This is a presentation about the big Toll Brothers development proposed for the shore of the Gowanus Canal that would require a special zoning change. The Powerpoint was created by architects Chris McVoy and John Hatheway. It’s a little hard to follow the written portions, but the visuals are quite fascinating for anyone interested in the development and what it’s visual impact would be on Gowanus and Carroll Gardens.

One of the hottest photography shows we’ve seen in Brooklyn in a while opens tomorrow, featuring pics by Jake Dobkin, Sam Horine, Luna Park and Street Stars whose work we really respect and truly admire. It’s at Factory Fresh on Flushing Avenue and is called “Quality of Life.” The show runs from October 10-31 and the opening reception is Friday night (Oct. 10) fromm 6-10PM. Factory Fresh is at 1053 Flushing (take the L to Morgan Avenue). Per the release:

Factory Fresh is proud to present the group exhibition Quality of Life, contemporary survey of urban landscape photography. Quality Of Life will examine marginalized, forgotten, and neglected spaces in New York City , as well as the graffiti, decay, residents and beauty found within.

All we can say is go, because these are all photogs who know how to capture urban landscapes. That’s one of Mr. Dobkin’s pics below.

[Photo courtesy of Citynoise]

Ride a bike and live in Prospect Heights? Well, Bicycle Station on 560 Vanderbilt Ave has been a frequent stop for bicycle enthusiasts and weekend riders on their way to Prospect Park. The shop is always swamped with young and old getting everything from a simple tire inflated to tune ups and major repairs. To the dismay of some locals Bicycle Station is now moving to 171 Park Ave at Adelphi. The new shop is too far for some residents and just right for others. Will the new location affect your ride?
—E.C. Stephens

The city’s best Halloween display–and it’s fair to say this is not an overstatement–is in process on Humboldt Street. Miss Heather has checked in on the progress and even in its incomplete state it is impressive as hell.–New York Shitty

This is the way the old asphalt field at J.J. Byrne Park is looking these days. It’s a big multi-million conversion into a turf field that is next to the Terrapin Playground, which we call the Boymelpark because it’s being oh-so-sloooooowly restored by developer Shaya Boymelgreen after it was used for the construction of the adjacent Novo Park Slope condo. No word on when that will be finished, but we understand that the unfinished spot has become popular with local skateboarders. In the meantime, the Parks Department expects its new field to be done by summer. There was a great article in the Daily News about the entire situation, including the endless Boymelpark delays last month. Hey, winter’s a superb time to reopen part of a park.

From our friends at Park Slope Parents comes the following email about “Helicopter Madness!!!” over Park Slope in the wee hours: “What is the deal with the helicopters at 5am in hoovering over park slope? It is INSANE!!! Anyone have information about this?” A crime, perhaps?

[Photo courtesy of Property Shark]

The photo above is 525-27 Court Street before construction work started on a new seven-story building with 18 units. It will come from Henry Radusky and Bricolage Design, a firm that is not on the Top Ten list of some people in South Brooklyn in terms of the aesthetics of its buildings. That is not the point here. We got an email from a special Court Street correspondent regarding some, uh, construction issues:

The construction site at 525-27 Court St. is causing major problems to the adjoining two buildings. Various stop work orders going on but the cracks continue to grow and one of the guys on the site informed me that the building next door had sunk by 3 inches in recent times but that it was the fault of the construction site beside it (they knocked the one story store beside it, dug down a bit, hammered a bit and then nothing so really don’t think that building is to blame). The same guy did describe the ground in that area as being “like jelly” – you dig it up and the rest starts to wobble such is the amount of water in it.

So far the project has drawn 18 complaints to the Department of Buildings, the most recent being: “CALLER REPORTING STRUCTURAL DAMAGE TO 519 COURT STREET DUE TO CONSTRUCTION WORK THAT IS BEING DONE AT LOCATION PROVIDED. CALLER STS THERE ARE INTERIOR AND EXTERIOR CRACKS THAT ARE EXPANDING.” A Stop Work Order was issued in September but has been lifted.

