Have we reached peak coffee? Some say yes (I'm not one of them).

Hey neighbors - 

Happy Saturday.  Early voting starts today! I suggest looking over the ballot initiatives before you go. This webinar from the left-leaning Indivisible is one place to look, and be sure to scroll down because they include other helpful links. CityState is always a good resource, and TheCityReporter is, too. 

I haven’t decided how I plan to vote on the ballot initiatives. But as you’ll see, Mamdani’s administration seems obsessed with speed. Same goes for the last round of ballot initiatives. Love the idea of NYC bureaucracy working faster (and hopefully more efficiently), but will speeding everything up, which can mean cutting out local imput, just create a different set of problems and unintended consequences? Dunno. What do you think? Pls email me: [email protected].

I hesitate to bring this up in case no one noticed my “problematic” headline last Saturday: “The Best Holiday Gift: No Shopping Necessary.”  

Soon after Ward 6 probably landed in your inbox, I realized I never explained what the heck I was talking about. What gift?? So, dear readers, let me explain…a week later. The gift is the opening of the Carroll Gardens Library, which looks like the stars and the moon will align for it to happen in December, just in time for the holidays! 🙂

If you love Ward 6, or even just like it and are a regular reader, I encourage you to share it with friends (my goal is 25 more subscribers this week!) AND support my work and hyper-local news by upgrading to pay $6 a week/month.  And for folks who are reading and can sponsor a weee bit more, please don’t hesitate.  

Post#57: Have we reached peak coffee? And have you heard about the $200 cup? One of NY Magazine’s fav stationery shops with some rare small biz good news; DIY culinary tour of CHill and CGardens starts in 1 hour!; the ever ridiculous, bad-faith, time-sucking, irresponsible “plan” to f*&^ up the BK waterfront; a croissant making class, Liz’s Book Bar holds a dating/not dating singles night and so much more to Mark Your Calendar!

A few things to mention on the coffee front. First, I saw that Nako of Brooklyn Heights is opening (exact date tba) a second location a mile or so south on Smith/3rd.  I can attest, Nako has excellent coffee. 

Fun Fact:  Nako is the co-owner’s first name (Okan (Harman) spelled backward.

I’ve noticed some online grumblings about coffee saturation in our corner of Brooklyn everytime a new coffee shop opens. It first came up after an article about Cafe Wands replacing the former Gus’s Chop House on Union St. and again when Smor and Light Switch opened on Court St. One person who complained about the addition of another coffee shop and suggested a coffee + pizza joint would be better.

As long as these coffee places have distinct personalities, high-quality coffee, and the prices aren’t too insane (who am I kidding?), I say bring ‘em on. I don’t want to be that “when I first moved to the neighborhood” kinda person and compare then with now. That said, for a long time, I remember there was one cafe. One! 

Then there is this from Eater: Bushwick’s Sey Coffee recently announced that it would be touring a rare Panamanian geisha from Finca Sophia, a coffee farm in Panama’s Chiriquí highlands. Sey scooped up the geisha at auction for $44,275, which comes to $6,325 per kilogram, or roughly $200 per cup.  

One of New York Magazine’s best stationery stores of 2023, Court Street’s Measure Twice, with some excellent news this week:

As you know, there is so much that makes my blood boil about our prior mayor’s “vision” for the Brooklyn waterfront, which, for some reason, our current mayor rubber-stamped, despite it being antithetical to his stated values and regardless of the intense community opposition because everyone knows it’s a deeply flawed “plan.” 

This week I can add another reason why this whole “plan,” and the quasi-agency spearheading it at the mayor's behest, needs a do-over/rethink/—full stop. 

My new mantra: New mayor. New Plan. I should also add new congressperson since in a few weeks Dan Goldman will be out and he’s the one who jammed through this “vision” faster than my neighbor could get the DOT to put in safety measures near tha Van Voorhees ballfields.

On Wednesday at 10:00 AM I sat through the second 1.5-hour Zoom (more below) this month about the “plan,” took diligent notes, and then waited for this quasi-city agency to post the recording, which I run through a non-AI transcription platform for easier reference (for anyone who wants it).  It’s been four days, and still no recording after repeated emails to Seth Schuster/EDC and Chelsea Sudaley/EDC. 

