184 Kent Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn

Red Hook, Brooklyn

[Photo of Sosa Fresca from Porkchop Express]

Sure, there are dining options on Van Brunt Street in Red Hook. But for a real Red Hook treat, take thee to the Red Hook soccer fields. Maybe you’ve heard about the little gathering at the soccer fields at Clinton and Bay streets every weekend? Perhaps you’ve wandered past or driven by and wondered what all those little tents were about?

Well, every weekend dozens of vendors set up these tents and they constitute a virtual culinary tour of Central America. It may be New York City’s most incredible and authentic street food experience, and one that you probably won’t find replicated elsewhere. (We say “may be” and “probably” only because we don’t know what other treats may lurk somewhere else in Brooklyn or Queens or the Bronx about which we don’t know.) Some of the weekend restaurants at the soccer fields have been doing business in the same spot for years.

In any case, the Porkchop Express blog has been posting what now amounts to a superb guide to some of the little restaurants and the food they serve. It’s hard to read without laying plans to head to this part of Red Hook.

Porkchop has detailed individual reviews of Hernandez Huaraches, Martinez Huaraches, Perez Tacos and Sosa Fresca. (There is an abundance of information as well as dozens of photos of some of the mouthwatering dining options.) Huaraches, we learn from Porkchop, are:

A tasty treat hailing from South-Central Mexico, this flat, oblong cake of masa (moist cornmeal dough) is rolled, pressed, stuffed with a thin layer of black bean, pressed again, and thrown on a griddle until nice and crisp. You can top them with a bit of salsa picante and grated queso anejo, or go the whole hog and pile on meats, chilies, onions, sour cream, and whatever else lies within reach.

Meanwhile, 423 Smith is also featuring some wonderful photos of the dining scene down at the soccer fields in an excellent photo feature called Spicy Mangos and More.

If you don’t know Red Hook, the map below might help a bit in finding this food treasure.

Earlier this week we ran an “open letter” from Steven Hart to Brooklyn Boro Prez Marty Markowitz about, well, how Gowanus would likely drown in crap on many days if Atlantic Yards is built. While the Draft Environmental Impact Statement somehow concludes that there will be less sewerage flowing into Gowanus with Atlantic Yards than without it, we await a definitive and objective analysis.

Meanwhile, the Boro Prez–who has been one of the biggest supporters of Atlantic Yards while expressing concern here and there about its scale–posted a reply to the open letter. Even though it sounds suspiciously boilerplate/form letter-like, since GL quoted the original letter, we quote the Beep’s reply:

I assure you that my only goal for the Atlantic Yards project is to ensure that it works for all of Brooklyn and New York City.

Currently, my staff and I are reviewing the recently released Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) from the Empire State Development Corporation, which discloses all the impacts associated with the project. I believe that an inclusive and comprehensive DEIS approval process is crucial to the success of Atlantic Yards, so I hope that Brooklynites like yourself will live up to our reputation for thinking out loud by speaking up and participating during the upcoming public-comment period, beginning with the August 23 public hearing.

Taken together or separately, the issues of traffic, parking, public safety, infrastructure, environmental concerns, and others in the EIS will determine if Atlantic Yards is indeed what I have stated since its inception: a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create a new center of life in Downtown Brooklyn that is an economic engine for the entire borough, and city, that includes an affordable housing component that will set the new standard for urban developments across America.

I know that the public and others will contribute innovative, worthy ideas that will make this project even better, and one all Brooklynites can take pride in for generations to come.

Marty

Here’s where GL sees this heading: Atlantic Yards is so massive that there is immense wiggle room to hack off ten or twenty percent of the project so that public officials can claim to be responsive to the concern of (very affluent and politically connected neighbors that are stating to hate the thing) while leaving its essence intact for Forest City Ratner. We wouldn’t be at all surprise if the plan was pre-written so that some square footage could be cast off at the end of the planning phase so it’s backers could claim that they had heard the public and reduced its size.

Just a thought.

