[Photo courtesy of happyjayme/GL Flickr Pool]

It’s that darned Gowanus light, better than Venice itself, but not quite as good as Amsterdam.

As our future President Barack Obama, nears his inauguration on Tuesday (1/20), he has asked us all to give a hand in doing our own part in bettering our country. Martin Luther King Day of Service is on the eve of Obama’s Inauguration (1/19), and there are a variety of ways that you can take part. Everything from Food Drives at Trader Joe’s (Court St & Atlantic Ave) to clothing donation at Housing Works (122 Montague Street) to a whole slew of New York City Coalition Against Hunger Serv-a-Thons. To find out more information about what is going on in your area, sign up and learn more about the Day of Service, visit USA Service.
—Vaduzuvunt

We know there’s a story behind this sign on Hoyt Street in Boerum Hill, we just don’t know what it is and feel pretty certain that it’s not an official Department of Transportation product. But it sure is funny.

This is actually a pretty old vid that kind of makes fun of a certain group in Bensonhurst. Since we are part Italian-American (and it is the part of our heritage we identify with most strongly), we don’t have a problem posting it, but we will warn those who might be sensitive to ethnic stereotyping, even if it’s done as comedy, to skip it.

[Click to enlarge]

A couple of weeks ago we noted on Curbed that a prominent Gowanus building at Bond and Union Street that used to be well known for its graffiti and street art was back on the market. The big unused warehouse (which was the scene of a counterfeit baseball merchandise bust during the Guiliani Adminisrtration) had on the market at one time for $12 million as a development site. Last year, it became the Ayyun Center for Jewish Enrichment, got a new paint job outside which obliterated the iconic street art and chandeliers and drapes inside. The sign is gone, but there’s no indication in city records yet that the property has been sold, so perhaps it’s been leased. It’s on land that’s part of the coming Gowanus rezone which would allow some fairly sizeable residential buildings on the site.

Here’s a new website about Coney Island called Gotta Love Coney Island Dot Com. It’s a pretty new endeavor being produced by someone who posts frequently on the Coney Island Message Board. We welcome it because if ever there was a case of “the more the merrier,” Coney Island is it in terms of needing websites to document what is going on, particularly because mainstream media is doing such a miserable job of noting key issues.

Lets face it, our lives in New York revolve around transportation. However it’s rare that we take a moment and really see the landscapes and scenery that are the foundation of our travels. Be it a ride to work or a trip to Brighton Beach, sometimes we forget that it’s all about the journey getting there. So, this week, we’re highlighting interesting Brooklyn subway videos from different viewpoints. Enjoy the rides.
—E.C. Stephens

Here’s a ride on the B Train from Newkirk Avenue to Kings Highway pretty much from the conductor’s point of view. Fun stuff.

[Photo for GL courtesy of Gary Mirabelle]

Here’s a little taste of Windsor Terrace on a wet evening thanks to GL contributor Gary Mirabelle.

This is the relatively new Kiku Sushi Asian Fusion lounge place that has opened at 170 Smith Street. We have no clue what it’s like as a restaurant, nor is that why we’re writing about it. What’s interesting is that the building was in such wretched shape that it started to collapse (well some parts of it fell off) on March 21, 2007 (the photo below was taking on March 20). Curbed captured the action. And, now, here it is, entirely renovated with a new building on the ground floor. By Broolyn standards, that was fast.

· Top Brooklyn Weekly Sales [Brownstoner]
· Now There’s a Bond Number 9 Brooklyn Fragrance [NYP]
· Post Re-Reports Times Story About Atlantic Yards [NYP]
· Actually, Nets Will Play Pre-Season Games at Nassau Coliseum [AYR]
· Patois on Smith St. Already Gutted [Lost City]
· Celebrate Inauguration on DeKalb [Clinton Hill Blog]
· Sacred Heart on Wyckoff [McBrooklyn]
· Die Meat Die [New York Shitty]

There’s nothing new about the Carroll Street Bridge being tagged up or vandalized, and we realize that we feature plenty of images of what people would consider vandalism, but there’s something that bothers us about seeing our favorite little bridge in New York City being messed up in stupid ways. For instance, was it really necessary to tag up the gate that way in the photo above or to climb up and deface the cool signs across the top of the bridge. We’re especially pissed at the self-promoting jerks behind the Dirty Waters stickers (actually, words much stronger than “jerks” come to mind) which have shown up everywhere.

