Here, friends, is a small selection of musical opportunities from today through the weekend:

Thursday 11/6/08
Union Pool: The Heavy, Kenan Bell, Madison (Indie) $10, 8:00pm

Friday 11/7/08
BAM Café: Cordera (Latin Folk-Rock) Free!!, 9:00pm

Saturday 11/8/08
Southpaw: Deer Tick, Luke Temple, Those Darlings (Indie) $10, 9:00pm

Sunday 11/9/08
Union Hall: Tearing The Veil of Maya with Eugene Mirman and Friends (Not music, but well worth the price of admission) $7, 8:00pm
—Dan Bennis

We’ve been writing about this Robert Scarano building at 365 Union Avenue in Williamsburg so long that it seems like we started covering it in a past life. (Last week, on Curbed, we named it the Prince of Darkness Building.) That’s how long it’s taken to build. We did recently capture a shot of workers applying some of the black exterior to the thing on a Sunday, so it’s safe to say we’ve now seen a Scarano getting skinned.

This is the building that is starting to rise at 137 Fifth Avenue, which is the corner of Fifth Ave. & St. John’s Place. It is one of the rare new buildings going up in that part of the North Slope. Back in June, Brownstoner reported that it would be a five-story building with four units.

You know the city is planning to make some progress on its Gowanus rezoning proposal if City Planning Commission Chair Amanda Burden is going to be coming to the neighborhood for a “forum” with residents. Here’s the lowdown:

An informational update by Commissioner Burden on the department’s land use activities related to the Gowanus Canal corridor. Developed from January through July 2007, the Department of City Planning created a land use framework for the Gowanus Canal corridor. The framework is a set of guiding principles relating to issues including use, density, bulk, and waterfront access, intended to provide standards for formulating and evaluating proposals for future land use changes. Building upon the developed framework, in May 2008 the Department of City Planning shared its draft rezoning proposal for 25 blocks along the Gowanus Canal with Brooklyn Community Board 6 and the community-at-large. Commissioner Amanda Burden will meet with the community to give an informational update on the status of the department’s land use activities and address any concerns.

The date is Monday, November 17 at 6:30 at PS 32, which is located at 317 Hoyt Street.

· Ratner Plans More AY Office Space [AY Report]
· Bloomberg Cancels Property Tax Rebate [NYT]
· City Pays $50K Over Prosp. Park Station NYPD Sodomy Suit [NYDN]
· Police Defend Election Night Arrests in Burg [City Room]
· Finger Maiming in Gpoint, Then and Now [NYS]
· Month-long Public Art Project on Myrtle [Clinton Hill Blog]
· Doctoroff Reflects [TRE]
· Remnants of Green Church Are Stolen [BR Rover]
· Smith St. Gets Greasy: Yum! [PMFA]

The new Beacons Closet at the corner of Warren Street, at 92 Fifth Avenue, is almost ready. Work is almost done in the interior and, yesterday, the awning was going up outside. The old location is already closed. Any day now.

We were wondering when the Commerce Bank on Park Slope’s Fifth Avenue had become a TD North bank. We could have sworn it was still Commerce a couple of day earlier. Now we know, this weekend. “Commerce Bank disappeared on Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights Saturday, as it did at 575 other locations. Green signs bearing the unfamiliar TD brand were quickly installed, and thank goodness, the clock was returned to standard time. It had been stuck in military time for weeks, and we were getting pretty tired of translating 1800 hours into 6 o’clock.” So much changing in the banking business. What an exciting time to be alive!!!–McBrooklyn

Yet another video of the NYPD getting ready to hurt and intimidate people at the Barack Obama celebration on Bedford Avenue on Tuesday night. It, uh, does not make us happy. The person who made the video writes: “This video was taken right before NYPD started breaking up the Obama Celebration going on in Bedford avenue in Williamsburg Brooklyn. For the most part the celebration was quite peaceful until NYPD started breaking it up due to the blocking of the streets.

GL Analysis
We’ve watched cops beat and brutalize people and turn controlled situations into dangerous and threatening messes by their arrogant abuse of power. We’ve watched them deliberately hurt totally innocent people. We’ve taken some hits ourselves while trying to report and take photos. It pisses us off. One wonders were we better off under Il Duce Mayor Giuliani or Mayor Putin Mayor Bloomberg. Screw you, NYPD for trying to hurt people on Bedford Avenue on Tuesday night. You shame us all.

So, last week it was the Fulton Mall in Downtown Brooklyn. This week the Christmas decorations went up on Fifth Avenue in Park Slope. Come on, people, Halloween is election. Today is Election Day. What’s next but the Consumer Orgy known as Christmas?

Yeah, the pic is a couple of years old but it just got dropped into our GL Flickr Pool and it’s a pretty old truck sitting there in Greenpoint.

