One’s reaction depends on one’s sense of humor.

This chair which appears to have been attacked by wolverines has been in the same spot on Ainslie Street in Williamsburg just east of the BQE for more than a month now. The only thing that changes, from time to time, is what is sitting atop it, although it does appear to have deteriorated slightly.

[Photo courtesy of jackszwergold/GL Flickr Pool]

It’s the Baltika Russian beer truck in Brighton Beach!

Today’s adoptable kitty comes from our friend Andrea that has personally helped me out when I’ve needed help finding a home for a found kitty. Let me present the snuggley Gigi. She’s a brown tabby about 2-3 years old and fully vetted.

Meet Little Gigi! We love this beautiful brown tabby kitty that we currently have in foster care. She is bright, beautiful, and an all around great gal. Gigi was rescued from the streets and has been in our care for several weeks. We love having her around but know that we have to find her a “forever” home in order to take in other cats that need help. Gigi is right around two years old and has been fully vetted. She is healthy and happy. Gigi enjoys the companionship of other cats and is very low maintenance. Gigi loves to be loved … she is a great cuddle buddy! She also has her playful side and leaps and bounds all around the room when has an extra burst of energy. Gigi will keep you laughing with her cute and funny ways. Are you interested in finding out more about Gigi? If so, please contact Sheri at 718-230-0856. Gigi is a great catch!

Gigi is staying in a foster home in Park Slope, but needs to find a loving permanent home. If interested contact Sheri at 718-230-0856 and if you know of a pet in need of a good home please contact us!
—E.C. Stephens

Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy Open Call for Films [A Brooklyn Life]
The Visual Poetry of Trash Cans [Bed Stuy Banana]
Sunset’s Professional Graffiti Gets Gowanus Treament [Best View in Brooklyn]
Craft Class Fever [Brooklyn Based]
Moxie Spot Announces Kiddie Cover [Brooklyn Heights Blog]
Dumbo Market Launches This Weekend [Brownstoner]
Farewell to Clinton Hill’s Tessan Boutique [Clinton Hill Blog]
Williamsburg Rental from Hell [Curbed]
The Upshot of Bait and Switch [Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn]
Why the DNA is Rallying to “Save the Brooklyn Bridge” [Dumbo, NYC]
Mulchfest at Marine Park [GerritsenBeach.net]
More Filming in Kensington [Kensington, Brooklyn]
Empty Cages Collective Adoption Event [NY Shitty]
No Words Daily Pix [OTBKB]
–Compiled by Lauren Fairbanks

We got an email from a reader asking what to do about recycling Christmas trees, which reminded us that we refused to run information about Mulchfest before Christmas. (Trees left at the curb are also supposed to be recycled by the Dept. of Sanitation.) This year, Mulchfest will take place on Saturday, January 10 and Sunday, January 11, 2009 from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. The Parks Department’s site is here.

Click here to see all the Brooklyn chipping and drop-off locations

Free community event for families of all ages in East Flatbush this Saturday, January 10, from 3:00pm to 6:00pm you can meet your neighbors and owners of local businesses. A special presentation you don’t want to miss. Food will be served. Free and open to the public. Call 718-272-2363 for more information. Sponsored by Christopher Rose Community Empowerment Campaign (CRCEC). Location: Catherine MacAuley High School, 710 East 37th Street (at Foster Avenue), East Flatbush. Travel Directions: Subway: 2 to Newkirk Avenue.  Bus: B8, B44.
—E.C. Stephens

[Photo courtesy of Smith & 9th/GL Flickr Pool]

A slightly different angle than the usual one on the Carroll Street Bridge.

If you’re looking for something to do this cold, (possibly) snowy weekend, head over to St. Ann’s Warehouse (38 Water St. at Old Dock St.) for Labapalooza, a “mini festival of new puppet theater from The Lab.” Shows are running thru to the 1/11 at 8pm on Friday and Saturday, and additional shows on Saturday at 2pm and Sunday at 4pm.

Ring in the New Year with a quirky display of live works-in-progress and stop motion puppet animations from The Lab. Now in its 11th year, Labapalooza! embraces new avant-garde puppet works ranging from a 19 sleepwalker to a space pioneering monkey; from Ralph Waldo Emerson to Jewish mysticism.

