Sometimes there is a strange beauty to otherwise imposing industrial structures. That’s the case with this photo from my flickr photostream of Keyspan’s Ravenswood power plant in Long Island City across from Roosevelt Island. It isn’t quite the vista from Lighthouse Park at the north end of the island or a Gowanus panorama, but it’s striking in the late afternoon light.

What is the difference between the developer Leviev Boymelgreen’s Beacon Tower at 85 Adams Street in Dumbo and Forest City Ratner’s Atlantic Yards?

ACORN likes Beacon Tower so little that it protested at an open house a couple of weekend ago, but likes Atlantic Yards so much that it endorses it in Forest City Ratner promotional material.

Making nice with developers, let alone helping them promote a project is an odd turn for ACORN, which has a long, long history of nasty and loud confrontations over affordable housing. The group, for instance, accuses the Beacon Tower developer of getting “rich off the backs of working families” because the building received a 421-a tax abatement designed in the 1970s to encourage residential development.

As for Atlantic Yards, which could be the beneficiary of up to $1.6 billion in public spending and subsidies, ACORN approves. A beaming Bertha Lewis of ACORN appears in the latest Forest City Ratner brochure and is quoted saying the developer “has worked in real partnership” with the community and shown “an unprecedented level of concern” for it. (As long as one isn’t one of the Fort Greene-Prospect Heights-Park Slope community members that is skittish about the 17 planned highrises along Atlantic and Flatbush avenues.)

ACORN, of course, was one of the groups that signed off on a Community Benefits Agreement with Forest City Ratner.

It’s a thin line between love and hate.

This beautiful entry, which we call Man Versus Nature in Red Hook, comes courtesy of the flickr photostream of one of our favorite local photogs, Sonja Shield.

“The huge concrete blocks in the multi-acre site at the corner of Columbia and Halleck streets trace the outlines of its former industrial use,” she writes. “Now, tall reeds and marshland have asserted themselves. Stands of reeds sprout between concrete and metal pilings. Sea birds alight on the small marshy pond in the middle of the shipyard. The concrete blocks have become museum walls for some of the best graffiti artists in the city.”

Shield has added an entire “Red Hook Marshlands” set.

Catch the vista while you can. The Ikea Red Hook site is just across the way.

The top photo was shot at West Street and Calyer Street in Greenpoint on Easter Sunday; the bottom photo was shot from roughly the same spot on Saturday, May 6, after the Greenpoint fire with demolition work underway.

It hasn’t been a particularly good few days for Atlantic Yards developer Forest City Ratner. First, the glossy Atlantic Yards brochure mailed out in huge quantities was greeted like a skunk wandering into a garden party by many recipients and certainly by critics. Of note is the particularly brilliant deconstruction by the Brooklyn Paper’s Gersh Kuntzman. His Brooklyn Angle column included a comment by an actress featured in the brochure (an anti-Atlantic Yards Prospect Heights resident) that unwittingly flacking for Atlantic Yards is “one of the most nightmarish experiences of my life.”

Today, of course, news broke of the star-studed anti-Atlantic Yards Advisory Board that includes Rosie Perez, Steve Buscemi, Jonathan Lethem, Jonathan Safran Foer, Heath Ledger (!) and Jhumpa Lahiri among others. No members of The Strokes noted, though.

Note to Bono: Can you move to Brooklyn for a spell and sign on?

Given the speed of development and change in some Brooklyn neighborhoods — especially Dumbo and Williamsburg — a “nostalgic” photo doesn’t have to be all that old. When the demolition crews show up, nostalgia can happen in 24 hours. Given all that, Gowanus Lounge will be reaching into the photo archive from time to time to pull out some “old” photos, “old” being defined as anything before the demolition or renovation or gentrification. This photo was shot in Dumbo on Water Street in November, 2001. The space in question is now Almondine, the bakery and sandwich spot.

montageikea1, originally uploaded by gothamistllc.

Here’s a fun panorama of the Todd Ship Yards site in Red Hook from Gothamist’s flickr photostream. This is a stitched panorama of the site from which all will someday be able to purchase low-priced Ikea furniture produced at factories in far-flung Third World locales to keep prices at a bare minimum.

