• Sunset Park Hosts a Latin American Rainbow [Sunset Parker]
• Bklyn Bridge Park Public Meeting, 6-28 [Brownstone Bklyn Politics]
• When I’m Sixty-Four [Callalillie]
• Spidey on Dennet Place [423 Smith]
• G Train Entering Carroll Street [Joe’s NYC]
• Bio Warfare at BAM? [JeepBastard]
• I Love Brooklyn Mondays [Brooklyn Ramblings]
• Mermaid Parade So *Not* Rained Out [MLIK]
• The Curmudgeon: Silence Mr. Softee [Bklyn Record]
• Ferry to Fairway [What About the Plastic Animals]

Brooklyn photographers looking for cool juxapositions of people sitting on benches in Coney Island with a decrepit mural (with lines of poetry) in the background must be heartbroken.

Now, we await the day, a decade or so from now when the Aquarium opens up to face the sea and no longer confronts visitors with walls on the boardwalk. In the meantime, we remain in dumbfounded awe of the unique planning and architectural genius that went into the decision to hide an aquarium behind tall walls on a boardwalk. “Gee, Mr. Moses, whaddayu tink we oughtta to do about the new aquarium? You tink people lookin’ at the fish oughtta be able to see the ocean?” one imagines He was asked. “Put the damned fish behind a blasted wall,” one hears Him saying. “I can’t tell you how sick I am of them. Are all the amusements demolished yet?”

We were going to add these links to yesterday’s Mermaid Parade roundup, but have come across so many other photos, that we’re going to add them here today, and use the excuse to post a couple more of our photos, which exist in large numbers in our Mermaid Parade 2006 flickr photoset:

Mermaids on Parade [Bklyn Record]
24th Annual Mermaid Parade [NYC Photobloggers]
Featured Flickr Photos: Mermaid Parade!!! [Dope on the Slope]
Rainy Day Mermaid Parade [Brooklyn Shortcakes]
Mermaid Parade ’06 [Bluejake]
2,500 Tagged Photos So Far on Flickr [flickr]
263 ’06 Mermaid Phots [Don Wiss]

Gowanus Lounge is thrilled to report that we are now in possession of “The Rounder,” a super-cool stool (with storage space inside) that we won for taking Second Place in the Design Sponge Brooklyn photo contest a while back. Not only does the Gowanus Lounge home base now have a wonderful new piece of furniture on which GL can park posteriors and store things, we had the pleasure of talking with the designer, Curt Meissner.

Meissner is the Brooklyn-based designer who is behind the Small Factory Design, and part of the fast-growing world of Brooklyn design. Thus far, the business is entirely home-grown. As it develops, Meissner—who is a Sunset Park resident–hopes to find a local manufacturer to build the furniture he designs—rather than shipping production overseas as many firms do. Meissner is also a Brooklyn devotee and, when he’s not designing furniture, says that he is bicycling all over the borough checking out streets and neighborhoods that are far off the usual Brooklyn Heights-Park Slope beaten path.

The really cool thing about Small Factory Design furniture is that it’s produced with sustainable bamboo plywood. Fabrics are produced without waste and utilize things like re-purposed denim for cushions. Doors are made of recycled-paper based plastic. Even the wax finishes are natural citrus-based.

Best of all, Meissner’s creations are elegant, cool and functional.

So, Gowanus Lounge was strolling down 11th Street in Park Slope on Sunday afternoon on our way to the meeting of our Brooklyn Writer’s Group at Bar Toto, when we spotted this big stuffed pig in a black leather jacket with big rainbow-colored beads. We pulled out our camera and were shooting away when two passersby stopped and said, “Are you taking pictures because the house was in the Times?”

Truth be told, we hadn’t seen the City section of the Sunday Times, but it turns out the house on 11th Street with the biker pig had indeed been featured. Specifically:

It’s not every day that there are sightings of the Virgin Mary, the Easter Bunny and an overstuffed pink pig sporting a black leather jacket and a strand of rainbow-colored beads. But anyone who walked by 467 11th Street in Park Slope recently would have spotted such a trio. After seven years of festooning their red-brick row house for holidays both major and marginal, Stanley Shor and Charley Wells, an otherwise conventional couple who keep to themselves, were doing a little spring cleaning. The rabbit and the Virgin Mary, discarded on the sidewalk, were up for anyone’s taking. But the biker-pig would remain a fixture by the front stoop in honor of Gay Pride Week, which ends today. Some neighbors worried that the two men were giving up their pastime for good, but they were only “thinning the forest,” said Mr. Shor, who is 47 and the assistant commissioner in the city’s Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications.

