Hey Neighbors -
Happy Saturday and Valentine’s / Palentine’s / Galentine’s Day. No plans? I have you covered.
Housekeeping…I realized some of the links at the top of the newsletter last week didn’t work. Hopefully, I figured it out so you can easily jump around the post.
Before I get to the news, I want to tell you about TextTeddy, a cool app in its first stage of development that I learned about last week at a book event for Anna Quindlen, who, by the way, is incredibly funny and down-to-earth. TextTeddy is an easy way to store and organize movie, book, and podcast recommendations instead of texting yourself or adding to Notes. It’s still a little glitchy as they improve the design and add more media categories. Just what I’ve been waiting for!
POST #21: Love, Love, Love and more LOVE; UPDATE: Is Court Street’s Redesign Getting A Redesign? So Much Food, So Little Time; An accident on Columbia + fire on Strong Pl; Express Youself! Get involved; For $25K a month, you get a Superfund site and two terraces; Hip-Hop at Borough Hall; Update: BK waterfront; Mark your calendar
LOOKING FOR LOVE?
Looking for love and bored of scrolling through apps? Red Hook Star-Revue checks out speed-dating mash-up at The Planted Cafe on Smith Street. I also heard that Talea on Bergen St. hosts a speed-dating night. I met my husband while waitressing, so I’m all in for in-person options.
NOTHING SAYS LOVE LIKE PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION
The MTA shared the love story of four couples who met while riding or working on the subway, buses, or trains. Nice!
WITH LOVE, FROM BROOKLYN: THE KARAOKE QUEEN OF MONTERO’S
Too shy to do karaoke unless it’s a group kind-of-thing, I have plenty of friends who rave about karaoke at Montero’s and won’t sing any place else. Now I see why.
Don’t drink alcohol? Check out my review of dispensaries in our corner of Brooklyn
MORE LOVE TO GO AROUND
Today, Columbia St. Waterfront resident, Melanie Adams, aka Electric Lady Florals, will be at The Delta with her new “Forever Bouquet.” Private chef, Jillian Canaj and her soon-to-launch Chef’s Daughter, a new meal delivery company will also be at The Delta today. | 120 Court St.
And from HyperAllergic: You Guide to a Sexy, Artsy, Non-Boring Valentine’s Day in NYC.
Wuthering Heights now showing at Cobble Hill Cinemas.
Tonight, Heartbreak Holiday Dance at Jalopy on Columbia St.- Two-Step Lessons! | 730 PM | $
UPDATE: IS COURT STREET’S REDESIGN GETTING A REDESIGN?
*** After I finished writing this post, a Ward 6 reader forwarded me a Reddit post with a notice of appeal from the Court Street Merchants Association filed on Wednesday. I guess the meeting I wrote about below didn’t go as well as I thought.
As I mentioned last week, the Department of Transportation met with a handful of Court St. business owners, the first time since the changes, to hear about their concerns. Andrea Romeo, owner of Painted Swan on Court and 2nd, said she’s cautiously optimistic that DOT will make some modifications.
Safety issues remain a concern, especially for older adults or parents with children, when exiting a car onto the street or a bike lane.
Here are some other ideas that came up:
Return the parking meters to two hours. This way, visitors to Court St. don’t have to rush out of a movie or dinner after an hour.
Alter the “commercial only” parking places.
How will restaurants on the east side of Court St. return to outdoor dining if they can’t build a shed in the street?
On Wednesday, Romeo also addressed the Community Board 6 meeting to encourage neighbors to talk civilly with each other about the bike lane after she posted her concerns on Nextdoor and was immediately attacked and threatened with a boycott of her business.
GREENPOINT PIZZA JOINT COMING TO OUR AREA
I’ve never been to Paulie Gees in Greenpoint, but I know people are excited about the pizza place moving into the former Ample Hills space on Union St.
LOWER PRICES AND THE NEW BAR BRUNO OWNERS
Andrea Strong writes in The Strong Buzz newsletter that the team behind Greenpoint Fish and Lobster is also the team behind Bar Bruno, which will reopen in a few weeks. They will continue to serve Mexican food, but with some updates and lower prices (who does this?!).
ANOTHER ACCIDENT ON COLUMBIA STREET
On Thursday, there was another accident on Columbia Street (Summit), further evidence that the neighborhood needs additional traffic safety measures at intersections along the busy street, which lack lights or stop signs. If you want to join some of your neighbors lobbying the DOT to make changes, please email [email protected].
Columbia St / Summitt
EXPRESS YOURSELF!
