their debut album, that also included some new material from their forthcoming release. (Check out some flickr photos here.) The real issue with the show, however, was the way in which it underscored what an inappropriate venue McCarren Pool is for big-ticket concerts. Five thousand tickets were sold for Saturday night’s show and while McCarren can hold that many people, it’s way too big a crowd for a general admission show with minimal security–with the wrong band and the wrong crowd it’s a recipe for serious nastiness, in fact. (By the way, we’re not advocating for meddlesome event security, just making a point about 5,000 people in a general admission setting.) Second, there’s the assault on quality of life in the surrounding community–5,000 people coming into the neighborhod and a sound system loud enough to be heard a quarter mile away. GL has always loved our outdoor summer shows, but we also recognize that they do have an impact on those around them who might not want to spend the night, say, feeling their apartment thump to Bloc Party or the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

(Here’s our guess: We can huff and we can puff but what will blow the house down is that there’s a wall of million dollar condos going up along McCarren Park that are close enough to vibrate from the bass riffs at live shows at the pool. Ironically, there’s a story in today’s NY Times about all the people buying McCarren Park condos. We suspect McCarren Pool’s life as a mega-concert venue will be short lived, no matter how many skids corporate promoters manage to grease and how much the Parks Department wants to shrug and say it’s broke when the subject of turning the pool back into a pool comes up. Oh, and are the buyers really that dumb and oblivious?)

Of course, the other unsavory part to all of this is that the Parks Department has turned over a revenue generating machine like McCarren Pool to a private operator without trying to recapture any of the money for the pool itself. Live Nation, which is producing six shows, stands to gross more than $1 million (not counting service fees) from these shows. (Even after expenses, they’re going to make a significant profit from a public space.) Vendors like the Brooklyn Brewery stand to make tens of thousands more getting concert goers drunk. Is there a McCarren Park Trust to recapture some of this money for taxpayers? No. Profits from shows and sales at this public facility are going to line private pockets.

Not Brooklyn, but Worthwhile Reading:

• A Rough Week for Preservationists [Gothamist]
• Into Our Town the NYPD Came [Streets Blog]
• 90 Years Ago, NY Harbor Blew Up [NYDN]

Brooklyn:

• Welcome to Luxury Condoville (aka Greenpoint/Williamsburg) [NYT]
• Honey, I Blew Up the Cond Market [justiNYC]
• $1M for Al Capone’s House on Garfield Place [NYT]
• Red Hook Jumps on Outdoor Movie Train [A Brooklyn Life]
• Batwatching III [Dope on the Slope]
• Selling Shortcakes in the Rain in Coney [Coney Island Shortcakes]
• The Little Green Building that Could [Across the Park]

It’s hot, so keeping with our theme of cool images today, heres a video that recalls winter, specifically sledding in Prospect Park. Click on the video below or on this link.

Just when we had almost forgotten about the “teen wolfpacks” menacing people in and around Prospect Park, we check out today’s Post and find that two 12-year-old boys mugged a jogging Park Slope mom pushing a stroller in broad daylight yesterday. (Hold the jogging stroller wisecracks for a minute.) Yes, this sort of nasty stuff is part of Life in the Big City, but some things cross the line. This is one of the incidents that does.

Let’s start with the age of criminals: twelve. Then, consider the victim: a mom with a baby. And, finally, the time of day: around 1:00 with other people around.

All Gowanus Lounge can say is: Wow. There’s never a bean tossing Park Slope Psycho Mom around when you need her.

We understand that statistically robbery is down in the 78th Precinct, and that iPods attract every idiot under the sun that wants to take something. However, we also understand that Prospect Park and environs remains a magnet for groups of young people, some of whom are clearly up to no good. We see them, especially after dark. We also have a very strong sense that–other than a couple of week after the initial press about the “wolf packs” when you could see more cops along Prospect Park West–there are no more police than usual around. Let’s put it this way, if there’s a “task force” out there, they are so low-key and invisible that you don’t know they are there.