Another reason to love Brooklyn.

Brooklinks is a somewhat random selection of daily Brooklyn articles and blog items. The photo above is from GL’s 117-photo strong flickr Mermaid Parade photoset.

• The Mermaid Parade Rides Again [Gothamist]
• 2006 Mermaid Parade Flickr Set [rsguskind flickr set]
• Mermaid Parade 2006 Photoset [Gothamist LLC, aka Jake Dobkin flickr set]
• Mermaid Parade Photo Gallery [Pic Patrol]
• Mermaid Parade Flickr Photos [eatsdirt flickr set]
• Mermaid Parade [John Zwinck flickr set]
• Mermaid Parade Photo Pool [flickr]
• A Perfect Day to Have Fins [NYDN]
• When Life Gives You Mermaids [Heart on a Stick]
• 263 Mermaid Parade Photos [Don Wiss]

The amazing photo below is from Gowanus‘ flickr photostream. It is a shot taken inside the dry dock at the Todd Shipyard, which is rapidly becoming the Ikea site in Red Hook. Ikea wants to fill in the historic drydocks for parking.

This is Gowanus Lounge’s Mermaid Parade flickr photoset. There are 117 photos there. These are thumbnails of a few of them. (There are also a few larger ones right here at GL, in our item posted yesterday afternoon.)

DSC_2567x, originally uploaded by rsguskind.

The Mermaid Parade was a wild affair as usual, although the lousy weather probably held down attendance a bit. Still, the parade managed to dodge the rain until the very end, even while it was pouring in other parts of Brooklyn. Here are a few photos. You can find 117 photos in my flickr photo set.

Bonus: Another cool event is the Miss Rockaway Boat Party at the Empty Vessel Project boat on the Gowanus. DJs Filastine (Seattle), Dirty Fingers (Black Label), and Aliqua (Chicken Hut) spin. And, there’s something about “eye-popping flaming hula hoops.” It all takes place at the Empty Vessel Project boat at the foot of 1st Street on the Gowanus. Admission is $5, and festivities start at 9. A Saturday night dance party on the Big G. What more do you want?

Gowanus Lounge would be serious lacking if we didn’t mention Gowanus Girl, a play being performed at the Old Stone House in JJ Byrne Park this weekend. It’s billed at a look at change on the Gowanus Canal through the eyes of ten-year-old girl. And, it’s said to be for kids 6 and up. How good is that? The performances are today, 6-24, at 11AM and 12:30PM and tomorrow, 6-25, at the same times. For reservations or more info call 917-494-7540. The Old Stone House is between Fifth and Fourth avenues, between Third and Fourth Streets. It’s never to early to teach the little ones about the Big G.

Among the many weekend opportunities in Brooklyn, presuming no torrential downpours and assuming you’re not going to the Mermaid Parade today in Coney Island (starting time: 2PM), are tours of Brighton Beach and of Green-Wood Cemetery.

The “Brighton Beach Memories” walking tour is sponsored by the Brooklyn Center for the Urban Environment (BCUE). Learn about the Hotel Brighton and the Brighton Beach Baths, and see the Oceana apartments which now stand where the baths did. The tour is $11 and $9 for member and $8 for seniors and students. Meet under the elevated B/Q train at Brighton Beach and Coney Island avenues. It goes from 2-4 PM. Call (718) 788-8500, ext. 208, for more info.

The Big Onion Walking Tour takes in Green-Wood Cemetery at 5PM (which means that, in theory, you could do the Mermaid Parade and hit the cemetery afterward. The tour includes the history, architecture and info about the many New Yorkers enjoying eternal rest at Green-Wood. Visit DeWitt Clinton, Louis Comfort Tiffany, Leonard Bernstein and John “The Soda Fountain King” Matthews. Cost is $15, $12 for seniors and $10 for students. Report to the Green-Wood Cemetery main entrance at 25th Street and Fifth Avenue. Info at (212) 439-1090.

