The Wednesday Brooklyn Photo Moment
Originally uploaded by rsguskind.

Gowanus Lounge takes a break from the weight of development and raging waterfront infernos by offering this gem: Man With Stuffed Cat on Head Visiting Brooklyn Botanical Garden.

GL presents it without further comment since this photo is worth many words–even if we can’t quite come up with them.

DSCN0029.JPG
Originally uploaded by subtexture.

Will the Greenpoint Terminal Market fire be some kind of turning point in the fight to slow the Manhattanization of Brooklyn–especially if the cause of the fire turns out to be arson? Could it be modern-day Brooklyn’s equivalent of the demolition of the old Penn Station?

Gowanus Lounge is probably just overwrought, but stranger things have happened.

Check out brand new the Burn Down Brooklyn photo pool on Flickr. The founder is organizing a photo walk and “candlelight vigil” at the former Terminal Market site on May 11, followed by drinks to kill the pain.

Originally uploaded by e-liz.

Exceptionally talented photographer and Gowanus Photo Pool contributor e-liz has posted a wonderful set of photos of a barbecue and musical event on Sunday at the Empty Vessel Project. The Empty Vessel Project is working to restore an ex-US Navy rescue boat of World War II vintage. It is docked at the foot of First Street on the Gowanus.

If you’re not cut out for a Gowanus Dredgers canoe trip on the Gowanus and can’t get a ride in an Urban Divers row boat, the Empty Vessel Project is an excellent way to actually be on the water of the Gowanus without risking being in the water of the Gowanus. (Gowanus Swim Team, anyone?) To help, the Empty Vessel has new hours for spring and summer: Saturday 2-8, Sunday 12-6 and Monday 4-10. And, the group hosts events on its decks–groups, rehearsals, language classes, acoustic band practices–free of charge.

Volunteers are welcome to help with the renovation and the website has a list of needed items to help.

The Gowanus Photo Pool is 52 members strong and has nearly 400 photos, including a bunch by yours truly. It was founded by Dope on the Slope, the person behind one of my favorite local blogs called–what else?–Dope on the Slope.

It is becoming hard to take a walk in certain parts of Brooklyn and Queens without stumbling very real across evidence of The Invasion of the Toll Brothers, builders of suburban homes for the affluent. Not that we didn’t know it was happening, as previously reported in Curbed, Gothamist, the New York Times and blogged by Times reporter Lisa Chamberlain in Polis.

First, came the demolition work in Long Island City where Toll is putting up 118 units at 48th Avenue and Fifth Streets. Next, was 110 Third, a 20+ story high rise in the East Village with apartments starting at $850K.

Gowanus Lounge froze in his tracks on Kent Avenue and North Eighth Street in the Burg, however, when he looked up to find evidence that work is now underway on the first Brooklyn beach head established by the Brothers Toll. The development, North8, is a modest six-story project with one, two and three-bedroom condos and duplex townhomes. Asking prices start at a half million.

(We have seen the future and it does not include hipsters, except, possibly, trust fund ones.)

The website for North8 says, “Williamsburg. All grown up. Shouldn’t your apartment be too?” The townhouses, which will be on North Eighth, will have “landscaped backyards.” Nice suburban touch, that. By the Toll Brothers’ disturbing standards, North8 is a nice and sensitive development that does not give the finger to its neighbors.

North8 will be across Kent from parkland, so it won’t suffer the fate of some, like the building across from the Toll Brothers’ three big towers at 164 Kent, called Palmer’s Dock after the original name for the area. (This part of Kent was the Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal, with dozens of rail spurs going to a half dozen piers.)

Palmer’s Dock is entering the next development life as luxury housing (with 117 of 900 units reserved for affordable housing). So, is the huge adjacent parcel, which is coming back with three towers called “The Edge.”

What makes GL truly nervous, however, is knowledge that the Brothers Toll firm is also in possession of significant land in Gowanus, between the canal and Bond Street, and Second Street and Carroll Street.

About two hundred units are planned (backyards?), roughly across the canal from Leviev Boymelgreen’s Gowanus Village.

GL is definitely starting to think that West Slope is the way to go, namewise, especially with the Brothers from Toll and the urban version of their suburban vision on their way (once they get the zoning changed from industrial to residential).