Gowanus Lounge doesn’t know how we made it through the season without a Mozzarepa, grilled corn on the cob, a Lucy’s Sausage sandwich or some artery clogging deep fried Zeppole (especially the Zeppole), but street fair season is open. GL spent part of yesterday at the Court Street Summerfest fair. Court Street’s (sponsored by the Gowanus Canal Community Development Corp.) is one of the fairs that manages to retain a bit more local flavor with booths set up by local merchants. Whereas the vast majority of street fairs around the city are so generic in nature that they could be taking place in any neighborhood in the city. Reason: most of the major fairs are managed the same company, Mardi Gras Productions, with some minor players in the game as well. A couple of years ago, WNYC’s Brian Lehrer provoked some discussion of the generic nature of street fairs in a NY Times op-ed in which he called the fairs “another cog in the economy, posing as part of the neighborhood.”

greenpoint terminal warehouse, originally uploaded by insky.

When Gowanus Lounge was visiting the Greenpoint Terminal Market death scene yesterday, we noticed a photographer darting around behind the lines that prevent anyone from getting close to the rubble. The photog turned out to be the urban streetscape photographer who posts on flickr as insky. When GL talked to him, he showed thumbnails of a few of the shots he’d gotten from inside the complex. Insky’s hands were still a little unsteady from the thrill of getting in and shooting the photos. A collection of 84 (very depressing), but incredible shots can be found at 23hq.com. GL will also be posting his own shots of the death scene.

GL also notes the NY Times headline “Arson Was Found at 4 of Warehouse Owners Properties,” — four buildings owned by Greenpoint Terminal Market landlord Josh Guttman, according to the Times, have been felled by deliberately set fires since the 90s.

Interesting.

How often will you get the chance to tell people you learned to speak Russian on the Gowanus Canal?

Here’s your chance. The Empty Vessel Project is hosting Sunday afternoon Russian Classes on the deck of its World War II Navy rescue boat. The class runs from 5-6 and there is a donation that will go directly to the instructor. To join email pz@emptyvesselproject.org. A French class will start in June, also on the Empty Vessel boat on the South Brooklyn Seine. To parlez français sur la mer, email dylan@giganticartspace.com.

As if that–or this gorgeous shot made by f.trainer and posted on flickr– is not enough to get our Gowanus fluids flowing, an open work day at the boat is taking place on Sunday from 1 PM-6 PM. The Empty Vessel crew invites all to “borrow the kayak, hang out in the hammock, work on a wall and meet your fellow crew members.”

Sounds almost like a Sunday in the Hamptons, except for the “work on a wall” part.

If a Sunday night party on the Big G is your thing, a fundraiser for a charity bicycle ride from London to Paris to benefit MAG–a UK-based group that funds land mine removal–starts at five. There is a “sliding scale” donation of $5 to $15 that includes two drinks. (Look desperate for a drink and get in for less?)

The party, the organizers say, will go “until someone falls off the boat into the Gowanus Canal. Party goes later if we can pull them out.”

Eew.

Find the Empty Vessel Project boat at the foot of First Street on the north side of the Gowanus Canal (find it by finding Third and Bond or Carroll and Bond–failing that, you can see the boat from the Carroll Street Bridge or the Third Street Bridge).

Also, today, as noted in an earlier entry below, Proteus Gowanus is hosting a discussion today on the “changing currents” in Gowanus. It takes place at the super cool Proteus Gowanus space at 543 Union Street (the entrance is on Nevins) and starts at 3:30 PM. The roster includes historic preservationist Lisa Ackerman, biologist Amy Lesen, author Phillip Lopate, poet Vijay Seshadri, low income housing expert Benjamin Warnke, and settlement house fundraiser and enthusiast of 19^th Century housing reformer Alfred Tredway White, Sally Yarmolinsky.

The Williamsburgh Bank tower is being renovated into hyper-expensive luxury towers so exclusive that you can’t even get into the website without registering. And, Brooklyn’s tallest building will eventually lose some of its view to Bruce Ratner-Frank Gehry City. (Nice to know that Loss of View is one of the great democratic institutions of urban life, biting both the rich, the poor and the in between in the you know what.)

