The development company that's pushing for a special rezoning approval to construct several residential buildings by the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn came under fire at a Neighborhood Association meeting in Carrol Gardens last night, with two local architects dismissing the project renderings as deceptive. Chris McVoy and John Hatheway maintained that the developer, Toll Brothers, has provided renderings that make their tallest building—which would be 12 stories and 125 feet high—look more like 85 feet.......

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. The project would......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a bank robbery on Hillside Ave. in Queens, commercial robbery on 16th St. in Brooklyn, and a bomb threat on 70th St. and 2nd Ave. in Manhattan. We hope some Brooklynites' leases are ironclad, because getting tatooed with an image of your building is the new fashion. Mayor Bloomberg conjures the ghost of Teddy Roosevelt and the Bull Moose Party by suggesting the likeliehood of a third party candidacy......

For the second time since construction started, there was a serious accident at the One Ten Third, the Toll Brothers project at...110 3rd Avenue and East 13th Street. This time, it wasn't a crane that came crashing down, but glass falling to the street below. It's unclear at this time whether it was just one piece of glass, but 3rd Avenue was shut down. It appears that there are no injuries and we're told......

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......

The first lawsuit related to the East Village crane mishap has surfaced: The men who owned and operated the yellow cab that was smashed by a crane two week ago are suing the construction company and crane contractor for unspecified damages. On September 29, Chrislorme Paul had been driving a passenger on Third Avenue when an 8,000 pound crane segment at a Toll Brothers construction site fell onto his cab; Paul and the passenger......

Whoa, via labs about a half-hour ago: "crane just dropped a giant block into traffic 15 floors down smashing thru a cab! i got pics on the scene." (Pix are from Selectroclash.) The wires are saying that the police are calling a level one mobilization because the crane is still unstable. Six people have been injured, and three buildings are being evacuated. More info as it develops. Update: pix can be found at londontube......

Long Island City may be losing MetLife, but now it seems like media conglomerate Viacom is considering a move to LIC. The Sun has a very interesting article about how the a move east would help reduce Viacom's cost (and improve its bottomline) if its various occupancy costs went down:The company currently leases 1.4 million square feet (or 78%) of the space in the building run by S.L. Green (which, incidentally, is also bullish on......

Be still our beating heart: The ever-so-successful builders of McMansions is coming to NYC. The NY Times details the Big Apple Dreams of the Toll Brothers. Chances are, if you've driven through the 'burbs in NJ, Pennsylvania, NY, and about twenty other states, you'll have seen a Toll Brothers home (oversized, gleaming homes clumped together). The company's website says this about it's "City Living" concept in NYC:Toll Brothers, America’s Luxury Homebuilder, will soon bring its......