Cost of admission is $20 for one program or $30 for both. For more information or to buy tickets, contact St Ann’s Warehouse.
—Vaduzuvunt

The building at the corner of Wythe and Metropolitan Avenue, across from the utterly pedestrian 80 Metropolitan is coming along. 268 Wythe is one of the more creative and interesting buildings going up in Williamburg. We won’t be sure until the scaffolding comes down, but it’s one of the rare new buildings that we actually think we’re going to like a lot. We offered a preview of it on Curbed a while back. It will be seven stories and have 13 units. It comes from MDIM Architecture, which is producing some very interesting buildings. We’d rather see a lot more of them and a lot less of the work of some the hacks decimating the cityscape in Williamsburg and other nabes.

[Photo courtesy of Ginger A./Yelp]

First there was news that Da Vincenzo on Prospect Park West in Windsor Terrace was closed. Well, per a GL reader it’s more than just closed:

fyi, walking by windsor terrace nabe italian rest., da vincezo, on ppw, i noticed a big “for sale” sign in the window. this follows last week’s sign saying restaurant was closed for further notice, with no reason specified. guess they’re closed cause they’re selling.

We think that is a very fair conclusion.

[Photo courtesy of the New York Public Library]

This is the Brighton Beach Boardwalk at Sea Breeze Ave. in 1929.

The Wallabout Market, once the second largest market in the world.

Those encountering Rapeleye Street on the Cobble Hill/Red Hook border may not wonder much about it except to ponder how it’s pronounced. The Rapalje (original spelling) family history goes back to the very origins of New York City when it was called Nieuw Netherlands and the area (now part of the Brooklyn Navy Yard) was known by the Lenape Indians as “Rennegachonk.” Catalina Trico and Joris Jansen Rapalje, Walloons, married just four days before their ship left Amsterdam on January 25, 1624 for America and were one of the first to buy land in the wilderness of lower Manhattan. They soon moved their homestead across the river to the new village of Breucklen where they had a long and fruitful marriage. The original grant to this 335 acres was made in 1637 to Rapalje by two Indian chiefs and was renamed Waal Boght, from the Dutch, meaning either “Bend in the River” or “Bay of Walloons” and is now Wallabout Bay. Joris Jansen Rapalje was one of the first white settlers on the Long Island. The Rapaljes gave birth to and baptized eleven children—the first child, Sarah, was the first European female born in what would become New York, though whether she was born in Brooklyn or upstate New York is in dispute. It is believed that the Rapaljes have over a million descendants.

Read the rest of this absolutely fascinating story ahead.

And, now, we present our weekly restaurant review from our friends at Eat It: The Brooklyn Food Blog. This week’s feature is Petite Crevette in Red Hook:

I had such a lovely experience at dinner the other night at Petite Crevette (144 Hicks St., between Union St. & President St., 718-855-2632), a seafood-heavy French restaurant on the border of Carroll Gardens and the Columbia Street Waterfront District (seriously, that’s what it’s called these days). It used to be on Atlantic Avenue but moved South to the Hicks St. location about two years ago. It was a slow Monday night, so we were seated in the back room which is super cozy, romantically lit and made me feel like I was in the French countryside, far away from my everyday troubles and concerns. Little lamps were scattered about, everything is dark wood or painted white and slightly scruffy, giving it that nice lived-in relaxed feeling.

The menu is written on chalkboards or butcher paper hung on the walls so you can see the list from every angle. There’s the regular menu (fish, steak, salmon burgers) and a list of specials (catch of the day prepared a few ways). The front room is a bit colder and more brightly lit, so if you can try to get into the back room, which used to be Rose’s Flower Shop. The old gold lettering is still on the window, adding to the vintage feel. The other nice thing is that Petite Crevette is facing the BQE (below street level at that point), so looking out the window the street feels wide open and spacious.

Then there’s the terrific food; everything we ordered was delicious. We started with the Crab Corn Chowder and were served a great big bowl of the stuff. It was loaded with chunks of sweet crab meat, lots of kernels of juicy corn in a creamy, tasty base. I sopped up what was left with my bread! It is BYO, and there’s a nice wine shop around the corner on Union where the owner will recommend something tasty. They do charge a corkage fee though, and it’s cash only, so make sure you’ve hit the ATM on your way over. Click here to read about the Roast Cod and Skirt Steak entrees!

Correspondent E.C. Stephens hit our voracious inbox of with some gold late last night after getting some photos of the ongoing work inside the much anticipated ramen noodle shop on the Park Slope side of Fourth Avenue at Degraw. (If you want to find us, we’ll be living there once the place opens.) It doesn’t look they’ll be opening in the next few weeks, but we’re getting there. The shot below is one we got of the exterior while walking Fourth Avenue. Looks like some sign work is goiing on.