Thanks to Curbed for ruining Gowanus Lounge’s day by bringing the hideous Red Hook Ikea animation to our attenion. Truth be told, we were already in a dark place because of the Greenpoint Terminal Market conflagration. GL had been planning to write something today about how Red Hook was enjoying national publicity with a widely printed Washington Post story linked to the new cruise terminal and hoped to pen a few words about the Sitt development on the Revere Sugar site, and how buyers of expensive Sitt apartments there would look out upon Ikea’s parking lot on one side and listen to New York Water Taxi boats revving their engines on the other.

Well, now, thanks to Ikea’s newly revived website for the project, we know exactly what residents would gaze upon. And, it ain’t pretty, except in an Elizabeth or Paramus, New Jersey, kind of way.

The Ikea animation goes to lengths to show the waterfront access behind the blue-and-yellow big box store and seems to show that Ikea will be preserving some of the equipment that was part of the Todd Shipyards operation. (A little post-industrial chic like Long Island City’s gantries.)

Meanwhile, Gary Lee of the Washington Post waxed rhapsodic about Red Hook’s charms and conjured a disturbing vision of the future. “Its raw, Bohemian edge is reminiscent of Manhattan’s Meatpacking District or Brooklyn’s Dumbo neighborhood, before white-tablecloth restaurants and trendy clubs arrived,” Lee wrote. “Squint and it’s not hard to picture Van Brunt Street, Red Hook’s main boulevard, lined with souvenir shops and wine bars.”

As a realist, Gowanus Lounge understands that the Red Hook of roaming packs of wild dogs and ship hands afraid to leave their boats was a little too post-industrially decayed even for his taste. Still, Red Hook V.2.0–the Meat Packing District meets Old Town Alexandria meets Paramus shopping mall–leaves GL wondering if wild dogs maybe aren’t such a bad thing.

Shouldn’t we be hearing about revived plans for a Red Hook trolley soon? Surely, Mr. Sitt and others realize that heavy duty development is going to be hard to pull off in a neighborhood served only by the B61 bus?

Incredible photos have been posted this morning of our favorite spot in Greenpoint, the Greenpoint Terminal Market, being destroyed by a spectacular blaze. The photo to the right is part of the stream posted by finstr. Also an incredible set posted by teinmao. A lot of others pop up under the greenpoint tag.

Where are all the bands and models going to go for photo shoots now?

Looks like the fire started in a building that has noticably deteriorated over the last year. Gowanus Lounge had photographed the complex again two weeks ago, noticing that the roof had collapsed since he was last there. (If you were unfamiliar with the neighborhood and thought a stroll down West Street was creepy before, just wait until you see it post-fire.)

So much for converting the buildings to condos. The fire would seem to, um, clear the way for parkland or for highrises in whose way the Terminal Market would have stood if it had remained standing.

As the day goes on, it gets curiouser and curiouser. See Curbed for New York City real estate development chronicler extraordinare Lockhart Steele’s report on the Greenpoint District Terminal highrise plan that includes 2.6 million square feet of space, and originally called for preservation of some of the existing structures. (Do you think the developer is happy or sad today?)

We await the FDNY’s determination of the cause of the blaze.

Future Site of Gowanus Village, From Third Avenue, originally uploaded by rsguskind.

Gowanus Village has inched a step closer to reality with the purchase of the Jewish Press Building on Third Avenue by developer Shaya Boymelgreen. The property on which the structure sits would allow the residential project on the banks of Gowanus between Carroll Street and Second Street to stretch from Third Avenue to the canal itself. The sale was reported by Ariella Cohen in the Brooklyn Paper, who writes that this and other projects would transform Gowanus “into a village of housing, stores, art galleries and waterfront esplanades.”

While rumors of the area’s wholesale transformation may be somewhat premature, projects planned by Boymelgreen and other developers will eventually fill the post-industrial wasteland between Park Slope and Carroll Gardens with new housing and retail. And, no doubt, give us another neighborhood named by real estate marketers.

Cohen suggests “Park Slope River.” “G-Slope” has also been tossed about.

How about Carroll Slope? Park Gardens? Gowanus Gardens? BeCaPa? (Between Carroll Gardens and Park Slope.) G.O.P.A.? (Gowanus Park Slope.)

