The big Puerto Rican day parade might have been in Manhattan, but the celebration was citywide. Gowanus Lounge shot some photos of the Puerto Rican celebration at Coney Island yesterday afternoon, where there was plenty of music, dancing and partying.

Last night’s perfect October weather offered multiple viewing opportunities. So, Gowanus Lounge crossed the East River to watch the Target Children’s Day fireworks (yes, that’s what that racket was around 9:30 last night). A bonus photo of the full moon over Brooklyn another shot of the fireworks are below.

Forget New York Magazine’s breathy Futurama-World’s Fair like vision of NYC in 2016. If you want a sense of Brooklyn’s future, the interesting read is the Real Deal’s article, Record High Rises Set for Brooklyn. Let’s briefly quote some words that make the threat of killer hurricane slamming into Brooklyn almost seem tranquilizing:

More than 15 towers at least 20 stories tall are planned for the borough, including in Downtown Brooklyn, along the Williamsburg and Greenpoint waterfront, and in Dumbo. The rush to construct the tall towers follows major rezonings by the city and will lead to a north Brooklyn that looks like Battery Park City, Trump’s Riverside South or the Miami skyline, depending on who’s doing the talking.

The new vertically-inclined borough will also have half a dozen projects taller (in terms of number of stories) than the Williamsburgh Savings Bank building, now the tallest building in Brooklyn.

The fun ranges from a 40-story residential building at 306 Gold Street (at Flatbush and Tillary) to the 33-story J Condo in Dumbo and the very, very large Edge and Palmer’s Landing developments in Williamsburg. It quotes development marketer Michael Shvo saying that the Williamsburg and Greenpoint waterfront will “look like the Miami skyline in five years.”

We respectfully differ with Mr. Shvo in that none of the architecture we’ve seen is nearly as imaginative as Miami’s, except for possibly Frank O’s Miss Brooklyn, but that presents a slew of other issues. Time to make that future iCal entry for about 2012: Move to nice, quiet place in the Berkshires.

This image of corn crate, with strewn and abandoned ears of corn, sitting atop a wall with graffiti mural, comes from North 3rd Street in Williamsburg. We call it “Still Life with Graffiti and Corn.” There is no doubt a story behind how the corn came to be abandoned here, but we’ll never know.

Off the Hook, originally uploaded by rsguskind.

The always excellent B61 Productions blog devoted to Red Hook reminded us that we’d forgotten to run an item about Off the Hook’s spring shows this weekend. There are two more shows today (Saturday, June 10) at 3PM and 7PM. They take place at PS 15, which is located at 71 Sullivan Street. The plays on the program are written and performed by Red Hook teens and the show is free. Call 718-596-5298 for information.

Going to the Hook on this fine, sunny and rain-free day? B61 has a superb guide to what’s going on. Do the Red Hookites a favor, though, if you do head down–drive nice and be cool. Even better, bike on over. The Brooklyn Papers report this week on what residents and those who frequented the nabe in quiet days know: The level of traffic and commotion has risen dramatically since the Fairway opened a few weeks ago.

Ever been out on the South Brooklyn Seine? The Gowanus Dredgers can help make that dream come true. The next Dredgers canoeing opportunity takes place tomorrow (Sunday, June 11) from 10AM-2PM. If that’s too early for your post-Saturday partying blood (do not attempt to conquer the Big G on a hangover), you can always try again on Thursday, June 15, from 5:30-7:30. (What better way to unwind after a nasty day at the office than a bucolic paddle down the Gowanus?) The Dredgers do this all summer long and you can check their calendar online for the schedule. The canoeing is free. The only cost is to your nerves if you are uncomfortable being on our beloved Big G in a canoe. All we can tell you is what they told us: Should you fall in, your floatation jacket will keep you on the surface, so keep your head up so as not to allow any Gowanus water to enter your mouth and scream bloody murder until someone fishes you out of the drink. To go on your canoe trip and create a memory certain to last a lifetime, report to the foot of Second Street at the canal, just west of Bond Street.

