What’s to be done when a property owner on Lefferts Avenue rips out a historic stoop, “which may end up lessening the block’s historic appeal and aesthetic”?–Across the Park

Williamsburg’s Giant Fart Cloud Building has broken its last wind and is, in fact, being broken up as we speak. The Old Fart, which was a cabbage processing plant in its most recent iteration, is at 15 Roebling, and was so named by blogger Bad Advice because of its unique fragrance. Bad Advice is currently concerned that taking down Ye Olde Fart Cloud will damage her own building and demolition workers seem to have gotten some laughs from the notion that her building might escape damage. It is also across the street from the Roebling Oil Field and Building, which will make its excavation particularly exciting for us.

FC 80 DeKalb Associates wants you to know they’re building a 34-story building and that it will be finished on March 31, 2009. Bruce Ratner (who is not identified on the sign) thanks you for your patience.–Brownstoner & Brit in Brooklyn

There’s nothing like a good postal rant (or two or three or four or five or six) to brighten the day. Today, we’ve got two, found on the Park Slope Forum at the always interesting brooklynian.com. Rant Number One:

Everyone knows there’s ‘issues’ with our mail carriers in the slope. I’ve had it all: Lost checks. Mail tossed on floor. Netflix DVD’s viewed and taped back together then placed in our box!?! Wrong mail. No mail. Mail for delivery never picked up. Lost packages.

So I emailed the USPS and received a call back today. The supervisor says my usual postal carrier is on ‘limited’ work, something about not allowed to work more than a certain amount of hours. So they have random carriers covering for him. He tells me that recently I’ve had the same mail carrier for 3 days now and he’s talked to the person and I shouldn’t have any problems anymore.

So basically my block never has a constant mail carrier. So far I’ve got some guy regularly for the past 3 days. He’ll probably not drop the mail on the floor today, but what about next week when another guy is sent to cover this block? Is this happening on other blocks? No full time, regular assignment postal carriers?

Give it a while and the same problem will happen again. It’s been going on for as long as I’ve rented here.

Rant Number Two:

WTF is up with Brooklyn mail? I’ve never lived anywhere like this. I’ve had stuff perfectly addressed to me sent back with “NO SUCH ADDRESS” stamps, only to be put in a new envelope TO THE EXACT SAME ADDRESS and arrive. Eventually. I’ve had zero mail delivery for days, and then stuffed full one day. I can’t even count the number of things that have just “disappeared” that I found out about, much less the ones I didn’t. Seriously, WTF. I have everything important that I can sent to my work now.

Oh, and there’s also someone in Bed-Stuy who says that his Time Out NY always disappears. Excellent, excellent stuff.

There are a few restaurant/cafe openings to report in Williamsburg:

1). Blackbird Parlour, which has been in the making at Bedford Avenue and N. 6th Street (197 Bedford) for some time, is now open (above). The menu is mostly coffee, tea and dessert, with about a dozen sandwiches and other dishes. It was surprisingly uncrowded on Saturday night, but looked pretty packed yesterday. It is the third storefront to change at this intersection in the last two months. The bodega on the southwest corner closed, and is currently in the process of being remade into a new shop. Also, the Toll Brothers North8 office on the southeast corner closed and was replaced by Uva.

2). We’re not sure that Williamsburg needs another Japanese restaurant, but Mizu is now open on the west side of Bedford Ave. (192 Bedford) between N. 6th Street and N. 7th (below).

3). Alia, which has been in the making for a long, long time has opened its doors at 95 N. 6th Street between Wythe and Berry (bottom). The menu is Mediterranean and there will reportedly be belly dancing, although all we saw was a huge TV with sports on Saturday night.

This is the Ghost Bicycle set up in honor of 26-year-old Craig Murphey at the intersection of Union Avenue and Ten Eyck Street where he died. If the slideshow below (click on the right to advance) annoys you, you can go directly to our flickr set here. You can find a full photoset of the Memorial Ride that took place Saturday night from photographer Elizabeth Weinberg here and photos of last night’s Candlelight Vigil should be appearing as well.

First comes the rat removal. Then, comes the demolition or construction work. So, does the appearance of a crap load of rat poison trays at 360 Smith Street indicate that work is about to start?–Pardon Me for Asking

There will be a Presentation by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the New York City Department of Environmental Protection on the Gowanus Canal Ecological Restoration Study. This is an ongoing collaborative partnership between the Federal and City governments to investigate and propose improvements to the water quality and habitat of the Gowanus Canal.

Here’s the time and place detail:

Monday, October 22, 6:30 PM
PS 32 Auditorium
317 Hoyt Street
Between Union and President Streets

The discussion should be of great interest to anyone concerned about environmental issues with the Big G.

• Not Blaming the Victim in a Bicycle Tragedy [I’m Seeing Green]
• A Different Kind of Greenpoint Monitor Museum [New York Shitty]
• So, Would They Be the “Brooklyn Nets” [AYR]
• Death of a Park Slope Volvo Named Goldie [OTBKB]
• Bay Ridge Blogger Get Together [Luna Park Gazzete]
• Blogger Meeting in Bay Ridge Symbolized Bay Ridge 2.0 [Right in Bay Ridge]
• Bay Ridge Irish Pub to Go Mexican [Bay Ridge Rover]
• So, What Should Go on the Kensington T-Shirt? [Kensington Brooklyn]
• Trick or Treat with Thor and Astella Development in Coney Island [Kinetic Carnival]
• Street Fair Season Still Plodding Along, with Downtown Court St. Fair [McBrooklyn]
• Something About Ladders [Brooklynometry]

There’s nothing like a bunch of zombies riding their bikes from the Lower East Side, across the Manhattan Bridge to Fort Greene. The photos prove the point.–Brit in Brooklyn

Sunset Park is one of the many Brooklyn neighborhoods where an eventual rezoning is in play. To that end, several community meetings are coming up. They’re sponsored by Community Board 7, Council Member Sara Gonzalez and the Pratt Institute for Community Development. The first meeting is tonight (10/22) at 6:30PM. Here are details on the upcoming meetings from an email we received:

Monday, October 22, 2007: 6:30 p.m. at the Community Board offices at 4201 4th Avenue (entrance on 43rd Street off 4th Avenue). This meeting will be a workshop, conducted by Brad Lander and Paula Crespo of the Pratt Center for Community Development. It will basically be a class in “Rezoning 101” to give residents a basic foundation in what is involved in rezoning.