We respect our friends at the Municipal Art Society and their ImagineConey effort. They have been one of the most vocal groups insisting that the city come up with a interim plan to keep Coney Island viable. Yet, we’re also concerned that as latecomers to the debate–which has been ongoing now for nearly three years–some of what they are bringing to the table is more of a distraction than a help. Last week, we wrote several angry pieces about Coney Island. We compared what is going on right now to a rape and even after careful consideration still don’t feel that it was an overstatement. We said that it was nice to talk about “vision,” but that Charles Manson was running around the house butchering people. Polite discussions about vision have to be put on hold until the deranged person threatening the community is subdued and removed as a threat. Tonight, MAS will hold a meeting in Coney Island. It will present some ideas that members of the public have submitted. (Curbed featured some of them yesterday and we understand more will be forthcoming this morning.) The meeting will discuss the rest of the process that will involve completion of a design charrette.

As we have said before, everything but discussion about how to (a). acquire land held by Joe Sitt and Horace Bullard that constitutes the heart of Coney’s (reduced) amusement district and (b). how ensure that there will be rides in the former Astroland and on the prematurely demolished Sitt parcel of land on Stillwell Avenue and (c). how to keep local businesses in place without having them pay rents that may be increased by nearly criminal rates in bad econmic times is background noise.

The issue right now is keeping Coney Island from degenerating into a huge–pardon our French–shit hole this summer that people cease to visit or that becomes dangerous. Don’t misunderstand what we’re saying–Coney is already a trash heap of vacant land, rundown buildings and school bus parking lots along the boardwalk. The issue right now isn’t to think about how to build a Tivoli Gardens with the world’s greatest roller coaster. That will come in time. The issue is how to think small and how to ensure that New York City’s most wonderfully diverse gathering place remains a safe and fun place for people to visit.

We are frankly tired of people wanting to brief us about ULURP process and talk about the details of zoning. We are weary of outrageous renderings of things that will never be built. We are sick of people talking as though we’re not in the middle of the most serious economic crisis since the Great Depression and that financing for anything major will be available any time soon. Yes, zoning is critical to Coney Island. Vision is important and can be uplifting. But to focus on those at the expense of the present is to make a mistake of tragic proportions. The end result will be that the people trying to “save” Coney Island–we mean those trying to redevelop it–will be the ones that end up killing it and making it an even worse place through the 2020s.

Mayor Bloomberg, Amanda Burden, Purnima Kapur, Lynn Kelly and all the CIDC Board members, Joe Sitt, Kent Barwick–we’re talking to you and about you. Let’s cut out the meaningless twaddle and get down to the real work of making sure the summers of 2009 and 2010 are not the Summers of Horror in Coney Island. And, if that means sacrificing vision and slowing down bureaucratic process, so be it.

Symbolically, the final shoe dropped yesterday. One of the people chiefly responsible for Atlantic Yards, Borough President Marty Markowitz told the New York Times that in the paper’s words he was “calling on the developer and state officials to review the design with an eye toward paring costs so that the long delayed project is more financially viable.” We are not getting into another long Atlantic Yards diatribe. There have been many problems with the Atlantic Yards approval process including that it has been one of the most anti-democratic and divisive exercises in the last half century in urban America. It has been a textbook case in how not to plan a major urban project.

Yesterday, Mr. Markowitz–for whom we have little respect for reasons that have to do with a frightening disassociation between his jolly public persona and his volcanic and mean-spirited private nature–said that Bruce Ratner should come up with a “sports and entertainment venue that is more economically feasible but provides the modern amenities our residents and visitors to Brooklyn demand and deserve.” He also said that, again in the words of the Times, “the developer could incorporate some design and construction changes that would lower the bottom line, while celebrating Brooklyn architecture.” Given that his ideal would seem to be Metrotech and Ikea, this is a frightening statement in and of itself.