If ever there was an automobile in need of help, this baby is it. This old soul of a Cadillac sits in front of this shop on Metropolitan Avenue in Williamsburg (or, at least, has sat for many, many weeks). Each time we see it, it appears that the diagnostic and repair process is taking a greater toll. Put it this way: It would be as though you went to the doctor because of a bump on your chin and ended up having brain surgery. We call this “Diagnosis, No Mas! No Mas!”

Gowanus Lounge is busy, busy, busy, typing and pointing and clicking our little fingers off. We also spend a lot of time producing items over in Curbed’s part of the world and the vast majority of those items never make it over to GL. And so, we present below a few samples of the fruits of our labor this week over at Curbed, where the New York City development goodness never stops flowing. Except on Saturday and Sunday, which are days of rest. The photo above is from our item on some street art in Billburg.

• Penis Street Art: New Williamsburg Development Statement?
• Brooklyn Bridge Park Cyberwar: Who’s Got the Domain?
• Giving the Finger Building the Finger
• NYC 2016: Tomorrowland My Ass?
• Cadman Plaza: Symbol of Class Warfare?
• The New View from Williamsburg, 20 Stories Up
• Meet the Next Williamsburg Landmark Fight: The Domino Sugar Factory
• How to Have Fun in Red Hook on a Rainy Weekend

We shot photos of a lot of these “Googly Eye Cru” vinyl stickers around in Billyburg over the last few weeks. Some disappared as fast as they went up. Others are still around. What building or sign can’t use a couple of googly eyes to take it up a notch?

Leave it to the long-awaited Gowanus Whole Foods on Third Street and Third Avenue in Gowanus to be one of the only supermarkets in the country that sells customers on wholesome goodness while having an environmental remediation plan. Friends and Residents of Greater Gowanus (FROGG) conveyed some interesting information in comments left on the blog Brooklyn Ramblings, which itself is digging into the state of the Whole Foods site. According to FROGG, the Whole Foods site is in the “investigation” phase of the State Brownfield Cleanup Program. The “Remedial Work Plan” for doing the cleanup hasn’t been approved by the Department of Environmental Conservation. A “fact sheet” announcing the plan is due in July. Not that this has stopped work on the site from going forward under an “interim” plan. Meanwhile, community representatives were promised during the winter that they would get information on the extent of contamination. Nothing has been forthcoming.

FROGG points out that because of the zoning for the site, the level of cleanup will be less than, say, what would be required for other types of construction like housing. Even though a food market is going on the site. Nor will ongoing groundwater contamination issues be addressed in a cleanup.

Up to 25 percent of the development cost on so-called brownfield sites, including the cleanup, is publicly subsidized. In other words: Take ownership of the new Whole Foods because you will, at least in a philosophical sense, own a slice of the cleaned up pie. Other Gowanus developments on brownfield sites like Gowanus Village will also qualify for the subsidies.

Okay, so it doesn’t have the cool Holiday Inn Express signage yet, but you can still clearly feel the Holiday Inn vibe that the new Gowanus Holiday Inn Express on Union Street between Fourth and Third avenues is exuding nonetheless. (What is it about budget hotels all having to have that utilitarian, boxy design? Is there a design manual for these things?) As we previously noted, the hotel is now taking reservations for arrivals after July 15. (Look for it under “Brooklyn Holiday Inn Express” or “Park Slope Holiday Inn Express.”)

Rooms at the Gowanus Holiday Inn Express (115 rooms, nine floors) start at $129, which makes them a downright NYC lodging bargain. Just think of the looks you’ll get back home when you tell the neighbors you stayed in Gowanus, even if Holiday Inn won’t admit it.

Seems like Clovis Press, the cool used bookstore on Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg closed only yesterday (well, more than a month ago), and now Bedford Cheese, currently located across the street in the mini-mall, is moving into the space. The good news is that a local business is going into the storefront rather than a chain like Starbucks.