So, is it the Park Slope part of the equation that provokes a shitstorm of commentary? Or is it the violent nature of the outburst? To recap: A stroller-pushing Park Slope mom was cut off by two cars while trying to cross the street in the South Slope and retaliated by throwing a can of beans (don’t know the brand) at the back window of the car, busting up said auto glass and prompting a confrontation with the beaned driver. We reported this on Curbed via streetsblog a couple of days ago. The item was picked up by Gothamist, Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn and others. Dozens of people offered comments.

We offer a few more highlights, or lowlights, depending on your taste for vitriol:

The driver’s actions did not justify a physical assault or property damage. You can’t break someone’s windshield because they’ve pissed you off. The MOTHER was the one who started the physical assault by damaging the driver’s car. She was the aggressor. She is the one who set the bad example for HER child, by instigating a physical confrontation…It’s New York. We’ve all been sideswiped by a cab or a bike or a STROLLER at one point or another. Maybe you shout something rude, maybe you complain, but you don’t resort to violence. It’s called DEALING WITH LIVING IN A MAJOR CITY.

I think the lady overreacted, but frankly, if this happened somewhere outside of NYC, say in a small city where they actually obey traffic rules, and the driver got out of the car, he would get the shit beat out of him by the lady’s husband. Bad driving is not to be defended you morons.

Threatening someone in a crosswalk with a 2000 lb. car: perfectly normal. Getting pissed off about it: “nuts”.

Cars often suck but Park Slope moms are arrogant motherf**kers too– as a cyclist who DOES obey lights/stop signs, I’ve been cut off in intersections more than once by some blithering yuppief**k & her SUV-stroller who can not be bothered to look OR wait. File under the same jackoffs who double park their real SUVs outside the Co-Op, do k-turns on Union St– as if you can’t drive around the block– AND that chainstore c**ksucker Uncle Louie G– traded in his Hummer for an Escalade– f**k you very much everyone who “has” to buy shit there because your whining little brats insist.

So much anger. So many people ready to throw beans. Those mortgage payments must really be stressing people. A pedestrian crossing with the signal has the right of way by law, but in New York a car does by custom. Most people stop because they don’t want to be hit, and then the car goes.

Us, all we can say is: Next time you’re tooling through Park Slope and you would just as soon run someone down than stop when you’re making a right turn, watch you ass. We’re packing beans. And glass bottles of San Pellegrino. Especially the mommies.

Brooklinks is a daily selection of Brooklyn-related news articles, blog items and images:

• State big to Brooklyn: You’re Manhattan Now [Brooklyn Papers]
• Red Hook Residents Protest for Traffic Safety [Brooklyn Record]
• Democratic Space [Brooklyn Views]
• Brooklyn Families to Sue Over Tippy Ship [NYDN]
• Editorial: Manhattanization of Brooklyn Now Official State Policy [Brooklyn Papers]
• Claiming 10K Jobs at Atlantic Yards Was Wrong [AYR]
• City Tries to Find Sewerage Leak on G Line [AMNY]
• Brooklyn Industries Continues March to World Domination [The Real Estate]
• Two Women Talking [bluejake]
• No Bikes in Greenwood Cemetery [Daily Heights]
• Sparky’s to Become Sports Bar? [Brooklyn Record]
• Crown Heights North Landmarks [Gothamist]
• Williamsburgh Savings Bank Clock Broken Again [Brooklyn Papers]

One of the “marine transfer stations” that will be used to move thousands of tons of trash out of New York City via barge will go on the Gowanus Canal. Yes, it’s an outlying part of the Canal, but it’s still the Big G. Specifically, the trash will go to the Hamilton Avenue Marine Transfer Station, which is located under the Gowanus Expressway at 18th Street and the Gowanus Canal. The facility was used until 2001 and then decommissioned after Fresh Kills on Staten Island was closed. After Wednesday’s City Council approval of the new trash plan, the station will likely be recommissioned again, ensuring that a very ripe and funky smell indeed will waft through parts of Gowanus and up to the people stuck in traffic on the Expressway, depending on the wind.