So, Sunday’s Fort Green Association House Tour could be your last chance to take in the view from an upper floor of the tower, unless you happen to be in an income bracket to buy an apartment at the new One Hanson Place. (Asking price for the penthouse: a mindboggling $2.5 million. Studio are only $350K, though.)

The tour will include an upper floor of the tower, the interior of several of the neighborhoods more interesting residences and a stop at the “Fort Greene Modern” exhibition at the Irondale Center.

Tickets are $20 in advance or $25 on the day of the tour, and are available online from the Fort Greene Association or can be purchased at Lafayette and Fulton Street near BAM on Sunday.

Looking for something to do on Saturday night beyond the usual bar/club/etc. thing? Gowanus Lounge nominates First Saturday at the Brooklyn Museum. Admission is free after 5 PM and the museum stays open until 11. There is a dance party in the huge Beaux Art Court on the Third Floor at 9 PM. And the William Wegman exhibition Funny/Strange, featuring cool dog photos and some incredible landscape murals, is still on display.

skybridge demolition, originally uploaded by moufle.

Gowanus Lounge’s Saturday morning went south in a hurry when he saw this widely linked photo of the wonderful skybridges over West Street at the Greenpont Terminal Market coming down. The photo is credited to Martina Salisbury, and when she took it, the three skybridges were down to one. No doubt, when GL stops by for a look at this awful erasure of Brooklyn’s industrial waterfront history with GL’ette, nothing will be there.

Except that sad, sad pile of smokey rubble.

There have been numerous reports since early April of Brooklyn’s Eiffel Tower–AKA the Parachute Jump in Coney Island–glowing in the dark late at night as work continues on a new lighting system. The lights, said to be a nice touch, are being installed as part of the ongoing multi-million overhaul of the structure.

One Coney Islander describes the lit up tower as “a surprising and spectular sight” that includes “bright red lights” around its circular and rows of lights down the sides. Some say the lights rimming the top make it look like a UFO. Others report there are also floodlights and (we can’t wait to see this) strobe lights. Last fall, a London-based architects Kevin Carmody, Andrew Groarke, Chris Hardie and Lewis Kinneir won a competition to create a “Parachute Pavilion” next to the iconic tower– a 7,800-square-foot, glass-enclosed structure with an exhibition space, a restaurant, a bar, and a souvenir shop.

The Parachute Jump was built for the 1939-40 World’s Fair in Flushing Meadow and moved to Coney Island as part of Steeplechase Park (which was torn down by Donald Trump’s father, who is said to have symbolically begun the 1964 demolition by throwing a rock through the glass of one of the world’s most beautiful examples of Beaux-arts architecture). The Parachute Jump ride actually ran until 1968. The 262-foot tall structure has dodged multiple demolition bullets. It was landmarked in 1977, de-landmarked the same year and re-landmarked in 1989.

The overall Coney Island redevelopment scene has been eerily quiet since the glitzy redevelopment plan was unveiled in September. Shopping center developer Thor Equities (which also owns the Revere Sugar site in Red Hook) has been buying up land and has proposed an indoor shopping center and “attractions.” Meanwhile, Coney is full of “for sale” and “for lease” signs, some of them on huge parcels of land. There is an ongoing study of (this is the frightening part) possible rezoning.

The other shoe will no doubt drop after the rezoning study is finished and hearings are held.

For now, Shoot the Freak, Cha Cha’s and other Coney Island attractions will live to see out another summer season.

It is rumored that Marty Markowitz will flip the switch for the official lighting of the Parachute Jump in June, maybe timed to coincide with the Friday Night Fireworks, which kick off this year on Friday, June 30.

With everything happening Sunday from the Five Boro Bike Tour to the Green-Wood Cemetery tour, GL believes Proteus Gowanus’ event examining the “Changing Currents Along the Gowanus Canal” is first among equals. The gallery and reading room, which is housed in a 1900 box factory, is hosting the event, dubbed Alfredy Tredway White Day.