Everyone’s favorite $4.50 iced soy chai latte purveyor is probably waiting until certain parts of Brooklyn, like Billburg, are rendered safe for a Suckbucks Invasion and then will spread across the land like they have in Manhattan. Perhaps, they will wait for for the hideous Williamsburgh Square project with the 40 story tower to go up across the street or for one of the Billburg highrise waterfront developments to open, figuring they will be safe from glass etching acid taggers at that point because they’ll have been pushed into Bushwick East Williamsburg, pushing existing residents to East New York, etc.

Oh well. Expensive cheese. Used books. Multinational corporate coffee. Same difference.

what is wrong with this picture, originally uploaded by e-liz.

Gowanus Lounge is tempted to say that Gowanus is a state of mind, given the sometimes fluid nature of its borders and the fact that establishments that are clearly in the nabe sometimes call themselves “Park Slope.” Photographer Elizabeth Weinberg, who posts ast e-liz on flicker, documents this perfect new example of neighborhood identity crisis on the southwest corner of Butler Street and Fourth Avenue. The establishment calls itself the “Deli on the Slope,” even though it is in Gowanus.

She writes:

I consider the divider between Park Slope and Gowanus to be Fourth Avenue, with residences on the east (mine included) in “Park Slope” and everything to the west in “Gowanus”…All signs point to the edging out of Gowanus as we know it, and to the spreading of Park Slope all the way out to the canal and beyond. Carroll Slope anyone? Surprised they didn’t name this place Deli in the G-Slope.

Ah, yes, the “spreading of Park Slope.” It sounds like something you see a dermatologist about.

When Leviev Boymelgreen’s Gowanus Village reemerges as the Village in the Slope or West Slope Village, or when the Gowanus Whole Foods is built and calls itself Park Slope Whole Foods, then we will know that the fight to keep Gowanus as Gowanus is truly lost.

Brownstoner poses another question about the nature of the development at the corner of 13th Street and Fifth Avenue in Park Slope where the Salvation Army Thrift Store once stood. At one point, word was that a Baby Gap was going in on the corner, at least as street level retail. (For reaction, see photo of the “No Baby Gap” graffiti to the right, originally posted at the Bag of Rocks blog.) Then, GL commenters noted that it wasn’t going to be a Baby Gap and let loose with a great deal of anti-development and anti-gentrification sentiment about the changes rolling through the southern Park Slope reaches of Fifth Avenue.

The s attempt to elicit information has, thus far, garnered several interesting tidbits. For starters, it looks like the corner is destined to be home of a 7-story condo development, most likely with retail. (Identity of tenant: unknown.) Secondly, and just as interesting to GL, is the fact that there is a proposed 8-11 story building slated for the northeast corner of 15th Street and Fifth Avenue, which is currently the site of a 99 center store. This one belongs to Isaac Katan, a significant presence in Brooklyn development, who has built quite a bit in the South Slope and along Fourth Avenue and who is part of the group that purchased the Domino Sugar Refinery in Williamsburg that some preservationists have started a campaign to landmark. The rumor mill also reports that another building at 15th and Fifth has been sold.

Given the controversy surrounding it, the plywood construction wall around the highrise Finger Building on North Seventh Street in Williamsburg has remained relatively graffiti-free. But, now, “Gentrify Brooklyn” posters containing the stenciled words and a silhouette of a Kalashnikov rifle have shown up at the site.

Meanwhile, the on-and-off construction at the building may be off again. You might recall that there was a stop work order on the building for a time because a structure was demolished without a permit. Then, work resumed, and the building was apparently scaled back a bit. Now, Billburgers report that there’s been almost no activity on the site for a couple of weeks. (We had a feeling The Finger wasn’t rising very quickly. Thirty stories worth of highrise in Long Island City went up twice as fast.)