This ill wind might also blow back into Gowanus, the South Slope, Sunset Park and Red Hook, again depending. Prime victims of oflactory collateral damage could be home improvers, as the Home Depot off Hamilton is nearly next to the new transfer station and the Lowe’s is too close for comfort, as the majestic stench of rot and decomposition flies. (If you doubt how gross this will be, inhale deeply when you are stuck in traffic on the Kosciuszko Bridge on the BQE sometime. That profoundly nauseating smell? It’s the trash transfer station down near Newtown Creek. Can you say nas-tee? How about Kosh-choosh-koh?) The other Brooklyn transfer station will be located in Gravesend, which is east of Coney Island.

Upside: We’ll have a new local sporting event–the half-mile dash down Hamilton Avenue without blowing chunks, AKA the Hamilton Avenue Hurl.

Gowanus Lounge doesn’t want to know what it’s like when a cruise ship this big tilts 15 degrees to one side or contemplate the gravitational and buoyancy forces that keep it from tilting even more. In any case, the Princess will be making port in Red Hook tomorrow (Saturday) and is supposed to set sail again in the afternoon, assuming no problems are found. (The focus of the investigation is “human error,” as in, “Woah, Ted, don’t touch the red button. You pushed the red button? Woah!”) Passengers that don’t have the stomach for it are being offered refunds. (Why are people referring to this as the “Red Hook Cruise Ship” as though the Hook owns it?) On other fronts, Poseidon will be out on DVD on August 22, but the craftier among you moviegoers have already downloaded it bought the bootleg in Chinatown seen it at the cinema. The image above is the Princess as seen from the water, when it was at the Red Hook Cruise Terminal on July 2.

Got three minutes and forty-three seconds? Then, click on the video below and watch “Coney Island of the Mind,” a little slice of Brooklyn and Coney Island or just click on this link. And, while we’re at it, we thank Sunset Parker for introducing us to the wealth of Brooklyn videos at You Tube with his Brooklyn Video of the Day feature.

Anger about recent increases in traffic in Red Hook has been rising since the opening of the new Red Hook Cruise Terminal and the Fairway supermarket put more cars on local streets. Two weeks ago, a Sunset Park woman was hit and killed on Van Brunt Street by a driver leaving the Fairway. Residents want traffic signs and traffic lights installed, but the Department of Transportation says it won’t even start a study until the fall.

B61 Productions reports that residents will be having a demonstration tonight (July 20) at 6:30 PM at the corner of Van Brunt and Wolcott Streets, where the pedestrian was struck and killed on July 6. Organizers include the Red Hook Civic Association, Red Hook Lions, Groups Against Garbage Sites and Beard St. Associates, which have been pushing for traffic signs at the corner.

The groups report that Van Brunt has the largest stretch of unprotected intersections in the city (15 in 3/4 mile). The group’s release says, “The Department of Transportation continues to refuse to install traffic lights or 4-way stop signs or even paint the cross walks across Van Brunt.” While local activists have been divided over supporting or opposing new projects like the massive Ikea waterfront development, B61 Productions suggests that “the traffic issue has the potential to galvanize neighborhood organizations the way garbage transfer sites did six years ago.” (Neighborhood groups fiercely fought back plans that would have, literally, made Red Hook one of New York City’s main trash receptacles.)

Last year, we witnessed Boro Prez Marty Markowitz and DOT officials show up at the intersection of Ninth Street and Eighth Avenue in Park Slope two days after Park Slope residents started signing a petition outside of Dizzy’s about dangerous conditions at the intersection. The corner still stinks, but new signs went up shortly thereafter.

So, answer us this: Why do Red Hook residents have to demonstrate and wait until fall for a traffic study before someone paints some crosswalks and puts up Stop signs as a preliminary measure? Please tell us it doesn’t have something to do with power and money.