This might seem petty, but this quasi-city agency constantly toots its own horn about transparency. Plus, if our mayor is all about a faster NYC bureaucracy, this seems like a worthy one to support. 

How can I do my job and inform community members in a timely way about this massive proposed redevelopment if city government doesn’t do its part?

I wasn’t planning to mention this, but the only thing I can think of that held up the release this meeting was a heated exchange between a Red Hook resident and a Red Hook elected official that disrupted the Zoom, and then continued on a community WhatsApp group. A lot of accusations about race, sanctuary cities, inter-neighborhood disputes, accountability, and so on. I guess we’ll find out at some point.

While I waited for the recording to upload (I wanted to compare my handwritten quotes with the recording), I found myself wasting a good 15 minutes scrolling through old Brooklyn Marine Terminal YouTube video (with ads!) and found this gem from June 2025: “Brooklyn Marine Terminal: Turning Community Priorities Into Action.”  

I digress. Back to this week’s BMT news.

On Wednesday, the Mayor’s Brooklyn Marine Terminal project team of city officials and dozens of consultants held its 8th meeting since October 2025. The 1.5-hour Zoom agenda was to discuss the “Atlantic Basin District (ABD),” the project team’s name for the southern part of the proposed new waterfront neighborhood. 

The ABD would start at Union St., include about a dozen apartment towers, 2000+ new residents, a 400-room hotel, the cruise terminal, and various other commercial and industrial space.  There are no official plans for additional/improvments to public transportation to accommodate this new neighborhood.

Mayor Mamdani’s project team presented renderings of various areas that make up the ABD, which in my opinion, closely resemble the FiDi waterfront or other uninspired new developments. Let’s call it the strip mall of waterfront developments: same design, different waterfront. 

These virtual meetings are for AFT members (I’m not sure how many showed up since they don’t let the public see who is on the Zoom) to get updates from the project team, primarily on design. The most controversial parts of this “vision,” the density of housing and new residents, the job-producing port, the finances, lack of feasibility studies–are left out of the official AFT agenda. The project team is focused on rezoning the waterfront property to build the 30-40 towers of mostly luxury apartments.

So, from my small laptop window, I count these meetings as mostly performative, especially because the project teams repeatedly remind the Zoom participants that almost everything discussed can (and probably will) change once the real estate developers take over. 

For example, ATF member Maulin Mehta, the director of regional planning for Regional Plan Association, asked about the proposed locations for the entrance and exits of this new area and whether trucks will clog Red Hook streets waiting to get through security.  The project team member answered Mehta’s question, but then essentially said it would be up to the developer to figure it out. But what if this “plan” bakes in design scenarios that a developer cannot resolve and Red Hook continues to be inundated with truck traffic? 

Unfortunately, reporters and community members are not allowed to ask questions or post in the chat. I assume the meetings are designed this way because three residents sued NYC, accusing it of violating the Open Meetings Law by holding the 2024-2025 Task Force (TF) meetings behind closed doors, with no official recordings or transcripts available to the public and press. 

In other words, no official record exists of what was said behind closed doors for nearly a year as members of Congress and other elected officials, mayoral appointees, community groups, neighborhood associations, real estate and maritime interests, among many other stakeholders, debated and eventually approved, after many failed attempts, this controversial “vision plan.” 

When or if this proposed plan is codified, the 122 acres will get turned over to NYC (aka public land), and we have no official record of how we got here. This should concern everyone. 

Here’s an example from Wednesday’s meeting (stick with me ‘cause it needs some set up): 

Advisory Task Force member Hank Gutman, former DOT commissioner, who also served on the ‘24-’25 BMT Task Force and is also a member of the BMT Development Corporation (DC), asked, probably for the umpteenth time, the Mayor’s project team for a professional financial review of the funding model of how the city plans to pay for this $3.5 billion “vision plan.  

Remember, the funding mechanism relies on thousands of luxury housing units to subsidize port modernization, below-market-rate housing, among many grand plans. Gutman estimates it’s been more than a year since he and other ATF members have seen a financial analysis.

“Where is the funding for this?” Gutman asked on Wednesday. “Numbers shifted in the final days [right before the “vision” plan vote]. Numbers got fanciful.”