The Gowanus Village project could weigh in with more than 400 units and 375,000 square feet of space in four-, six- and ten-story buildings. It will be designed by Mexican architect Enrique Norten and is planned as a “green-certified” project. (Gowanus Lounge aspires to live in one of those apartments with a “waterfront” vista.)

News of the project first surfaced in 2004; the Leviev Boymelgreen website cites a 2008 completion date. Leviev Boymelgreen has major development juice with dozens of projects to its name. Boymelgreen is developing the Empire Stores (shopping mall conversion in Dumbo) and is the behind the (rather massive) apartment tower on Fourth Avenue between Third and Fourth streets and the (Acorn-protested) Beacon Tower in Dumbo.

Gowanus Village still has to negotiate a long approval process, and opposition from neighborhood groups and those concerned that this and other developments will force out artists that have made Gowanus their base. A bigger problem than artists and activists could turn out to be the environmentally-challenged condition of our favorite Brooklyn neighborhood (witness the oozing hole in the ground that has stalled progress on the Whole Foods at Third Avenue and Third Street).

Stay tuned.

One of the more soothing events of the now concluded weekend was the PS 132 Kite Flying festival in McCarren Park in Williamsburg. The event comfortably mixed hipsters and longtime residents with families. While Gowanus Lounge did not Go Fly a Kite, he did enjoy the laid back vibe, especially after becoming molto agitato while taking in the development rush on Kent Avenue.

The Unisphere, Flushing Meadow Park
Originally uploaded by rsguskind.

Maybe the third time will be the charm.

Local promoters of a 2012 or 2015 World’s Fair in New York City say they are putting together a proposal for one in Willets Point, adjacent to Flushing Meadow Park. The park (home of the Unisphere, Queens Museum, Hall of Science, former Port Authority Transportation Building, buried Time Capsule and sadly rotting Phillip Johnson-designed New York State Pavillion) served as home to the 1939-40 and 1964-65 World’s Fairs. The Flushing Meadows-Corona Park World’s Fair Association held a press gathering on Sunday that generated coverage today via Gothamist, which Gowanus Lounge has long read faithfully and from which he learns much, and in the Daily News and AM New York.

Will an Olympics-spurned City Hall go for the lure of a major international expo, despite the fact they are quaint anachronisms from the 20th century that tend to require humongous public subisidies and run up monstrous deficits?

Maybe. (It’s a big, flashy project if Daniel Doctoroff and Company opt not to pursue NYC 2016). Maybe not. (Obstacles include other plans for Willets Point and huge opposition to claiming parkland for a new fair.)

A little recovered memory is in order: The Robert Moses-run 64-65 affair (which took place outside the framework of the Bureau of International Expositions, the BIE, which “governs” such expos) attracted 51.6 million people and lost nearly $100 million in 2006 dollars. It required emergency public funding to avoid bankruptcy in 1965 and lawsuits continued into the early 1970s. The last U.S. fair in New Orleans in 1984 went into bankruptcy and was such a disaster that there hasn’t been another American one in more than 20 years.

Even if New York finds a way to finance a $3 billion to $5 billion undertaking, there would be competition. The same letter from the BIE that supporters cited as “welcoming” an Expo bid also noted that because, among other things, the U.S. withdrew from the BIE in 2001, its chances of being granted an Expo are “almost nil.” Last time GL check, “nil” meant really, really bad.

Expomuseum.com, which tracks World’s Fair-related things, reports possible bids for “small” single-theme 2012 expos from Antwerp, Belgium and Yeosu, South Korea. There are two serious 2015 bids from Toronto and from Atlanta, and possible interest from Izmir, Turkey, Moscow, San Francisco and Torino.

Zaragoza, Spain, is holding an Expo in 2008 with the them of “Water and Sustainable Development.” Shanghai will host a $3 billion expo in 2010 with the theme “Better City, Better Life,” and is projecting 70 million visitors. (Among the Shanghai expenses: Nearly $602 million for relocating people from the site.)

Gowanus Lounge loves a World’s Fair and often visits the relics in Flushing Meadow, but wonders if there is a better public use for several billion dollars. On the other hand, the architecture would be very, very cool.

Calder Sculpture at City Hall, originally uploaded by rsguskind.

Gowanus Lounge can’t seem to turn around without tripping over super-sizing developer Forest City Ratner. This Alexander Calder sculpture is one of several that have been installed around City Hall and in City Hall Park. The sculptures are sponsored by none other than Forest City Ratner. A developer’s got to do what a developer’s got to do to remain the good graces of the public, AKA, fulfill his civic duty.

