Ah DUMBO, the little neighborhood that could. The NY Post takes its turn at looking at "the priciest Brooklyn neighborhood," and the pioneers who purchased real estate there before anyone else. In 1998, before the average price per sq-ft was $917, Craig Burd bought a place when there was "no grocery store, no drugstore, no dry cleaners, nothing" (now there's like one of each of those things!). First Burd spent $260,000 on a 1,260-sq-ft abode......

Photos by Jen Carlson/Gothamist. Artist Kylin O'Brien is painting giant monsters around town for the NYC public school kids in a collaborative effort titled The Monster Project. "Still in its early stages, the monster project is launching its first huge public creatures at the 12th Annual Art Under the Bridge Festival" this weekend. Two of the monsters in the DUMBO area are pictured above, and before you start grading--keep in mind that the creatures......

Well, that didn't take long. Just hours after the grand reopening of the Manhattan Bridge archway, a "non-vehicular" zone, someone has found a pretty sweet parking spot. Tip: Just move the planter guarding either entrance! UPDATE: Kate Kerrigan of the Dumbo Improvement District assures us the vehicle that was parked in the pedestrian-only archway was simply making a "supervised delivery."......

The Manhattan Bridge Archway in DUMBO has reopened today, giving the neighborhood more public space. The DUMBO Improvement District, who is helping to secure funding for the $500K project, noted that the historic, 46-foot-wide archway below the Manhattan Bridge will be "for public, non-vehicular use, granting access to a spacious but long-inaccessible public space and connecting two parts of DUMBO that had been separated for 17 years." When the bridge opened nearly 100 years ago,......

Last month the massive amounts of smashed car window glass on Water Street in DUMBO got some attention online, and a blog of its own. Across the cobblestone street from some of the victimized cars a sign appeared on a wall saying the culprit was likely Darren Stone, aka Squarehead. Now the The NY Post reports that the 43-year-old Stone has been arrested for felony criminal mischief after cops used DNA evidence from one break-in......

You’ll recall the big stink surrounding the city’s demolition (pictured) of the 1930s-era Art Deco Purchase building by the base of the Brooklyn Bridge in DUMBO – preservationists fought to save it, then the city tore it down to make way for the oft-delayed Brooklyn Bridge Park. The land the building occupied was supposed to be turned into a beautiful Euro-style piazza and skating rink by fall 2009, according to estimates by the Brooklyn......

Galapagos has officially set up shop and opened their doors in DUMBO, though a full schedule isn't planned to go into effect until September. The beautiful new space, located between the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges on the corner Water and Main Streets, can hold 175 seated and around 230 standing. Director Robert Elmes told us that the new arts space will continue to focus on the cultural ecosystem by hosting "theater, dance, performance art, cinema,......

Photograph of the Brooklyn Bridge waterfall by John Del Signore; you can see the safety line Yesterday, we noted that two kayakers were rescued from the temporary Brooklyn Bridge waterfalls yesterday afternoon, and now there are some more details: The novice kayakers, in a two-man kayak, had been in a group of kayakers paddling from Governors Island to DUMBO and wanted a closer look at the falls. Their group's leader, Erik Baard, described Bert......

All signs pointed to Ugly Betty taking over DUMBO today (remember, this 3rd season the show has moved filming to New York), and even though the show infiltrated the cobblestone streets, no one really noticed in the sweet shadow of the Van Leeuwan Ice Cream Truck. For fans of Betty, here are some scenes that confused onlookers were treated to...the cast and crew should be out there til around 9 p.m. tonight. America Fererra, Becki......

Photo of Hecate (Danuta Stenka) and Macbeth (Cezary Kosinski) courtesy Pavel Antonov. It’s hard to imagine a production of Macbeth with more sound and fury than the outré adaptation currently battering audiences on the Brooklyn waterfront in DUMBO. Two parts Shakespeare and one part Ridley Scott, this visionary spectacle is the work of Polish director Grzegorz Jarzyna and the TR Warszawa theater company; it’s being staged outdoors in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge with......

Save room for tongue! Bubby’s restaurant, the longtime Tribeca haunt of lettuce-fed models, will now be serving beef exclusively derived from grass-fed steers. Cattle raised on a grass, as opposed to the unnatural method of grain or corn, are much healthier and yield beef lower in saturated fat. While the trend is nothing new, what sets Bubby’s apart is that owner Ron Silver has committed to using every single part of the steer, from “tongue......