Our Community Board 6 would like your help as it gathers information about “persistent or serious street safety issues.” CB6 is now also featuring CrashCount on its website, which tracks vehicle accidents and lists cars by license plate ticketed for speeding in school zones.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani wants to hear from NYC renters in its first-of-its-kind, “Rental Ripoff Hearings.” Whether it’s mold, hidden fees, or appliance problems, tell the new administration what really goes on in the rental world. The Feb. 26th in-person meeting is currently at capacity, but I’d email them ([email protected]) to ask whether they plan to move to a larger venue. You can also submit your complaints and skip the meeting ([email protected]).
Cool GFX
FIRE ON STRONG PLACE
On Tuesday, a fire broke out at a 4-story building on Strong Place. The FDNY said two people with minor injuries were taken to the hospital. A neighbor heard the cause of the fire may have been a space heater.
Credit: E. Young
A SUPERFUND SITE IS NOT DETERRING LUXURY BUYERS & RENTERS
A 4-bedroom duplex in a Gowanus (544 Carroll St.) “boutique residence” has rented for $25,000 a month. It includes two terraces and a museum-quality communal children’s playspace. Gowanus is adding nearly 9,000 units and 20,000 residents.
HIP-HOP HISTORY COMES TO BOROUGH HALL
From Court Street Journal: A new photo installation at Borough Hall, Brooklyn’s Finest: Legends in Focus, celebrates the borough’s role in hip-hop history through iconic portraits by photographers including Jamel Shabazz, featuring artists from The Notorious B.I.G. to Jay-Z. | Mon. - Friday 9:00 AM - 4:30 PM
UPDATE: BROOKLYN WATERFRONT
Community groups are anxiously awaiting for Mayor Zohran Mamdani to weigh in on the former mayor’s “vision plan” for the Brooklyn Marine Terminal. We’ll know a lot more when Mamdani appoints a new head of the NYCEDC, the quasi-governmental city agency that developed their version of a “vision plan” for the waterfront with limited community involvement.
Three Columbia Waterfront residents filed a lawsuit to challenge the lack of transparency during the NYCEDC’s campaign to develop its plan to revitalize 122 acres of our Brooklyn waterfront. If you’d like a more open process with genuine community input instead of closed-door meetings and a predetermined “vision plan,” join STOP EDC and sign the petition.
Save the date: On March 31st, the public will have another chance to weigh in on the plan and testify (or submit in writing) about their concerns. One problem, among many, with the current “vision plan” is that the City did not conduct any viability studies beforehand, so we have no idea of its impact, especially without the usual data needed to study such a massive project.
For example, if you are concerned about the amount of luxury housing that includes some affordable apartments, 20,000 more people living by the water, traffic, lack of public transportation, displacement, rental and home prices increasing, water access, maintaining a working port with blue-collar jobs and training programs, impact of construction on your building (shaking is happening now in one part of Red Hook by a construction site), among many other issues, please SAVE THE DATE.
I’m particularly interested in building more affordable housing. Throughout the process with the EDC, though, we were often told that the only way for the City to provide more affordable housing and dig out of its housing crisis, is to BUILD and BUILD and BUILD mostly luxury. Here is an interesting NYT story, “Why Building More Won’t Resolve the Housing Crisis.”
“…cities that aggressively built housing in recent years, rents rose dramatically for low-income households and stabilized for wealthier ones. “
And if you really want to geek out, I recommend this recent study, “Affordability, not Regulation, Drives America’s Affordability Crisis.”
BATTERY ENERGY STORAGE SYSTEMS ARE COMING. HUH?
New York City plans to build more than 20 Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS), and I think it’s fair to say most of us have no idea what this means. 350 Brooklyn is hosting a discussion at the Brooklyn Public Library on Feb. 26th. This is all I know: BESS contribute to a more resilient grid, are clean and non-polluting, and lower electricity costs. Join me or read about what I learn in the coming weeks.
MARK YOUR CALENDAR
Feb 14 - Today is the last day to switch parties if you want to vote in the upcoming primary. Who will be on the ballot? Gov. Hochul, Rep. Dan Goldman…
Feb 15 | Billion Oyster Project volunteer opportunities will be posted. The non-profit is restoring some of the 220,o00 oyster reefs that used to live in our waterways. Oysters also serve as a natural cleaner by filtering certain pollutants. And this - “reefs are to the ocean what trees are to the forests.” Who knew?
Apply by Feb. 27 | - The NYC Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP) is the nation's largest youth employment program. 14 - 15 year olds get paid $700 for six weeks and ages 16 - 24 get paid $17/hr. Learn more here.