Saturday, October 27, 2007: 1:00 p.m. at the Sunset Park Recreation Center at 7th Avenue and 43rd Street ( inside Sunset Park). This meeting will provide an opportunity for residents and community groups to present their views on the rezoning of Sunset Park.

Wednesday, November 7, 2007: 6:30 p.m. Our Lady of Perpertual Help Auditorium, 5906 6th Avenue. This meeting will provide an another opportunity for residents and community groups to present their views on the rezoning of Sunset Park.

It will be interesting to see how the Sunset Park discussion develops.

Remember “What’s the Hook?”, the summer photo project? As it turns out, nearly 900 photos–863 to be exact– were submitted to the flickr pool. Naturally, a whole bunch of them are very, very good.–What’s the Hook flickr Group

We checked out the Red Hook Harvest Festival at the Red Hook Community Farm yesterday. It was a great, fun event and an excellent excuse to wander around a small neighborhood farm…in Brookyn. We’ll have a full photo set tomorrow.

There was a ride and placement of ghostbike last night at the intersection of Union Avenue and Ten Eyck Street where 26-year-old Craig Murphey was killed in an accident on Thursday. There is a Candlelight Memorial Tonight. From the Williamsboard:

This evening, Sunday Oct 21st we will meet at 9pm in Macri Park [on Union Avenue between Conseleyea and Metropolitan]. I picked up some candles last night and I have about 72, I hope I run out and need more. If you bring your own candle, please try to get one that isn’t the glass kind so we don’t have to worry about it breaking/going out. I can’t tell you how much I hope for a large turnout. If there was one thing Craig loved, it was his friends. Being around a great number of them would make him so happy. Please tell everyone you know who knew Craig or even those who didn’t to join us.

So we will meet at 9 and distribute candles and walk up to Ten Eyck and Union together.

Sad.

Usually our Sunday Craigslist Brooklyn Missed Connections are just that: the funny, sad or weird tales of ships passing in the long urban night of things that will never be. Today’s selection, though, isn’t a Missed Connection so much as social commentary about one of our favorite topics, the Park Slope Mommy. Here we go:

Upset mommy in Park Slope

To the girl that threw her drink in my face because she didn’t like what I had to say about children being in bars; Sometimes it’s not about you.

You elected to listen to our conversation. You obviously took offense and I understand why you might think I was talking about you. You were ease dropping on a day-long discussion. If you don’t like what you’re hearing, tell the person when you hear it, not four hours later by throwing a drink in their face. But then again, since when does anyone agree with everything people say on the street? The reason I kept looking over at your table was because I said F*ck a few times and was worried your kid might hear me. But I couldn’t control myself and I shouldn’t have to.

Our conversation was about these things: an article I read and how children like to be at home and behave the best when there; how many kids are out for brunch these days when our generation was lucky to get McDonalds once a week; how you never hear parents say ‘you’re crusin’ for a brusin’ anymore and how one should be able to talk freely at a bar without offending children and their parents. Maybe if we run into each other in the neighborhood again we can discuss these things. Perhaps we can have drinks in our hands and not in our faces. We’ll act like adults. We’ll be in a bar where adults mingle. And my mouth can be a filthy as I want.

We told you it was about sociology this week.

Ever wonder about huge city blocks like the ones that would happen at Atlantic Yards after streets are “de-mapped”? Look at superblocks around the world and adjectives other than “super” might come to mind.–Built Environment Blog

Here is a sampling of some of the comments left by GL readers during the last week:

Last Weekend for the Red Hook Vendors. “And what’s wrong with that? Get some furniture, get some great food. Park @ Ikea, walk to the ballfields. Move on. Stop whining.” [Anonymous]

Last Weekend for the Red Hook Vendors. “Actually, the problem is that Mayor Mike and his henchman Daniel Doctoroff love putting giant IKEAS and malls into areas where there were thriving ethnic markets. Witness the Bronx Terminal Market, witness the “coincidental” pressure from the Parks Department and the Health Department in Red Hook on the vendors there, right around the time IKEA is coming. Believe me, I know, there is no such animal as the Health Department deciding after 17 years that there is suddenly a “problem” with the vendors at the ballfields. Doesn’t happen. They’ve been ordered to make those people go away.” [RedHook]

Peeing Dog Leads to Confrontation in Park Slope. “I have a street tree outside my house. I also have a 9 month old daughter whose stroller has to be wheeled through dog pee and crap all the time because people like you think that the street outside my house is a toilet. Please be a responsible pet owner and neighbour.” [Anonymous]

City Inaction in Action: The Curious Case of 143 Huron. “Although I totally understand and feel for those who are being abused in Greenpoint. I have to say that the “Wild West” of Construction is not limited to one place. It is constantly evolving and moving…What this City needs is a good class action law suit against it by all the tax payers who have been abused to facilitate all of this illegal work.”