Now, about all that effluent that Mr. Ratner’s Atlantic Yards project threatens to dump into the long-suffering Gowanus Canal…Public art could help soothe us. How about commissioning a large sculpture of a commode at Atlantic and Flatbush? Maybe Frank Gehry could run a design competition?

Gowanus Lounge went to the Brooklyn Botanical Garden’s 25th Annual Cherry Blossom Festival this weekend and stood shoulder to shoulder with tens of thousands of nature-deprived New Yorkers and manic photogs. GL now knows why this was his first time attending the actual festival. If you are observing a Day Without Immigrants by taking the day off, head to the BBG and take in the sight of these non-native trees after you link hands or protest. The Kanzan trees on the esplanade are in full bloom right now, and probably won’t last beyond the week. Fleeting pretty things, those blossoms.

The Chicago City Council voted unanimously yesterday to ban the sale of foie gras as reported in an amusingly written story in the Sun Times and related by A Full Belly. If the “City of broad shoulders! Hog butcher to the world!” can do it, can the Five Boroughs be far behind?

This is significant in that New York State is one of two states in the U.S. with farms that feed ducks and geese to produce foie gras and New York City is one of the nation’s centers of foie gras consumption. There are two farms in New York and one in California. Animal rights activists really dislike foie gras because ducks and geese are force fed (with very nasty looking long plastic tubes) to enlarge their livers. Bills that would ban the industry have been introduced and died in Albany. (The anti-foie gras line is available at nofoiegras.org, farmsanctuary.org and others.)

While only a handful of retaurants in Chicago, the city of stockyards and steak houses, dish out foie gras, New York City boasts one of the longest lists of foie gras serving restaurants in the U.S. There are at least 29 restaurants in New York offering foie gras, according to stopforcefeeding.com, which apparently keeps track. The list includes some of the best known restaurants in town, including 5 Ninth, 71 Clinton Fresh Food, Alain Ducasse and Per Se.

Midtown (no surprise) leads the list, with 7 foie gras serving restaurants. Tribeca, the Upper West Side and the Upper East Side are tied for second place with three each. Brooklyn comes in third, with two restaurants–Moutarde on Fifth Avenue in Park Slope, which offers Sauteed Duck Foie Gras with Xeres Vinegar & Prune Compote, and River Cafe on Water Street, which serves Terrine of French Foie Gras with Port and ginger poached plum, cracked pepper brittle and brioche melba toast. (Does Marty Markowitz know?)

Two centers of duck and goose torment emerge, with multiple pins on a google map (foie gras and New York City map mashup, anyone?): West 58th Street and, yes, the Time-Warner Center on Columbus Circle.

Mayor Richard M. Daley’s reaction to the Chicago ordinance, which he opposed: “We have children getting killed by gang leaders and dope dealers. We have real issues here in this city. And we’re dealing with foie gras?” Hizzoner also said he didn’t want City Council members reaching into his fish tank for sushi. “That would really bother us,” the Mayor told the Sun Times.

No word on where Mike and Christine Quinn stand on the issue, or whether Chicago’s Aldermen will next move to ban veal.

Cafe Steinhof on Seventh Avenue in Park Slope take note: We know all about your Wiener Schnitzel.

This carefully scrawled artistic angst in the Burg is written near the landmarked-delandmarked-relandmarked-delandmarked Austin Nichols and Co. Warehouse building designed by Cass Gilbert at 184 Kent Avenue. You know, the one that is about to be converted to condos. “I’m just a guy with paint on my coat,” the graffito writer writes.

With construction starting on the thousands of waterfront and other luxury condos units already zoned and approved, the only people splattered with paint at some point in the not too distant future could be the ones painting walls in the million dollar condos.

A few minutes after I shot this photo, as I was taking pictures of 184 Kent, a Hasidic man going into the building saw me and asked, in a friendly way, “So, you like the area?”

It was the third time in less than a year that different Hasidic men in Williamsburg had asked me the exact same question when they saw me shooting pictures. (Although one also asked if I shot portraits because he needed some done and another seemed concerned that I might be looking for evidence of construction permit violations.) Is this the Hasidic Williamsburg equivalent of, “So, you like the weather?” Or, having hit the real estate jackpot, are they trying to reassure themselves that people really are paying a million dollars for apartments in Williamsburg?