We’re thinking this will be one of those little stories that has some legs, both because of the nature of the victim(s) and the age of the criminals. Maybe it’s time to revive a suggestion from the time of the wolf packs: Roving gangs of real estate agents (call them the “Property Value Guardian Angels“) out looking for Park Slope Tween Criminals, because moms with infants getting mugged easily trim 10-20 percent from an asking price. You’ll be able to spot candidates for the PVGA easily–they’ll be the ones going from newsstand to newsstand today buying up all the copies of the Post.

Interesting Brooklyn Video/Sonic Action:

• ABL: Radio-Funky Junky-Mixed by DJ Jason Schell [A Brooklyn Life]
• Maspeth Gas Holders Imploded in Greenpoint (circa 2001) [You Tube]
• Canarsie Sunset [You Tube]
• Dancing in Coney Island [You Tube]

Cool Brooklyn Still Image Action:

• Vermin are Back! [onNYTurf]
• Old Man and Lost Shoe on Havemeyer [bluejake]
• Sunset Park [Joe’s NYC]
• Accordian [Lex’s Folly]
• 17th Street in the Slope, Looking West [e-liz/flickr]
• Gowanus [Lex’s Folly]

Worthy Brooklyn Verbal Action:

• Twelve-Year-Olds Rob Stroller Mom in Prospect Park [NYPost]
• Canarsie: Home by the Sea [Brooklyn Record]
• Biggest Bklyn Gripes: Parking, “Idle Youth,” and Trash [P. Slope Courier]
• City Views from on High [NYTimes]
• Times Lauds View from Sunset Park [Sunset Parker]

McCarren Pool Update: No Swim, Only Noise
Coney Island Update: More Luxe Housing, More Heat
Meet the New Williamsburg Waterfront
Collateral South Slope Damage
Peevish Williamsburg Graffiti #2
Peevish Wiilamsburg Graffiti #1
Before Ikea: Bricks and Rubble

AYR quotes the letter as saying:

While I strongly support development at the Atlantic Yards site, I believe it is vital that there be adequate opportunity for public review of this project. The Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS), which was released on July 18, 2006, is approximately 1400 pages long and deserves the careful review that is essential for a project of this magnitude. In addition, the three community boards that represent the immediate neighborhood of the project are in recess until September. For these reasons, I believe it is appropriate that the public hearing associated with the DEIS, that is now scheduled for August 23, 2006, be postponed for at least 30 days, leaving a total of not less than 90 days for review.

A cynical analyst might say that it is calculated move on Spitzer’s part to throw a bone to the South Brooklyn voters that are against Atlantic Yards in its current form, without taking any stand on the project itself. (It is after all hard to ignore forever a major public project driven by state government when you’re running for governor.) From Spitzer’s point of view there is no political cost in asking for another 30 days of public comment and for a public hearing after summer vacation is over.

The less cynical observer might conclude that he’s genuinely offended by the rush job of the hearings and the image problem created by scheduling a major hearing when all the concerned community boards are not in session. Whatever the motivation, the fact is that Brooklynites and Community Boards desperately need as much time as possible to honesty assess Atlantic Yards’ impact, and the community needs a healthy debate, both pro and con.

It doesn’t take a political or planning genius to understand why Mr. Gargano and Company are so anxious to take a page from the playbook of the man they should make their Patron Saint–recently departed Newark Mayor Sharpe James–and get Atlantic Yards done ASAP. Mr. James, who was one of the more wiley public officials to hold local office in recent decades, worked hard to ensure that his downtown sports arena for the New Jersey Devils was rising from the ground before he even thought about leaving office. As long as construction crews aren’t digging holes, pouring foundation and covering up the rail yards on the day Gov. Pataki leaves office, there’s always the chance that the deal could come undone. If the Governor had attended to World Trade Center redevelopment with the same sense of urgency and can-do spirit, we’d be looking at more than a hole in the ground today.

Public debate can upset even the best laid plans. It can slow things down and introduce uncertainty. It can allow for the airing of uncomfortable questions, and give a public forum to those with other ideas.

Mr. Gargano’s inner Robert Moses must have grimmaced when Mr. Spitzer’s letter arrived.

This week’s Time Out New York has a cover story near and dear to our hearts. Titled “The War for Brooklyn,” the package of stories takes a close look at the fight over the futures of several neighborhoods and at several projects: Brooklyn Bridge Park, Gowanus, Downtown, Bed-Stuy, the Williamsburg-Greenpoint Waterfront, Red Hook and, of course, Atlantic Yards. (The links will take you to the individual sections without having to login.)