We’ve seen many rodent poison feeding stations in our days of searching out construction site in North Brooklyn, but we have to say we’ve never seen one with a warning not to sit on it. Until now.–New York Shitty

Forgotten New York checks out one of the more obscure streets in Carroll Gardens this week (obscure to those who don’t know the neighborhood). Here’s a sample:

New York City and United States history can be gleaned from the most mundane, unexceptional places. There’s a tiny street on the Cobble Hill-Red Hook border that exists in two sections, having been ravaged by the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and submerged under the Brooklyn Battery toll plaza, that remembers the family that produced the very first European child born in the colony that would become New York state. Rapelye Street runs from Henry to Hicks and from Hicks again (with an interruption by the BQE) west to Hamilton.

Head over to read.

In this month’s Real Deal, Gabby Warshawer, whose coverage of Brooklyn’s Fourth Avenue is unparalleled, takes a look at gritty strip that is now dotted with 12-story condos and some restaurants. Are things going well or not? Well…”development sites on the strip that are actually selling are fetching far less now than they were just a few years ago. At the same time, critics and real estate blogs have assailed the architecture of some of the avenue’s new buildings and lambasted the Department of City Planning for not requiring commercial and retail use on the ground level of the new high-rises. Critics say that move did nothing to make the traffic-heavy avenue more pedestrian friendly.” One guy remains bullish on Fourth Ave.: Dominic Tonacchio, who is behind Hotel Le Bleu and other developments. “It’s still going to be a better Fourth Avenue than it was,” he said. “I still think it’s going to be the next Park Avenue.”–The Real Deal

[Photo courtesy of itsnotthatfar/flickr]

Here’s a shot of one of the catwalks at the old Domino Plant on the Williamsburg Waterfront, which is slated, of course, to become the “New Domino.”

We found this sign on Fifth Avenue in Park Slope. If “Plaid Stamps” have any meaning to you, we hate to break it to you, but you are not a twentysomething and they will know it without even looking at you.

We always consider the beginning of ice skating season at the Wollman Rink in Prospect Park the official end of summer. So, it’s our duty to announce that summer ends on November 19 with the (weather dependent) beginning of the skate season. Per the official word from the park:

It’s time again to enjoy the fresh air experience of skating outdoors in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. The Park’s Wollman Rink opens for the season on Wednesday, November 19 at 8:30 a.m. Opening date is weather permitting – the public can call (718) 287-6431 to confirm. Admission is:
• Adults: $5
• Children (14 and under) and Seniors: $3
Skate Rental: $6.50

The Prospect Park website will have info on special free admission days, theme music events and promotions.

Click through for info on rink hours, including for the holidays.

More on Curbed.

The Center for the Urban Environment (CUE) found Gnarly Vines owner Brian Robinson through the Sustainable Business Network NYC (SBNYC), a network of NYC business owners dedicated to building a vibrant, diverse and responsible local living economy in New York City. For more information on SBNYC check out www.sbnyc.org. Gnarly Vines is located at 350 Myrtle Avenue, between Adelphi and Carlton. For more information, visit their website at www.gnarlyvines.com.

Q: Where are you from originally?

A: I grew up in New Rochelle, NY

Q: What lead you to the wine industry?

A: I caught the wine bug as a high school exchange student in France when I was 15 years old. As part of the cultural exchange, the family I stayed with taught me how to read a label and some basic differences between wines of different regions. As a 15 year old, that definitely piqued my interest! When I went back to France for a semester in college, I really became passionate about wine. I started spending more time in wine shops talking with the ‘cavistes’ and learning about wine. During the semester, I did an internship at an industrial gas distribution facility in Nanterre, a gritty suburb of Paris, where the truck drivers reveled in teaching the young American about wine. They mostly drank Côtes-du-Rhône, for which I have maintained a strong affection, since I consider it to be the quintessential French workingman’s wine – honest and unpretentious.

Q: What went into choosing the location of Gnarly Vines?

A: I live in Fort Greene and wanted to open in my neighborhood both because I hate commuting, I like to reduce my carbon footprint and most importantly, I wanted to invest in my neighborhood – both economically and socially.

The interview continues if you click here.

Yes, the Baluchi’s that has been coming to Park Slope for, like, two years now is actually making progress. It will be located on Fifth Avenue near Second Street and by the looking of things will open any month now. It’s one of the longest running restaurant construction sagas we’ve ever seen, but they’re really in there working.