Spring in Williamsburg, originally uploaded by rsguskind.

This is the tagged up Secret Project Robot van parked next to a tagged up industrial building under a blossoming tree on Metropolitan between Kent and River St. Curbed featured this photo from my flickr stream today as part of its ongoing “Spring” series, and Lockhart Steele called it “Dejeuner sur L’herbe.” If you are into poster art and enjoy the way indie-produced posters make the Brooklyn streetscape more interesting, there are three days left to check out Secret Project Robot’s Brooklyn Poster Show at Monster Island (210 Kent). It closes Sunday, April 30. Open from 2-8 PM on Friday and Saturday. Noon-5 PM on Sunday. All those blossoms are pretty much done soon too, the weekend Cherry Blossom Festival at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden notwithstanding.

Brooklyn’s Amsterdam, originally uploaded by rsguskind.

Welcome to the Gownanus Lounge (Beta). Gowanus Lounge is the culmination of months of rumination, if not planning. It will seek to cover, through words and pictures, whatever moves me, with a particular focus on New York City as it is today and is becoming. The focus will be Brooklyn–and particularly Gowanus, Red Hook, Carroll Gardens, Park Slope, Prospect Heights, Williamsburg and Dumbo–with frequent excursions into Queens, especially Long Island City. Manhattan, too.

Up front: While I am a realist about what cities need in order to survive and thrive, I am not a fan of what is happening in our communities, and particularly of the looming Manhattanization of Brooklyn and of the ongoing Theme Parkization of Manhattan. The blog side of Gowanus Lounge will be joined, some months down the road, by a literary magazine intended to feature the work, especially, of Brooklyn-based writers, and stories that feature a strong sense of place.

At least, that is the plan.

For now, Gowanus Lounge is in its beta version. I put it up with the intention of getting feedback from my girlfriend and friends, but it is together enough for those who click a link or stumble upon it. Hopefully, you’ll be curious enough to come back.

Although I’ve got plenty of mainstream journalism experience under my belt, I’ve edged into blogging, learning from my some of my favorite blogs and sites: Curbed, Gothamist, City Rag, Daily Slope and others. Ironically, my photography and my postings on flickr, which were turning into an ersatz photoblog, nudged me into finally taking the plunge.

For many years, I worked at National Journal in Washington, writing serious policy and political stories before life took me in a different direction. I learned at the side of Neal R. Peirce, the founder of the Citistates Group and one of the great urban writers of our time. Neal is the smartest and most thoughtful person writing about planning and development issues that I know.

These days, I run a small community newspaper, and write short fiction which appears monthly at Cherrybleeds and creative non-fiction drawn from a previous chapter of my life, also monthly at Underground Voices. I also take a lot of pictures. If I were to spend time with a writing psychiatrist, he or she would likely tell me that I have several personalities and that they are not well integrated.

I don’t take myself as seriously as all this might make it sound.

bob, originally uploaded by designsponge.

This photo of the Cherry Bomb tattoo and piercing shop in Greenpoint was selected by design*sponge as the second place winner in its Bklyn Designs photo contest. Cool round rolling stool from Small Factory Design to come. Thanks to Grace Bonney for picking this photo, which is really not a lot more than a capture of the streetscape slightly post-processed to notch up the colors.

Gigantic, Huge, Sunny, Airy and Spacious are just a few of the words to describe this furnished Williamsburg studio. Decorated with cutting-edge street art, unbelievably high ceiling, ground floor (no climbing!), exposed brick, FULL of light, unlimited living space, almost like living in the country! Excellent, hip and artsy ambience. Right in the thick of things. Just two blocks west of the Lorimer L and immediately adjacent to the cozy, dry BQE overpass. Immediate occupancy. Aggressive, fearless cats welcome (purr). Short- or long-term lease. Under $1,000!!!!!

More Photographers, Reports and Bloggers than Robots, originally uploaded by rsguskind.

The Brooklyn Robot Parade attracted more photographers (self, for instance), writers (self, again) and bloggers (yup, as of now) than robots. A shame because judging by the two human robots and one dog (with minimal robot costume), a big turnout would have been visually interesting. In any case, a good opportunity to photograph people photographing and interviewing “robots.”