Brooklinks is a somewhat, but not totally, random collections of links to stories and blog items we have noted over the last 24 hours:

• Don’t Rain on My Parade [OTBKB]
• Looking to be Amused [Brooklyn Record]
• Camera in the Kitchen: Pies ‘n Thighs [Gothamist]
• Coney Group Loves Dick [Bklyn Papers]
• Spidey in Da Hood Update [Z. Madison]
• More Spiderman 3 Pics [423 Smith]
• Spitzer’s Offices Takes on Greenpoint Oil Spill [NYT]
• Bakery Mishap or Tong Warning [Sunsetparker]
• Wiener wolfer earns Coney slot [NYPost]
• Ratner’s Shadow Looms [Bklyn Papers]

We were a little swamped when others noted this story yesterday, but it’s worth repeating: Tall buildings make big shadows, and a Pratt Institute professor and students say that Atlantic Yards is going to cast some big shadows indeed. Gowanus Lounge will let the Brooklyn Paper’s Gersh Kuntzman, who wrote the story that is making its way around the blogosphere, deliver the news:

According to a new analysis by a Pratt Institute professor and two students, shadows from the developer’s Atlantic Yards mega-project would darken a wide swath of Brooklyn from Prospect Heights to Downtown — including a strip in Fort Greene that won the “Greenest Block in Brooklyn” contest in 2002.

At its worst — at 9 am on Dec. 21 — the shadow from the 62-story “Miss Brooklyn” building, proposed for the corner of Atlantic and Flatbush avenues, would extend all the way to Fulton and Gold streets.

Brent Porter, the Pratt professor says the shadows will be especially “severe” from September to March. “Once those buildings go up, the shadowing will be forever,” he says. The professor says that a good part of Fort Greene will be lacking light in the winter in an Atlantic Yards world.

If you put dozens of bloggers in one place, you will get a lot of blogs. By noon today, last night’s Brooklyn Blogfest had been nicely covered. (The photo to the right is Dope on the Slope‘s flickr shot of Hugh Crawford, who does the excellent daily photo feature on Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn.) Here are a few links to some of today’s Blogfest coverage (with apologies for any number of glaring ommissions):

Brooklyn Blogfest [A Brooklyn Life]
Bloggers Revealed [Brooklyn Record]
Name That Blogger [Curbed]
Brooklyn Blogfest Report [Gowanus Lounge]
Blogfest Big Fun [OTBKB]
doughnut: Blogfirst Blogfest[Doughnut]
Last Night at the Old Stone House [OTBKB]
Live from Brooklyn Blogfest [Daily Heights]
Dope on the Slope’s flickr Blogfest Photos [flickr]
Brooklyn Blogfest! [3 Bikini]

Like many other Brooklyn bloggers, Gowanus Lounge went to the Brooklyn Blogfest last night at the Old Stone House in Park Slope. It was a wonderful opportunity to meet many bloggers, photobloggers and street-level journalists whose work we’ve been reading for a long time and from whom we’ve learned much. Dope on the Slope presented a hysterical history of blogging. Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn explained how the Thomas Wolfe short story, Only the Dead Know Brooklyn, inspired the name of her blog. Brownstoner, who recently launched the excellent Brooklyn Record, told us how a modest blog has turned into a small blogging empire.

We will make several observations, and leave it at that:

1. The Brooklyn blogging world owes a huge debt to Bruce Ratner and other developers whose projects have motivated so many of us to start our blogs to add our voices to the debate and to try to share information.

2. The Brooklyn Blogosphere is older than we thought. What we mean is that, for some reason, we’d assumed that most bloggers are twentysomethings. It turns out we’re twentysomethings, thirtysomethings, fortysomethings and fiftysomethings. No sixtysomethings, but maybe somebody just doesn’t show it.

3. The Brookly Blog Universe is expanding exponentially. Daily Heights pointed out that as recently as January 2005, there were probably a dozen Brooklyn blogs. Now, there are about four dozen.

A huge thanks to the wonderful Louise Crawford of Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn for organizing this event. We prepared the photo below for Curbed, and post it below, along with the identities of the bloggers pictured.

A. Design Sponge, B. Daily Heights, C. Brooklyn Views, D. Brownstoner/Brooklyn Record, E. Dope on the Slope, F. Joe’s NYC, G. Lost and Frowned, H. No Land Grab, I. A Brooklyn Life, J. Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn, K. Atlantic Yards Report, L. Express Train.