We will not get into the entire philosophical discourse about exactly who is gentrifying what and should be pointing symbolic AK-47s at whom (gentrifying hipster versus original nabe resident, gentrifying yuppie versus hipster, etc.). Rather, we will appreciate the photo and leave it at that.

Bonus: We append the photo below from our collection to show how Billburgers are busy trying to make new construction in the neighborhood look like old construction by tagging it up as fast as they can. (You will note they even went up on the roof of the adjoining garage to do some of it.)

This didn’t take long at all. Over the last couple of weeks we have been searching for renderings of plans for the Greenpoint Terminal Market site. In today’s package of coverage about the homeless alcoholic Polish immigrant said to have started the conflagration, the NY Times reports that: “The owner [Josh Guttman] is now free to revive development plans that could transform the 14-acre site into 2.6 million square feet of luxury housing, some of it ensconced in a gleaming 35-story tower that would loom over the East River.” Mr. Guttman’s lawyer said the process will move ahead “as soon as feasible.” The Times added:

The owners still need to apply for demolition permits for several of their 15 parcels, according to the Department of Buildings, and planning officials said the Guttmans had yet to file plans outlining public waterfront access for the site. Once these approvals have been obtained, development can move forward in what remains a largely forlorn stretch of 19th-century industrial buildings and crumbling warehouses.

Interestingly, a City Planning Department spokesperson tells the Times that several projects are “ready to break ground” and that developments will include a riverfront esplanade. The paper quotes her as saying, “It’s a very exciting time for the community.”

“Exciting” indeed.

In case you didn’t catch our item about this over at Curbed, we’re going to recap here because it’s very much the interesting news and has otherwise gotten zero coverage: Work on East River State Park in Williamsburg on Kent Avenue between North 7th and North 9th Street is speeding along, and the park could open by the end of July. Now, this could be an attempt by the state to slip Billburg hipsters a mickey by giving them some waterfront open space to enjoy while taking their minds off the 40-story Edge development going up next door as we speak. Nonetheless, its 7-acres will be a pleasant spot. There are interesting industrial remnants on the site, including railroad tracks left over from the area’s history as the Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal, where rail cargo bound for Brooklyn, Queens and Long Island used to be unloaded in the late 1800s from rail cars that had come via ferry from New Jersey. No word, though, on whether Hipster Beach, which has been enjoyed by residents using the Old School unimproved, non-landscaped waterfront where all manner of fun went on will be preserved. Check out this video on You Tube called “Toxic Park” if you want a fun taste of the ungentrified waterfront past. Gowanus Lounge caught parts of it being filmed on a quiet day on the Billburg waterfront and had wondered what the heck was going on. Now we know.

Interesting news from Miami about our favorite Gowanus developer, Leviev Boymelgreen (of Gowanus Village fame, among other projects). Seems the firm, which, in which Tel Aviv firm Africa Israel holds a majority share, is selling off about half its holdings in South Florida. Boymelgreen is one of the biggest private landowners in Miami.

This interesting news comes from the Miami Herald, which reports that Boymelgreen–with whose work GL is fascinated, probably because it has so many projects in our immediate area–is going to sell about 7 acres of land in downtown Miami for some $89 million. Says the Herald, in language reminiscent of that used about Leviev Boymelgreen in Brooklyn:

The deal raises new questions about the plans of a company that made a splashy entrance into Miami and Miami Beach two years ago, but has struggled to get its projects off the ground since. The company has been beset by construction delays, management turnover and a constant reshuffling of brokerage companies that sell its condo units.

Just last year, people were saying things like that about Boymelgreen’s new “Luxe + Pop” 75 Smith building at Smith and Atlantic. The company’s 12-story Park Slope Tower development on Fourth Avenue, between Fourth and Fifth Streets, languished as an empty site for ages too. You’ll recall that Boymelgreen recently bought the Jewish Press Building on Third Avenue to complete a parcel that would be part of its Gowanus Village development.

