Results tagged “gowanuslounge”

Bob Guskind, whose passion for his Brooklyn neighborhood turned into the popular Gowanus Lounge blog, passed away yesterday. Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn reports that the site was non-operational yesterday—"Readers and fellow bloggers were concerned that their phone calls, and texts were not being returned"—and his death was confirmed by an official from the ME's office (his body was apparently found in his Prospect Heights apartment). Guskind, who was also, until recently, the Brooklyn editor of Curbed, will be missed by many who followed his interest in Brooklyn development issues. Miss Heather has a lovely video of Guskind from this past weekend. Our condolences to his family and friends—and we will miss him, too. Update: The Brooklyn Paper has an account, which is, at turns, sensational and harsh, speculating about Guskind's death.

     

The Gowanus Canal Conservancy held a public meeting in Carroll Gardens this week to unveil renderings for a park and esplanade that would run along the Gowanus canal. The project’s dubbed Sponge Park because planners hope it will help absorb some of the raw sewage that currently contaminates the canal during heavy rainfall. (Brownstoner believes oily runoff from the nearby Gowanus Expressway is another big problem.) The idea is that when the canal is finally cleaned up sometime after 2020, Sponge Park will help keep it clean, or at least clean-ish.

Earlier in the week, the department of Housing Preservation and Development [HPD] revealed renderings for a proposed housing development and park on 5.8 acres of heavily polluted land by the toxic Gowanus canal. Located on the site of a former manufactured gas plant, the city has owned the land, which stretches from Smith Street to the canal, for two decades. National Grid, who took over the site from KeySpan Energy, would need at least two years to decontaminate the area, called Public Place.

Documenting the city in the snow apparently has its limits. Gowanus Lounge noticed this photograph of the Gowanus Canal, taken yesterday, by photoblogger Joe Holmes. Holmes wrote on his Flickr page it was "taken seconds before I was told that photography is prohibited on the 9th Street bridge because of 9-11 concerns." Oh, man, that should be a problem for the Toll Bros. marketing department. And what if there's another whale or seal spotted?

Crazy! Gowanus Lounge posted this video of a car on fire in the Greenwood Heights section of Brooklyn. The video shows the FDNY extinguishing the fire, and GL followed up with an eyewitness account from Greenwood Heights resident Aaron Brashear (who's also in the Concerned Citizens of Greenwood Heights).

Last decade's decrepit property along a foully polluted industrial canal is just next decade's prime waterfront lots, ready for development by one the nation's premiere luxury homebuilders. The Gowanus Lounge uncovered a "scoping" document filed with the Department of City Housing by the Toll Brothers construction company. The early renderings portray a spread of mixed-use development between 2nd and Carroll Sts. and bounded by Bond St. and the Gowanus Canal itself.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a partial facade collapse on East 148 St. in the Bronx, two pedestrians struck on 72nd St. and West End Ave. in Manhattan, a body found on Pioneer St. in Brooklyn.
  
• A developmentally disabled woman on Staten Island depends on Social Security benefits to survive, but the SSA keeps declaring her dead.
  
• A three alarm fire injured one person on East 166th St. and Teller Ave. in the Morrisania section of the Bronx early Saturday morning.
  
• The Gowanus Lounge wonders if the C-Town grocery store in Park Slope is a vortex of lust based on Missed Connections.
  
• NYC Transit is reporting that ridership is the highest it's been since 1969. During 2007, 2.3 billion rides were taken on subways and buses.
  
• A massive scaffolding collapse in Midwood, Brooklyn left no one injured, but brought down power lines and crushed cars on both sides of the street.
  
• Stephon Marbury's season with Knicks is over after he underwent surgery for bone spurs.
  
• Angel Rodriguez, 12, and Michael Mumford, 13 are the heroes of the weekend. When they smelled smoke 1 a.m. Sunday morning from a blaze that began on the 5th floor of their East 21st St. walk-up; instead of racing directly from the 6th floor apartment where they were watching a movie, the boys knocked on every door in the 30-unit building alerting neighbors of danger.
  

Get ready to groan: "I look forward to 'Phase Two' of the 'blinging up' of the Parachute Jump," said inveterate cornball Marty Markowitz during his recent State of the Borough speech. The 262-foot Coney Island landmark was retrofitted with a lighting system two years ago, but borough president Markowitz and others deemed the effect too subdued and “artsy.” Now the city is soliciting proposals from companies to create a flashier effect.

A video artist and teacher visiting from San Francisco claims she’s the latest victim of police harassment of photographers in New York – and this time the overzealous cop may have been acting on behalf of Forest City Ratner, the corporation behind the controversial Atlantic Yards project in downtown Brooklyn.

http://gothamist.com/2008/02/05/get_out_your_pr.php

More detailed images of the proposed development at the landmarked Domino Refinery in south Williamsburg have emerged; the biggest news is that developers plan to build a five-story glass addition on top of the Filter House (above), the tallest structure at the refinery, which has been closed since 2004. According to plans revealed by architects Beyer Blinder Belle, the modified refinery would have 1,550 underground parking spaces, 30,000 square feet of retail space, an interior courtyard and “community facilities” on several floors.