Brooklinks is a selection of Brooklyn-related news stories, blog items and images:

Get Your Eat and Drink On (With Thanks to the Brooklyn Record)

• Weekly Food Roundup [Brooklyn Record]
• La Sorrentina’s Bensonhurst Pizza Empire [NYDN]
• Best Deli Sandwich in Brooklyn: Las Americas Deli on Court St. [Brooklyn Record]
• Atlantic Avenue Brew Guide [Brooklyn Record]

Think While Thinking About Getting Your Eat On

• Looking for the New Face of Brooklyn? Take the L Train [NYDN]
• BAP Lab: Electronic Music and Digital Art Fest [A Brooklyn Life]
• BAP Lab Tries to Make Brooklyn Beautiful [NYPress]
• Jews for Jesus Invade Brooklyn [Brooklyn Ramblings]
• The Day After the Great Food Coop Black Out of ’06 [OTBKB]
• McCarren Pool Party Photos [Test of Will]
• Arborcide on Eighth Avenue [IMBY]
• Riding the Williamsburg Water Taxi [NYDN]
• Energy Needs in a Blazing Summer Sun [Brownstoner]
• Crown Heights Tour: Banks and Showrooms [Brownstoner]
• Army Recruiting Centers Draw Protests [Brooklyn Downtown Star]
• Frank Gehry Can Do Small [3Bikini]
• Red Hook Cruise Ship Departure on Hold [AMNY]

Brooklinks is a selection of Brooklyn new stories, blog items and images. In today’s special edition, more links to coverage of the Atlantic Yards battle:

• Nets Planning for Traffic ‘Nightmare’ [NYPost]
• Headlines You Don’t Want to See Above a Photo of Your Block [streetsblog]
• High Crime in the Atlantic Yards Footprint? [AYR]
• FCR’s James Stuckey and DDDB’s Jeff Baker on Brian Lehrer [WNYC]
• Brooklyn Downtown Star Goes to Town with Atlantic Yards Coverage [nolandgrab]
• How About ‘Atlantic Yards for Dummies’? [Dtown Brooklyn Star]
• ESDC Sets 8-23 for Impact Statement Public Hearing [Dtown Brooklyn Star]

A big thank you to Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn for reminding us about the Indie Designer Market at the Old Stone House on Saturday (7/22). We got the release about it so long ago, put it on a list of items to do in July and would have left it between the cracks where it had slipped were it not for OTBKB’s excellent coverage of local goings-on and events. (Which means, you don’t probably need to hear about it from us.) In any case, Park Slope’s first, indie designer market is called designcollective. It will showcase new Brooklyn designers on Saturday from 10AM-6PM at the Old Stone House in J.J. Byrne Park, which is located on the Fifth Avenue side of the park between 3rd and 4th streets. The market takes place inside the (air-conditioned) building and includes apparel, handbags, jewelry, children’s clothing, accessories, and paper and lifestyle goods.

Two food rumblings on Flatbush Avenue, prime among them, the opening of Flatbush Farm, whose bar is now open and offering a snack/tapas type of menu. It occupies the space formerly occupied by Bistro St. Marks at 76-78 St. Marks at Flatbush. The full restaurant should be open in two weeks or so. The menu will be local and seasonal, with an emphasis on the organic.

A little lower on the food chain, those looking to add inches to their waistlines and help narrow those arteries need look no further than the new Dunkin Donuts that is occupying the space of the former Charcuterie on the north side of Flatbush. Of Flatbush Farm, a poster on Chowhound writes, “It’s quiet and has a nice atmosphere, a little expensive, but they had a good selection of wine by the glass or bottle and lots of different kinds of beer. I didn’t try any food, but it was pleasant and they have armchairs to sit in while you have a drink.”

What’s a Park Slope mommy to do? Attack with beans, that’s what. Anyone familiar with the Hill Above Gowanus knows that drivers come flying around corners when they are making a right turn regardless of who is in their way–even moms pushing strollers, which the nabe has in abundance. So, the story about Park Slope Mommy Rage that we posted yesterday over at Curbed, for which streetsblog gets the original credit, generated much response. The story was about a mommy who went a little nutso when two cars cut her off as she tried to cross the street:

I saw one woman struggling across the street with multiple bags of groceries hanging off her kid’s stroller; when she got cut off, TWICE, she reached into her grocery bags and hauled out a can of beans which she threw at the rear window of the second car, cracking it clear across. Several witnesses clapped and cheered. The jerk driving the car actually had the nerve to pull over and come after her about the window, but fortunately, everyone that had seen what happened backed her up.

