NewYorkology has its eye on the high seas Buttermilk Channel today, reporting on Puccini's Il Tabarro which will be staged there next month. The Brooklyn waterfront will host four evenings of the opera in September, "aboard a retired fuel tanker tied up to the dock at the container port." The first performance of Il Taborro was at the Metropolitan Opera in 1918. The Mary Whalen (which is the name of the tanker) will bring the......

We at the Gothamist network would like to express our heartfelt wishes to the people of Minnesota in the days after their tragic bridge collapse. We're not trying to discount the severity of the accident by making note of it in opposition to our usual -Ist lightheartedness - we just wanted to take a moment and recognize those affected last week. After the Minneapolis bridge collapse, Bostonist did a little research and found that Massachusetts......

Yesterday, the odd news about the NYPD's arrest of three men involved with an egg-shaped submarine near the Queen Mary 2, off the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal, revealed that a Brooklyn artist was behind the whole benign operation. Police Commissioner called artist Duke Riley's stunt "marine mischief," adding that the "creative craft of three adventuresome individuals" did "not pose any terrorist threat." The NY Times describes Riley's intentions:Mr. Riley’s plan was also military, in a......

A Sunday NY Times roundup of development and community planning process in the Gowanus section of Brooklyn contains this hidden threat: "Sometime in the next few months, the city plans to shut the flushing tunnel for 18 months of repairs, and that could bring back the smell of the bad old days." What is the "flushing tunnel?" It's a pipe stretching over one mile from the harbor (Buttermilk Channel between Red Hook and Governor's......

In a blow to the growing gentrification of Red Hook, the Post reports a judge has "temporarily blocked" the development of luxury condos in Red Hook. Apparently, a waterfront warehouse would be converted into over 150 apartment, but some are worried that the fact that it's located next to the only working port in Brooklyn will doom local manufacturing. Gothamist would guess that the development, backed by Bruce Federman of Industry City Associates, must be......

The Port Authority has agreed to a three-year lease extension for American Stevedoring in Red Hook. The port is the only working port in Brooklyn; the PA is still considering putting a cruise terminal in the southern part of Red Hook. The Post writes this "will hold off on swapping cargo ships for condos" for the moment, but Gothamist is unsure if the area that American Stevedoring, the port service and transportation provider, occupies is......

What IS the correct description for that part of New York City waterways that is south of the Battery Park, north of the Statue of Liberty, east of New Jersey, and west of Brooklyn that contains Governor’s Island? Upper New York Harbor? Tidal Basin? What do you call that water? -Steve Fortunately, Ask Gothamist has a copy of the book At Sea In The City: New York From the Water’s Edge in our library. According......