Williamsburg, Brooklyn

P1040141.JPG, originally uploaded by tud5000.

We came across the fun photo from the Friday night Coney Island fireworks, which we missed because of TV on the Radio at Celebrate Brooklyn, while scanning Coney Island photos on flickr. It’s definitely in keeping with the spirit of the holiday weekend.

TV on the Radio played Celebrate Brooklyn last night and rocked the Prospect Park Bandshell. The expanded version of the band features a full brass section and backup singers–something they didn’t have the last time GL saw them. At points, there were 15 people up on the stage. Tunde Adebimpe was a manic presence, repeatedly splashing the audience with bottled water, presumably to make up for the threatening rain clouds that failed to produce precipitation. Kyp Malone did his thing, and even sat a little girl–his daughter we presume–on stage in between encores.

The performance was videotaped, with a mechanical camera overhead for the entire show, and the band seemed truly blown away by the huge hometown crowd that turned out.

Gowanus Lounge would be remiss if we didn’t note that Celebrate Brooklyn is one of the fronts in the war for the hearts and minds of Brooklynites over Atlantic Yards. Therefore, as we walked in, we were first handed a modest postcard by a young woman who said, “Stop the Overdevelopment of Brooklyn.” (The card is promoting the anti-Atlantic Yards Rally at Grand Army Plaza on July 16.) About eight or nine yards further into the park, was a gentleman handing out Forest City Ratner’s big, glossy promo brochure full of happy, smiling people (including the model who says she’s horrified to be “Bruce Ratner’s poster girl“).

Us, we dug seeing TV on the Radio at Celebrate Brooklyn.

• This Weekend in Brooklyn [Brooklyn Record]
• Happy 4th of July [Brooklyn Ramblings]
• 101st Annual Brooklyn Independence Day Parade [Sunset Parker]
• Scoop du Jour [OTBKB]
• Brooklyn Beat: Afro-Punk and Other Weekend Events [A Bklyn Life]
• Holiday Heat: Grilling in the City [Gothamist]
• It’s July 4 Weekend, New York! [NYDN]
• Unpacific on Pacific [Brownstoner]
• Hooker Hotel and 205 Parkside Share Owners [PlanetPLG]
• Area Blog Seeks Partner in Crime [Across the Park]

Head on over to the Brooklyn Museum this evening for Target First Saturday. If you haven’t been, the event runs from 5PM-11PM. Admission is free and the museum is open long past its normal hours. There are film screenings, a dance party and more.

This month, it’s a great opportunity to take in their new exhibition “Graffiti,” featuring 20 graffiti paintings. The museum also has a graffiti photo pool on flickr, but be warned: Submitting your photo to the pool/photo project means that you’re giving them all rights to your photo! (Which could be cool with you, but you should know.)

Gowanus Lounge can’t vouch for the pizza at this venerable establishment on Nassau Avenue in Greenpoint steps from Manhattan Avenue and the G Train Nassau Avenue station exit, but we sure like its retro look.

The photo above, which was posted over at Curbed today, offers a cool preview of what Brooklyn’s Eiffel Tower will look like when Boro Prez Marty Markowitz throws the switch at 9:00 PM next Friday, July 7. (It’s also pictured in the paper he mails out to Brooklynites, which hit mailboxes yesterday.) Plenty to do in Coney before then, though.

Friday Night Fireworks got off to a stormy start last Friday, but the weather may be better for tonight’s edition, which starts at 9:30. So, get you’re pre-July 4 fill. They’re also happening every Friday night through Labor Day, and the (getting beaten up on the ball field) Cyclones are shooting off their own fireworks on July 3 and September 4. (They say they’re doing fireworks tonight too, but we assume they’re talking about the Coney Friday night show.)

And, of course, if you’re up for seeing people shove hot dogs down their throats, there is the famous Nathan’s Hotdog Eating Contest on July 4. Starts at noon. Go see if Japan’s Takeru Kobayashi can hold on to his crown.