One commenter wrote, “The Yankees should sign her up. Alex Rodriguez can take a few ‘how to throw more accurately’ pointers from her.” Someone else opined, “Next time she should throw a box of Annie’s Organic Mac & Cheese shells. Very Slopian and far more car friendly…Be safe out there. Be proud. Eat beans.” And this: “Back when I had kids that age, real estate prices were lower, so moms were a lot less stressed. Those $900K mortgages would make anyone want to throw beans.” As well as this late entry from a non-mommy: I once had ‘pedestrian rage’ when a car nearly ran me over…I spit on the side of his car. He got out of his car and started CHASING AFTER ME. Luckily I was able to run like hell and hide in a nearby bookstore. Did I learn a lesson? You bet I did.”

We don’t know what kind of coping mechanisms mommy is teaching her own Little Bean or whether her anger management skills will rub off on young Mr. or Ms. McLaren. Clearly, though, the Saga of the Bean Throwing Park Slope Mom continues.

The fix is in and the clock is ticking. With its vote on Atlantic Yards yesterday, release of the 15-inch thick Draft Environmental Impact Statement and scheduling of what is likely to be the only significant public hearing on the plan for August 23, the doggiest of the dog days of summer, the Empire State Development Corporation announced full speed ahead on Atlantic Yards planning.

The public comment period on the plan will run for 60 days and it will be up to lawyers, environmental experts and others to pour through a document that, in effect, says that the biggest development project in Brooklyn history will have not have a significantly overwhelming negative impact on public services or traffic, will not swamp sewage treatment plants, will not put upward pressure on rents and won’t significantly degrade quality of life.

Yes, the environmental impact document does admit “significant adverse impacts” on cultural resources, traffic, and noise, as well as construction impacts, but it argues that the provision of housing, improving railroad facilities, and “enhancing the vitality of the Atlantic Terminal area” outweigh the negatives. On WNYC yesterday evening, newscaster Amy Eddings asked reporter Andrea Bernstein, more than once, to explain how a project so massive in scale would, in effect, be a ghost. Forest City Ratner’s James Stuckey‘s response: the impacts are manageable because of all the work to mitigate them.

The most cogent early analysis of the DEIS belongs to Norman Oder, who begins the long process of digging into the massive document today via his article in his Atlantic Yards Report.

What is clear is the cost of Atlantic Yards has now swollen to $4.2 billion from an original estimate of $2.5 billion and that New York State taxpayers will ultimately bear direct and indirect costs of up to $2 billion.

In the end, yesterday was either the day the New York power structure backing the Atlantic Yards project–and its 16 highrises and basketball arena–trotted out the coffin in preparation for closing the lid and nailing it shut (a “slam dunk” as the New York Post calls it) or merely the first round in a historic fight to stop the biggest development project in the borough’s history. It will fall to a bright planner or historian who is only in grade school today to write the story a generation from now.

For the time being, it’s safe to say that in voting for the Atlantic Yards project and in setting a hearing date of August 23, the Empire State Development Corporation signaled that it is in control of the rules of the game and that it doesn’t care much either for public appearances or for an open public debate over the merits of the Atlantic Yards project. (There will be public forum in September too.)

The goal seems simple: To get Atlantic Yards approved before a new governor can come along and change anything. (Call it the Fait Accompli School of Urban Development, with Brooklyn serving as its primary laboratory.) It is no accident that the timetable for the project anticipates completion of Phase I of Atlantic Yards by 2009, which also happens to be year of New York’s next municipal election. If, for the sake of argument, the next mayor opposes Atlantic Yards, he or she will have to contend with the same dilemma faced by Corey Booker in Newark, whose predecessor left him with an arena that cannot be stopped without huge public cost.

That having been said, the real battle–which opponents have long understood–will be the litigation that surrounds the process and the methods used to approve, finance and build the Atlantic Yards project. Their goal will be to slow the project at every turn in the hope of stalling for so long that an anti-Yards public official takes office and kills it. Or that they go before a panel of judges that finally rules against Atlantic Yards on eminent domain or other grounds. In the end, it may not be public outrage that kills the project, it could be a jurist ruling on a legalism that most average people won’t even understand.