[Photo courtesy of Shira Golding/flickr]

This Brooklyn Missed Connection, which was brought to our attention by Chief Correspondent E.C. Stephens, just couldn’t wait until Sunday. So here it is:

Hipster chicks I see everywhere. – m4w – 30 (Howard Beach)

This is for all those hipster chicks I see in Billyburg/Fort Greene/Red Hook, etc. while visiting friends/co-workers of mine. I know our lifestyles don’t mix, you probably would never even second look me in the street but I can’t help but want one of you so bad. My business man suburban look would just clash with your hipster look and your friends would just snicker. I just wish I could find one of you who would be willing to maybe have a fling with. So next time you see a tall dark handsome man staring you down it is probably me.

Maybe CL should start a section for old dudes looking for hipster girls that dig old dudes. Could work.

· Biggest Brooklyn Sales of the Week [Brownstoner]
· Graffiti + Stroller = Irony [Curbed]
· Brooklyn Teacher Busted in Sex Sting [NYDN]
· Vid of the Small Save Coney Rally [Kinetic Carnival]
· L Train New Year’s Resolution: To Suck [Williamsburg is Dead]
· Public Space [New York Shitty]
· CB2 Digs Brooklyn Heights Wine Bar [BHB]
· Being a Tenant [Bed-Stuy Blog]
· Ignazio’s Pizza Finally Opening Across From River Cafe? [McBrooklyn]
· Bay Ridge Chip Shop Shop Says Bye Bye Mate [Left in Bay Ridge]

The issue of parking tickets being given out on alternate side parking days in Brooklyn neighborhoods, where it’s traditional to double park during street cleaning hours arises from time to time. For instance, as in this case, in an email circulating with our friends at Park Slope Parents:

So we (only some of us) were ticketed yesterday (Park Pl) for double parking during street cleaning. The officer discriminately ticketed half of the block and then stopped. I remembered reading on this listserv that double parking is only a courtesy. Is this true? Is this ticket worth fighting for? I know there is an unpublicized discount program for tickets, but I would not like to pay a cent on this ticket. Please advise. If you have successfully fought a ticket like this, can you share the wording with me (we plan on writing and just don’t have the time to do it in person).

Actually, it is a courtesy from the Precinct. Perhaps the city is so hard up for cash that it’s going to stop being, uh, courteous. Or will be randomly discourteous.

If anyone is looking for good news about Coney Island, forget it. About the only positive development we can report is that it appears the city has started work repairing the most decrepit stretch of boardwalk in front of Nathan’s, Shoot the Freak, Cha Chas, Ruby’s, Lola Staar and other shops. The irony is that none of those businesses may be around to reap the benefit of a boardwalk through which people can’t fall. Wheeee! While we didn’t attend, reports from a Chamber of Commerce meeting indicate that while panelists like Purnima Kapur and Lynn Kelly (who we respect) talked about the land use review process and rezoning, they did little to address the bloody massacre that is currently underway. Priority Number One at the moment is developing a short- to medium-term plan to ensure that Coney Island remains viable during a financial crisis that will make their rezoning nothing more than an interesting concept. The issues are the premature killing of Astroland and what will replace it and buying land from Joe Sitt and Thor Equities, which has proven itself to be an untrustworthy player in the redevelopment game. What officials don’t seem to understand is that while they’re busy promoting a vision, a gruesome, vicious, bloody murder is taking place. The heck with vision. Charles Manson is hacking up a neighborhood that has already been repeatedly brutalized. We can talk about the vision when the economy rights itself in about five years, unless they’re thinking President Obama will make rebuilding Coney Island the nation’s biggest public works project to create jobs. Vision? We need a cease fire before the place is leveled.

The creation of the Coney Island debacle and its inability to deal with it before fatal damage is inflicted is fast becoming one of the glaring public policy failures of the Bloomberg Administration. Its enablers are the people in the print media–with precious few exceptions–who have either ignored it except for facile and asinine stories or let themselves be used as PR tools like Rich Calder of the NY Post whose reporting has been transparently and ridiculously lapdog-like. (For instance, the curious “Sofagate” story this summer and even the recent story about Thor trying to buy land from Horrace Bullard.) When Thor wants to plant a story to publicly negotiate with the city or make a point, it speed dials the Post. The Times, sadly, doesn’t seem to care, which is a tragedy in and of itself because it has brilliant people on staff like Sewell Chan who could be covering the story via CityRoom. Why hasn’t Charles Bagli taken this story on? The Daily News’ Brooklyn Bureau behaves like a disinterested third party that steps in every now and then and then runs off to cover the next car crash. We won’t even touch the subject of the local weeklies because it makes us want to vomit.

