The Barclays Center is getting ever closer. Not only is Babs is going to play the joint but so is Jay-Z and Leonard Cohen. The Nets are really coming this fall. Oh, and, as they promised in 2009, the MTA has started renaming the Atlantic Avenue station after the arena. Well, after its sponsor. more ›

An off-duty Staten Island firefighter saved an elderly couple—and their cat—on Christmas night from a blaze that started after their Christmas tree caught on fire. "My instinct just kicked in,"37-year-old Ladder Company 81 member Steven Carl told the Daily News. "I just did what I was trained to do." more ›

In September, Jasmine Herron was biking along Atlantic Avenue when motorist Krystal Francis opened the door of her parked car, sending Herron swerving into the street and under a B45 bus. Herron was killed, and Francis was charged with driving with a suspended license but claimed she had nothing to do with the accident and quickly left the scene to attend a party. Francis has now been indicted on felony charges of leaving the scene of an accident. But according to Francis's lawyer, "It's obvious she was at the scene." more ›

Last night, subway service on the 2, 3, 4 and 5 subway lines was affected due to "police activity." It turns out that a man was killed by an oncoming 4 train after falling from the platform. more ›

Police have identified the victim of Saturday's fatal bike accident on Atlantic Avenue as Jasmine Herron, a young barista at Think Coffee on Mercer Street. Co-workers say she was an avid cyclist, and always wore a helmet. Her neighbor said, "She was a nice girl. It's a tragedy." more ›

A 23-year-old woman biking along Atlantic Avenue towards Washington Avenue was fatally struck by a bus after hitting the open door of a parked car. The driver of a parked car reportedly threw open her door without looking, sending the biker careening into the path of a B45 bus around 8:30 p.m. last night. more ›

Cops raided at least six stores on Nostrand Avenue in Brooklyn this afternoon, arresting eight and seizing a firearm and two pounds of marijuana. For two months the "open drug bazaar," between Atlantic Avenue and Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights has been under investigation, during which time undercovers purchased pot and cocaine more than fifty times. (According to NBC, a pound of weed went for $1,100.) Many of the shops targeted for their over-counter drug sales were bodegas, reports ABC, though a jerk chicken place and a little CD store were also raided. A tipster tells us that around 1:30 p.m. there were "About 100 cops everywhere, chopper still circling, SWAT guys... I looked in and they were pushing up the ceiling tiles with a machete." more ›

Two days before the official ground-breaking for the long-delayed Atlantic Yards megaproject, developer Bruce Ratner and the New Jersey Nets unveiled renderings of the interior of their planned Brooklyn basketball arena. After scrapping an original design by Frank Gehry over financial concerns and nixing a second design by the firm Ellerbe Becket after it was derided for being too dull, Ratner tapped Ellerbe Becket and SHoP Architects to draft up a new plan for the arena, which is dubbed the Barclays Center. more ›

Early this morning a security guard was stabbed to death in Brooklyn as he was returning home from a night out. Anthony Blair was walking on Atlantic Avenue (recently named the outer-boroughs’s deadliest street) near Hunterfly Place when he was knifed in the neck near a Getty gas station. Cops haven’t yet said if there’s a motive in the killing of the 44-year-old from Guyana, according to the Daily News. As of this afternoon police haven’t made any arrests, but gas station clerks are looking through security footage to find a suspect. more ›

A 35-year-old man was killed by a No. 5 train just before 10 a.m. this morning, according to City Room. The victim was pinned between the train and the tracks at Brooklyn's Atlantic Avenue station, where police say there was no evidence of foul play. EMS was called, and power was cut to the tracks but by the time the man could be transported to Brooklyn Hospital Center, he was already in grave condition. Doctors pronounced him dead on arrival. more ›

To make room for the proposed Atlantic Yards project — which calls for a basketball arena and high-rise buildings at the nexus of Park Slope, Prospect Heights and Fort Greene — the state will permanently close several streets to traffic. According to NY1, starting on or around February 1, Pacific Street between both Vanderbilt and Carlton avenues and Fifth and Sixth avenues will be closed, as well Fifth Avenue between Flatbush and Atlantic avenues. But what will those closures mean for commuters and residents? more ›

