Hey Neighbors,
Happy Saturday and, more importantly, happy official spring!
I’m not sure what happened with last week’s post. I finished it on Friday night (a record!) and scheduled to publish it on Saturday. Alas, I guess I missed the publish part. Oh well! If you missed it, I sent it on Monday in time for your morning commute.
To celebrate a big birthday in my family this week, I finally went to Gage & Tullner on Fulton St., a Brooklyn institution that first opened in 1879. The next day, I could not help myself and scoured the Brooklyn newspaper archives for some fun facts to share.
1929: It was the “one chop house in the City to survive Prohibition.”
1929: Each table had a sign that said, “Ladies are not permitted to smoke.”
1954: There were 49 oyster and clam dishes on the menu!
1954: Waiters had to apprentice as busboys for five years.
1963: “Brooklyn’s main contribution to civilization.”
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In this week’s Ward 6 (#26): Cobble Hill actors share a family recipe; more tacos coming to Carroll Gardens; will the Carroll St. Bridge reopen to cars? Local dad turns to social media to get answers; 5,000 art house movie tickets available; why more apartment buildings won’t solve the housing crisis; a peek inside the soon to open Bar Ferdinando’s, volunteer at Red Hook Farm this weekend!
FIRST A BROWNSTONE TOUR AND NOW BANANA BREAD?
A few months ago, actors Maggie Gyllenhaal and her husband, Peter Skarsgard, toured their Cobble Hill brownstone with Architectural Digest. Now Maggie and her brother Jake (rumored to have bought a house on the same Cobble Hill block) are sharing their mom’s banana bread recipe with NY Times Cooking.
A SNEAK PEEK OF THE SOON TO OPEN BAR FERDINANDO’S
My peek inside the cafe/bar.
The long-awaited reopening of Bar Ferdinando’s on Union St. is less than a month away. Andrea Strong of Strong Buzz spoke to the chef, who’s also behind the popular Cafe Spaghetti and Swooney’s and reports April 15th is the day.
Popular Greenpoint taco shop Taqueria Ramírez is opening in Carroll Gardens. Read all about it in this week’s Court St. Journal.
WILL THE NEWLY REBUILT CARROLL ST. BRIDGE BE CLOSED TO CARS?
The Carroll St. Bridge in Gowanus will finally reopen sometime this spring, but it’s unclear whether cars will be allowed to use it.
In November, our community board passed a resolution supporting the possibility of the bridge remaining open only to cyclist and pedestrians.
As Streetblogs reports and the resolution lays out, our community board, under the transportation committee leadership of Doug Gordon, is supportive of exploring a broader Low Traffic Neighborhoods (LTN) plan for the Gowanus. Unfortunately, I missed the transportation committee meeting on Thursday night where this was discussed.
“One of the things that we want to avoid in Gowanus with the rezoning and all of the new development is just like a traffic apocalypse where people move in, bring their cars with them, and are just using them for every trip because driving is easy,” Gordon said.
Local dad Zach Hetrick watched enthusiastically as an old warehouse on his Columbia St. Waterfront block transformed into a newly renovated 3-K For All facility. The father of two girls, 5 and 3, Hetrick, assumed he’d struck gold with 132 new 3K seats within walking distance of his apartment, just as his oldest was getting ready to start school. Seats at nearby schools like PS 29 fill up fast, with as many as 100 kids on the waitlist in some years.
In 2023, Brooklyn Bridge Parents reported the Van Brunt location would open that year. But it never did.
Together with other neighborhood parents, Hetrick dug into public records and learned the Department of Education spent millions to renovate the building, which I also confirmed, and paid $1.3 million in rent.
Newly renovated 3K building on Van Brunt and President St.
Meanwhile, his daughter was assigned a 3K location near Greenwood Cemetery, a bus and subway ride from his Columbia St. neighborhood.
Council Member Shanana Hanif told the parents the Department of Education was looking for a provider to run the school. Still, the facility never opened, and the DOE said that District 15, where they live, didn’t need more early education seats.
Hetrick and the other parents disagree. They shared their research with a New York Post reporter, who investigated further and found that there were 24 other “mothball” locations slated to open under Mayor Bill de Blasio’s “3K for All” program, but never did.
Local dad Zack interviewing Rome outside the unused 3K building
Still, no answers about whether or when the new school will open.
The parents have started a petition, and Hetrick, to get the attention of our new millennial Mayor, turned to social media this week - Mamdani’s preferred method of communication. A second post will be out soon, says Hetrick.
“Maybe one of the right people will see it,” Hentrick told me, “like a staffer in the Mayor’s office.”
More recent universal Pre-K news: NY Focus.
FREE MOVIES! WHAT?!
The Mayor’s Inaugural Art House Cinema Week has begun with 5,000 free tickets available. Cobble Hill Cinema, Alamo Drafthouse (which, by the way, has returned to paper ordering) and other Brooklyn theaters are participating.
“Cinema Week aims to highlight the city’s vibrant cultural institutions and provide New Yorkers opportunities to rediscover their local independent cinemas and gather together as a community to experience the art of filmmaking.”