The battle has now started in earnest.

Brooklinks is a daily selection of Brooklyn-related news stories, blog items and images. Today we offer a selective round-up of Atlantic Yards Draft Environmental Impact Statement coverage:

What’s the Impact?

• NY Agency Gives Preliminary Thumbs Up to Ratner Plan [Reuters]
• Yards DEIS Released, Cost Reaches $4.2 Billion [AYR]
• Measuring Project’s Shadow and Burden on Bklyn [NYT]
• Yards Impact ‘Absurd’ Critics Say [NYDN]
• Ratner’s Got High Hoops [NYPost]
• State: Ratner Project Won’t Raise Rents [Power Plays/V. Voice]
• Atlantic Yards Hearings Set…For When You’re Out of Town [streetsblog]
• True Costs Still Unknown, Public Process Unacceptable [DDDB]
• Nothing Like a 15-Inch Thick Stack of Documents for a Rally Hangover [nolandgrab]
• Prisoner of Atlantic Avenue [The Real Estate]

Something Other Than the Stinkin’ Impact

• How Not to Pay Rent (in an Illegal Apartment) [Village Voice]
• Scoop Du Jour–Today in Brooklyn [OTBKB]
• Disaster on Red Hook Based Cruise Ship [Brooklyn Record]
• Community Gardens [Gotham Gazette]
• Jacques Torres Wins Neighborhood Award [Brooklyn Record]

One of our favorite Brooklyn bloggers, Gary Jarvis, who produces the excellent Runs Brooklyn, hasn’t let the blistering heat stop him from running, although he used it as an excuse to run the streets of some of Brooklyn’s waterfront neighborhoods. (Is Brighton Beach really that much cooler when the heat index is 105?)

What we like about Gary’s blog is not that he’s blogging about running, but that he’s shooting a lot of wonderful photos and making observations about the nabes through which he runs, some of which are a little off the beaten path for Brooklynites who stick to the tried-and-true circuits like Park Slope, Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn Heights, Williamsburg and the like. How many Slopians, for instance, especially recent Brooklyn immigrants, actually go and check out Mill Basin or Bergen Beach? Which is only a way of saying that getting around to different parts of Brooklyn can be an avocation in and of itself given the size of the borough.

For the record, Gary has now run 124.50 “unique miles,” which leaves him with a mere 1,617.86 miles before he meets his goal of running every street in Brooklyn.

A few more photos from his recent runs are below:

Mill Basin

Brighton Beach

Bergen Beach

[The photo is from sailbrooklyn’s flickr stream.]

While our reading of the Atlantic Yards Draft Environmental Impact Statement‘s section on the effluent the project will produce indicates that project backers are claiming there will be less flow if the project is built than if not, we will await expert analysis of the claim. Meanwhile, Gowanus Lounge offers an open letter to Boro Prez Marty Markowitz that came our way through a Carroll Gardens neighborhood group. It’s worth a read (emphasis added by GL):

Dear BP Markowitz,

The most dangerous aspect of the FCRC Atlantic Yards Project is sewerage and adequate water drainage. They will remain with the area for generations to come. This particular concern is not one that can wait for the building to get underway. It cannot be left to the good will of the developer. It cannot be left to the devices of even public officials without regular, open public scrutiny. Why? Because it is a matter of public health and well being that will last into the next century in Brooklyn.

The current sewer/storm drain system is overloaded to the point of failure. Raw sewage pours out in storm related overflows NOW to such an extent that it is flowing through public waterways, canals, and the drainage system. Ratner has shown no realistic interest in dealing with the daily influx of nearly two million gallons of waste water in a system that is now near collapse.

The alternative is to tear whole sections of Boerum Hill and Gowanus limb from limb to create massive new sewer lines and facilities given that such is the path of least resistance. Thus the value and viability of those areas will be devastated to accommodate an expansion of the Ratner complex that even now does nothing for that community but serve as a wall to hem it off from the rest of Brooklyn.

The scale of this project is totally out of proportion to the economics and the present population of the area. The history of the builder in the area has been consistently disastrous both in terms of retail outlets and the resulting architectural impact on the AY area.

