Just a reminder that that “Town Hall” meeting in Carroll Gardens with Council Member Bill de Blasio is coming up on Thursday. While the hot potato known as 360 Smith Street (the Robert Scarano-designed building that started a mini-neighborhood revolution back in May) wasn’t mentioned in the email sent out by the Council Member’s office, […]

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Carroll Gardeners will have a chance next week to have a chat with City Council Member Bill de Blasio about the future of their neighborhood. Resident groups have been hoping for a meeting for some time and had originally expected a session in July. According to an email that landed in our inbox, the meeting […]

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City Planning Director Amanda Burden has sent a letter to Carroll Gardens residents pushing for fast action on rezoning the neighborhood that says the department can’t commit to “a precise timeframe” for action. The timetable has previously been stated in terms of several years as many other neighborhoods are in line ahead of Carroll Gardens. […]

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Were there warnings before the roof collapse at that building at 90 First Place in Carroll Gardens on Sunday night? Brownstoner has details on the collapse and the Department of Buildings response, including a Stop Work Order. A look at the DOB website, finds 6 complaints lodged against the building since May, including ones for […]

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Granted that the surroundings at Smith and Ninth Street are not the most uplifting in Brooklyn. That having been said, however, the contribution this structure will make toward neighborhood beautification is of, uh, limited value. The building is the work of of Henry Radusky and the ubiquitous Bricolage Designs. It’s a four-story, 50-foot high building […]

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Today is as good a day as any to review the status of things surrounding that controversial development at 360 Smith Street in Carroll Gardens that would be built by developer Billy Stein and designed by architect Robert Scarano. Several members of the CORD organization, which grew out of the backlash against the new building, […]

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Last week, we reported on the rally/media event against architect Robert Scarano that City Council Member Bill de Blasio was organizing for today. At the time, Mr. de Blasio’s office was considering having it at the Department of Education’s office, as he is asking for the architect to lose his professional certification. Well, a change […]

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As it turns out–and this was almost a no-brainer–there was a significant police presence in Carroll Park yesterday afternoon and evening. One reader reports: On the way home from the F train I saw two uniform cops on Smith Street near the park, and two more on Court Street near Kane. I haven’t seen that […]

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The tales of “hooliganism” in and around Carroll Park continue to reverberate. This morning on his WABC radio talkshow, Curtis Sliwa said he would be sending Guardian Angels to patrol the park. One of the issues raised by parents that related the tale of teen “hooligans” in the park and by GL readers is a […]

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[Photo courtesy bondidwhat/flickr] So, our post yesterday about the “hooliganism” in Carroll Park reported by a neighborhood mom attracted a large number of comments. (33 as of early this morning, which is a significantly large reaction for GL.) And, we also came across another email of a “disturbing incident” in the park and another ho-hum […]

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GL has learned that City Council Member Bill de Blasio is planning another rally against architect Robert Scarano for Tuesday, July 17. How did we learn this? An email from Mr. de Blasio’s office is making the rounds among Carroll Gardens residents. It says in part: We are looking to do our next event calling […]

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That Carroll Gardens petition calling for a moratorium on buildings taller than 50 feet while rezoning is considered has gotten 1,500 signatures. The first petitions have been submitted to a long list of public officials, including the Mayor, Borough President and the MTA, which is involved in the project at 360 Smith Street that sparked […]

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Here’s an interesting story from Carroll Park between Smith and Court Streets that is making the rounds in the form of an email from a local mom about “an increasingly unruly element” making the park “unsafe for families” even during the day. It’s a very long post, and if you don’t have attention span for […]

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The rendering of the Heavy Metal Building in Carroll Gardens, aka 360 Smith Street, which is among the things that agitated neighbors and provoked a variety of reactions, is back online. Not long after there were bad reactions to the rendering (which had been posted for a long time), it was pulled from the Scarano […]

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You can put aside any thoughts you have that a new design for 360 Smith Street will temper neighborhood opposition. Some residents just saw a sketch shared by a “local politician” (we’re thinking we know who) and they are not placated. In fact, they seem rather agitated. Here’s an email we got about the new […]

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We first started seeing emails about a possible greenmarket in Carroll Gardens more than year ago. Well, the Carroll Gardens Greenmarket will finally be opening on July 8 and will run every Sunday from 8 AM-4 PM. It will be open through November and take place on Carroll Street between Smith and Court. The market, […]

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Several permits have been approved today for the controversial building at 360 Smith Street. The overall building plans have not been approved and they are not construction permits. Rather they are permits for the sort of thing that comes before construction: fences, sheds and the like. Three of the permits were approved today (6/28). The […]

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The little Carroll Gardens uprising, which started with neighborhood objections to that building slated to rise at 360 Smith Street, has become a more wide ranging push to rezone the neighborhood to prevent development that is out of character. Residents have created an online petition as we noted last week and, now, they have a […]

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Look for a new development to start rising soon at the corner of Third and Bond Streets in Carroll Gardens/Gowanus. The corner lot, which involves four different properties, recently sold to The Hudson Companies for $7.75 million. If the name sounds familiar, it’s because it is the same company that developed the J Condo in […]

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We saw several emails from Carroll Gardens residents last week suggesting that assistance on getting changes made to the controversial building at 360 Smith Street had been slow in coming from local elected officials. Council Member Bill de Blasio’s office has now distributed an email to residents asking that architect Robert Scarano loose his state […]

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No, this isn’t about design issues or about density concerning that controversial proposed building at 360 Smith Street in Carroll Gardens. Nope. It’s about signs allegedly being painted over by the NYPD and, then, quickly replaced by residents. If you’ve walked out of the Second Place exit of the Carroll Street station in recent week, […]

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For all the discussion in Carroll Gardens about the building that will be built at 360 Smith Street, and its design and height, the bigger issues according to community leaders are rezoning the neighborhood and enlarging its Historic District. The rub, however, is that neither are likely to happen soon. Residents have been told by […]

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If you want to get a strong reaction from a whole lot of people in Brooklyn, talk about F Train service and about how it can be improved. (Yes, the same holds true in most neighborhoods…and we don’t even want to get into the subject of the G Train or the L Train.) In any […]

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Don’t look for the Battle of 360 Smith Street–the fight about a building adjacent to the Second Place entrance of the Carroll Street subway stop that would be designed by Robert Scarano and built by developer Billy Stein–to quiet down any time soon. Plans for the building, and the strategy for fighting to change it, […]

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We noticed that the exterior of Po on Smith Street is finished and the sign is up, and were taking some photos when chef Lee McGrath came outside. “Does this mean you’re coming in?” she joked. “When you’re open,” we said. “We’re opening on Thursday and I expect to see you,” she said. There you […]

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