AND THE RACE IS ON…
Cong. Dan Goldman versus former Comptroller Brad Lander has officially begun. Some night this week, I received the largest campaign mailer, the size of a small poster, from the Goldman camp.
And while not an official campaign stop, Brad Lander showed up at the in-person Brooklyn Marine Terminal meeting on March 11th and patiently waited in line like the rest of the residents to ask him a question.
Lander put on his Comptroller hat to answer a question about using bonds to pay for the proposed development
JOBS! JOBS! JOBS!
Seasonal job openings at Brooklyn Bridge Park.
WHY BUILD AFFORDABLE HOUSING ON A TOXIC WASTE SITE?
Developers plan to build 955 affordable housing units and a public school on a highly contaminated site in Gowanus. Residents skeptical of the city’s remediation plan demanded a more robust clean-up under the state’s Superfund program at a public meeting last week.
BUILDING MORE APARTMENTS WON’T SOLVE OUR HOUSING CRISIS
Ever since the former Mayor’s City of Yes campaign, the build, build, build mantra has taken hold of our electeds as the only solution to make NYC more affordable to rent or buy. Adams and other electeds also successfully sold voters on the idea that developers could build, build, build if New Yorkers supported the three housing ballot measures.
Both our community board and the EDC, the quasi city agency behind the proposed waterfront development, often cited City of Yes and the housing measures as solutions to the housing (affordable) crisis in Brooklyn.
Seems logical, but as with most things, it’s way more complicated, especially in New York City. What works in Kansas City or other cities, won’t necessarily work in our city.
Similar to another study I posted a few weeks ago, Hell Gate reports this week on a new study that points to rising income inequality as the affordability culprit.
The problem is that income growth has been skewed massively toward the well-off, with the top 1 percent of earners seeing their incomes rise 4.5 times faster than the bottom 90 percent.
But it’s not only the top 1 percent. “It’s the top 30 to 40 percent of people who are doing really well,” says the paper’s lead author, Maximilian Buchholz of UC Berkeley.
What’s the solution? Read Hell Gates’ interview with the paper’s lead author.
Proposed highrises (30-40 story) looking north down Columbia St. and DeGraw
On Monday, more than 100 people attended the final Brooklyn Marine Terminal meeting for this phase of the proposed development. In total, the City held four meetings, half on Zoom and half in person.
According to Emily Spokowski, Senior Project Manager at the Mayor’s Office of Environmental Coordination (OEC), which is overseeing this phase, 110 people testified (some people spoke more than once). They’ve also received 65 written comments so far (again, some people have submitted more than once). Written comments are due on March 31st - pls send to: [email protected].
I had to leave early, but here are some highlights from testimony:
The scope of work does not incorporate the impact of future work on the BQE. Instead, the proposed plan assumes the status quo, even though construction will undoubtedly start (let’s hope!) in the coming years, and impact not only the Brooklyn waterfront, but miles of highway and side streets in either direction.
A resident expressed concern that Carroll Gardens is not included in some of the study areas even though it’s blocks from the waterfront.
Another resident said a project like this will exacerbate inequality. The focus should be on modernizing the port and creating more middle-class jobs.
“She grew up in a (haunted?) funeral home, and now she’s keeping the dynasty alive (Carroll Gardens Gazette).”
“Red Hook Needs a Place like Wraptor (Red Hook Star Revue),” says noted director. While the article is mostly about Jeremy Workman’s incredible documentary, Secret Mall Apartment,” he also worked with film students who edited this short video about Wraptor. Full disclosure, I know Jeremy.
Brooklyn’s Mermaid Parade is in jeopardy if organizers don’t raise enough money. “To close the gap, organizers launched a GoFundMe campaign to appeal directly to the public.”
Seems like year-round outdoor dining will soon be a reality again (BK Mag).
Our State Senator, Andrew Gounardes, the lead sponsor of the Stop Super Speeders Act is working hard in Albany to get it passed. The bill “requires any motorist who accumulates 16 or more speed camera violations in a year or 11 or more license points within 18 months to install a speed limiter device on their vehicle (Brooklyn Eagle).” Here’s Gounardes doing a test drive.
Makes sense to me. But why not take away a driver’s license if a person has 16 violations?!
Not Brooklyn specific, but too good not to suggest. “What do you do and how much do you make?” from NY Magazine.
MARK YOUR CALENDAR!
Today! 10-7:00 PM | Sample and Overstock sale @ The Delta 210 Court St.
Today! 10- 1:00 PM | Volunteer at the Red Hook farm. Sign up HERE.
Monday, March 27th, Pier 2 roller rink re-opens, and Pier 5 adult/youth soccer sign-ups are ongoing.
Tuesday, March 31, 5 - 7:00 PM | Knitting Club @ Swallow Cafe, Clinton and Atlantic St.
Tuesday, March 31 | Express yourself! Last chance to submit your Brooklyn Marine Terminal impact statement | send to: [email protected]
Thanks for reading! Next week… the Red Hook Football Club
Midfielder, college senior and Red Hook raised, Alpha Bah