It’s hot as hell. So, for what it’s worth, here’s a guide to the location of city pools in Brooklyn. While the Astoria Pool in Queens in probably the Gold Standard New York City pool, several of the Brooklyn pools, including the one in Red Hook and the one in Sunset Park are absolutely huge.

All pools were open until 8PM last night and will likely stay open late again tonight.

The entire guide (which also includes wading pools and “mini-pools,” of course, is available at the Parks Department site:

Outdoor Pools

• Betsy Head–Boyland, Livonia and Dumont Avenues. (718) 965-6581. 330′ x 165′ x 4.25 (Olympic)
• Bushwick Houses–Flushing Avenue and Humboldt Street. (718) 452-2116. 75′ x 60′ x 3′
• Commodore Barry–Flushing and Park Avenues, Navy and North Elliot Streets. (718)243-2593. 75′ x 60′ x 3′
• Douglas and DeGraw–Third Avenue and Nevins Street.(718) 625-3268. 75′ x 60′ x 3′
• Howard–Glenmore and Mother Gaston Blvd., East New York Avenue. (718) 385-1023. 75′ x 60′ x 3′
• Kosciusko–Kosciusko between Marcy and Dekalb Avenues. (718) 622-5271. 230′ x 100′ x 4′ (Olympic)
• Red Hook–Bay and Henry Streets. (718) 722-3211. 330′ x 130′ x 4′ (Olympic)
• Sunset Park–Seventh Avenue between 41st and 44th Streets. (718) 965-6578. 259′ x 162′ x 3.5′ (Olympic)

Indoor Pools

• Brownsville–Linden and Mother Gaston Blvds. and Christopher Avenue. (718) 485-4633. 75′ x 30′ x 8′
• Metropolitan–Bedford and Metropolitan Avenues. (718) 599-5707. 75′ x 30′ x 8′
• St. John’s–Prospect Place, between Troy and Schenectady Avenues. (718) 771-2787. 75′ x 42′ x 9′

Brooklyn resident Paul Giamatti’s new flick The Lady in the Water (opens 7/21) is about a shy building manager who rescues a mysterious woman, who is actually a mythical creature, from his swimming pool. Strangeness ensues. Giamatti was interviewed by the AP and the following exchange took place:

AP: You live in Brooklyn. Do you think any ladies are hiding in the water there?

Giamatti: (laughs) They’d have to be in the Gowanus Canal, unfortunately. So they’re probably not alive if they’re in there! I mean, I don’t know. There’s no swimming pools, is there? “Lady in the Toilet in Brooklyn.”

We thought it was worth sharing.

Here’s an interesting look inside East River Park courtesy of local photographer Elizabeth Weinberg, who posts on flickr as e-liz. Her photos, above and below, show the bare bones park on the East River in Williamsburg. (She has also put together a panorama of the park, which is better viewed full size on flickr than here.)

We took a fascinating boat ride up Newtown Creek on Sunday morning with the good people from the Brooklyn Center for the Urban Environment. Newtown, which forms the boundary between Brooklyn and Queens, is the most polluted body of water in New York City (sorry, Mr. Gowanus), presenting a multiplicity of cleanup issues both in terms of the creek and various parcels of land along its shores. Newtown is the scene of the Greenpoint oil spill, one of the nation’s largest, and the former home of a Phelps-Dodge copper smelter that left behind a Superfund site.

Newtown’s banks are still lined with industry and facilities, including many scrap metal and recycling operations, the sci-fi Greenpoint Sewage Treatment Plant and oil storage facilities. Along the way, GL spoted one person and six Canada Geese, the latter under the BQE’s Kosciuzsko Bridge. We failed to identify the source of the nauseating garbage smell that, in summer traffic fills one’s car on the bridge, but do note that it’s far more pungent on the creek itself.

These vistas are unusual because the only way to see them is by boat. There is virtually no public access at any point along the canal, noted our excellent tour guide Jack Eichenbaum, other than from one of the bridges over the creek or from the end of Manhattan Avenue in Greenpoint, where a small park is currently under construction.