The Miami bailout could mean something for the firm’s Brooklyn projects or it could be background noise. Leviev Boymelgreen appears to have cashed out of Miami to take profits before the market there goes south or to free up some cash flow. If the move ends up injecting more cash into the firm, Brooklyn projects like Gowanus Village could start moving faster.

We await more Boymelgreen news.

We captured this latest van in our Vans of Brooklyn series parked on some vacant land (probably won’t stay that way for long) between two buildings on Wythe Avenue in Billburg. It is one of our favorites. A very tall guy with long dreads was talking on cell phone and watching us shoot pictures. When we got pictures of the van, he started laughing and said, “I knew you were going to take pictures of it. I saw you taking pictures of stickers.” He was happy. We are glad that photographing his van brightened his day. We are more accustomed to people who are not happy about us taking photos.

No, we did not cease posting today. Some sort of major blogger.com meltdown kept Gowanus Lounge–and everyone else–from posting for most of the day. So, we missed our chance to relate or opine upon a number of stories, among them the arrest of the alleged Greenpoint Terminal Market arsonist, Kuczera Leszek. Described as “a homeless man,” Leszek apparently confessed to starting the fire that torched the Greenpoint Terminal Market on May 2-3. The cops say he is “not connected to any group” and that he started one of New York’s biggest fires in history while trying to burn insulation from copper cable he was going to sell for scrap. (It’s worth twice as much without the insulation. You learn something every day.) The cops say he piled up eight truck tires, putting the cable on top and started the fire with an accelerant. For you fans of Watergate history, it sounds vaguely like the strange explanation of how Rosemary Woods “accidentally” erased the White House tapes to produce the 17-minute gap, only with a building fire that would have taken part of the neighborhood with it if not for favorable wind direction.

The cops say the fire burned “stronger than expected” and that it “seemed to get away from him…It wasn’t his intent to burn the building down.” (Jeez. Did the guy understand his right to remain silent when it was read to him?)

Of course, GMT owner and Bad Brooklyn Landlord Posterboy Josh Guttman, who was all but tried and convicted in the press and blogosphere (oops, our bad) didn’t walk away from the deal emptyhanded. He was served with more than 400 violations for the shape the GMT was in (misdemeanors, each of which carries a fine of up to $5,000).

And so, it turns out the person who may have altered the built environment of Greenpoint for future generations wasn’t an evil landlord or greedy developer, but, probably, somebody trying to hustle a few bucks for a buzz.

Magnificent.

We await the details about this person and the conflagration as much as we await an accurate rendition of the high rises proposed for the former site of the historic Terminal Market buildings that burned.

Suggestion Du Jour: Download Somehow obtain an advance copy of the new Thom Yorke CD, The Eraser, put it on your on your iThing and meander over to look at the ruins to ponder how they got that way and what the spot will look like in, say, five years and how cool it is to have the music a month before the release date.

Some of the help that was promised as part of last year’s rezoning of the Williamsburg-Greenpoint waterfront to allow development of luxury highrises of up to 40 stories on the East River is, apparently, nowhere to be found. At least, that’s what community representatives are telling AM New York. Among the rezoning promises was an advisory committee to dish out millions of dollars in assistance to help tenants and small businesses that are being displaced in the transition to upscale waterfront housing.

Progress thus far: No committee, only “a fraction” of the $4 million to help businesses relocate and nothing to help with evictions. Of course, significant construction work is already underway on the waterfront (photo above), 184 Kent has been cleared for development and major highrise projects such as The Edge and Palmer’s Landing are already well along.

Community Board members say that despite repeated requests to Deputy Mayor Daniel Doctoroff and the City Council, the advisory committee hasn’t been apppointed. In addition to helping those that are forced out, the committee is also supposed to help prevent illegal evictions.

