Free Citi-bikes for Earth Day! The most anticipated restaurant opening after Bar Ferdinando's

Hey Neighbors - 

Happy Saturday! 

Every week, I’m convinced I’ll have nothing to share with you. Then Friday rolls around and I’m trying to figure out what to cut. 

I’ll keep doing what I’m doing, buuttt I’d LOVE to hear from you! What you want to see more/less of in Ward 6? Email me: [email protected] or ward6_Broooklyn

Love an upgrade? I do! Join the upgraders and pay $6.00 a month. I have Ward 6 stickers to share if you upgrade this week.

Post #31: RHFC plays today; air e-passenger taxis test our skies, Atlantic Ave. bagel shop gets an upgrade, Red Hook needs your help saving its cobblestones streets, more trees for NYC, the Goldman/Lander race heats up, free Citi-bikes for Earth Day! Lundy’s restaurant expands in Red Hook, Sam's Pizzeria second act, Hands Off NYC! and so much more.

Our hometown soccer team, Red Hook FC, defeated Osner FC 4–3 last weekend, with Harry Sankey, Jerry Tagliavia, and Alberto Pangrazzi scoring the winning goals.

Today’s game starts at 4:00 PM at Red Hook field #5. Not a soccer fan? That’s OK, come join for some community spirit!

The Red Hook Business Alliance needs your help to save Red Hook’s historic and charming cobblestone streets from being replaced with asphalt.

Though I was unable to get confirmation from the Department of Transportation on why the agency wants to replace the cobblestones, some of the reasons given in the past have concerned noise, riding comfort, and the impact on buses and trucks. In addition, DOT only has one cobblestone repair team, according to this NYT story.

The Red Hook Business Alliance wants to hear from you! Why you think the cobblestones should be protected, especially if you are a photographer or filmmaker who has used the historic streets in your work. Survey.

You may have noticed the bagel store on Clinton and Atlantic Ave. has its windows covered and a new name, Dinah. With a tip from a Carroll Gardens reader, I learned that Dinah will open Today from 11 – 3:00 PM with free bagels, a DJ, and a soft opening sometime this week.

Dinah is a take on the owner’s name, Ina Howard. “Dinah is the NY way of saying 'diner,' plus a spin on her name,” said a person affiliated with the restaurant’s social media.

Howard, who lives in Cobble Hill, bought the bagel store in 2024. She soon realized “the store had the potential to do and be more for the community.” The hand-rolled bagels will still be on the menu, but the food will be “elevated but casual cuisine.” She wants to host community events such as book readings and baking classes.

Maybe the most anticipated re-opening after Bar Ferdinando’s is Sam’s Pizzeria on Court St. Former resident and frequent Sam’s patron over the years, Robert Simonson, now has the story of how a longtime Long Island Bar employee, going back to its early days, with eyes on Sam’s for some time, is reimagining the iconic spot. Australian Georgia Fulton says, “I promise to wholeheartedly to fill it with all the love it deserves.”

When my boyfriend, now husband, and I relocated to New York from the West Coast, he was eager to take me back to his “ancestral homeland,” as he liked to joke. This, of course, was Brooklyn’s Sheepshead Bay, where his parents grew up, and most of his family lived (my parents were from the other “B” borough). One of the places on our list to visit was Lundy’s restaurant on Ocean Avenue, where both his parents often went, as did many other middle-class Jewish families in those days.

My mother-in-law remembers fresh lobster from Sheepshead Bay (!) and a good show. “The waiters worked very fast to serve and clear the food – this done spinning around and tossing things up in the air. This would, of course, cause the patrons to gasp, clap, and hopefully tip more generously.”

“During the ennui of my adolescence, I would often go there for oysters and then meander along the bay, wondering the meaning of life,” texted my father-in-law when I asked about memories of Lundy’s.

Even though Lundy’s was not part of my side of the family’s lore, I feel some nostalgia for the place and was eager to try it when it moved to Red Hook, in 2024. It has a completely different feeling from what I remember, but the crowd was all Sheepshead Bay or SB-adjacent. No hipsters here.

All of this to say, I was over-the-moon when I saw Andrea Strong’s post on her Strong Buzz newsletter mid-week that Lundy’s is part of the new Red Hook Barrel Yard, distillery, cidery, and winery all rolled up in one, next to Strong Rope Brewery. Lundy’s will serve raw bar, steak, and other seafood.

Yesterday, NYC started to test its first Electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing (eVTOL) or electric air taxis from Manhattan’s Downtown Skyport, on the east side, to JFK Airport. The one-way trip will take six minutes.

President Trump’s Executive Order last year paved the way for this project, allowing companies like Joby Aviation to begin test flights before FAA certification. New York is one of 26 states testing air taxis.

Jody acquired Blade Aviation last year, which some of you might remember as one of the companies behind the Ryder Cup’s helicopter invasion.