The plan envisions a “green” future for Gowanus that includes a cleanup of the still heavily-polluted canal, green residential and commercial architecture and efforts to develop businesses that produce environmentally-friendly products. “We want to market Gowanus as a green zone,” said Bill Donohoe, who presented the plan. “We want to make something special out of Gowanus.”

The entire plan runs to 120 pages and is too complicated to dissect here in one piece–so we’ll be following up. Suffice to say that it emphasizes public access to the canal, with pedestrian and bicycle paths and, even, new pedestrian bridges that would connect streets on the canal’s east and west banks. It also features numerous parks–at least one of which would be developed on the Keyspan site near the Smith and Ninth subway station, once an environmental clean up happens. (It would also suggest moving at least one of the concrete businesses currently on the canal.) The GCCDC even goes so far as to imagine approaching the MTA to allow a restaurant at the Smith and Ninth Street stop (the highest in the system and one that affords excellent views of Brooklyn and Manhattan). The updated plan–which will continue to be the subject of community discussion and revision–will be available on the GCCDC website soon.

Real power in determining Gowanus’ future, of course, rests with city planners, those who will redo zoning regulations in the area, designs that developers have on land they are already stockpiling and public and private entities that will have to finance community-oriented projects. “If you sell the idea of Gowanus as a green community and it begins to happen, people will believe in it,” Mr. Donohoe said.

GCCDC chair Michael Ingui also announced the creation of a Gowanus Canal Conservancy that will work to promote public access to the canal and promote efforts to clean it up. The conservancy will be modeled on those that exist for Central Park, Prospect Park and other NYC parks. “Our aim is to create a clean canal,” Mr. Ingui said. A “Water Quality Summit” is planned for the fall.

There is much more to consume and relate about all of this, so Gowanus Lounge will be returning to it often. For now, we’ll simply say that the plan presents an exciting vision of the neighborhood’s future and we hope that it will influence the government decisions that will determine Gowanus’ future.

• We Love Brooklynites [Bklyn Record]
• Street Eats: Ali’s Roti Shop [Gothamist]
• Ali’s Gets Gothamized [Across the Park]
• Street Honors Bob Marley [NYDaily News]
• Clinton Hill Hooker Hotel? [NYDaily News]
• McCarren Pool Fight Continues [onNYTurf]
• Summer Fun in Red Hook [Bklyn Record]
• Pippin Gets its Place in History [Callalillie]
• One Bahn Mi, Two Bahn Mi [A Brooklyn Life]
• Fifth Ave. Ethnography [Brooklyn Ramblings]
• Apartment Therapy Reviews Red Hook Fairway [Apartment Therapy via Bklyn Record]

Ah, urban wildlife. The other day, we turned to Brooklyn’s cool parrot colonies and to the wonderful blog dedicated to them at brooklynparrots that has been set up by Steve Baldwin, the man who runs Brooklyn Parrot Safaris (there’s one on Saturday, July 1…check the brooklynparrots site for info) and is the Parrot King of the Borough of Kings. Turns out that Mr. Baldwin is working with a team to create a film about the parrots and that there’s a trailer for it. (GL was so asleep at the switch on this one that we qualify as comatose.) Just click on the play button above to watch.

Truth in advertising requires GL to disclose being a total sucker for The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, but we have faith that a Brooklyn Parrot could teach a San Francisco Parrot a thing or two about life in the big city.

“The story of the Brooklyn parrots includes many dramatic elements which will not make this ‘just another bird movie,” Mr. Baldwin writes of the Brooklyn parrot movie. “The struggles of these birds — so far from home, strangers in a strange land — a jungle of stone, really — subject to predators ranging from hawks to poachers to utility companies, makes for a fine drama.”

Also, Animal Planet did a great segment on the parrots that features Mr. Baldwin. Check it out.