Photo of The Matchbox Shows by Laura Heit courtesy of the artist. While moviegoers pack theaters for summer blockbusters like Iron Man and Indiana Jones, it’s refreshing to find big crowds flocking to an entirely different spectacle, one celebrating the Victorian-era phenomenon of do-it-yourself “toy theater” kits. The cavernous St. Ann’s Warehouse in DUMBO was packed on Saturday night for the eighth annual Toy Theater Festival, presented by Great Small Works, a company dedicated to......

In 2006, Lou Reed revived his album Berlin by performing it in its entirety with a small orchestra for five sold-out shows at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn. The 1973 album, which riffs on themes of drugs, love and suicide, was a commercial failure when it came out; Lester Bangs described it as “the bastard progeny of a drunken flaccid tumble between Tennessee Williams and Hubert (Last Exit From Brooklyn) Selby, Jr.” But in......

Photo of sign via epc's Flickr. Following an announcement last September of the film getting the remake treatment, The Taking of Pelham 123 started scouting NYC nooks and crannies to film in. Now shooting has commenced, and today Denzel Washington & Co. can be found in DUMBO. Unless, of course, this is a set for The Talking of Telham 123, as the sign suggests -- in which case, don't expect to spot John Travolta......

Last spring, it was announced that Galapagos was being priced out of their N 6th Street digs in Williamsburg, which the club had inhabited permanently since 1998. More recently, TONY hinted that Southpaw owner Matthew Roff planned to sign a lease to take over the space, and today it's been confimed; from a press release:In an exciting development for New York City’s performing arts and music scene, Michael Palms, Matthew Roff, of Southpaw, & Larry......

Pictured left to right: Garrett Lombard, Denis Conway and Tadhg Murphy. Photo courtesy Pavel Antonov. In The Walworth Farce, Enda Walsh’s pitch black comedy currently in from Ireland at St. Ann’s Warehouse, all the world’s a stage in a squalid council flat, and all the men and women merely amateur players. Dinny (Denis Conway), a heavyset man with an air of menace, is the author of a deliriously farcical play that he and his two......

Photo by Jake Dobkin While a Tom Otterness sculpture can really brighten up the dark underground of New York, for his latest installation he's shedding some sunlight on his work. The above was just installed in DUMBO near the pedestrian exit to the Brooklyn Bridge. This won't be the first time Otterness has been above ground, of course. Remember his temporary 2004 installation that spanned Broadway from 60th to 168th Streets? And in 2005......

After Union Hall banned strollers (and the little ones who ride in them) -- a line was drawn in the sandbox, waging a full on war between the childless and the stroller pushers. But could there now be a light at the end of the tunnel? The Brooklyn Paper is reporting on a possible solution, at least at Water Street Restaurant in DUMBO. The restaurant has joined forces with Parent Play, a company where you......

Last month The Brooklyn Eagle had a report on how Brooklyn has been sucking the creative lifeblood right out of Manhattan. In recent years Brooklyn has experienced a 33.2 percent increase in the number of self-employed creatives, while Manhattan’s growth during the same period was a mere 6.5 percent. On Wednesday the Center for an Urban Future held a forum addressing the impact of Brooklyn’s growing cluster of self-employed creative freelancers on the borough’s economy.......

New Yorkers still trying to swallow the fare hike that's been approved by the MTA board can at least take heart that entire swaths of services aren't being eliminated. New York Water Taxi commuters are facing the elimination of large parts of that company's East River service from the beginning of 2008 at least until May of next year.New York Water Taxi regretfully announces the suspension of commuter service on the East River from 1/1/08......

Some of you looking outside this morning might have had a double take, as fog has rolled in some parts of the city. Janelle sent us this photograph of fog seen over the East River from Dumbo (the Brooklyn Bridge is hidden on the left), but we hear that the view is clear and beautiful looking from Midtown East. As for what kind of fog it is, we're not sure, but it sure is......

Kudos to The Real Deal for coaxing DUMBO-based designer Robert Scarano out of the shadows. One of the city's most reviled architects, Scarano has been scrutinized by Department of Buildings for his safety and zoning violations. Following a summer outcry, the agency issued stop-work orders on some Scarano sites. He's even being investigated by the NYS Department of Education, which oversees licensed architects, but there is currently no record of disciplinary action. Overseeing a whopping......