(There are dozens more photos in our flickr Newtown Creek photoset.)

One of the boats docked along the creek, on the Queens side.

Dead cars on a barge and a “Driving School” tractor trailer in the lot.

Abandoned chemical industry.

One of many, many barges on the creek.

The Epcot Center-like Greenpoint Sewage Treatment Plant.

A bit of the NY Water Taxi that functioned as tour boat.

A crowd estimated by organizers at 4,000 turned out in baking heat yesterday for a rally against the Atlantic Yards project sponsored by Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn. (The NY Times estimated 2,000.) While the crowd was not so large as to indicate a popular uprising againt the massive residential-commercia-arena plan, the turnout (whether 4,000 or 2,000 or in between) did signify that the anti-Yards movement has momentum. The opposition has clearly been attracting new supporters and contributors. (Check Norman Oder’s perceptive-as-usual analysis of the rally and what it meant.)

“This is not a done deal,” said City Council Member Charles Barron, who has been upfront in opposing the project. He urged the crowd to “mobilize and organize for 2009.” Barron was referring to a strategy to try to hobble the project through litigation long enough for new leadership in City Hall and on the City Council.

While the majority in the crowd at the rally was clearly white, most speakers at the rally were African-American, which is significant given that the Atlantic Yards debate has taken on racial overtones in recent months. “This is not about race,” said Rev. Clinton Miller. “It’s about class and it’s about asking the right questions.”

Other speakers included Council Member Letitia James, State Sen. Velmanette Montgomery (who is being challenged by a pro-Atlantic Yards candidate), Assembly candidate Bill Batson, activist Bob Law and Fort Greene activist Ed Carter.

“This is the beginning of a citywide battle,” Council Member Tony Avella, who also said he will run for Mayor in 2009, told the crowd.

DDDB co-founder Daniel Goldstein said, “This deal is coming undone. It’s suffering from long-term illness. Let’s put it out of its misery.” Mr. Goldstein introduced the actress, T. Sahara Meer, that had been used in a Ratner promotional brochure who has since become a active DDDB volunteer. Ms. Meer thanked the developer for getting her very involved in the anti-Atlantic Yards fight.

Entertainer Dan Zanes, actor Steve Buscemi and actress Rosie Perez were among those that also took the stage. Ms. Perez called the plan “an insult to the poor.”

“We have a real chance to undo this done deal,” Mr. Buscemi said. “It aint done yet.”

(More than three dozen photos are posted in my flickr photoset.)

Rosie Perez and Steve Buscemi

City Council Member Charles Barron

DDDB Founder Dan Goldstein and Ratner “Poster Girl” T. Sahara Meer

City Council Member Letitia James

Assembly Candidate Bill Batson

U.S. House Candidate Chris Owens

On the sidelines

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

Morning After Coverage

• No Massive Rally Turnout, but Progress [AYR]
• Bklyn stars come out to rip Ratner [NYPost]
• Crowd Gathers to Protest Size of AY Plan [NYT]
• Thousands Gather for Rally at Grand Army Plaza [OTBKB]
• Blogosphere Rally Coverage [No Land Grab]
• Rally Attracts Shutterbugs [Dope on the Slope]
• Parasol Power [Dope on the Slope]
• DDDB Rally Photoset [rsguskind/flickr]
• Ratner Rally: Power to the People [doughnut]

Not Morning After

• Chowing Down with Red Hook Food Vendors [423 Smith]
• Siren Fest Photos, MP3s and Vids [Gothamist]
• Objects and Interiors on Fifth Avenue [OTBKB]

South Brooklynites rushing to book a room for mom and dad at the new Gowanus Holiday Inn Express are going to have to wait a bit longer, according to newyorkology, which is the source for info about our favorite lodging option near the Big G. The hotel was originally taking reservations for a mid-July opening, which slipped to July 24 and has now slipped again to July 31. (Moral of the story: Don’t book a hotel for its projected opening date if you want a simple out-of-town trip.) The Holiday Inn Express, which has 115 rooms, is on Union Street between Third and Fourth Avenue.