“It’s almost like the community doesn’t have a seat at the table right now,” Peter Gillespie, executive director of the North Brooklyn Alliance told AM New York.

The one bit of good news is that it looks like the state park on Kent Avenue between North 6th and North 9th is set to open in mid-summer.

A lot of people probably know about the humongous drug bust in Red Hook last month–and we knew something interesting was up when the Brooklyn DA produced an intricate color-coded map of the 30 buildings of the Red Hook Houses showing how drug gangs had divided them up–but Gowanus Lounge almost choked when we noticed the extent of the drug trade. The bust resulted in more than 130 indictments, although nearly 20 charges were dropped. (Residents say some innocent people were swept up in the massive police dragnet and spent up to three days in jail.)

Exactly how much drugs were they moving in Red Hook? The simple answer is mindboggling quantities. The details, according to Ariella Cohen in the Brooklyn Papers, are as follows: 9,234 vials of crack, 3,135 dime bags of heroin, 1,755 bags of marijuana and 400 grams of powder cocaine sold every day. Repeat: Every day. That translates into $154,150 in transactions every day, or more than $50 million every year. (One wonders what the daily volume at the new Fairway is projected to be.)

9,000 vials of crack a day?

Let’s do a little math. There are 11,000 people in Red Hook and about 7,000 of them live in public housing. The dealers were moving 14,124 units of product every day, not counting the 400 grams of coke. That works out to 1.3 vials of crack or bags of dope or bags of weed for every man, woman and child in Red Hook every day.

Now, either the people living in Red Hook are some of the most cracked out and doped out people in the universe, or people from the entire Tri-State area were coming to Red Hook to shop for drugs. In the Brooklyn DA’s own words, “Red Hook’s streets were constantly overwhelmed with traffic caused by the armed dealers and their customers making more than one million sales each year.”

GL certainly wonders how the Red Hook Houses could exist as one of the big open air drug supermarkets around and, only now, get shut down. Clearly, it wasn’t something that began operating in the last six months. We also understand that the only things that truly shut down public drug supermarkets are: (A.) Rising real estate values, because $750,000 condos and drug deals on the sidewalk are conflicting land uses or (B.) A constant police presence that makes the area “too hot” for business.

Gowanus Lounge will avoid further pronouncements on public policy or planning theory. For the moment, all we can say about the Red Hook Houses drug operation is: Wow.

We captured this bit of exterior painting on Smith Street where the transition has been swift from outpost of Baluchi’s, the NYC Indian chain, to a new French bistro on Smith Street, Provence en Boite, which is actually a branch of a well-regarded Bay Ridge bistro that is run by a husband and wife team. The demise of this Baluchi’s branch puts an end to the Indian food war between Baluchi’s and Bombay Dream, but ignites a French food fight with Patois, only a few doors down. Remember when this corner was the location of Uncle Pho, the French Vietnamese restaurant, an original Smith Street Restaurant Row member?

This entry in our Vans of Brooklyn series comes from North Fourth Street in Williamsburg. Its most distinctive feature is graffiti on a window that says “Never trust a big butt and a smile.” It also has some stencil art and stickers, plus tagging. This one has been around for a while. We recognize it from our Billyburg wanderings going back at least 18 months.

Between Brownstoner’s awesome garden and A Brooklyn Life’s beautiful backyard, Gowanus Lounge is developing a very, very serious case of garden envy that window boxes just won’t cure. There, we said it. We only have window ledges. Brownstoner has been chronicling the transformation of his backyard and, we gladly note, went shopping at Gowanus Nursery on Sunday. (Pricey, but supporting a Gowanus plant business is priceless.) The preliminary results of the backyard work are pictured above. Then, we have A Brooklyn Life, who today is featuring the marvelous work she has been doing in her yard. ABL (who’s super cool backyard space is below) calls it “a daily source of personal joy and an occasional source of envy amongst friends.” We can see why.

Us? Well, there’s always Prospect Park and our beloved window boxes.