Gowanus Lounge: Serving Brooklyn

Entries from May 2007

Swim Meet: McCarren Pool Design Sessions in June

May 10th, 2007 · Comments Off on Swim Meet: McCarren Pool Design Sessions in June

With the Bloomberg Administration committed to putting $50 million into renovating McCarren Pool and returning it (or part of it) to use as a pool, some public meetings will be coming up in June to “discuss the conceptual design of the complex.” The sessions will be sponsored by the Park Department and Community Board 1. […]

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Tags: McCarren Pool · Williamsburg

Paperwork is In on the Bedford Avenue Quadriad Site

May 10th, 2007 · Comments Off on Paperwork is In on the Bedford Avenue Quadriad Site

It looks like work is going to start soon on part of the Quadriad development site in Williamsburg. You know the one: that vast, ugly empty lot between N. 3rd Street and N. 4th Street along Bedford Avenue. Quadriad has hatched a variety of, um, interesting plans for the parcel, the most riveting of which […]

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Tags: Quadriad · Williamsburg

Brooklyn Hearts U

May 10th, 2007 · Comments Off on Brooklyn Hearts U

It’s the thought that counts, even if the message is painted on the roof of a building in the grimly industrial end of Brooklyn between Morgan Avenue and Newtown Creek. Who put it up there? Who knows. We stumbled on it while looking at images of this part of Brooklyn on Google Maps. Suddenly, there […]

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Tags: Uncategorized

Brooklinks: Thursday Paperwork Solutions Edition

May 10th, 2007 · Comments Off on Brooklinks: Thursday Paperwork Solutions Edition

Brooklinks is a daily selection of Brooklyn-related information and images. Does New ESDC Head Have Some “Implicit Wariness” About Atlantic Yards? [AYR] ESDC Chair Updates City Projects [Metro] Brooklyn Blogfest is Today [OTBKB] Where to Take the Parents in Brooklyn: Green-Wood Cemetery! [Englishman in New York] Tennis Court in Dumbo? Watchtower’s Got One [Dumbo NYC] […]

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Tags: Brooklinks

What Will the Gowanus Artists Do?

May 10th, 2007 · 2 Comments

Among the many issues in the ongoing discussion about Gowanus rezoning and planning is how to preserve the neighborhood for the hundreds, if not thousands, of artists that are working there. One proposal, to make Gowanus an Artist’s District, or to at least provide some buildings where artists can work at low cost is the […]

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Tags: Gowanus · Urban Planning

Behold the Bushwick Code Violation Pox

May 10th, 2007 · Comments Off on Behold the Bushwick Code Violation Pox

What you’re looking at is a small piece of Bushwick. The maroon colored squares are buildings with 27 or more uncorrected housing code violations and more than five violations per unite. The pink ones have between 3.5 and 5 violations per unit. You can now see this kind of thing thanks to a housing code […]

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Tags: Bushwick

Meet the Coney Island Sleeper: Taconic Investment

May 9th, 2007 · 1 Comment

While Thor Equities and developer Joe Sitt have garnered most of the attention and generated most of the controversy with their $2 billion Coney Island redevelopment proposal, almost no space has been devoted to Taconic Investment Partners and its plans. In contrast to Mr. Sitt’s very public style–including the release of renderings and drawings to […]

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Tags: coney island

Community Input 101: Did ESDC Forget Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods?

May 9th, 2007 · Comments Off on Community Input 101: Did ESDC Forget Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods?

[Photo courtesy threecee/flickr] It’s a little thing, but we couldn’t help but note the irony dripping from this email from the Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods, which is a broad based coalition of Brooklyn organizations, to the Empire State Development Corporation. You might recall the ESDC announced on Monday it was finally appointing an ombudsman to […]

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Tags: Atlantic Yards

Park Slope to Try New, Improved News Boxes

May 9th, 2007 · Comments Off on Park Slope to Try New, Improved News Boxes

Call them newspaper condos. At some point soon, a “modular distribution box” will be coming to the intersection of Seventh Avenue and Ninth Street designed to address the issue of dozens of individual news boxes at the intersection. (There are, for instance, 14 boxes near Smiling Pizza at Seventh and 9th.) The “news box clutter” […]

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Tags: Park Slope · Streetscape

Notary District Update: The Bricolage Effect

May 9th, 2007 · 2 Comments

The building at the corner of Ninth Street and Smith Street, in what blogger 423 Smith amusingly dubbed “The Notary District,” has come up fast. Its the handwork of Henry Radusky and the ubiquitous Bricolage Designs, a four-story, 50-foot high building with three units. Mr. Radusky has earned the nickname “Too Tall” for his many […]

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Tags: Architecture · Gowanus

Con Ed (Sort of) Reimburses Park Slope Food Coop for Blackout

May 9th, 2007 · Comments Off on Con Ed (Sort of) Reimburses Park Slope Food Coop for Blackout

Remember last year’s lights out episode on Union Street in Park Slope? Probably not, given the mayhem in Astoria that followed. Nonetheless, the lights did go out on a block of Union Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenue in Park Slope for 16 hours on July 17 and 18. Among the victims was the Park […]

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Tags: Park Slope

Brooklinks: Wednesday Edition

May 9th, 2007 · Comments Off on Brooklinks: Wednesday Edition

Brooklinks is a daily selection of Brooklyn-related information and images. Jane Jacobs, Amanda Burden & Atlantic Yards [AYR] Ombusdmania Comes to Brooklyn [Daily Intel] Council Member Charles Barron to Run for Brooklyn Borough President [NYT] Ninth Street Bike Lane Dispute Continues [Streets Blog] Uses For Those G Train “Service Notice” Signs [newyorkshitty] Park Slope Dog […]

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Tags: Brooklinks

Does Brooklyn Brewery Covet Contaminated "Public Place" Site?