The incomparable Kevin Walsh takes a trip to Coffey Street in Red Hook on Forgotten New York this week and the results, as always, are fascinating. Even if one knows the territory, Mr. Walsh brings background history into the picture that’s certain to enlighten. He starts off by writing: Coffey Street in Red Hook and your webmaster have never been close associates, but have been, shall we say, acquaintances over the years. I first laid eyes on it sometime in the Super 70s…I didn’t see it again until my sporadic bicycle scouting missions into Red Hook in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when I still lived in Bay Ridge. In those days, much of Red Hook was junkyard dog territory, if not dead dog territory. Coffey Street, in fact, remained one of the only habitable streets in the area, to my lights at least.

As always, click over and read.

Well, the record’s been set for the most expensive Burg condo sale ever and one of Brooklyn’s Top Ten. The honor goes to the Edge, the waterfront development on Kent Avenue, which sold two penthouses for $5.145 million. Safe to assume the buyer didn’t work for Lehman Brothers.–Curbed

[Photo courtesy of vaduzuvunt/GL Flickr Pool]

The name given to this pic by the phtoographer, valued GL Flickr Pool contributor vaduzuvunt kind of speaks for itself. We have Mary. We have a cat. And we have no further questions.

Does this matter? Really, not at all. It’s the winning submission for the Reinventing Grand Army Plaza competition and it came from a team from Nantes, France. It’s called Canopy. And, it’s lovely. Lovely, however, only gets you so far, when the issue is getting something built. Until then, we’re left with a pretty picture of what could be. We’re not being snarky and cynical, just wishing that Grand Army Plaza could be reinvented for real.

Please don’t close your eyes and go to sleep. Both of these are important subjects and there are some interesting meetings and opportunities to learn coming up. We’ve long believed that one of the reasons that development in Brooklyn has been running wild (and is often hideously out of context) is that no one pays attention to the rezoning process. It is the entire cake. Everything else is icing. To that end, here’s some stuff coming up from the Fifth Avenue Committee and the Center for Urban Pedagogy presented by the South Brooklyn Accountable Development Initiative. One is “Demystifying Affordable Housing” on Wednesday, Oct. 15th and another is “Demystifying Zoning” on Monday October 20th. (Please, please don’t click away yet.) They will explain the basics of affordable housing and zoning and “we will explore how our communities can work for accountability and increased equity in the context of the proposed Gowanus rezoning.” The Affordable Housing Session is on Wednesday, Oct. 15, 6 – 9 pm at the Fifth Avenue Committee, which is at 621 DeGraw Street (btw. 3rd and 4th avenues). The zoning session is on Monday, Oct. 20, 6 – 9 pm at Mary Star of the Sea Senior Apts., which is at 41 1st Street (btw. Hoyt & Bond). The workshops are free but you must RSVP to (718) 237-2017, ext 148; dpowell@fifthave.org. We disagree with RSVP policies for such meetings, believing that anyone interested enough to attend and learn should be free to walk in the door, but we’ve blown enough hot air about the subject in the past and aren’t in the mood to go on and on about how wrong the policy is.

Weirdo-fabulous German electonic musician Barbara Morgenstern is playing at the new Galapagos Art Space in DUMBO tonight. She’s in the U.S. to promote her upcoming album, “BM.” Other weirdo-fab artist Imogen Heap has listed Barbara as one of her favorite experimental artists. Read what she has to say about Barbara here. Tickets here. We wouldn’t forget your free download, via RCRD LBL.
–Katie Lee Rush

Our far end of Court Street Carroll Gardens Special Correspondent is keeping the information flowing. We had previously reported via another important source on the far end of Court Street that Le Petite Cafe is growing. Our correspondent reports that “the expansion of Petite into George’s Pot Pourie” is moving along. George’s in not going away. It is simply moving down the street.

The creator of this vid writes: “My collaborative projects use landscapes as a site for meditation on urban living. Williamsburg Bridge, collaboration with composer Peter Capelle, is a portrait of the well-known bridges industrial strength and beauty.” It is.

[Photo courtesy of Brit in Brooklyn]

Our dear friend and GL Contributor Adrian Kinloch of Brit in Brooklyn is supplying us (again) with some of his magnificent photos that we’ll be featuring in coming weeks. This is today’s selection, a look at Dumbo and beyond from the Manhattan side of the Manhattan Bridge. Like all of Mr. Kinloch’s work, it rocks.

Here’s an interesting and nicely done account of Coney Island as related by a writer from the Times-Union in Jacksonville, Florida. We came across thanks to Rapid T. Rabitt on the Coney Island Message Board:

Coney Island’s appeal is largely in the eye – and nose – of the beholder. You can smell the fried delights of the boardwalk long before you see its planks. And as I settled into a green plastic patio chair and watched the people, shore and dark water beyond, it stirred my patriotism. Yesterday’s hot spot or not, it’s good to get your hands dirty in these highly-textured pockets of Americana. Hot dog country. World famous Coney Island.