Fact: Brooklyn's Atlantic Avenue has now eclipsed Queens Boulevard as the most dangerous street in the outer-boroughs. Nine pedestrians were killed there from 2006 to 2009, almost twice the number of fatalities racked up in Queens. This won't come as much of a surprise to anyone who's ever had to cross Atlantic Avenue— cars and trucks use it as a highway, particularly in the stretch between Flatbush and the Brooklyn border. more ›

The man who found the abandoned trolley tunnel under Atlantic Avenue thirty years ago, Bob Diamond, is now hoping to find some historical booty down there. The Brooklyn Paper's got a serious skeptical tone in their report, but even National Geographic is interested enough to finance, produce and staff an archeological dig that might go down this coming January. more ›

The Atlantic Avenue exit of the BQE turned out to be the exit ramp used by one more passenger than was expected Thursday morning when a police officer ended up helping deliver a baby alongside the highway. 37-year-old Officer George Tsoukaris said he hasn't had to help out on a case like this since his rookie days on the NYPD. When Tsoukaris was flagged down Thursday around 11a.m. by a woman in labor and her husband intending to take the BQE out to a Staten Island hospital, he quickly discovered that there wasn't going to be enough time until an EMT arrived...or even time for him to put on gloves for that matter! The couple has chosen not to reveal themselves after taking their healthy newborn to Long Island College Hospital. But the News got the adorable story out of the cop, who says, "She was screaming at the top of her lungs. he's yelling, 'The baby's coming out, the baby's coming out!' ... It's one thing to see the miracle of life in a controlled environment like a hospital, but it's another thing to have it happen on the highway." more ›

According to the Daily News, Habitat for Humanity volunteers are putting the finishing touches on their Atlantic Avenue Condominiums today (in this heat!); the 41-unit apartment complex in Brownsville will give those in a need a chance to own their own home. Over 10,000 people came together to pitch in, and the Habitat NYC director says, "It's been fueled by Brooklyn pride," and that most moving in are "renters in Brooklyn who are taking a big step into home ownership." Over 8,000 applied to own a unit (there are 1, 2 and 3 bedrooms which range from $100-200K). And as for the finer details, "the front doors to each apartment at the complex are made from lumber milled from last year's Rockefeller Center Christmas tree" (which always goes to good use). One woman moving in with her two children told the paper, "My kids keep saying that every day will be like Christmas." more ›

Reader Neil spotted a MoMA "installation" going up at the Atlantic stop in Brooklyn yesterday, saying posters like the above are filling up "every space in the station." It turns out that the museum is pulling all the stops for the expected plummet in tourism this year, and are targeting locals to come visit instead. more ›

Recently a group traveled underground to the oldest subway tunnel in the world, rediscovered by Bob Diamond in 1980. It's dark, dirty and allegedly filled with ghosts! Located on Atlantic Avenue, it sounds like the perfect place for a haunted Halloween. Here's some more info on the mysterious underground space, that long went hidden.

The Atlantic Avenue Tunnel was built in seven months in 1844 by the Long Island Rail Road to relieve congestion in downtown Brooklyn. It was part of a rail network that eventually took passengers to Boston. For mainly political reasons, it was closed not too many years after it opened; the last train ran through it in 1859. In 1861, the tunnel was sealed up. In time, it became sort of an urban legend, and many stories were born about it and what uses some people may be putting it to.

Yesterday, Gothamist attended the 34th annual Atlantic Antic along Atlantic Avenue between Hicks Street and Fourth Avenue in Brooklyn. For the uninitiated, this not your typical New York "tube sock" street fair. Sure there are some of the typical food vendors (gyros, roasted corn and Mozzarepas, natch). But unlike most other street fairs, there is a strong neighborhood presence in both food (including freebees from the new kid on the block Trader Joe’s) and vendors, along with many Brooklyn community groups and a wide variety of live music. As an added bonus this year, the New York Transit Museum had free admission along with its annual bus festival. more ›

Five different car crashes in Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens have left five people dead yesterday. more ›

The area of Brooklyn’s Atlantic Avenue that stretches through the East New York/Stuyvesant Heights area isn’t exactly a culinary destination, but what it does have is the Carolina Country Store, a one of a kind grocery that has been covered here before. The tiny storefront is also favored by chefs like Zak Pelaccio, primarily because it specializes in southern style ham and cured meats that are hard to find elsewhere in the five boroughs. more ›