3rd and 3rd Gets Landmarked [Brooklyn Record]
Pippin Gets its Place in History [Callalillie]
It’s Official: Pippin Won’t Be Eaten by Whole Foods [Gothamist]

We also wrote about it at Curbed in the item called Facadomy Averted in Gowanus.

In any case, the building which is now completely by itself on the large empty parcel, used to be the home of the New York and Long Island Coignet Stone Company. (The Gowanus company manufactured artificial stone that was used in parts of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the Metropolitan and the American Museum of Natural History.) Then, it became the home of the Brooklyn Improvements Company, which among other things, helped build the Gowanus Canal and much of Park Slope. More recently, it housed an auto parts and auto repair shop. The LPC chair calls the 2 ½-story, Italianate-style structure “mysterious” and “elegant.”

We’re thrilled to see that this pretty little building will survive, and hope it is not swallowed up by the Whole Foods, no matter how much we want a big grocery store nearby.

The new $30 million hurricane plan that will triple the number of shelters was announced by the Mayor yesterday. According to the plan, the city will be able to evacuate 3 million people and shelter 600,000. There are 65 evacuation centers (up from 23) and 509 hurricane shelters. Less reassuringly, the plan relies heavily on the MTA to help us run for our lives. (Fun thing for today: Make up examples of the helpful announcements you would hear on the train.) The city would increase bus and subway service from flood zones. It would ask the state to make mass transit free (!!!!) and let cabs stuff in as many people as possible. GL assumes the taxi plan is for Manhattan, because Brooklyn and Queens don’t got no freaking cabs in good weather, let alone when a killer hurricane is racing toward us.

OEM is going to mail hurricane preparedness brochures to 300,000 residents in the most vulnerable parts of the city, which one supposes is a way to tell people who don’t bother looking to see if they’re in “evacuation zones” that they should get out of Coney because they’re New Orleans Screwed when the Big Blow comes.

Pay attention Brooklyn: One in four New Yorkers lives in a hurricane evacuation zone and an awful lot of those evacuation zones are in the Borough of Kings. Check out the map and you will see just how much of Brooklyn potentially becomes Underwater World. It looks like the Incredible Shrinking Borough. The only saving grace here is that the odds of a hurricane hitting the city are just one percent.

According to OEM, New York City is particularly vulnerable to storm surge due to a geographic characteristic called the “New York Bight,” a sharp bend in the Atlantic coastline where New York and New Jersey meet. (This is not to be confused with the “Brooklyn Bite Me” and the “Bronx Eat Me,” which have nothing to do with hurricanes.) The New York Bight amplifies the effects of a storm surge and can create severe flooding in coastal areas, particularly when the storm tide coincides with normal high tides. If a Category 1 hurricane made landfall in the City, portions of the Rockaway Peninsula, South Brooklyn, Red Hook Piers, communities bordering the Newtown Creek in Brooklyn and Queens, Lower Manhattan, Staten Island’s North and South Shores, and low lying areas of the Bronx would be vulnerable to flooding and damage.

One part of Brooklyn where they apparently are worried about the Big One is Brighton Beach, at least, according to a recent NY Sun story about Brighton Beach hurricane paranoia. Makes you wonder if those old Russian ladies on the boardwalk know something we don’t or if there are just a lot of hurricane-fearing people in Brighton Beach. It makes a fascinating read.

Do you know what should be in your Go Bag?

• Beating the Heat in Fort Greene [Bklyn Record]
• Williamsburg Has its Own Sitcom [FREEWilliamsburg]
• Spumoni [A Brooklyn Life]
• Brooklyn Blogosphere: How Big? How Diverse? [Dope on the Slope]
• Brooklyn Blogfest 06 Podcast [Dope on the Slope]
• Congestion Pricing and East River Tolls on the Agenda [Atlantic Yards Rpt]
• Markowitz Condemns Rent Board Increases [Digital Bklyn]
• Development Watch: Myrtle Place Rising [Brownstoner]
• Uncertain Future for Red Hook Port [NYTimes]
• Appeal Sought in Atlantic Yards Case [NYTimes]
• Bushwick Waterpark [JustiNYC]
• Kam Sing on Bedford [Bluejake]

The GCCDC is expecting elected officials, community groups and residents at the meeting, which takes place tonight (June 29) at 7:00PM in St. Agnes Parish Hall, which is located at 433 Sackett Street between Hoyt and Bond.