The open and immediate threat to the infrastructure has never been addressed, and cannot be left to be sorted out once the construction is underway.

Why? First and foremost because the waste water that is now out of control damages the area and reduces its value. Potentially it could become a breeding ground for typhoid, cholera, dysentery, and sundry other water born diseases that have been a prominent part of NYC’s history. Adding 2 Million Gallons of Sewage to that burdensome danger is without conscience.

Even granting the billions of public dollars already on the block for this project without fiscal oversight, the problems of sewerage have not yet been factored into those numbers. Please envision the financial burden of digging up 50 or more blocks of the city to create enhanced sewer lines and then adding new sewage treatment plants.

On top of all that is the fact that these necessities will reduce a thriving, affluent, rising set of communities into valueless, uninhabitable waste lands.

This catastrophe, Mr. Markowitz, will have your name on it right at the top under Bruce Ratner, and he will have left town long before the problems start bubbling to the surface. There is no hope whatever that they will abate within the lifetime of anyone reading this letter if this project is not scaled down, got under fiscal control, and managed realistically.

Yours with fond regards,

Steven Hart, Ph.D.
Brooklyn

Again, our own reading of Chapter 11 of the DEIS says there is no projected negative impact on the Gowanus and that the Red Hook Treatment Plant has abundant capacity to handle the increase in sewerage. We will leave it to the wasterwater treatment experts to fully digest the contents and report back on the fine print and assumptions used.

From the Prospect Park Alliance comes news of Twilight Tours in Prospect Park on July 27 and August 3 and 10. The tours start at 7 PM. To quote:

Enjoy an evening of strolling and cruising, wine and cheese, and the Park’s mysterious nocturnal fauna. Start out with a ride on the electric boat Independence, followed by guided exploration of the Park’s nature trails and a chance to meet the amazing bats that call Prospect Park home. $25 per person. Tours fill up fast, so make reservations early! (718) 789-2822 Ext. 13.

While GL is not sure about “meeting” any bats, the evening stroll and the boat ride on the lake, sound like a good way to end a summer’s day.

The Empire State Development Corp. has announced it has adopted the General Project Plan for the Atlantic Yards project and accepted the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS). A public hearing is scheduled in Brooklyn for August 23rd, and another forum is scheduled on September 12. Public comments are being accepted until September 23. In announcing the adoption of the plan ESDC Chair Charles Gargano said Atlantic Yards “will have a lasting impact on the borough.”

Atlantic Yards Development Group President Jim Stuckey was quoted in the official release as saying, “While the Draft EIS examines potential impacts that the project may have, we’ve gone to great lengths to develop innovative programs to mitigate the impact both during construction and after.”

The documents contains important details about the project’s various impacts which both supporters and opponents have been awaiting. The document, for instance, shows that the total cost of the project has increased from $3.5 billion to $4.2 billion.

The full document is 15 inches thick–the DEIS Executive Summary alone runs to 39 pages–and project opponents immediately jumped on the timetable for public review, hearings and comment. Develop Don’t Destroy’s Daniel Goldstein called the 60 day review period starting in the dead of summer a “contemptible slap in the face” to Brooklynites.

Both documents (the General Project Plan and the Draft Environmental Impact Statement) are available here. Click here for the PDF of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement.

Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods greeted the release with the following statement: “While the timing of the release during the summer vacation and while the Community Boards are in recess might strike some as a ‘mid-summer surprise’, CBN and the communities we represent are eager to dig in!” The Council is holding sessions on the document on July 18, 20 and 25.

The release of the DEIS comes two days after a large rally in Grand Army Plaza against the proposed project demonstrated that opponents have gained considerable traction against Atlantic Yards.

Analysis to follow.

Okay, so it’s blazing hot and power use is near the top of the charts and there are issues in parts of Queens that are leading Con Ed to ask people in neighborhoods like Long Island City, Sunnyside, Woodside, Hunters Point, and Astoria to turn off “non-essential” appliances like washer and dryers and TV and air conditioners. (Who decided that AC was non-essential with the heat index above 100, we don’t know.) There were (now resolved) heat-related service issues on the 1, 2 and 3 trains. And it’s still early afternoon.