While we salute Gowanus’ first hotel (and any South Brooklyn hotel for that matter), we note with some grumpiness that the Holiday Inn chain is not embracing its Gowanus location and continues to refer to the location as “Park Slope.” (In fact, company officials say “It really is” in Park Slope.) Uh, not exactly. If the hotel’s location is Park Slope, then the Gowanus is Prospect Park Lake. To repeat some common wisdom: If it’s flat ground, it ain’t Park Slope. It’s the Gowanus Holiday Inn Express. Can’t wait for the first vaguely aware tourist to show up, look around and say, “This is Park Slope? But it looked so different in the pictures.”

Gowanus. Gowanus. Gowanus. Got it?

The crowd, estimated by organizers as 4,000, at the Grand Army Plaza Rally Against Ratner today sponsored by Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn. More photos and information tomorrow morning.

We’ve always loved the expression “dog-and-pony show” and use it whenever possible to describe distasteful and orchestrated displays, so we are very taken with Brooklyn Papers editor Gersh Kuntzman’s smack down of the Forest City Ratner affordable housing session held at the Brooklyn Marriott earlier this week in an editorial headlined “A dog-and-pony show.” The editor writes (we don’t usually copy entire articles, but this merits fully copy and paste treatment):

The timing could not have been more suspect. On the eve of a massive protest rally at Grand Army Plaza this Sunday and weeks before he will release an environmental impact statement, Bruce Ratner and his public-relations minions set up a dog-and-pony show to highlight the lone element of his mammoth $3.5-billion Atlantic Yards mega-development that could arguably be viewed in a positive light: 2,250 “affordable” rental units.

In hopes of drawing a huge crowd to his “affordable housing information meeting,” Ratner even promoted the event in Queens and The Bronx — far from his housing-hungry Brooklyn supporters. (Way to back your allies, Bruce!)

And, indeed, thousands of people, from all over the city, showed up, eager to put in an application for a cheap rental in a Frank Gehry-designed high-rise.

Oh, but wouldn’t you know it: No applications were available — and won’t be for at least three years — because this full-house event was not really about serving apartment hungry New Yorkers, but about using them as props in the Forest City Ratner media campaign.

The company did give plenty of details about its 2,250 “affordable” units, but the Devil was hiding in many of those details: the “affordable” units now comprise 32.8 percent of the entire project — down from an earlier commitment by Ratner of 50 percent.

Yes, some apartments — a mere 225 — will be doled out to families earning less than $28,000 per year, but 900 of them will actually be set aside for families earning more than $70,000.

Forest City Ratner said it worked out the formulas with ACORN, the affordable housing advocacy group the company is paying to support the project, but many people who attended the information session were disappointed that so many units were being set aside for higher-earning families.

Left unsaid, as it often is by Forest City Ratner, is that the developer would be subsidized by the city, state and federal governments to build the affordable units within the larger, lucrative project. He is not doing it out of the goodness of his caring heart, but out of the canniness of his business head.

Those subsidies might be a good public investment when they create truly affordable housing — but the plurality of Ratner’s units would be available only to families making $70,000 or more, and would be built after tearing down existing buildings where people, some of them low-income families, already live.

In the end, rounding up 2,000 people to the Brooklyn Marriott for a photo-op had more to do with public relations than affordable housing.

There are two other articles on the project in this week’s edition. One is Ariella Cohen’s report on the session headlined “On the cheap” and the other is her preview of the anti-Ratner rally that takes place tomorrow (7/16) at Grand Army Plaza headlined “Zanes leads Sunday Ratner rant.”