From Brooklyn Ramblings and the in-depth research and extensive photography of Sonja Shield comes a priceless look at the era when New York (and Brooklyn) telephone exchanges started with letters rather than numbers, and 718, 917, et. al. were just a twinkle in Bell Telephone‘s eye. Check out excellent examples of Brooklyn signage that can still be found with the old phone exchanges as well as Sonja’s wonderful histories of some of the businesses and buildings represented. Cool stuff. The photo here is, of course, one of Sonja’s shot of a sign for Molloy Bros. Moving & Storage that is visible from the F Train on the east side of McDonald Avenue. Sonja writes that the GE might have stood for GEneral or GEneva.

Park Slope North? Has the Brooklyn property rush delivered us to the point where someone can refer to a community like Prospect Heights as an extension of its neighbor to the south?

Apparently so. A listing for a $1.65 million, new three-family development on Underhill Avenue refers to its location in “trendy Park Slope North (Prospect Heights),” as reported at Daily Heights, which notes, “Haha…be sure to update your business cards.” Another commenter is less diplomatic, writing “Park Slope North? I want to slap this guy.” The message board also contains a number of shots taken at the development itself. Now, what GL wants to know is, does this mean that Ratner Land is going to be Park Slope Northwest? Or is Park Slope to be known as Ratner Southeast?

On a related note, we learned at the Brooklyn Blogfest last week that Daily Heights‘ founder is moving from Brooklyn and that the brooklynian.com message board will serve as its replacement. As GL has learned much from Daily Heights, and its cousin, Daily Slope, we certainly hope that the void is filled quickly. Meantime, we will redouble our efforts to scan the discussion board every day.

The photo here was made by Frank Lynch, one of flickr’s Brooklyn pillars whose work we love.

Attorneys for Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn and 15 co-plaintiffs have filed to appeal last month’s Appellate Division decision overturning a State Supreme Court decision. The “motion for relief” was filed with state Court of Appeals. (Translation: They’re asking the court to hear their appeal.) The case centers around an environmental lawyer who had represented Forest City Ratner on the Atlantic Yards proposal and later represented the Empire State Development Corp., which is the public agency involved in the environmental review of the project. The Appellate Division had found no conflict of interest in overturning a State Supreme Court decision in favor of Atlantic Yards opponents.

According to DDDB, the case presents “fundamental issues of governmental integrity and accountability in the context of an enormously controversial development project that will have a significant impact on hundreds of thousands of citizens and significantly change several Brooklyn neighborhoods.”

The Court of Appeals, which is New York’s highest court, must accept the case for a hearing.

New York‘s guide to 25 outdoor dining spots happens to include six Brooklyn choices (and we know there are tons more). In any case, the ones that are showcased in the mag, followed by New York‘s description in quotes, are:

Alma. 187 Columbia St., at Degraw St., Carroll Gardens/Red Hook, Brooklyn; 718-643-5400. “A restaurant in Red Hook made for romance: Start with a mojito, stuffed with mint and served in a latte-size glass, and end with the just-as-fresh Key-lime pie. Service is spacey, but we like to think that the slow pace ups the tropical factor.”

Brooklyn Botanic Garden. 1000 Washington Ave., at Crown St., Park Slope; 718-623-7200. “Spring for the $40 annual membership fee, if only for the Wednesday-evening picnicking privileges: Cheese-and-charcuterie specialist Blue Apron Foods is just two blocks away (814 Union St., at Seventh Ave.; 718-230-3180).”

Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park. At the foot of New Dock Street, Dumbo, Brooklyn; 718-858-4708. “Picnic with a pie from Grimaldi’s (19 Old Fulton St., nr. Water St.; 718-858-4300) and “Mom’s peanut brittle” from Jacques Torres Chocolate (66 Water St., nr. Main St.; 718-875-9772). Walk it off with a stroll across the Brooklyn Bridge.”

Habana Outpost. 757 Fulton St., at S. Portland Ave., Fort Greene, Brooklyn; 718-858-9500. “The popular Nolita diner Habana has a Brooklyn spinoff (next to the Lafayette Avenue C-train stop) that’s even better than the original. The scene is part restaurant, part block party—and drinks are served out of a down-home 1949 GMC pickup truck.”

Smith Street. Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn. “To the chagrin of a couple of curmudgeonly residents—and to the delight of the rest of us—Smith Street has blossomed into an outdoor diner’s paradise. Check out the picnic tables at the Gowanus Yacht Club (323 Smith St., at President St.; 718-246-1321), the lovely backyard at Grocery (288 Smith St., nr. Union St.; 718-596-3335), and the quirky patio at Robin des Bois (195 Smith St., nr. Warren St.; 718-596-1609).”

Tatiana. 3152 Brighton 6th St., at Brightwater Ct., Brighton Beach, Brooklyn; 718-891-5151. “There are about a half-dozen similar cafés on the Brighton boardwalk—and this one is the best. Order the chicken Kiev for yourself, a smoked-fish platter for the table, and wash it all down with homemade kvass, an alcoholic Soviet-era refreshment that tastes a lot like root beer.”

• Smile Brooklyn [Bklyn Record]
• Brooklyn’s Best Outdoor Eats [Bklyn Record]
• Spidey Eats Here [423 Smith]
• Fourth Avenue Carnival [Sunset Parker]
• Ain’t No Cure for the Summertime Blues. Or is There? [Gothamist]
• Dining with a Side of Sky (Outdoor Dining Guide) [NYMag]
• Plumb Beach: Brooklyn Windsurfing Paradise [Sail Brooklyn]
• RIP Brooklynite [A Brooklyn Life]
• Curbed Tours the Williamsburg Waterfront [Curbed]
• Williamsburg Waterfront Residential Development [NY1]
• Two Rescued from Bklyn Construction Site Cave In [NYTimes]
• BSA Makes a Mockery of Itself in Two Rulings [Brownstoner]
• Red Hook’s port hopes [NYDN]

In any case, the projects are as follows, going from south to north:

1. 184 Kent. This is the Austin & Nichols warehouse of landmarking/unlandmarking fame. It is now clear of residents and on the verge of luxury condo conversion.

2. Palmer’s Dock/Northside Piers. Palmer’s Dock will contain 117 units of affordable housing (of the project total of 900 units). The highrise portion of the project is being developed by Toll Brothers and L&M Equity Participants, one of the Palmer’s Dock developers. All together, three big towers are going up here. (The projects are called Palmer’s Dock and Northside Piers after the original uses of the area. This part of Kent was the Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal, with dozens of rail spurs going to a half dozen piers.)

3. The Edge. This huge residential and commercial project is being built by Douglaston Development between North Fifth and North Seventh streets. It will include three towers with 1,300 units.

4. East River State Park. Stretching from North Seventh to North Ninth, this park is supposed to open in late July.

MAS and others are still pushing a last ditch effort to try to landmark Austin & Nichols Warehouse at 184 Kent (strongly opposed by City Council Member and Congressional candidate David Yassky) despite last year’s nasty fight and the fact that it is now cleared of residents and on the verge of development into luxury condos. And there is a move to landmark the Domino Sugar Refinery in Williamsburg as well as the magnificent Sohmer Piano Factory in Long Island City.

The links above contain information about where one can write to try to spur action to save the survivors.