The program will take place at the super cool Proteus Gowanus space at 543 Union Street (the entrance is on Nevins) and starts at 3:30 PM. (It will be held in the courtyard if the weather holds, Proteus Director Sasha Chavchavadze promises.) The roster includes historic preservationist Lisa Ackerman, biologist Amy Lesen, author Phillip Lopate, poet Vijay Seshadri, low income housing expert Benjamin Warnke, and settlement house fundraiser and enthusiast of 19^th Century housing reformer Alfred Tredway White, Sally Yarmolinsky.

The event will be capped off by the world premiere of “The Gowanus Canal Song” performed by composer, Ben Yarmolinsky.

Proteus Gowanus also promises a cash oyster and beer bar (“a nod to the succulent Gowanus oyster, Brooklyn’s first export, enjoyed by Dutch Settlers in the 17th century”), an interdisciplinary exhibit and sale of Gowanus related art, artifacts and books.

A $10 donation, which will go to Brooklyn Community Housing and Services, is requested. There have been many advance sign ups, so Ms. Chavchavadze advises making a reservation by emailing info@proteusgowanus.com or by calling (718) 243-1572.

(For those without fear of getting in a canoe on the Gowanus, Proteus is hosting an event on Sunday, May 14 that will include some time on the water courtesy of the Gowanus Dredgers. GL will post more about that opportunity next week.)

New York City’s 29^th annual Running of the Bikes, the Five Boro Bike Tour, takes place on Sunday. This photo was shot last Sunday in Williamsburg during a mini-tour or dress rehearsal for the real thing. The hundreds of bikers were accompanied by many NYPD cruisers and motorcycles. Unlike Critical Mass when Gowanus Lounge has watched New York’s Finest decked out in serious gear riding oddly silent scooters chasing down and handcuffing bicyclists, the police were escorting the pre-Five Boro Bike Tour riders in an authoritative way.

The 42-mile route starts in Lower Manhattan, continues up the island so that riders can spend a New York minute in the Bronx, runs back south through Manhattan to the 59^th Street Bridge, up through Long Island City and Astoria, and back down to the Pulaski Bridge, eventually winding its way to the BQE. Here’s the official verbiage tugs at GL’s heart strings: “Now, you can fly along up over the Gowanus Canal and along the South Brooklyn waterfront reaching its shoreline park in the Bay Ridge neighborhood.”

The route ends at the Staten Island Ferry terminal in Staten Island. There is also a photo contest for those who can ride and shoot at the same time and for those of us simply wishing to stand, watch and digitally immortalize the event.

colors in the sky, originally uploaded by Runs With Scissors.

Gowanus Lounge’s Friday Photo Moment comes courtesy of this magnificent capture by RunsWithScissors, posted in his excellent flickr photostream. As GL and Runs keep missing each other by moments, GL is envious that he was nowhere in the vicinity of Washington Square Park when Runs shot this one.

This is an incredible opportunity to snag a place to sleep in a cool urban space. Get your Z’s someplace with character. Our apartment has exactly the right combination of artsy ambiance, punk rock attitude and simple design so you can catch the gritty Burg vibe before the nayb turns into Battery Park. Local bands have done photo shoots here!

Sunny fails to remotely describe just how sunny your sleeping quarters will be. New awning offers extra coverage in case of unexpected precipitation event not predicted by Accuweather. Linens included! Steps from the L and just across the BQE from a cool organic supermarket. A stone’’s throw from Sputyen Duyvil and Black Betty and a short walk from everything on Grand Street.

420 friendly! Heavy drinkers and rock smokers cool too! We’re even down with cigarettes due to the superb state-of-the-art ventilation system! (Hey, everybody’s dealing with something.) As long as you’ve got the green, we’ve got the bed. Hourly rate–$5, Daily–$25, Weekly–$150. $500 takes it for the month!!!

(A note from Gowanus Lounge: While we couldn’’t resist, the fact is that someone is actually living here. A couple of weeks back we posted a shot of a sofa bed in this spot. Someone commented that somebody was living there. We thought it was a joke. When we strolled down Meeker Avenue, we found out that it was not. We are not trying to make light of people living on the street; we are only trying to poke fun at rents so high they might leave us all sleeping on the street someday.)