We highly doubt whether Atlantic Yards will ever be built, although we think there’s slightly less than a 50-50 chance that a cheap, ugly arena might end up plopped at Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues. We strongly believe that a lot more than value engineering is needed and a lot more than a cursory examination is called for. We doubt Gov. Paterson has the political courage or ethics to step in and put a halt to this process, but what is needed is nothing short of an entire freeze on the process and a thorough re-examination of the project. We’d even go so far as to say that the proposal as it currently stands is so radically different than what was shoved down the public’s throat that it should be scrapped and the entire project should begin from scratch. Perhaps with another developer. If the price tag is a decade of emptiness, so be it. The tragedy is that the state allowed blocks of Prospect Heights to be leveled that will now become blights on a decent community. Maybe by the time everyone comes up with a new and workable plan that is achieved through a genuine and open public process (what a unique concept), there might even be a financial market healthy enough to get it done.

[Click on image to enlarge]

We posted this on Curbed yesterday and weren’t sure whether to laugh or cry when we saw the language in this ad that is appearing in New York Magazine for 80 Metropolitan, a development in Williamsburg we’ve covered to death. What’s the problem, you ask? Well, it says the developer has “converted the Old Dutch Mustard warehouse” to condos. Uh, we spent an entire fall stopping at Metropolitan and Wythe as they demolished the Old Dutch Mustard factory to build 80 Met. In fact, the developer said it “behooved” him to tear down a landmark industrial building that we loved dearly. The reason was simple. It was cheaper to tear it down than to figure out how to incorporate it into to the utterly pedestrian new building. And, now, they’re running an ad saying they “converted” it. It would be as if we bulldozed your home and put up an entirely new building, then smiled at you and told you we’d converted your shithole of a house into a luxury residence. We’ve seen a lot of ballsy claims in real estate advertising, but the 80 Met Dutch Mustard “conversion” ad is a prize winner.

GL ANALYSIS:
We had made our peace with 80 Metropolitan, at least in terms of having lost some of our rage at the senseless destruction of the Old Dutch Mustard Factory and the sadness we felt every time we walked up Metropolitan Avenue because we knew what a better developer than Steiner Equities working with less hack architects could have done with Old Dutch. Now, we are enraged at the duplicity in this ad and the sheer gall of using something that one deliberately destroyed to market the new product to ignorant buyers (assuming any are stupid enough to be buying in this market at their hyper-inflated prices guaranteed to lose 30-50 percent of their value by the end of 2010). This would be one of the most laughable marketing tactics we’ve ever seen if it weren’t so despicable and deplorable. The converted Old Dutch Mustard Factory? Have you no shame, Mr. Steiner? We wish bankruptcy and financial ruin on this entire abomination of a project for using a building that was barbarically destroyed to sell its vile, ugly and nauseating replacement. We may be among a handful of people that feel this way, but we consider the demolition of the Old Dutch Mustard Factory an embodiment of the wretched excess of the early 2000s building boom on par with the burning of the Greenpoint Terminal Market. It was the most grotesque and senseless demolition in all of Williamsburg. Why doesn’t someone level Steiner Studios, put up a crappy condo and call them “luxury condos converted from an old movie studio.” Oh, and by the way, we sure hate to bring this up again, but are buyers aware that part of the project on Kent Avenue is built on the site of a factory that stored toxic pesticides and is across the street from a paint factory that is so toxic that it almost qualifies as a Federal Superfund Cleanup site? Yeppers. Read the Environmental Section of the 2005 rezoning document–which whitewashed most environmental issues in the area–but couldn’t avoid the poisonous nature of this site.

See a time sequence of Old Dutch Mustard being, uh, converted.