There’s also an accompanying item about “The Embeds,” some of the blogs and bloggers covering the various fights over the borough’s future. Specifically “intrepid bloggers” that “send continual dispatches from the front lines.” (We covered the war in the Balkans for a short spell, long before anyone coined the phrase embeds. Brooklyn’s a way more low-key gig. We haven’t been shot at yet, only asked to stop taking photos.) Gowanus Lounge is one of the Brooklyn embeds mentioned as are B61 Productions, the Brooklyn Record, Brownstoner, Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn, Planet PLG and Set Speed. (There are some embeds doing excellent work that were missed: Atlantic Yards Report, No Land Grab, Dope on the Slope and Sunset Parker to name a few–and we know we’re leaving some good ones out too. That’s the problem with our little Brooklyn Blogade–we’re already pretty large in number.)

Of GL, Time Out says: “A smart, open-minded and far-ranging blog, equally comfortable with old-school pleasures like the Dance of the Giglio and analysis of development and gentrification issues.” Shucks.

The War for Brooklyn is a great package about a whole lot of the issues and places that collectively speak to the future of Brooklyn.

All fitting, somehow, for a performance of Dracula, a lot less so for the superb musical performance that was cut short. Perhaps, another time.

This is New York‘s take:

Nowhere else in the city will you find food as cheap and delicious and in such titillating profusion as at this glorious outdoor feedlot. The portable kitchens that materialize around the soccer and baseball fields weekends from late spring through early fall, marked by their blue tarps and billowing plumes of charcoal smoke, all purvey food from Central and South America at the average going rate of $2.50 a plate. There are tacos galore, and great greasy quesadillas. There is seviche from Ecuador and pupusas from El Salvador. Factor in the cost relative to the remarkable quality and freshness of the food, and the makeshift market—a triumph of ingenuity and flavor over remote locale and vending-permits red tape—easily achieves four-star status.

The outdoor restaurants are located on Bay Street, between Clinton and Court, by the soccer fields. They offer one of the most different dining experiences in all of New York City and you should make it part of any weekend trip to The Hook. Our purpose here, though, was to share some of the cool colors we captured.

Number One Recommended Blog Read of the Day:

• 72nd Precinct Cops Harassing Sunset Park Residents and Businesses [Sunset Parker]

Other Quite Valuable News:

• Mayor Marty Markowitz? [Brooklyn Papers]
• Atlantic Yards to be Surrounded by Ocean of Temporary Parking [AYR]
• South Brooklyn Hotel Boom [Brooklyn Papers]
• G Train is Gross [Metro]
• Soccer Club Punished for Fixing Park [Brooklyn Record]
• Campaign Against Bicyclists on Bklyn Bridge [Bay Ridge Conservative via Sunset Parker]
• It Came from the Blogosphere [No Land Grab]
• Den Mother Moi [OTBKB]

In our constant trawling for material, we came across this video posted this week, called “F Train, A Five Boro Film (Anime Version).” Check it out. Where else can you see a kung fu vid set on the F Train with Eno doing Baby’s on Fire in the background? Click the vid below or on the link here.

Can someone who speaks English, rather than Double Speak, please tell us this: What in the name of God is a “friendly condemnation“? Is it like “friendly fire,” which even though it’s a big, bad boo-boo, still leaves the recipient as dead as he who is on the recieving end of old-fashioned unfriendly fire? Or is it like what your significant other does when he or she is breaking up with you but still wants to be friends, berating you terribly–but in a very nice way–so that after 12 or so months of weekly therapy sessions you can still be friends?

We imagine a “friendly condemnation” goes something like, “You know, I really hate to do this…I can’t tell you how sorry I am that this team of heavily armed officers here is going to have to arrest you, but, they’re making me take everything you own. Sorry. Can we still be friends?”

Among all the things that Atlantic Yards has given us recently–a 60-story building called Miss Brooklyn, public hearings scheduled at the height of summer vacation season, development company officials wisecracking that they worked with their architect to produce a shadow-free skyscraper, a PR spin that insists on calling the mega-development an arena project, a non-impact environmental impact that will result in more, but less, sewerage at the same time–one of our favorites is the concept of “friendly condemnation.” Call us nuts, but all we can see is a figure wearing a Happy Face bubble head, carrying an AK-47. Being friendly and homicidal at the same time.