[Dog-and-pony show photo from silkroadscamels.com]

Brooklinks is a selection of Brooklyn-related blog items, news articles and images. The photo above is from Jen C on flickr of Art Brut at the Siren Festival in Coney yesterday:

Siren Festival Pics [Brooklyn Vegan]
Siren Festival 2006 Photoset [vegan in furs/flickr]
2006 Siren Fest Photos [Jen C/flickr]
Siren Festival Photoset [jnforte 1/flickr]
Siren Fest ’06 Pics [dave00327/flickr]
211 flickr Siren Fest Tagged Photos (as of Sun. Morning…tons to come) [flickr]
Zanes leads Ratner rant [Brooklyn Papers]
Brooklyn Eagle Goes Underground [No Land Grab]
Film Focuses on Ratner Holdouts [Carroll Gardens Courier]
Crap Shoot: Residents Vie for Atlantic Yards Spot [Park Slope Courier]
Coney Lifeguard is Lifeline to Bush [NYDN]
Shabby Bag Man Gives Cops Fits [Park Slope Courier]
Dope’s Fatso Pesto [Dope on the Slope]

Rockaway Beach, Queens

If you are one of those of a mind to oppose the Forest City Ratner Atlantic Yards plan because of its impact on nearby neighborhoods like Prospect Heights, Fort Greene, Park Slope, Gowanus, Boerum Hill and Carroll Gardens, you might be interested in the rally that opponents are having tomorrow (6/16) at 2 PM in Grand Army Plaza.

Things at Which to Look:

• A Corner in East Gowanus [bluejake]
• Red Hook Outdoor Patio [shield/flickr]
• The Giglio at Night [imjustsayin/flickr]
• Domino Sugar Factory [justiNYC]
• Frightening Clown in Coney Island [Joe’s NYC]
• Bklyn Video of the Day: 1980 Astroland Commercial [Sunset Parker]
• Cute Fourth Avenue Park Slope/Gowanus Clown [Quiet Walk Through NYC]
• Sunday in the Park [Lex’s Folly]
• Approaching Gowanus at Sea Level [f.trainer/flickr]
• Red Hook Shipyard Demolition [lexo/flickr]
• The Wilds of Red Hook [Brooklyn Ramblings]

Things to Read:

• Brooklyn People: Megan Nicolay [Brooklyn Record]
• On the cheap: Throngs seek out Ratner apts. [Brooklyn Papers]
• More Than 19K New Residents? Another Look at Extreme Density [AYR]
• Ratner Candidate Enters Assembly Race [No Land Grab]
• Underground Railroad or Parking Lot? [Bklyn Downtown Star]
• $4M Fort Greene Park Brownstone [Brownstoner]
• The Monster Roaches of Park Slope [Daily Slope]

Weekly Saturday greenmarket in Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn.

Gowanus Lounge spends time at Curbed posting Brooklyn and other items. Here are some links to some of this week’s items. The photo is courtesy of Runs Brooklyn:

• Friday Brooklyn Traffic and Congestion Special [Curbed]
• Before the Bedford Ave. High-Rise, the See-Through Building [Curbed]
• On the Run in Brooklyn with Words and Photos [Curbed]
• Coney Island Shortcakes Interview Series [Curbed]
• Fairway-Food Coop Death Match [Curbed]
• Here Comes Your King-Size Bed in Gowanus. No, Really. [Curbed]
• City Buying More Land for Parks in Williamsburg? [Curbed]
• Grand Army Plaza Starting to Get that Meier Feeling [Curbed]

A picture is worth a thousand words, right? But this one is worth so many more, as it is a view inside of the building at the corner of N. 4th Street and Bedford Avenue that is being demolished to make way for what could be a development of 675,000 square feet called Williamsburgh Square, including buildings as tall as 30 stories.