Ever been out to Canarsie? Yeah, it’s way the hell out there. And it’s one of those neighborhoods that people don’t really go out to just spend the day as a local tourist. It’s changed immensely over the years, with many saying not for the better with its fast pace growth in crime over the years. Originally taken from the Canarsee Indians (yay settlers), there was a time when it was a flourishing fishing village (til the neighboring Manhattan island’s pollution got the better of the waters), turned Italian, joined Jewish, then turned mostly black Caribbean and West Indies community. But, we’re not here to give you a history lesson, today. We can, however, point you in the direction of a great publication talking all about Canarsie. Brian Merlis and Lee A. Rosenzweig have put together their next great tell-all called Brooklyn’s Last Village: Canarsie on Jamaica Bay.

We came across this article about Merlis and Rosenzweig’s research, assistance, and description of what their book entails. And, of course, nothing pertaining to Brooklyn would matter without the works of Thomas Wolfe from Only the Dead Know Brooklyn:

“Wit dat, he pulls it out of his pocket, an’ so help me, but he’s got it—he’s telling duh troot—a big map of the whole f—— place with all duh different pahts mahked out. You know—Canarsie am’ East Noo Yawk an’ Flatbush, Bensonhoist, Sout’ Brooklyn, duh Heights, Bay Ridge, Greenpernt—duh whole goddam layout, he’s got it right deh on duh map.”

Oh, those crazy kids are still jumping off the Pier in Coney Island. We watched it a number of times last year.

From our dear friends at Park Slope Parents comes an email about what to do when the little one tosses the cell phone in toilet:

My daughter threw my motorola cell phone into the toilet, and it was at least a minute before we noticed and saved it. My husband took the battery out and set the thing out to dry for a few days. When we reassembled and tried to charge it or turn in on, the screen flashed an eerie blank white/blue. Is there any remedy or hope for my little slider phone that I love so much? Which also contains all my phone numbers, improvidently not saved on the SIM card?Please advise, Meanwhile, I am surfing for a cheap no-nonsense unlocked phone.

I guess what we really want to know is was there any Number One or Number Two there when the Motorola went into the drink? It could give new meaning to having shitty cell phone service.

[Photo for GL Courtesy of Deborah Matlack]

Only one word comes to mind about this photo of our beloved Prospect Park in fall: Wow.

Screw Brooklinks today. Here are some of the many YouTube vids already uploaded today of celebrations of Barack Obama’s victory last night. Enjoy!!!!

[Photo courtesy of apsies/flickr]

We were wrong about Barack Obama. So wrong. And, we’ve never been happier in our increasingly long life to have been so incorrect about something so important. Last night, we saw history and a moment of true transformation. One would have had to have had a heart of cold steel not to be moved by Mr. Obama’s victory speech.

Back in the winter, we sat at a noodle bar on the Lower East Side bloviating at length about how New Yorkers just didn’t understand. America is not New York and certainly not Park Slope and there was no way this Obama guy could win in November. Some very nice people who own Prospect Perk in Prospect Heights were among those who listened to our moronic and (thank you, God) misinformed rant. We said Obama was too young and inexperienced. We held forth on how America was too racist a country to elect an African-American man as President. We said Hillary Clinton HAD to be the nominee because she was the only Democrat that could win in November and defeating the Republicans and ending the GOP scourge was priority number one.

Last night, we cried like a baby when Barack Obama was declared the winner of the election. We are not embarrassed to admit this nor to declare that we so badly misjudged the outcome of this race. We are grateful to have been alive to see one of the greatest events in American history take place. Truly, there are only one or two such events that one is privileged to see one’s lifetime. We were in Berlin in November 9 and 10, 1989 when Communism began to die. We stood on the Wall with tears in our eyes and joy in our hearts. Now, we’ve seen Barack Obama–a man who has the capacity to be one of the greatest transformational leaders in American history if he lives up to his potential for leadership–be elected President. We believe we have now filled our lifetime quota and are profoundly grateful to have made it this far. Awful events in history are always easy to witness–calamities, natural disasters, wars, slaughters like 9/11, the rise to power of monsters like Hitler, the victories of evil men like Richard Nixon and on and on and on.

We do not believe that America has suddenly overcome centuries of racism, but we do believe that for one brief shining moment, many of us were able to ignore the tone of a person’s skin and vote for the man who has the capacity to provide the leadership and vision to guide us through a very challenging time. We remember walking down Connecticut Avenue in Washington after Ronald Reagan had won the election in 1980 and feeling like the world had ended. As many days as we have left on this earth, we will remember walking down Third Avenue in Gowanus last night giddy with the feeling that America has a chance for a genuinely new beginning.

May the Gods of everyeone’s understanding be with you Mr. Obama. And, thank you God, for proving us to be such misguided idiots in not having an early faith in Mr. Obama’s God-given talent for leadership. This is one of the only times in life we’re thrilled to be so damned wrong.

We were idiots and we’re so glad we were!