For a serious analysis of “friendly condemnation,” of course, see Atlantic Yards Report, where Norman Oder holds forth on this curious phenomenon, deconstructing it as only he can.

Us, we prefer to rant and be less scientific.

The friendly situation, as we understand it, is this: The Empire State Development Corporation would acquire nearly all the property in the Atlantic Yards site via eminent domain, including city streets and the 90 percent owned by Forest City Ratner. It’s apparently standard practice, but it is also the pre-requisite for some quite unfriendly activity such as evicting tenants living in rent-stablized apartments and avoiding protracted bureaucratic and legal requirements. It is likely also part of the legal strategy to try to get a positive ruling on very unfriendly eminent domain condemnations of property owned by people that don’t want to sell.

How you feel about all this depends not only on your view of Atlantic Yards, but how you feel about the government’s power to come in and take your property if it decides that a higher purpose is served.

While Forest City Ratner owns the majority of property in the Atlantic Yards footprint, there are a significant number of properties that it doesn’t own and whose owners aren’t inclined to sell. They’re the ones that are going to get a visit from very unfriendly (ie. hostile, inhospitable, antagonistic and, perhaps, even surly or poopyhead-like) government takers of property. (There will be many Eyewitness News Moments the day this unfriendly activity occurs.) Those who might face the Churlish and Unhappy Face of Atlantic Yards could include owners of four rental buildings, 13 commercial buildings and five individual owner-occupied units. They will also include the dozens of tenants living in units that will be taken by ESDC while wearing its Happy Face. (Can you say, “You’re evicted!” in a friendly tone of voice? Maybe, “You’re evicted, please, if you’d be so kind as to get out.” Perhaps, it would help to have people speaking upper class British accents do the evicting? It would sound more…friendly.)

Anyway you cut it, there will be a whole lot of good, old fashioned unfriendly condemnation going on if the project goes forward, and some of these takings of property will become the subject of the litigation that could ultimately determine the project’s fate. Daniel Goldstein, who is the most outspoken of the Atlantic Yards opponents whose property would be taken in a most unfriendly way, is deeply convinced that the eminent domain will be the soft underbelly that kills the project.

That litigation will begin the moment ESDC stops trying to pretend to be Mr. Rogers and saying, “Oh, won’t you be my neighbor,” and the unfriendliness starts.

Experience a unique educational & adventure eco-cruise with the entire family, friends, neighbors and visitors, aboard our 32ft human powered vessel; a type of shipping canoe widely used by local Native Americans, as well by other river farers and coastal traders of the 17th century, who thrived on the natural resources of the once vital estuary during a time when Oysters from the Gowan Creek estuarine waterway that flows in the neighborhood. The tours are guided by our experienced and enthusiastic environmental educators & environmental justice advocates, who engage participants in fun and hands-on environmental investigation & discovery activities to assess environmental quality as well as to investigate the current cost and effect of human impact. The vessel will accommodate 20 paddlers at a time…Plus a Raffle of 6 copies of the latest award winning documentary- “Coming Clean- Reclaiming the Gowanus Canal”.

Well, it’s sort of a canoe, but a very big one. You have to register in advance and there is a charge for the cruise. Call 718-802-9874 to get out on the Big G on Saturday.

Brooklyn Food and Booze:
Yassky on Black and White (Cookies) [Edible Brooklyn via Brooklyn Record]
New Fort Greene Booze Spots [setspeed]
Trout is Pleasant [A Brooklyn Life]
The Dope on Chickory Brooklyn [NYT]
Bocce and Beercheese at Union Hall [NYPress]
New Restaurant Alert: Bocca Lupo [A Brooklyn Life]
Mighty Good Gumbo [Dope on the Slope]
Is Bay Ridge’s Tanoreen Really Brooklyn’s Best? [Brooklyn Record]
Strawberry Shortcake Customers Vid [Coney Island Shortcakes]