There’s some bird hating going on over at the Prospect Heights Discussion Board about a loud songbird around Sterling and Flatbush. The discussion is too funny not to pass along. First, people were wondering what the tuneful bird was. Some suggested our friends, the Brooklyn Parrots. Popular opinion, however, settled on Mockingbirds, which are known to be on the loud and vocal side. We go to the copy and paste:

Five years ago a mockingbird was tormenting my wife and me, waking us up every morning around 5:15am – as we had just moved into our place on Sterling we were sleeping with the back door to the garden open (just the screen door bolted). The little bastard was riffing on car alarms. Whoooop whoooooop whoooooop! EEEEH EEEEH EEEEEH EEEEEH. Riiirrroooh riiiirrrooooohhh rirrroooooh! Loud enough to wake me out of a sound sleep. I have never wanted to shoot and kill an innocent wild animal as much. And I’m a pretty easy-going guy.

All this time, Gowanus Lounge thought we had it bad with car alarms and ambulances. Thank God, we don’t have mockingbirds.

Four cool Brooklyn blogs have come to Gowanus Lounge’s attention in the last few days, so we thought we’d help spread the good news.

First among equals is Coney Island Shortcakes, which is being brought to you by the people that have set up a Strawberry Shortcake stand on the boardwalk near Cha Cha’s. We’re keeping an eye on this one, as it should provide superb documentation of the summer season at the Brooklyn Riveria. Before the rain cut short our day at the Mermaid Parade on Saturday we were on our way to sample the shortcake (tough job though it would have been), having bypassed them the week before. Good chance we’ll be getting a taste this weekend, though.

Second, is 3 Bikini, which we learned about thanks to the Brooklyn Blog Fest. It bills itself as “Musings on Design, Brooklyn, and the space in between.” The coverage is eclectic, but there’s a real neighborhood emphasis on Prospect Heights/Park Slope and on the changing streetscape and development, which is the quickest way to our heart, other than sending chocolate or cake. It’s barely two weeks old, but off to an excellent start.

Third, is the Porkchop Express, which deals heavily with the food scene and specifically with pork. While GL largely hews to a vegetarian road, we wouldn’t dream of denying anyone knowledge of where they can get a daily dose of flesh, especially pork, which tempts us with relapse on a daily basis. There’s some very cool info about restaurants and even a nod to veggies, with the entry Veggie Might.

Fourth, is a brand new blog called Runs Brooklyn/Brooklyn Runs written by a Greenpoint resident that will track his runs around the Borough of Kings. As a lifelong armchair runner, GL fully appreciates and admires RB/BR’s efforts and will watch carefully (from a chair, in front of his computer). The blogger’s ambitious goal is running every street in Brooklyn.

Heard about the Brooklyn Parrots? No, the Cyclones haven’t been renamed. Gowanus Lounge is talking about the parrot colonies around Brooklyn, with two of the biggest being at Green-Wood Cemetery and the Brooklyn College campus. A Brooklyn Life wrote about them a while back and a visit to Green-Wood in search of them.

There is also an entire blog about the Brooklyn parrots at BrooklynParrots.com. Briefly, the parrots are believed to have come from a shipment of birds that got loose at JFK in the late 1960s. Somehow, the birds survived around Jamaica Bay, and immigrated to Brooklyn, where they were first sighted at Brooklyn College in the early 1970s. Another theory has them escaping from a pet shop on Flatbush Avenue or an overturned truck. Over the years, other colonies established themselves in Green-Wood Cemetery, Marine Park, Bensenhurst and Bay Ridge. BrooklynParrots reports that the birds tried to establish a foothold in Manhattan’s Central Park, but were driven off by the Parks Department. (Boo. Hiss.)

(The photo above shows a parrot eating pizza, which warms GL’s heart in a totally, like, Brooklyn way.)

Check out a Google Maps-Brooklyn Parrots mashup, or if you want a guided tour, you can join a BrooklynParrots “safari” on July 1, or simply head out to Green-Wood Cemetery and stare at the big Gothic Main Gate.