Our photo of the sign posted, stoop sale style, on Dumbo lamp posts advertising a $50K price cut on a 1BR at One Main, generated beaucoup response in our mailbox and at Curbed. Of particular interest are the comments of one writer who reports: “Went to 1 Main on Sunday to the the apt. Nice apt, but no views but of a large ‘airshaft’ type courtyard. The lobby was full of people handing out flyers for their open houses–at least six–both FSBO and brokers. What’s up at One Main?”

What, indeed?

And, while we’re at it, what’s up with rumors of the, umm, rat issue at 70 Washington and the Curbed tipster that (excellent writing) called them “wolverine-sized rat bastards”?

Dumbo: Live. Work. Play. Keep a chair handy on which to stand.

The item generated many responses, a number also claiming significant issues with Ratus norvegicus.

Gross.

Gowanus Lounge is accustomed to the scamper of little rodent paws, especially in spring. We are personally in awe of their ability to gnaw through trash cans. However, we prefer to encounter our furry friends outside our domicile. GL would expect a Rat Law of Direct Proportion to Sale Price that says the extermination effort should be directly proportional to square foot sale price. Which would mean, in the case of these rumored rodents, an in-house extermination program of such sophistication that future generations of exterminators will write case studies about it and conduct conferences about how those poor, big rat bastards in Dumbo never stood a chance.

Not that anyone needs Gowanus Lounge to tell them, but the horrendous Greenpoint Terminal Market fire was finally declared under control yesterday evening. GL is gratified with the extent to which every major media outlet in the city (and all the small ones too) are pursuing the arson-on-the-waterfront angle. Scandal and outrage are only investigated or uncovered in direct proportion to media attention.

Slime grows best in dark, damp places.

The Village Voice story about a fire in a Dumbo building in 2004 also owned by Greenpoint Terminal Market landlord Josh Guttman was widely cited and the depth of the movement to landmark the buildings became clear as representatives from neighborhood groups and the Municipal Arts Society were repeatedly interviewed. Today’s coverage is focusing on an aborted real estate deal for the property and some sort of juicy revenge motive or developer blood feud.

One of GL’s theories: That it was arson, but the firebugs had no idea the poor Greenpoint Terminal Market would go up in a near-firestorm and burn for days. Small fires in, say, Dumbo are easy to ignore and attract the attention of only, say, the Village Voice. A monstrous conflagration that reminds us all of 9-11, becomes one of the most photographed New York City fires of all time and a global story can prove problematic to the, um, fire starter and invisible hand.

The Greenpoint fire has generated hundreds of stories (389, to be exact, turned up early this morning in a news search for “Greenpoint Terminal Market”) around the world, including Xinhua in China, The Standard in Hong Kong (which ran an AP story and headlined it, “Arson Link to Brooklyn Blaze”) and The Australian.

If there is a silver lining to the terrible fate suffered by the Greenpoint Terminal Market–assuming it wasn’t an act of God or the homeless building a warming springtime bonfire next to mountainous bales of old clothing soaked with what the FDNY euphemistically calls “accelerant”–it is that it bares the ugly side of the Great Brooklyn Waterfront Landrush of the Early 21st Century for everyone from Boston and Boise to Berlin and Beijing to see.

Thousands of photos posted of the Greenpoint Terminal Market fire, particularly on flickr. But one of the more compelling guides, is the aerial view to the right, with notes and links to photos posted by plemeljr.

If you haven’t already been there, go to the page and click on the photo.

For more fire photos, visit the new flickr pool, Burn Down, Brooklyn.

If a nice looking website won’t do it, try DIY flyers on Dumbo lamp posts. This 1BR apartment in Dumbo, which the owners have been trying to sell directly, has been on the market now for some time, despite the $50K price cut from $899K to $849K (and the listing through brokers in the $900s). That it has been on the market now for nearly a half-year would seem to indicate that some hyper-expensive Dumbo real estate is moving slowly, even at a discounted $657 per square foot. GL does not recall previously seeing a flyer for an $850K apartment taped to a lamp post like a stoop sale sign, but he doesn’t read every flyer he passes. Really nice apartment, though.

the man who took the indoors out, originally uploaded by Shield.