Nothing to Do with Either Eating or Drinking:
HOMEPLATE, UFUKD and Sweetheart Deals [Dope on the Slope]
Miss Brooklyn: Three X’s the Square Footage of Williamsburgh Bank Bldg [AYR]
Brooklynites Ticked About Timing of Aug. 23 Atlantic Yards Hearing [NYPost]
Coney Island Real Estate Boom [NYPost]
Vacating the Construction-Damaged South Slope Building [IMBY]
Colored Lighting on Brooklyn Bridge? [Brooklyn Record]
Kiteboarding in Brooklyn [Sail Brooklyn]
Collateral South Slope Damage [Curbed]

The striking photograph above comes courtesy of a new blog called imnotsayin imjustsayin produced by Williamsburg resident James Striebich, who has a keen eye for and interest in the waterfront along Kent Avenue. The photo is of the ruins of the former Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal, which is set to become Douglaston Development’s “The Edge,” a pair of 40-story luxury residential towers made possible by last year’s waterfront rezoning. (Construction crews are onsite starting basic foundation work as we speak, Jim reports in an email.) We’ll let imjustsayin relate some of the history of the Eastern District Terminal–some of the railbeds of which are still visible:

The BEDT was originated in 1875 as the East River Terminal by the Havemeyer & Elder Sugar Co. (later Domino Sugar) as a railyard that accepted freight cars delivered by float barges from terminals in New Jersey (remember, this predates all East River bridge and tunnel connections). The sugar refining, as well as hundreds of other manufacturing businesses in and around Williamsburg and Greenpoint – not to mention the Brooklyn Navy Yard – needed an efficient way to receive raw materials and ship out finished goods. With the bulk of domestic freight being moved by train in those days, there was a natural efficiency in moving loaded railcars by barge, rather than unloading them onto ships and standard freight barges.

The East River waterfront from North 3rd (including the recently landmarked, then un-landmarked Austin Nichols Warehouse) to North 10th was a bustling railyard from 1875 until August, 1983, when the decades-long decline in rail transportation (due primarily to the boom in interstate trucking) finally led the BEDT to cease operations.

We look forward to many illuminating and informative posts, knowing from the photos and information that James has shared with us for GL and Curbed that his blog will be required reading. You can see the flickr photoset of his waterfront photos here.

New York has published it’s always-fun “cheap eats” story, so Gowanus Lounge is doing our borough duty and listing the Brooklyn entries. The magazine defines “cheap” as most of the entrees on the menu being under $20. One can quibble about what’s “cheap” and what isn’t, but we do know that a bunch of the places below have good eats. Carroll Gardens and Red Hook are the neighborhood winners in terms of the most mentions. All of the Brooklyn entries appear under their “star” rankings, with links to a basic review, plus address and phone.

Five Stars

• Tanoreen. 7704 Third Ave., Bay Ridge, 718-748-5600
• Franny’s. 295 Flatbush Ave., Prospect Heights, 718-230-0221

Four Stars

• Frankie’s Spuntino. 457 Court St., Carroll Gardens, 718-403-0033
• Red Hook Soccer Fields. Bay St. bet. Clinton St. and Court St., Red Hook.
• Di Fara Pizza. 1424 Ave. J, Midwood, 718-258-1367
• Al di Là. 248 Fifth Ave., Park Slope, 718-783-4565

Three Stars

• iCi. 246 DeKalb Ave., Fort Greene, 718-789-2778
• Totonno’s. 1524 Neptune Ave., Coney Island, 718-372-8606
• Chestnut. 271 Smith St., Carroll Gardens, 718-243-0049
• The Queen’s Hideaway. 222 Franklin St., Greenpoint, 718-383-2355
• 360. 360 Van Brunt St., Red Hook, 718-246-0360
• Bouillabaisse. 126 Union St., Carroll Gardens, 718-855-4405
• Schnäck. 122 Union St., Carroll Gardens, 718-855-2879
• Egg. (AKA Sparky’s) 135 N. 5th St., Williamsburg, 718-302-5151

Two Stars

• Marlow & Sons. 81 Broadway, Williamsburg, 718-384-1441
• Beast. 638 Bergen St., Prospect Heights, 718-399-6855
• The Good Fork. 391 Van Brunt St., Red Hook, 718-643-6636