This weekend Gowanus Lounge was first to note the unexpected closure of the 2nd Street Cafe at Seventh Avenue in Park Slope. The decade old restaurant, which on weekends had all the charm of a daycare center on adderall, had undergone a major renovation last summer. OTBKB hears word from a former employee that he/she was given just two days notice. Part of the ever-widening quicksand consuming New York restaurants? No word yet on the reason for the closure; calls to the restaurant are going unanswered.

News came this past week that surely rocked the cradles of many Park Slope babies: Union Hall is no longer stroller-friendly! Will this be the beginning of a trend where Park Slope parents get booted from their home turf bars?

On The Square, by Ade in New York at flickr
• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: shots fired by police at Blake and Vermont in Brooklyn, an escaped prisoner at East 112th St. and Madison Ave. in Manhattan, and a person under a train at Central Park West and 60th St. in Manhattan.
• Hassan Askari was invited to the State of the Union Address as the guest of Queens Congressman Rep. Joseph Crowley. Askari came to the aid of several Jewish people who were being attacked on the subway.
• A new Bronx courthouse is finally set to open, only three years behind schedule and $100 million over budget.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: an unconscious baby on Ralph Ave. in Brooklyn, a construction accident on Bedford Ave. and Crown St. in Brooklyn, and a found grenade at 54th Ave. and Junction Blvd. in Queens.
• Dave Chappelle made an unannounced appearance at a comedy club, where Radar learned he "took the stage at approximately 12:30 a.m. and didn't leave until club management turned off the lights at 4:20 a.m."
• Busta Rhymes got three years probation, 10 days of community service, $1,250 in fines and will have to cover court costs in relation to assorted offenses related to DWI and assault.

On Sunday Gowanus Lounge received frantic emails from tenants in a blocklong loft building at 475 Kent Avenue in South Williamsburg who were being suddenly tossed out into the frigid night by the FDNY; we went to the building on Monday morning and talked to some of the shell-shocked residents as they moved out, one of whom told us, “Sheila [Properties] owns the whole lot and I don’t want to speculate but there’s a reason they want to empty the whole lot.”

Over 150 residents of an eleven-story building at Kent Avenue in South Williamsburg were evacuated yesterday after the Fire Department and Buildings Department found a number of violations. The building had been illegally converted to residences and a matzoh factory, complete with two silos of (highly combustible) grain in the basement. A neighboring building was cited as well, and the violations ranged from non-working standpipes (which firefighters use to deliver water to fires), illegal partitions, blocked exits, inoperable sprinkler systems and others, including the illegal grain silos for the unauthorized basement bakery.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a homicide on Boyland St. in Brooklyn, a person under a train at 116th St. and Douglass Blvd. in Manhattan, and a body found on West 91st St. in Manhattan.
• Martha Stewart is still mad over the public spat she had with Donald Trump in 2005 over her The Apprentice spin-off series. We bet she prepares a wonderful cold revenge dish.
• Police are searching for a man who attacked a 17-year-old woman in Jamaica, Queens, forcing her at knife point to a secluded area where he sexually assaulted her. The attacker may be the same man responsible for four other similar assaults recently.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: an abduction on Atlantic Ave. in Brooklyn, a double shooting at West 151st St. and Walton Ave. in the Bronx, and a pursuit/crash/bailout on 95th St. and the West Side Highway in Manhattan.
• The disbarred lawyer accused of murdering his wife and blaming it on a random carjacking admitted to cops that he'd sent flowers to his girlfriend that day and had various small affairs and used escorts outside of his marriage.
• The girlfriend who turned in her boyfriend with his huge cache of weapons this week used to work for "The King of All Pimps" Jason Itzler out of his brothel. She was upset with Suwei Chuang because she wanted to get married and he wasn't sure.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a person struck by a train at 14th St. and 8th Ave. in Manhattan, a shooting on Flatbush Ave. in Brooklyn, and a shooting on Houston St. in Manhattan.
• Yet another reason to celebrate: today is the 110th anniversary of Richmond County joining us as the 5th borough of NYC. The Staten Island Advance features a picture of a general store with a wooden Indian in front of it to remind readers what the county was like at the time.
• Queens Crap hands out its annual overdevelopment award. Crappy New Year Councilman John Liu!

Now that you've torn through your presents and are making room for new gifts and purchases -- why not give a little back? Green Brooklyn reminds us that we have until December 31st to make tax-deductible donations (to claim on 2007 income taxes). They were particularly moved by the amount of work Habitat for Humanity has been doing for Brooklyn, they just completed their 9th home in the area -- all "constructed using state-of-the-art, eco-friendly building materials, like cabinets partially made of sunflower seeds and counter tops made of recycled glass."