Today Brooklyn venue Magnetic Field announced they would soon be closing up shop. From their email, which likely saddened many patrons of the place when it hit inboxes earlier:

After five-plus years of rocking Atlantic Avenue and entertaining thousands of customers and welcoming hundreds of great bands, Magnetic Field in Brooklyn will be closing its doors on March 31st. Co-owners Lee Greenfeld and William Crane would like to personally thank all of Magnetic Field’s staff and patrons for their loyalty over the past few years, as well as all the numerous bands who have brought some truly tremendous and memorable performances to our stage. We are currently working on a blow-out last week of shows to run March 24th through the 31st.

Train muralist James Top (aka JEE 2) was part of the legendary Odd Partners in the 1970s. The Brooklyn crew bombed with throw ups and block letters; they were highly regarded and had a strong presence in the city. These days Top has taken his art indoors -- teaching a graffiti class in the Bronx and, this weekend, opening his first New York exhibit. more ›

Yesterday, the Post reported about a strange and disturbing road rage incident in Red Hook last week. A woman was ultimately repeatedly hit by the driver of a Land Rover. more ›

Merging urban exploration with something akin to La Blogotheque's Take Away Shows, the below video gives a glimpse at what's hidden in the Atlantic Avenue Tunnel underneath Downtown Brooklyn while performer Greg "Cosmo D" Heffernan scores the journey. more ›

A happy event turned violent early Sunday morning when the manager of a Brooklyn catering hall fired at three guests, and by the time the police caught a second shooter, one person was dead and four others were wounded. A baby shower at the El Barandillo banquet hall on Atlantic Avenue turned into a fight between members of the Bloods and Crips - all of whom were invited to the shower. El Barandillo manager Omar... more ›

FR.OG and P*Ong, two perfectly good Manhattan restaurants that opened earlier this year, have names that independently invoke two classic arcade video games, Frogger and Pong. Now, as the fall openings season draws to a close and the votes for worst new restaurant name have been cast, we’d like to draw your attention to the most incredibly iconic new restaurant name in New York: It's that of Roclantic Eatery, a soul food and oil drum “Bar-B-Que” place that opened just two weeks ago on the corner of Atlantic and Rockaway Avenue in East New York, coincidentally enough. Kind of rolls off the tongue. With a purple-painted exterior and booming, shadowed, all-caps signage, Roclantic’s owners have come up with a restaurant name so unique that as of right now, it doesn’t even return a single Google hit. more ›

In addition to running the kitchen at NY dining landmark Brasserie, Chef Franklin Becker is also a tireless advocate for two particular causes: Raising awareness for Autism research, and developing recipes and healthy food choices for diabetics. Becker, who turned 38 at the beginning of the month, has been in the business for a staggering 24 years. Many New York Times stars later, he now cooks at Brasserie, and was an awarded a StarChefs Rising Star Award last year. After one recent lunch rush, Becker spoke to us at a side table about the benefits of growing up in Brooklyn, an Arthur Avenue restaurant with no menu, and what it’s like to clean the kitchen at 4 AM with the ghosts of Studio 54 keeping time at the bar. more ›

Last month rumors of an Apple Store in Brooklyn started to spread, and now there's some news on where the store may land. more ›

Currently the top story on the front page of The Brooklyn Eagle's website contains a graphic photo of a murdered man hanging out of a car. The headline reads: "Grisly Murder on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn", and we were sort of shocked to find an actual photo of the "grisly murder" right there below those words. The story simply reads:

The body of 22-year-old Jamal Oughterson (right) hangs out of the back seat a car on Grand Avenue near Atlantic Avenue early Saturday morning after being shot several blocks away. Police said Oughterson had agreed to meet a friend on Fulton Street near Franklin Avenue when a gunman fired at him. He was whisked away from the scene by a driver who evidently intended to take him to the hospital, but the car was intercepted by authorities. Oughterson died while en route. The officer at left was at the crime scene.

Yesterday, Gothamist attended the 33rd annual Atlantic Antic along Atlantic Avenue between Hicks Street and Fourth Avenue. It is not your typical New York street fair with actual local groups, business and restaurants getting involved. Plus the New York Transit Museum had free admission as well as its annual vintage bus festival. more ›