Brooklinks is a selective and semi-random listing of Brooklyn-related news stories and blog items:
The Pier [Brooklyn Record]
A Champion to Stop Bruce Ratner: Bill Batson [onNYTurf]
Hungry Cabbie at Waterfalls Cafe [Gothamist]
Mermaid Parade Takes Over Coney Island [AM New York]
NYC 2030 [AM New York]
Bright idea in Coney [NYDN]
Ratner’s Shadow Looms [Bklyn Papers]
Lines Being Drawn on Plan for Piers [B61 Productions]

The photo above is another one of Gowanus Lounge’s Googly Eye Cru sticker photos shot in Williamsburg.

Some Atlantic Yards opponents are setting their sights on a new Governor and new members of the legislature in Albany. The New York Sun noted this week that neither Democratic front-runner Eliot Spitzer nor Republican John Faso have a position on Atlantic Yards. (And both are probably as anxious to wade into the fight as they would be to go for a swim in Gowanus.) But, the next governor could play a major role in shaping the project and, even, whether it lives or dies.

Local opponents, meanwhile, are rallying behind Bill Batson, who they are pushing as a grassroots candidate for the Assembly seat for the 57th district in Brooklyn that’s up for grabs this November. (The district includes the Atlantic Yards site.) Batson, they note, opposes the Forest City Ratner plan and has fought a plan to use of eminent domain to turn an Underground Railroad site in downtown Brooklyn into a parking garage. The former Greenpoint artist worked with NYCLU head Normal Siegel and worked for Senate Democratic Leader David Paterson.

IE: He’s a Gold Standard candidate for the Develop-Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, anti-Atlantic Yards crowd.

OnNYTurf reports on the petition drive that supporters are mounting to get Batson’s name on the ballot for the September primary.

Yes, Gowanus Lounge has been beating the Coney Island drum hard this week, but hey, it’s summer and this is Coney’s time of year. Speaking of which, around Memorial Day we touched on the slow pace of the Coney Island boardwalk repair project, wondering why it was still underway at the beginning of summer season and when the job would be done.

Now, we know the answer. It won’t be done.

If you have been to Coney Island this year you know why this is of interest: The Coney Island Boardwalk–other than the very small portion that was replaced for $500,000 over the winter–is in a disgraceful state of disrepair. We’re not talking about a couple of loose boards here and there, either. We are talking about it being in such a sad state that all an ambulance chasing lawyer has to do to get new clients is find a particularly odious part of the boardwalk and stand there and wait for people to trip and fall. These spots are easy to locate. They’re the ones where boards are see-sawing up and down as people walk on them or where there are holes where the wood is rotted or where bolts are sticking out.

The head of the Brighton Neighborhood Association told INBROOKLYN, “It’s the worst it’s ever been.” The Parks Department claims a shortage of funds to fix it, although maintenance crews are alleged to travel the boardwalk making repairs as needed.

Fingers of blame are pointed in various directions: A lot of people using the boardwalk. Police cars cruising up and down. Sand piled under it by the Army Corp of Engineers in the early 90s.

One EMT told a trip-and-fall boardwalk victim, according to INBROOKLYN, that there will be “a hundred more like this” during the summer.

Even if you don’t care about the person who goes to Coney Island for a ride on the Wonder Wheel and a walk on the boardwalk and goes home with a broken face, isn’t it cheaper to put more people on the job to try to fix the thing and, then, replace it over the winter than to pay out cash settlements in all those lawsuits? Or will it have to wait until Coney Island redevelopment when Thor Equities and others demand that the city do it because patrons breaking bones outside the front door and walking in dripping blood on the floor are bad for business?

Just wondering.

It’s freaking hot outside, which is only fitting for the final approach into summer. So, Gowanus Lounge thought it appropriate to put up this photo from Williamsburg of a year-round Santa. The old guy is pretty weathered, so we know he’s been there for years, if not decades, but he still sends a chill up our spine on this blazing June day.

One of Gowanus Lounge’s favorite ways to end the week is to head down to Coney Island to catch the Friday night fireworks. The fireworks start up again tonight (Friday, 6/23) and continue every Friday night until Labor Day. (They start between 9:00 and 9:30 right now.) So, head on down to Coney, take a seat in the sand and watch a nice fireworks display every Friday night this summer.

Meanwhile, still our hearts, the Parachute Jump is going to be lit up as of July 7. We reported a couple of months ago on the lighting plans, and have been watching for an announcement. The Daily News reports both the date and the details:

The amusement mecca’s tallest structure will be lit by 17 flood lamps, 150 light fixtures and 450 LED lights in a display that will be seen from as far away as Long Island...Manhattan artist Leni Schwendinger designed six lighting schemes for the 277-foot landmark, including a red, pink and amber sequence that will last through the summer. On weekends, pulsing white flood lights and a red LED strobe will dance along the Boardwalk.

