We noticed two YouTube videos, taken from an apartment with a view of Dean Street, documenting some late night construction activity at the Atlantic Yards site in downtown Brooklyn. How late? Well, one video takes place at 11:42PM (video) while the other is in the 4AM hour (above!). For reference, according to 311, construction hours are generally 7AM to 6PM on weekdays (there may be emergency work in the middle of the night, but......

July 15: Bastille Day at Bar Tabac If you've never played petanque, head on down to Smith Street for North America's largest petanque tournament -- the two block stretch betweeen Bergen and Pacific will be shut down and covered with sand just for the occasion. While your'e watching the action, enjoy special cocktails from Ricard and other drink specials ($5-6), nibble on grilled merguez and chicken sandwiches ($5) and groove to Jazz band Blue Orchid......

Last night, parents of students who attend public schools at 345 Dean Street in Brooklyn convened for an emergency meeting with the Department of Education. The emergency was the fact that the DOE wants to move an Arabic-themed specialized school, named after the poet Khalil Gibran, into the building. Parents generally stuck to arguing that another school would overcrowd the school. The Post quoted Janet Filemyr, whose child attends sixth grade at the Math and......

As planned since a judge okay'd Forest City Ratner's demolition of buildings in downtown Brooklyn, Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn held a protest this morning. FCR says that they own all the buildings and therefore should be allowed to tear them down, but DDDB says one concern is that the land will remain vacant if the project doesn't happen. DDDB's Ron Shiffman told NY1, "I find it very ironic that the day after Earth Day......

Last night, police officer Rory Mangra (pictured) attempted to approach a man smoking pot in Prospect Heights, but the man ended up shooting him in the leg. Mangra and his partner, Eric Merizelde, both uniformed but driving in an unmarked car, saw Kingsley Newland light up outside a beauty parlor at Flatbush Avenue and Dean Street in Brooklyn. From the Daily News:Mangra stepped out of the car to approach Newland, but the suspect fled, police......

Forget suspicious fires to smoke out tenants - the new tenant intimidation tool might be masonry! The Daily News reports that all the windows of a Prospect Heights apartment building on Dean Street have been bricked over, except for those belonging to lone holdout Migdalia Barreto. Barreto's rent is $535/month for a two bedroom, and she and her mother refused landlord Mark Schiner's offer of $30,000 to move out (five other families took some sort......

-- According to Bruce Ratner, all the city papers are hugely in favor of the Atlantic Yards project. And why would he lie? -- The Times has some very moving coverage of the funeral of one of the shooting victims in the Queens Rampage case. -- The Roosevelt Island Tramway (now equiped with advanced bucket pee-system) goes back into action on Friday. -- This shot of squirrels snuggling is redonkulicious. -- PLG is claiming......

MOVIE: Netflix Rolling Roadshow presents The Warriors. Watch the local turf wars play out on a big screen in Coney Island. Tickets are on a first come, first serve basis. And for some reason, Lisa Loeb is hosting this and there will be a Q&A following the movie. 8:30pm // Asser Levy Park Amphitheater [Coney Island between Sea Breeze and Ocean at 2nd St, Brooklyn] // Free Meanwhile, over at another free outdoor movie, catch......

We were intrigued by the deconstruction of the word "blight" in today's New York Times. You've heard the story already, no doubt: Last week, a state environmental impact statement called the area proposed for the Atlantic Yards redevelopment project blighted. There's no legal definiton, writes Nick Confessore, but, like porn, you know it when you see it. Confessore quotes a land-use lawyer who explains that blight equals high crime plus dilapidated buildings, pollution and......

We know we've mentioned it before, but Gothamist can't get enough of Cringe. Not strictly a literary event, it's nonetheless amusing how literary we thought we were in our teens, which is half the comedy of Cringe, where people read from their high school diaries and journals about how totally misunderstood they were, and also their new hairdo. Cringe is happening, tonight (5/3), at Freddy's Back Room and Bar (Dean Street and 6th Ave in......

Sad: each day seems to bring news of the destruction of a new building in Prospect Heights. Two weeks ago the Underberg Building disappeared, and yesterday Curbed reported the razing of buildings along Dean Street. The picture above, by Horseycraze on Flickr, shows the Vanderbilt Products Building coming down at the beginning of the month. All of this is intended to pave the way for construction on Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards Project-- a bunch......

Before we get to the weekly events which are sure to dazzle and amaze, Gothamist would like to note the passing of one of the great science fiction writers, Octavia Butler. Butler died after falling down the stairs outside her home this weekend, and will be sorely missed. She's the only science-fiction writer to receive a MacArthur grant, and in a field dominated by men, Butler was a woman notable not only for her strong......

We're not entirely sure how much walking for your highbrow literary art you guys are willing to do, and with the holidays coming up there's a dearth of good readings going on in the city this week anyway, but Gothamist is here to get you to your literary events through snow, sleet, hail, transit strikes, whatever! So taking all that in stride, here are a few things you'll want to mark on your calendar. Something......

Yay! It's gorgeous outside, it's a Friday, and there's a story about an animal bothering New Yorkers - these things make for a very good Gothamist day. In Prospect Heights, a rooster has been waking up residents a little too early with his crack-of-dawn cock-a-doodle-dooing. The rooster's sounds span Dean Street from Vanderbilt to Underhill, creating quite a stir. A sampling of some attitudes:- "I like to call him 'KFC,' because I'd like to see......