Starting on Monday, a 12-month drone medical cargo delivery pilot will begin between Lower Manhattan’s Skyport and Pier 7 in Brooklyn. The Port Authority of NY and NJ did a shorter pilot in January with 135 flights.

The goal is to remove congestion from NYC streets with low-carbon alternatives.

Drones will make multiple round trips of pharmaceutical products from 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM.

I joined a group of neighbors and electives last weekend at a Hands Off NYC training session at a church on Court St. led by one of its co-founders, Hannah Strauss. The six-month-old organization, Hands off NYC, has trained 1000s of people, and I highly recommend you attend a training.

As Assembly Member Jo Ann Simon said, this training is important “to ensure we can protect our communities, ourselves and our democracy.”

Key takeaways:

To learn more about Hands Off NYC:  “They are The Heat of Ice,” NY Mag.

See MARK YOUR CALENDAR for a Hands Off NYC Mid-Term election training.

As soon as I heard that both candidates had shown up at the Columbia St. Waterfront Association’s Earth Day event, I immediately contacted CSWA’s Randy Gordon. Did they talk? Avoid one another?

"Goldman and Lander did interact, briefly,” said Randy Gordon, head of the CSWA. “Goldman was leaving just as Lander arrived. They said hello and shook hands. No drama. We were very happy they both came."

I was pleased to hear Goldman made time to walk with Gordon to the vacant pre-K building on Van Brunt/President St., which has cost taxpayers millions of dollars to sit empty.

If you’re following the race, you may have seen the Crain’s article last week accusing Lander of flip-flopping on the Brooklyn Marine Terminal, first advocating for the Task Force to vote YES on the city’s controversial “vision plan” and then submitting public comments that question whether housing should be central to the proposed development plan.

The article says Lander encouraged/pursuaded two of the holdouts, Brooklyn Borough President and Council Member Shanana Hanif, to support the plan. They both switched their votes to a YES at the last minute. It is unclear how much of a role Lander played in this; neither office returned my request for comment.

Politics aside… if Lander did change his mind on the BMT, he should come out and say so and move on.

I do wonder why Rep. Goldman never gives updates on the BMT in his weekly newsletter. He updates his constituents about the Gowanus Clean-up, for example, but this week the BMT Task Force, which Goldman is a part of (used to chair), met again, and his newsletter did not mention it. 

In an earlier post last year about dog pee, I wrote about Louis Cox, the neighborhood tree guy and filmmaker, who has helped plant 20 trees in Cobble Hill with the support of Council Member Shahana Hanif, the Cobble Hill Association, and the Parks Department. Trees are expensive, Louis told Ward 6, the permitting process is not easy, and it takes a lot of community effort.

Now the Mamdani administration has embarked on the City’s first Urban Forest Plan, a roadmap to plant thousands of trees throughout every borough. Seven million trees populate the city, and the mayor is calling for a five percent increase by 2040.

The Urban Forest Kick-off event took place in Red Hook earlier this week, a community that lost 450 trees after Superstorm Sandy, as part of a resiliency project for the flood-prone neighborhood.

Today! 10 – 4:00 PM | DOT’s Car Free Earth Day; FREE 30-minute Citi-bikes

April 25 - 26th | The Super Fair: An Art Fair Grows in Brooklyn | 345 Adams St.

Today! Brooklyn Volunteer Day, multiple locations

Today! 11:00 – 2:00 PM | Dinah diner community event + DJ | 200 Clinton St.

Sunday, April 26 | BK Half Marathon!

Monday, April 27, 7-8:30 PM |  Hands Off Our Vote Town Hall: The Threats to Our Elections, How We Got Here and What We Can Do About It in New York. Online – reserve your spot here.

Tuesday, April 28, 7:00 PM | PortSide NY’s virtual screening of the documentary Inundation District, followed by a discussion with filmmaker David Abel in Boston. The film explores how Boston made the mistake of creating a new neighborhood of glass towers on land similar to the Brooklyn waterfront, and the problems it has faced.

Wednesday, April 29th | Second Annual Saint Julivert’s Greeking Out on Wine. Call the restaurant for more details. 

Look ahead: Monday, May 4th, 6 - 7:00 PM | CSWA Family Committee is holding a listening session to discuss neighborhood childcare needs. Jalopy Theatre on Columbia St. To register, click here. 

Monday, May 4th, 7:00 PM | Kathryn Stockett, author of The Help, reads from her new novel, The Calamity Club, at St Ann and Trinity Church | tix

Look ahead: May 8th: Last day to submit comments to the NYEDC about potential study areas for the Brooklyn Marine Terminal. For guidance: Check out The Columbia. St. Waterfront Association,  The Cobble Hill Association or PortSide NY here.

Thanks for reading! JLH