The Parachute Jump will be illuminated from dusk until midnight May through October. The remainder of the year it will be lit from dusk until 11 p.m.

Reminder (not that you don’t already know): Mermaid Parade on Saturday. Starts at 2:00.

You’ve got to love this one. Bruce Ratner’s bête noire, Norman Oder, who continues to do yeoman’s work looking into every nook and cranny of the Atlantic Yards project, went to the Atlantic Center seeking Staples and found the Atlantic Yards Information Center.

Inside…are numerous wooden models of the Atlantic Yards complex. On the walls are more images of the project than available on the Atlantic Yards web site. Nicely-produced hanging screens introduce themes of the exhibition:
–“Open space by Olin”
–“Architecture by Gehry”
–“How will we create jobs for residents of Brooklyn?”
–“What is the Atlantic Yards Community Benefits Agreement?”
–“How will we support all this growth?”
–“What do we mean when we say Affordable Housing?”

Good questions all, Mr. Oder opines.

Now, that would have been enough of a laugh, in a fox wandering into the hen house sort of way, except that Mr. Oder had stumbled upon an event sponsored by Brooklyn United for Innovative Local Development (BUILD), a job training group that supports Atlantic Yards and has gotten Ratner money. BUILD’s CEO, James Caldwell, let Mr. Oder in. Moments later, Mr. Caldwell returned to tell him that he’d been overruled. (Another great PR move, folks.)

Mr. Oder was thrown of the meeting, anyway, and blogged about it.

Of course, we’ve got years of this kind of thing to look forward to unless Atlantic Yards somehow chokes on its own excess or is killed off by a new administration in Albany or by a judge’s ruling. Or is done in by, my favorite, a celebrity-led public uprising and Concert to Save Brooklyn headlined by U2.

Brooklinks is a selective, although not entirely random, selection of links to articles, blog entries and photos related to Brooklyn.

• Coney Island Revival [Brooklyn Rail]
• New York is Hot Spot for Olive Oil Shopping [Boston Globe]
• Update: One Prospect Park Rising [Brownstoner]
• Edge of Death: Green-Wood Heights [Forgotten NY]
• City Can Opposes Brooklyn Bridge Park Lawsuit [NYTimes]
• New Day for Business at Sunset Park [City Limits]
• Piers Need Hull of an Idea [NYPost]
• Lines Being Drawn on EDC Plans for Piers [B61 Prods]
• Greenest Brooklyn Block Contest [NYDN]

[The interesting stencil above, that is from a wall in Gowanus, is from f.trainer‘s always interesting flickr photo stream. Its companion is this photo.]

All props to Dope on the Slope, the intrepid blogger whose founding of a Gowanus photo pool on flickr led to the creation of Gowanus Lounge in a roundabout way. So, we flinched when we did our daily check of Dope on the Slope late yesterday afternoon and discovered his blog entry, “Gowanus Invertebrate Blogging,” thinking in a self-centered way that perhaps he was calling us spineless. But no. DOTS actually captured the image of a horseshoe crab in the Gowanus by the Carroll Street Bridge. (I know it isn’t much, but when the Gowanus is your namesake body of water every little thing counts.)

I saw a man and his daughter staring intently into the water. When I walked up they pointed into the murk below and, to my surprise, there was a HUGE horshoe crab scuttling about the shallows. He and his daughter had never seen one before, so I told them what they were called, and gave him a brief rundown of their life history.

Horshoe crabs used to be called “horsefoot crabs” because of their strong resemblance to a hoof when viewed from above. They aren’t really crabs at all, but are more closely related to arachnids (ticks, scorpions, spiders, etc.), although they have their very own class, Merostomata. Their basic design has been unchanged for millions of years, so it must be a pretty good one from a survival standpoint. Still, I must admit I was surprised to find one in the Gowanus Canal. They usually eat by borrowing for worms and mollusks. Could it have been feeding? I’d hate to think what the water quality is just below the Carroll Street bridge, but maybe it’s not as bad as it looks.

We have seen the Gowanus ducks and evidence of other aquatic life, but never a horseshoe crab. Resilient buggers.