One of the more genuinely amusing parts of having a state park in Williamsburg is bound to be the inevitable clash between the anal-retentive, rule-heavy New York State Park bureaucratic structure and Williamsburgers. How bad are The Rules? Pretty darn bad. We personally know of brides reduced to tears at Gantry State Park in Long Island City by Park Rangers who order and end to photo sessions and even use vague threats of jail should the photographic excess continue. A photo permit is required for “commercial photography” and, of course, a rule is a rule. (Where would we be if state park rules were not enforced and permit-less brides took pictures on their wedding days with the New York skyline in the background?) You have to call ahead for the permit and cannot buy a permit on the spot. Those are the rules. (Gowanus Lounge believes it would be a nice touch if the Park Rangers were required to recite such rules in German.)

Park Rangers also routinely descend on photographers using tripods, with the reasoning being that since commercial photography is banned in New York State parks, anyone using a tripod is a pro. So, at Gantry Park, anyone trying to take a sunset photo of Manhattan across the river with a tripod who is spoted by the Keepers of the Rules, is told to lose the tripod. We have also personally seen this happen.

On the other hand, it’s okay to sunbathe topless in NY State parks. We were treated to a discourse on this subject by a friendly and lonely Park Ranger who expressed his frustration that there was nothing he could do to stop women from ripping off their shirts and catching some rays. Those who tend to enjoy doing so in his park are often European, he noted, except for the girlfriend of a certain baseball player who tormented him with her exposed breasts during the summer of 2005.

So, one can conclude that it’s okay if you want to take photos of your topless female friend in the new state park as long as you don’t use a tripod. (But, please, please check with one of the friendly Ranger people in the park before doing anything, lest the rules be enforced differently in Williamsburg.)

Won’t this make the Williamsburg park more fun?

Indie music stalwarts Yo La Tengo brought their Sounds of Science film score to Celebrate Brooklyn last night, drawing an exceptionally large crowd. The performance was to set to the old short marine life documentaries of Jean Painleve. Playing front of a large film screen, the three members of Yo La Tengo peformed a compositions that ranged from evocative to edgy to rockish to noisy. The triumph of the set was a gorgeous composition that accompanied a Painleve film about octopus.

Things are far from quiet on the McCarren Pool front, with opponents of expensive concerts at the venue being produced by Live Nation working on ways to turn up the heat on city government. Their next target of opporunity is the local Community Board 1 meeting that takes place on Tuesday (7/18) at 6:30 p.m. at 435 Graham Ave. The meeting will deal with, among other things, future programming at the pool.

Meanwhile, Sens Production founder and choreographer Noémi LaFrance, who created last year’s Agora dance performance that revived the pool, is peeved about the way thing are turning out. Ms. LaFrance, who is now putting together Agora II–which will run from September 6-30 and use performers from multiple dance and theater companies–told the Brooklyn Rail that she first approached the Parks Department in 2004 about using the pool for her performances. For a long time, they weren’t interested. Eventually, Sens paid $50,000 to clean-up the space for a public performance. Then, Live Nation–the Clear Channel spin off that is producing concerts featuring Bloc Party, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Sonic Youth, Neko Case and others at the pool this summer–paid $200,000 pool clean-up fee in 2005 and a $11,700 site fee in 2006, according to the Rail, in exchange for the opportunity to use the pool for a series of concerts this summer. (These are not to be confused with the excellent and community-minded series of free Pool Parties being offered every Sunday through Labor Day from 2-8 PM by JellyNYC.)

(Brooklyn Parks Commissioner Julius Spiegel–who we last heard from as he ordered student art removed from the Brooklyn War Memorial because it was “inappropriate” for families–told the Rail the Clear Channel shows are a great idea. “Any community benefits from concerts,” he says. “It’s a nice thing for individuals and families to enjoy…There are always a few people who grumble.” You mean, like, when you censored the art, Herr Commissioner? Ja?)

But, we digress.

LaFrance says that back in the day when the Parks Department didn’t have visions of corporate concert producers dancing in its head, it was interested in giving Sens long-term use of the site. But, now that corporate bucks and connections are part of the picture things are different. Very, very different. “We got spun around,” LaFrance tells the Rail. “Clear Channel is stepping on our toes. They are having a show on one of our Saturdays so we have to change our schedule, not they. The Parks Department is selling our parks as real estate to corporate America.”