A few days ago, we called it The Rape of Coney Island. Yet, like the people in Rhode Island who watched a rape on pool table so many years ago without stopping it, public officials continue to stand around and watch it happen. Somebody better settle up and get Thor out of the core of Coney and then come up with a short-term strategy to avoid a decade of horrendous and nauseating blight. The clock is ticking.

On New Year’s Eve we sat at this computer and picked “five rotting corpses“–projects we didn’t think would make it or that would be radically altered as we work our way through this economic crisis. One of them was Atlantic Yards. We wrote: “We think there is a good chance most of the project will choke on its own excess, including the arena, because of the credit crunch. Unless, of course, Forest City Ratner succeeds in getting a taxpayer bailout to make it happen. If the arena does happen, we predict a crappy Prudential Center-like structure that would be built at half the cost of Frank Gehry’s work.” Imagine our surprise when we got a text message at 5:44PM yesterday telling us to look online at the Altantic Yards news. The gist of the stories was that while Forest City Ratner wasn’t saying the Mr. Gehry was off the job, it was looking at ways to “value engineer” the project. In other words, to turn it into your standard issue, off-the-shelf, $400 million arena. Per the Wall Street Journal:

“We are continuing to speak with many arena experts and working hard to find ways to build a world class venue in an incredibly difficult economic environment,” the [Ratner] spokesman said. The price tag of other recently developed arenas has been much lower than Mr. Gehry’s design. For example, The Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, home of the National Hockey League’s Devils, cost about $400 million. It opened in 2007.

CityRoom reported:

Executives are concerned that even if they are able to overcome a pending legal challenge, it would be hard to finance what would be the most expensive arena in the world.

And the Daily News wrote:

Forest City Ratner has brought in “value engineering” companies to review architect Frank Gehry’s blueprints to save money and keep the project afloat amid a cash crunch that has stopped all work at the site, sources said.

We’re still thinking the ultimate outcome here will be that an investment group comes together in Newark to buy the team and move it to the White Elephant built by former Mayor Sharpe James who is now in Federal prison for corruption.

GL ANALYSIS
Regardless of whether you are for or against this project (and we oppose it), it would seem Brooklyn was promised an SL-Class Mercedes, but now, it turns out that a Ford Focus may be delivered. In some circles they call that “bait and switch.” This project has changed so radically that it behooves the state to start the entire review and approval process from scratch. We don’t expect that to happen because Gov. David Paterson has shown little interest in interfering with the malfeasance that allowed the project to be approved under the reign of the very questionable Charles Gargano at the Empire State Development Corp. Sadly, a neighborhood has already been destroyed, 1960s urban renewal-style, which only proves that planners and officials never REALLY learn lessons. It’s only the urban reporters and academics who watch this stuff for generations who truly understand the mistakes that are being made. Sadly, Atlantic Yards is turning out to be a bigger nightmare and more grotesque failure than anyone could ever have imagined. Now, the final kick in the rear end is that a borough that was promised a Harrod’s branch is going to get a Target instead. Gov. Paterson, if you have a shred of integrity, you will order a halt to this travesty and have everyone start the planning process from scratch. And, by the way, Corey, we have the honor of knowing you for years. You are a decent man of a level of integrity and morality which is rare in politics. Please get a group to together to buy this wretched basketball team and put it in Newark where it belongs so the arena built by your criminal predecessor doesn’t bleed the impoverished city of Newark dry for generations to come.

[Photo courtesy of nifty pete/GL Flickr Pool]

It’s either an F or a G Train (we presume an F) in the Great Gowanus Metroplex at night.

[Photo courtesy Smith & 9th/GL Flickr Pool]

Here’s a fascinating and different angle on an old Gowanus landmark.

Alright all you folks out there that got your new flat screen tvs and iPhones and iPod Touches for the holidays – time to toss that old archaic stuff and make some room! But don’t just toss it anywhere, head on down to Lower East Side Ecology Center first electronics recycling of the year this Sunday (1/11) from 10am-4pm at Fulton St. & S. Portland Ave. This is serious, folks – so many chemicals and poisons can get released into the water and atmosphere, and a lot of metals get wasted when we just throw these things out with the rest of the wasteful trash that we collect in our daily lives. So, as we slowly ease off our soap box, we kindly say – we hope to see you and your e-waste Saturday!!!
—Vaduzuvunt