Gutman is referring to the last-minute negotiations, in September 2025, before the passage of the controversial “vision plan.” TF members negotiated more below-market-rate housing, which today stands at 40% across the entire project (🤞).

However, this last-minute change, alleges Gutman, isn't part of the official financial analysis for the proposed project. In other words, he says, the ATF and the public are completely in the dark about how this impacts the financial analysis and feasibility of this funding scheme. Not to mention, I’ll add, other ecomomic factors like increases in construction prices and mortgage rates,

Will all of this require even more luxury housing, for example, to cover the loss of revenue?  A smaller port or other public amenities? Or massive city/state subsidies similar to Atlantic and Hudson Yards? Who knows, but I’d rather know sooner than later.

Gutman then referenced a 2025 conversation about this between Nate Bliss, who, at the time, worked as the Executive Director of Economic Development under Eric Adams, and the entire Task Force team. Allegedly, Bliss made it clear that the official funding model did not, and would not, include this last-minute change, meaning Task Force members who vote in support of this “vision” will do so with only limited information about how NYC will pay for it. This all happened behind closed doors.

In response to Gutman, Lizette Chaparro, VP of neighborhood strategies for the NYC-EDC (Mamdani’s project team), assured Zoom that an updated financial model will be available soon. 

 “We are planning to do this on December 15th…we have been diving into the financial modeling to make sure this works out.” Until December 2025, Chaparro worked as a senior advisor for housing and land use for Eric Adams.  

The Red Hook Business Alliance head, Carly Baker-Rice, raised similar concerns but focused on their “plan” to modernize the Red Hook port, which the EDC’s website calls the centerpiece of its “vision plan.”  Baker-Rice and others pointed out that the flawed funding mechanism, which is part of the larger funding plan, is magical thinking and contradicts all maritime industry standards. 

The Strong Buzz: An Undiscovered Carroll Gardens Bakery That’s Tiny and Delicious.

Cobble Hill Row House With Wood-Burning Stoves, Parking Asks $8.3 Million (Brownstoner). Circa 180os!

Eater: (B. Hill’s) Alison Roman’s jarred tomato sauce is no longer “Very Good”

You aren’t just imagining it - yes, the number of crazy drivers exceeding the speed limit and much more already exceeds last year! (HellGate)

From Grub Street via Ravenous: “Our eyes are deceiving you; chocolate is being enshittified.” I ventured into the molten belly….Check out this investigation (paywall).

Today! Saturday, Oct. 24 - 25th,  11:00 - 6:00 PM, Fall Fad Market | 190 Court St. 

Today! Saturday, Oct. 24th, 2:00 PM - 7:00 PM | DIY Culinary Tour: Taste of Cobble Hill - Carroll Gardens! More info here. “Proceeds support Seeds in the Middle, funding local farm stands, gardens, and food security programs in low-income NYC neighborhoods. 

Today! Saturday, Oct. 24th 1:00 - 3:00 PM Fall Neighborhood Cookout & Fundraiser at Summit St. community garden (Summitt/Columbia St.). Live music! 

Sunday, Oct. 25th  10:00 AM - 1:00 PM | Art of the Croissant workshops @ Atelier Ariana Cafe:  “learn the secrets behind our croissants, pains au chocolat, and other viennoiseries. From mixing and laminating to shaping, baking (and tasting of course!), you’ll spend three hours learning, creating, and enjoying the process 🥐  Smith/9th

Monday, October 26th (virtual) and 27th (in-person) Ask the project heads of the Brooklyn Marine Terminal whatever you want in this one-on-one sessions. Sign up here (V) or here for in-person.

Wednesday, Oct. 28th, 6:00 - 9:00 PM | Meet and mingle with folks from the mighty Columbia St. Waterfront Association, Hop-Shop on Columbia St. 

Thursday, Oct. 29, 4:00 PM — 14th Annual Barnacle Parade (streets of Red Hook

Tuesday, Nov. 3rd  7:00 PM - 9:00 PM | Millennial Skip the Small Talk: “kinda like speed-dating, but without the speed and without the dating.”  No work talk at this event, no awkward silences. A host will prompt you and guide the conversation slightly deeper than you’d usually go. Fun! Liz’s Book Bar $

Thanks for reading! Happy Halloween! JLH