NY1 reports that nearly 3/4 of us are willing to do our part to conserve, energy. Or not:

Reporter: “Would you turn your AC off when you’re not home? Or would you leave it on all day so it’s nice and cool?”

Queens Resident: “I leave it on all day. All day. All day.”

Gowanus Lounge takes zero credit for coming upon this map, from NYC Oasis. Credit for that goes to Gothamist, which picked up an excellent item produced by IMBY, a very good South Slope blog from which we wish we would hear more frequently. All GL did was generate the map for Park Slope-Carroll Gardens and one for Williamsburg. Still, given the blazing sun and the blistering heat today, why not do a tree and, by definition, shade comparison? The Park Slope-Carroll Gardens and environs map is above. (Green obviously, equals trees.) The Willamsburg area map is below. With the barren exception of (sadly) Gowanus, where folliage is damned sparse in places, you will note the dramatic Tree Gap between these parts of North and South Brooklyn, with the North on the short end of the, um, stick. (The same Tree Gap could be noted in comparing the Lower Manhattan map to green parts of South Brooklyn.) In any case, today will not be a good day to be walking on Kent Avenue.

[Traffic photo posted by gawillia82 on flickr.]

Twenty-eight Brooklyn neighborhood groups have signed on to a letter to Mayor Bloomberg that is highly critical of the negative impact of what they say is his administration’s lack of a coherent transportation policy and its impact on the borough. The letter is shared by streetsblog, which consistently does fine work in reporting progress or lack thereof on critical transportation issues.

The groups say that the Bloomberg Administration has failed to “articulate clear, goal-oriented transportation policies or priorities” and that “worthy city transportation initiatives are few, and many drift along as studies, failing to deliver any public benefit.”

Among other things, the letter lambastes the city for a rezoning of Downtown Brooklyn that dealt with transportation “in a superficial fashion.” It criticizes the Dept. of Transportation for “unilaterally” discarding a “traffic calming” plan for Downtown and other neighborhoods. And, it slams last year’s the Williamsburg/Greenpoint rezoning for promoting growth and ignoring transportation planning even in the face of already critical subway overcrowding.

While Brooklyn’s population is surging, the letter says that the city is continuing its decades-long failure to increase mass transit capacity in the borough. Among other things, the letter calls for a parking permit system in some neighborhoods and quick creation of Bus Rapid Transit lanes (as opposed to more years of study). Groups signing the letter range from the North Brooklyn Alliance and Park Slope Civic Council to the Bay Ridge Community Council and Fort Greene Association. The full text and more details are available at streetsblog.

Brooklinks is a selection of Brooklyn-related blog items, news stories and image. The non-Brooklyn, but appropriate, image above is an ices vendor on a beach in Rockaway:

Roasting

• Dog Days: 25 Ways to Beat the Heat [NYDN]
• Gimme Swelter! [NYDN]
• Pools Open Late, Cooling Centers Open [NYC OEM]
• Park’s Department City Pools Page [NYC Parks Dept.]
• Brooklyn and Other City Beaches [NYC Parks Dept.]
• Heat Hits Subway Riders [AMNY]

Marinating

• Hey, That’s My Story!!! Can You Give Me Some Credit? [OTBKB]
• Daily News Atlantic Yards Reality Warp[AYR]
• Fight for Progressive Development Heats Up [Dope on the Slope]
• Outer Borough Taxi Plan [NYPost]
• 110 Livingston: On Sale Now! [53 Boerum]
• Stray Pride BBQ at Ginger’s [Brooklyn Record]
• Mickey Spillane Dies at 88 [AMNY]
• Fort Greene Community Board Turns Down 5-Mile Bike Lane [Brooklyn Papers]
• Suzanne’s Crown Heights [Brownstoner]
• Opinionist–Siren Festival 06 [Gothamist]
• Battle for the Stomachs of Brooklynites [Wonkster/Gotham Gazette]
• Williamsburg Water Taxi Sets Sail [Brooklyn Record]
• Wong Foo on Flushing Avenue [bluejake]