The wonderful photographer Sonja Shield posts this gem in her flickr photostream, which Gowanus Lounge proudly uses to kick off the Outdoor Living Series. She calls this photo “the man who took the indoors out,” thanking writer and illustrator Arnold Lobel for the inspiration. Shield has an excellent Gowanus photo set that features some superb shots of GL’s favorite local body of water.

Gowanus Lounge has been busy combing the streets as well for examples of La Vita al Fresco, amazed at both the variety and quantity of such images that are available like this street sofa in Williamsburg we called “Open Air Living.”

The image at left, posted by intrepid photoblogger Alexis Robie on his excellent Lex’s Folly site, shows the progress that Ikea is making toward Ektorping Red Hook.

“So much of the Ship Yard off the Erie Basin has already been demolished and it looks like they have saved the most impressive buildings for last,” he writes. “I can already smell those Swedish meatballs…”

Gowanus Lounge’s thirst for images of demolition by wrecking ball and inferno over the last two days is now entirely quenched. If you haven’t already checked out Ikea’s nifty animation of the suburban big box future of this site, then spend a second at yesterday’s item. The Ikea website, which has been mostly down (by design?) seems down again (too much fun poked at their video?), but to get a glimpse of the vision of the Big Box Red Hook Future, check Curbed’s screen capture.

Chalk up one more piece of New York City’s industrial history gone with the death (murder?) of the Brooklyn Terminal Market in that huge conflagration in Greenpoint yesterday. The Terminal, which was established in 1890, was once Brooklyn’s second-largest industrial employer and home to the world’s largest rope factory. It was a potentially significant site to those who believe that structures representing the city’s industrial heritage are worth preserving, and that it might be valuable to save a building here and there so that children in, say, 2056 or 2096 might see evidence of time when people actually made things in New York City rather than trading bonds, doing graphic design and selling each other things.

Preservation, of course, is now a moot point.

Gowanus Lounge is clearly not alone in wondering how the Greenpoint Terminal Market became engulfed by New York City’s biggest fire since 1995, not counting September 11.

There are several interesting tidbits to ponder as the embers still glow and smoke still rises between the East River and West Street:

1. The story now is the FDNY investigation into the cause of the fire; Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta calls the blaze suspicious, citing the time it started, the rapidity with which it spread and the intensity with which it burned.

2. The owner of the sprawling property is developer Josh Guttman. A bit about Guttman’s ownership was reported by Gothamist yesterday, and late last night by several of NYC’s TV stations.

3. Guttman clearly has plans to redevelop the property. A preliminary rendering displayed by Curbed, showed five luxury apartment towers, and a plan that seems to incorporate some elements of the (previously) existing buildings. By last night, photos of the plan were on the 11 o’clock news.

4. In 2004, the Village Voice reported on a mysterious fire at a building in Dumbo owned by Guttman that burned in the midst of a zoning dispute. No one was charged, but the investigation was not closed. Again, the coincidence has been much noted. An isolated fire in Dumbo, it seems, is relegated to the Voice; an inferno of yesterday’s magnitude is national news.

5. Council Member David Yassky told WNYC’s Fred Mogul yesterday that the Terminal Market was a landmark of historic significance that was worth preserving. The Waterfront Preservation Alliance had been pushing for landmark status, as had neighborhood and other groups.

6. The process of developing the Greenpoint Terminal Market is now much, much simpler without any messy preservation fights, stop work orders during demolition brought on by environmental remediation-type issues, etc.

Gowanus Lounge is outraged at this latest loss of our history and will miss his Sunday morning photo strolls down West Street, and those hulking buildings with the sky bridges and the wooden sidewalks. (Flickr photoset is here.) GL doesn’t gamble, but if he did, he would wager a significant sum that the FDNY investigation turns up foul play. Which would make the murder of the Greenpoint Terminal Market one of those stories that says more than anyone cares to admit about the development frenzy that has engulfed Brooklyn in the early part of the 21st Century.