(Photo is courtesy of Santo Subito on flickr.)

Brooklinks is a selection of Brooklyn-related news stories, blog entries and images. The beautiful sunset photo above was shot at the Bushwick Inlet in Williamsburg by Jim Striebich of 11th Hour Productions in Williamsburg:

Get Your Eat On, Drink and Be Merry

• Fake Chicken is Real Good at Stir it Up [Brooklyn Record]
• Punk Icons The Buzzcocks at Warsaw [jonnleather.com]
• Trio Reopens in Sheepshead Bay [NYDN]
• Hungry Cabbie Does Belarus II in Brighton Beach [Gothamist]
• Glazed Peaches with Brown Sugar and Ginger [OTBKB]
• Siren Festival After Party [freewilliamsburg]
• Bastille Day Brooklyn Bistros [About Brooklyn]
• This Weekend in Brooklyn [Brooklyn Record]
• Bushwick: Beer Capital of the Northeast (Circa 1877) [Brooklyn Ramblings]
• Life’s a Beach [Gothamist]

Think, Look and Run

• Anti-Atlantic Yards Rally Preview Airing on BCAT [No Land Grab]
• Rally Against Ratner [DDDB]
• Red Hook Accident Victim Dies [Observer]
• Outrage Over Road Death in Red Hook [NYDN]
• Old Sunday Parking Signs Remain and Some Brooklynites Still Pay [NYDN]
• Lefferts Hotel Hearing Postponed Til End of Month [Brownstoner]
• Williamsburg, We Hardly Knew Ye [Gothamist]
• Intl Bagel Bakers Union Local 338: The Documentary [Forward]
• Today, the Jerry Building [Runs Brooklyn]
• World Cup in Bensonhurst [OTBKB]

Odds are very good you don’t need Gowanus Lounge to tell you that the annual Siren Festival takes place tomorrow in Coney Island, but perhaps the schedule would be helpful? Here it is:

Main Stage (W. 10th Street off Surf)
1:00 PM Deadboy and the Elephant Men
2:00 PM The Rogers Sisters
3:00 PM Celebration
4:00 PM Tapes ‘N Tapes
5:00 PM The Stills
6:00 PM She Wants Revenge
7:30 PM Scissor Sisters

Stillwell Stage (Stillwell Avenue off Surf)
1:30 PM Priestess
2:30 PM Man Man
3:30 PM Dirty on Purpose
4:30 PM Serena Maneesh
5:30 PM The Cribs
6:30 PM Art Brut
8:00 PM Stars

(Photo is from Jo Divestar on flickr)

With sewage erupting from manhole covers and a Gowanus Conservancy forming, Sen. Charles Schumer has stashed $250,000 in the FY 2007 Energy and Water Appropriations Bill to help with Gowanus Canal clean up efforts. The money will go to U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to study cleaning up and restoring the 1.5-mile South Brooklyn Seine. (As opposed to actually cleaning up the canal, which is going to cost a lot more than that.)

The funding is reported in the Park Slope Courier, which quoted Rep. Nydia Velazquez, who has secured federal funds for Gowanus community planning efforts, as saying she hopes the Big G will be transformed into “a viable source of community and economic development.”

Says the Courier:

The money will go towards an Army Corps of Engineers feasibility study designed to assess the environmental problems and potential solutions in the Gowanus Canal.

Restoration measures will assess the ‘hot spot’ clean-up of off channel contaminated sediments, contaminant reduction measures, creation of wetlands, water quality improvements, and the alteration of ydrogen/hydraulics to improve water movement and quality.

Potential next steps for the Army Corps of Engineers include dredging, capping, and perhaps some remediation of sediments.

The Department of Environmental Protection is working to upgrade the canal’s flushing tunnel, which pulls water from New York Harbor into the canal. The flushing tunnel upgrade, however, won’t start until 2008 and will take 3-4 years.