And so I watched the quirky parade of authentic characters march past our table while I fed on pizza and Heineken. Directly across the boardwalk a man showed off his supersized bubble wand, inducing childhood wonder into even the thuggiest teen or grumpiest old man. Must. Burst. Giant. Bubble.

“The local retired broads favor the monochromatic look

[Photo courtesy of ethersong/GL Flickr Pool]

The photographer calls this shot taken outside the alway picturesque entrance to the Smith-9th Street subway station, “Reunion Tour,” which we think works quite nicely, thank you. Maybe they were waiting for the Ikea shuttle?

This is something you don’t hear very often, but there’s a sense that the city’s rezoning proposal for Flatbush “gets it right.” During a recent meeting the Department of City Planning “received accolades from board members and area residents for reworking the plan to take into account neighborhood concerns.” Here’s the low down from on the neighborhood’s closest watchers: “The free-standing homes responsible for the physical character of this area of Flatbush will be protected. All of Flatbush will be protected against unlimited height residential development. There are new opportunities for commercial development, and incentives for affordable housing. It’s hard to find something to critique in this draft.” Two words of react from us that they don’t teach in urban planning courses: holy crap.–Flatbush Gardener

[Click to expand]

We came across a fun online tool that might be of interest to anyone harboring an inner statistics lover. It’s called ZIPskinny and allows you to plug in your zip code and then look at all its key demographic data and compare it other zip codes of one’s choice. Just for laughs, we took a look at 11215, which is basically Park Slope and 11211, which is essentially Williamsburg. The results are fascinating. For instance, more people in 11211 (70.6%) have lived at their current address for more than five years versus people in 11215 (55%). The median income in 11215 is $53,313 and is $23,567 in 11211. There are a lot of other comparisons. It’s a fun time killer when you want to compare vital stats by zip code.

Check out 11211 by clicking here.

Given the renderings of this building designed by Robert Scarano (we personally wouldn’t place it on the list of his best), we’re not sure we’re anxious to see the black shroud of netting come off of this building on Fourth Avenue so that the real thing can emerge. Yet, work on this structure, which will be ideally located for KFC lovers and which we last check out on Curbed in late August, is coming along. The building at 110 Fourth Avenue will have 49 units and is tentatively called Park Slope Court. The interesting thing, apart from the Scaranotecture, is that it comes from the same developer behind Hotel Le Bleu. Interiors by Andres Escobar. Chicken by the Colonel.

The astounding rendering of this baby is ahead.

[Photo courtesy of captaindisko/flickr]

On Monday, we posted about a new effort in Carroll Gardens to try to find ways to calm traffic and stop accidents. It was spurred by an accident that could have hurt or killed people late last week. A GL reader left a comment that directed us to this photo of the accident at Smith and Sackett Streets. The description says: “That call box prevented the VW from traveling further down the sidewalk. Witnesses said the Black car was flying along, (including through a stop sign) skid marks of the VW seemed to prove this. Apparently the Black SUV was headed down the street the camera is facing. The VW was moving down Smith st, to Frame right.”

There’s more from the Community Board meeting about it too.

The Kids RX at Seventh Avenue and Second Street in Park Slope is coming along nicely. The space is being transformed from the former Second St. Cafe, which went belly up earlier this year, into a pharmacy and place to buy things for all of the many little ones in the Slope. It would appear we’re only weeks out from the grand opening at this point, if that.

There is much pro-Barack Obama stuff to be found in Williamsburg right now, including graffiti. (Most of it, though, is street art, t-shirts, stickers and the like.) We found this politically-charged tag on the construction fence surrounding our favorite Mystery Toxic Lot at 95 Bedford Avenue where, in reality, Karl Fischer will ultimately change everything.

We have no problem saying that we know nothing about this, but here it is: “Are there going to be any celebrations of the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson discovering Coney Island? Next year is supposed to be Coney Island’s Quadricentennial ( if you do not count the Indians, or the 30 year interval between when the Half Moon landed on Coney Island and when Gravesend was finally settled.)” Uh, we’d settle for keeping Astroland open.–Coney Island Message Board