The Department of Housing Preservation and Development crew, which managed to tick off a lot of Carroll Gardens residents by holding an important hearing in the middle of the holiday and with little prominent pubic notice, has send out another email noting that the period for public comment was extended. It says:

We wanted to remind you that HPD has extended the public comment period on the draft scope of work for the Gowanus Green (Public Place) EIS to January 23, 2009. The comment period has been extended to allow the public opportunity to comment during and after the holiday season. The draft scope and other environmental documents are available for
download on the HPD website. You may also submit your comments in writing to HPD at the following address: Patrick Blanchfield, AICP; Director of Environmental Review; NYC Dept of Housing Preservation and Development; 100 Gold Street – Room 9V-3; New York, NY 10038There has been little public argument in the neighborhood about the project in the neighborhood despite its size and the toxicity of the land underneath it. The original development was to include 774 apartments, 38,000 square feet of retail and 100,000 square of open space. Since the original announcement, more land has been added and the total number of residences could be close to 1,500.

[Photo courtesy of K. Lapp/GL Flickr Pool]

There is something appealing about all those trailers sitting there in Gowanus near the shores of Brooklyn’s Grand Canal.

So… history is finally going to be sworn in. This Friday (1/16) through Inauguration Day (1/20), a variety of cafes, shops and restaurants on DeKalb Avenue will be celebrating Barack Obama’s historical inauguration and presidency by offering all sorts of discounts, coupons, reduced-price prix-fixe menus and drink specials all weekend long. On the big day, there will be big screen TVs all over the place, bands and merriment. We’re talking a variety of places from the 100 block to the 240s of DeKalb, such as Green Apple Cafe, Caffe e Vino, Bittersweet, Two Steps Down, Tillies, Chez Oscar and Bonita… just to name a few. So, dress yourself up and head on out to make your way thru DeKalb and save big while you celebrate history in the making.
–Vaduzuvunt

[Photo courtesy of the New York Public Library]

This is the view of the Williamsburg Bridge from S. 8 and Berry Streets in 1937. It is not dissimilar from what one would see today.

Ever wonder what it’s like inside that mysterious place known as the Park Slope Food Coop, a place that some love and other loathe? Wonder no longer. Simply watch this vid, bearing in mind that the narrator is a BIG fan.

Dude is either nuts or really enjoying himself. This was around dusk when it was really getting cold.

A little while ago we ran an amazing photo gallery of weird Coney renderings that are part of the Municipal Art Society’s ImagineConey effort. Check out the slide show above, from Curbed, or go directly to the Curbed post. This stuff is mindboggling. It almost makes up for the Post’s Rich Calder running Curbed’s scoop yesterday about The Future of Coney Island turning into a porn website without crediting Curbed for the story.

Lets face it, our lives in New York revolve around transportation. However it’s rare that we take a moment and really see the landscapes and scenery that are the foundation of our travels. Be it a ride to work or a trip to Brighton Beach, sometimes we forget that it’s all about the journey getting there. So, this week, we’re highlighting interesting Brooklyn subway videos from different viewpoints. Enjoy the rides.
—E.C. Stephens

Flying through Brooklyn with some Latino music and great scenery about halfway through.

At first we thought we were seeing things, that maybe this had been there a long time and we just hadn’t realized. Then we seemed to remember that the bodega that had occupied this corner seemed to have had a going out of business sale in October or November. So, here, friends, is the latest addition to the Fourth Avenue retail scene: Slope Natural Plus. It’s at the corner of Fourth Ave & St. Mark’s. Yes, it isn’t much, and it’s probably a really overpriced place replacing something affordable, but remember we’re talking about Fourth Avenue and every opening is like watching Him walk on water.

Are you a member of our ever growing Gowanus Lounge Flickr Pool, which is now nearly 3,600 photos strong? If not, jump into the pool. We’d love to feature your work and some of our favorite pool contributors have even become GL Contributors.

[Photo courtesy of Josh Derr/GL Flickr Pool]

We’ve walked over this hundreds of times and never noticed it. The photographer notes that it’s in front of the Bo Concept store and wonders immediately, “Wallentas”? Or is it a coincidence?

· Brooklyn Diocese to Close 14 Schools [NYT]
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· Wallentas Opponents Rally Against Dock Street [Dumbo NYC]
· B75 and Other Bus Routes Could be History [PMFA]
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