Schumer pointed out that what flows into the canal is an issue for more than just South Brooklyn, because Gowanus water eventually makes its way into Long Island Sound and the Atlantic Ocean.

Call traffic and overcrowding the dark underbelly of Williamsburg and Greenpoint development. The MTA’s no-brainer of a discovery of how awful the L train has gotten only hints at the problems that will come in the next five-ten years as thousands of new apartments come on line. (The MTA is finally re-introducing old cars to the L to try to increase service, something community advocates have been suggesting for a long time.) Among the most telling statistic offered was that annual ridership on the L shot up from 26,155,806 in 2000 to 30,452,319 last year, and that ridership on the line has practically doubled since 1994.

OnNYTurf presents the compelling case that Williamsburg waterfront development is a planning disaster in the making and that the blame rests squarely on the shoulders of the city government:

When the Department of Planning puts together projects like the Williamsburg Waterfront Redevelopment, the policy is to abdicate all responsibility for transportation to the DOT and MTA…Additionally when it comes to alternative transportation, like bicycle use, the DOT and Michael Bloomberg have stonewalled advocates. It is this abdication, indifference, and hostility that have lead to the growing transportation crisis in Williamsburg.

The item has extensive analysis about the city’s consistent unwillingness to heed community concerns about density and the impact that new development is having–and will have–on the transportation infrastructure. The city, OnNYTurf argues, is laying the foundations for a transportation and quality-of-life disaster one or two decades down the road. Then again, by the time the consequences become apparent, dealing with the fallout and trying to fix the problem with be someone else’s problem.

Former City Planning Commissioner Ron Shiffman has joined the Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn Advisory Board and has unloaded with a withering critique of the Atlantic Yards plan. “Forest City Ratner (FCR) and, by extension, the City and State of New York, continue to follow a process that is fundamentally flawed in pursuit of a plan that, if implemented, would scar the borough for decades to come,” Shiffman writes in an essay posted by DDDB.

He goes on to suggest that density of the project would be so great and the design so “oversized” that the impact on residents would be “inhumane.” Mr. Shiffman insists that he is not anti-development and says he even likes the idea of having a basketball team in Brooklyn, but he argues that Atlantic Yards will be a world-class planning disaster.

“I fear Forest City Ratner’s proposal will become the Brooklyn equivalent of Pruitt-Igoe, the notorious St. Louis public housing towers that have since been demolished,” he writes. “Quite frankly I do not believe that any of the decision makers from the Borough President to the Governor have a grasp on how overwhelming and out-of-scale this development is.”

Pruitt-Igoe is a planner code word for a project that is beyond awful, for something that is so fatally flawed that the only solution is blowing it up and, then, showing the video to an entire generation of planning students as a warning. That’s Pruitt-Igoe coming down, of course, in the photo above.

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

Atlantic Yards:

• Stuckey, Lewis Face Restive, Skeptical Crowd at Yards Session [AYR]
• Summary of Affordable Housing Session Coverage [No Land Grab]
• After “Race” Battle, Dan Goldstein Charges On [NYObserver]
• Former Planning Commissioner on Atlantic Yards [Gotham Gazette]
• Rebranding Atlantic Center Mall [AYR]
• Former City Planning Commissioner Speaks Against Ratner [Daily Gotham]
• Atlantic Yards: Staving Off a Scar for Years [DDDB]
• Ratnerville Affordable Housing Roundup [3bikini]

Carroll Gardens/Gowanus:

• Summertime Specialties at Trout [Brooklyn Record]
• Stinky Brooklyn [A Brooklyn Life]
• Time Running Out for Undertaker [Brownstoner]

Listen Up, Brooklyn, No Matter Where You Live:

• Sultry Summer Soul Podcast [Dope on the Slope]
• Jukebox Brooklyn–Magic Number Edition [Sunset Parker]
• A Brooklyn Beat: Yo La Tengo, Siren Fest [A Brooklyn Life]
• Next Two Free Sunday Shows at McCarren Pool [Bklyn Vegan]