We've heard a lot about how ignoring tickets can lead to a less-than-ideal stay in a city cell, and the Gowanus Lounge has a story on one Brooklyn woman's recent encounter with "the system". A summons for not walking her dog with a leash and a "free" subway ride were her two violations that collided in a perfect storm, landing her at the Brooklyn Central Booking for 24+ hours. Her main gripe was with the conditions of the place (located on Schermerhorn Street between Smith and Boerum Place):

I was going to see a student in Manhattan. I went to the Nevins Street 4/5 station. The Metrocard machine did not take my ATM card and was not accepting bills! No one was in the booth...I decided to pass through turnstile. I heard someone on the platform below, a cop was there with the token booth worker! I wondered if this was a ticket quota trap.

Continue reading "An Unexpected Visit to Brooklyn Central Booking"

With Christmas less than two weeks away, the annual holiday light display is raging through the nights in Dyker Heights, home of TV’s Scott Baio. Every year tens of thousands of people from around the world flock to the outer-borough Brooklyn neighborhood to gawk at the private homes decked out with millions of dazzling lights.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a shooting on Prospect Pl. in Brooklyn, a collapse at Flushing Ave. at Portland Ave. in Brooklyn, and an armed robbery on 157th St. and 109th Ave. in Queens.
• The Queens courtroom where three cops will be tried on charges of shooting Sean Bell to death is undergoing $175K in renovations in preparation for the trial, even though attorneys for the defense are arguing for a change of venue.
• Rehab center Silver Hill Hospital is being sued after a woman committed suicide while under the facility's care. The person bringing the suit is the executor of her estate, himself a former patient at Silver Hill and someone her doctor advised her to avoid.
• AM New York looks at some NYC bars beloved by Hollywood filmmakers.
• Alex Kelly, the high school rapist from Darien, CT who fled to Europe where he lived on the lam for years before being captured, was released from prison after serving 10 years of his 16 year sentence.
• Cops responding to a call that a woman was being assaulted inside Club Duvet on East 21st St. early this morning were instead met with a patron staggering out of the club with blood flowing from a chest wound. The victim died after being taken to St. Vincent's Hospital.
• A 14-month-old toddler fell out of an open window at his Brooklyn home yesterday, but landed without injury. The child fell 20 feet to the roof of an adjacent record store.
• The Gowanus Lounge reports that the IKEA in Red Hook believes in recycling. It will be using the paving stones that are being ripped up out of Beard St. for some secondary use on the store's property.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a construction accident on 23rd Ave. in Queens, a child was struck on West Houston and Thompson St. in Manhattan, and shots fired on 29th St. in Brooklyn.
• Going along with a network-wide environmentally conscious theme at NBC this season, the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center will be decorated with low power-consuming LEDs.
• The flat rate for a single subway fare will remain $2 until 2009. The fares will go up for all riders eventually, but not as much as previously expected. Also, only 15% of riders pay the $2 flat fare and will be spared any expected increase.
• Debbie Almontaser, the former principal of the Brooklyn dual-language school that teaches students Arabic, is suing the city. She maintains that she was forced out of her job under threat of closing the entire school.
• A man, woman, and young girl died in a Suffolk County apartment from carbon monoxide poisoning even though the building had already been condemned. We'll again stress the importance of making sure smoke and CO monitors are operable in your homes.
• If you missed the full display last year, we're sorry to say that the LED decorations around Brooklyn's Prospect Park will not be reinstalled this year. The Gowanus Lounge reports, however, that a Grand Army Plaza installation will be in place at the beginning of December.
• Despite being named Man of the Year by "the press" and making billions of dollars as a press magnate, Mayor Bloomberg finds the media annoying.
• Place those Christmas Eve carrots out for Santa instead of his reindeer, because some are saying that the plump jolly elf is a bad example for kids suffering from childhood obesity. We apparently need a Santa who's ripped and has sixpack abs.

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a pedestrian struck in a hit and run at Knickerbocker and Gates Aves. in Brooklyn, a wall collapse at Cromwell Ave. in the Bronx, and an escaped prisoner at 107th Ave. and 131st St. in Queens. Firefighters had to rescue a Queens cemetery worker who was buried up to his waist after a cave-in occurred in a 20-foot-deep pit where he was working. The cave-in broke the man's leg...

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a pedestrian struck on 87th St. and Central Park West in Manhattan, a DOA in a tree off Woodhaven Blvd. in Queens, and a burn victim on 42nd St. and Vanderbilt Ave. in Manhattan. Sidewalk chalk outline artist Ellis G[allagher] was arrested by police and held overnight as he was being filmed by a PBS crew last week in Boerum Hill. Charges were dropped the next day and Gallagher...

After receiving a dispensation from city officials last month to remain open until the end of their traditional season, the Red Hook Ball Field vendors are serving up their South and Central American and Mexican fare today and tomorrow for the last time this year. Whether they will return next spring is an open question. This summer the Parks Dept. proposed opening bidding for vending concessions at the fields, which would push most of the present vendors from the scene. Offering indigenous Latin American fare at low prices, there is little chance any of the vendors would be able to outbid a better capitalized organization.

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a child was shot on East 98th St. and Lott Ave. in Brooklyn, an abduction on Exterior and East 138th Sts. in the Bronx, and there was a bank robbery on 8th Ave. and 52nd St. in Manhattan. Local politicians want to make the public display of a noose a felony crime after the incident when someone attached one to the office door of a professor at Columbia Teachers...