May 9th, 2007 · 3 Comments

The city may be considering the deeply contaminated Public Place site between Smith Street and the Gowanus Canal as a site for housing and the community may have other ideas about using the space as a park. The Brooklyn Brewery, however, may be eyeing the land as a new site for its operation. The brewery […]

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Tags: Environment · Gowanus

A Book Fit for Gowanus: Poop Culture

May 9th, 2007 · Comments Off on A Book Fit for Gowanus: Poop Culture

[Photo courtesy of poopreport/flickr] Being the Gowanus Lounge and having the Big G as one of the many Brooklyn locales that claims our attention, we’d be remiss if we didn’t not that last night was the release party at Galapagos for the new book, Poop Culture. We’d noticed the crapper above–which was created for the […]

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Tags: Environment · Gowanus Canal

Selling Williamsburg Condos with Banksy and Stroller Moms

May 8th, 2007 · 10 Comments

Behold Williamsburg, as per the Urban Green website. It’s hard to know what to make of using Banksy to sell $900K condos on N. 6th and of picturing Bedford Avenue full of stroller moms, but we do know we can have fun pointing it out. (This is not to be confused with the Toll Brothers’ […]

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Tags: Williamsburg

Really Modern at the Modern on N. 7th Street

May 8th, 2007 · 1 Comment

Williamsburg and Greenpoint are gifts that keep on giving in terms of routine construction violations. A neighborhood source called us over the weekend to note much commotion on N. 7th Street, so we did make sure to swing by in doing our appointed rounds. The trouble spots included 229 N. 7th where our source indicated […]

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Tags: Construction Issues · Williamsburg

Ratner & Gehry’s Coney Visit: Cheese Fries & Condos?

May 8th, 2007 · Comments Off on Ratner & Gehry’s Coney Visit: Cheese Fries & Condos?

You thought that a reported visit to Coney Island by Bruce Ratner and Frank Gehry to allegedly have a hot dog at Nathan’s would go unnoticed? No, it hasn’t. While it hasn’t caused a frenzy of speculation, it has led to some interesting thinking out loud. On the Coney Island Message Board, the poster known […]

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Tags: coney island

"Entirely Sure" About Living in Park Slope, Not Gowanus

May 8th, 2007 · 2 Comments

The following appeared on Vox in an item called Not Overheard in New York: “No, I don’t care for children or dogs. What? Yes, I’m entirely sure that I live in Park Slope, not Gowanus.” So, we repeat our rule of thumb, without getting into the entire bit about neighborhood boundaries: If there is a […]

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Tags: Gowanus · Park Slope

Tour the New Brooklyn Greenway Route

May 8th, 2007 · Comments Off on Tour the New Brooklyn Greenway Route

The fact that much of the property for the proposed Brooklyn Greenway has been acquired is a small miracle in and of itself, given the number of owners, agencies and entities involved. The good people at Streets Blog and Streets Films took a tour of the proposed route this weekend and have produced a vid. […]

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Tags: Brooklyn Greenway · Transportation

Greenpoint Exxon Oil Spill Show Rescheduled

May 8th, 2007 · 1 Comment

In case you thought you missed it, or in case you didn’t know about it, the WNET 13 New York Voices show on the nasty Exxon Oil Spill in Greenpoint was postponed from Friday May 4 until Friday May 11. It will air at 10PM. Here’s some of the promo copy: For over 50 years, […]

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Tags: Greenpoint Oil Spill

Brooklinks: Tuesday Defend the Canal Edition

May 8th, 2007 · Comments Off on Brooklinks: Tuesday Defend the Canal Edition

Brooklinks is a daily selection of Brooklyn-related information and images. Blogs: ESDC Plans Atlantic Yards Ombudsman, Other Oversight [AYR] Novel Idea: Safety Measures for Atlantic Yards [Gothamist] New Transportation Commissioner and Congestion Pricing [Streets Blog] Ocean Parkway Architecture [Kensington Brooklyn] Look Out for Things That Fall From Brownstones [Brownstoner] The 1898 Greenpoint Sausage Factory Lard […]

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Tags: Brooklinks

Gowanus Lounge Photo du Jour: Dominos on N. 6th Street

May 8th, 2007 · Comments Off on Gowanus Lounge Photo du Jour: Dominos on N. 6th Street

N. 6th Street, Williamsburg

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Tags: Photo du Jour · Williamsburg

The GL Spring Fling Series: Carroll Gardens Edition

May 8th, 2007 · Comments Off on The GL Spring Fling Series: Carroll Gardens Edition

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Tags: Uncategorized

Another Gusher at the Roebling Oil Field

May 7th, 2007 · 5 Comments

Sorry, readers, we really thought we were done with Roebling Oil Field photos–for the uninitiated, it’s our favorite development site, at N. 11th Street and Roebling in Williamsburg–given that the entire site is nearly covered in concrete. That was before a neighborhood source called us over the weekend and directed our attention to the space […]

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Tags: Environment · Roebling Oil Field · Williamsburg

Park It Here: More Bike Racks for Park Slope

May 7th, 2007 · 1 Comment

Look for up to 18 new bike racks to be coming to Park Slope, mainly on Seventh Avenue, Fifth Avenue, Union Street and 9th Street. The new racks will be the product of footwork done by the Park Slope Civic Council, which has worked to identify local businesses that will accept bike racks in front […]

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Tags: Park Slope · Transportation