GL’s Save Coney Island Slideshow

Here’s some slideshow action from yesterday’s Save Coney Island protest. You can check out our flickr set here and the flickr slideshow itself by clicking here.

Related Post:
Save Coney Island Protest Rocks City Hall

Brooklyn Nibbles: Supermarket Edition

Having visited the new Bowery Whole Foods yesterday, we have a couple of notes on Brooklyn food retailing.

1) The Borough President noted in a wide ranging set of remarks promoting development in Brooklyn that Trader Joe’s “will be in Brooklyn shortly.” The prediction, which is clearly based on knowledge of the space the retailer is scouting, is reported in the Bay News. GL certainly loves a mystery. Given that Trader Joe’s requires less space than Whole Foods, any number of new buildings or existing spaces come to mind.

2) Speaking of Whole Foods, the Real Estate dispatched someone to gaze upon the toxic parcel of land at Third Street and Third Avenue in Gowanus that the organic food retailer intends to turn into a grocery store by next year. No word on the progress of the cleanup and Whole Foods–which was last heard telling Park Slope groups that they’re not interested in putting a green roof on their store or in reducing the size of their mammoth parking garage–had no comment on the status of their plans. A spring start for the conclusion of the detox of the land (which includes benzene in the groundwater) and the start of construction has previously been mentioned.

Brookvid: The Save Coney Island Demonstration

Click on the embed and take a look at yesterday’s Save Coney Island demonstration at City Hall.

Brooklinks: Saturday Visual Non-Coney Edition

Brooklinks is a daily selection of Brookly-related information and, especially on weekends, images.

Photos:

• Walking and Reading [A Test of Will]
• Another $2M House in Williamsburg [Bluejake]
• Office Space, Atlantic Avenue [seriously excited!]
• Back Window [Lex’s Folly]
• Seventh Avenue Brooklyn [Joe’s NYC]
• “The End” Sign is Back [A Test of Will]

Not Photos:

• Eminent Domain Case Gets Serious Consideration in Court [AYR]
• Cherry Blossom Festival Preview [About Brooklyn]
• The Great Greenpoint Fireworks Explosion of 1860 [newyorkshitty]
• Weekend Subway Cluster…visory [BHB]
• Zipcar Meet Zipbike [Streets Blog]
• 13 Lexington [Clinton Hill Blog]

Gowanus Lounge Photo Du Jour: Our Lady of the Body Shop

Greenpoint, Brooklyn

Brooklinks: Special Save Coney Island Edition

• Save Coney Island Flickr Tagged Photos
• Coney Island Takes Manhattan [Brit in Brooklyn]
• Protestors: No Condos in Coney [NY1]
• The Coneys Land at City Hall [Kinetic Carnival]
• Protest Photo Essay [Coney Island Reporter]
• I Come to You Today with Sand in My Shoes… [Found in Brooklyn]
• Protest Against Coney Island Development [WNYC]
• Save Coney Island [Two Can Anne]
• Stop Thor Equities From Leveling Coney Island [Trigger]
• Owning a Chunk of the New Coney Island [Canarsie Digest]

Gowanus CDC Director Tom Chardavoyne Passes Away

Some sad news to report. Thomas Chardavoyne, the Executive Director of the Gowanus Canal Community Development Corp., has passed away. The news comes via an email from Community Board Six District Manager Craig Hammerman. Mr. Chardavoyne was deeply involved in efforts to create a strategic plan for the Gowanus community and to ensure that planning, rezoning and development went hand in hand. He was also involved in a large number of civic and neighborhood causes. On a personal level, we will say that we always found him to be very friendly, very warm and very caring about the community. We are very saddened by the news. There will be a wake for Mr. Chardavoyne on Sunday at Scotto’s Funeral Home at 106 1st Place (off Court Street) on Sunday from 7-9pm and Monday from 2-5pm and 7-9pm. The funeral mass is on Tuesday, April 3rd at 10:15am at St. Boniface R.C. Church, 109 Willoughby Street.

Annual Submerge Festival Coming

The Urban Divers are sponsoring the eighth annual edition of their Submerge Festival, which showcases film/video, photography and other art media produced by local and international artists to raise awareness of water. This year’s festival will be held in July in Red Hook (exact venue and days, TBD). The festival moves to a different waterfront community and venue every year.

Organizers are accepting all genres in video or film, photography, most matted and exhibit ready. Mobiles must take up more than three feet by three feet of space. Entry fees are only $20 per submission. A bio and description of art work should go along with the submission. The address for the entry fee and submissions is 89 Pioneer Street, Brooklyn NY 11231.

Artists would need to make arrangement for hand delivery of mobiles and photography, submissions are now being accepted and will be through the end of June. Winners will be announced on July 1.

The 8th Annual Submerge Art & Environment Festival will be presented this year in a unique outdoor exhibit and film screening venue, along with a presentation of Live! Beneath the Estuary – A live underwater video exploration and underwater narration with submerged Urban Divers. The festival will also travel to other waterfront venues along NY Harbor. The Urban Divers Submerge-Art and Environment Festival is in collaboration with Umbrella for the Arts and Sound Art Films. For more info call 718-802-9874.

Save Coney Island Protest Rocks City Hall

The Save Coney Island protest arrived on the steps of City Hall this afternoon with costumes, music, speeches and an awful lot of cameras. “Coney Island is more than an amusment park,” said author Charles Denson, who noted that he had originally favored developer Joe Sitt’s redevelopment plan, but said he’d turned against it as he found that leaned heavily on condos in the amusement zone. “Thor is trying to undermine” the plan for Coney Island that calls for an amusement district running from Keyspan Park to the New York Aquarium. He attacked the proposals to build what he terms “a 40-story monstrosity” and to rezone for housing. “There is no such thing as one condo,” he said. “As soon a it’s rezoned, they will sprout like mushrooms.”

Other speakers called on preserving Coney Island as a “resort of the poor and the working-class.”

A seven-year-old speaker said, “When I was two years old my father used to take me there. It means so much to me. I don’t want to lose it.”

We will have more on the protest and remarks tomorrow. For now, a few photos.

Hot Sheets for Hipsters: A New Greenpoint Hotel!

So, the first new hotel to open in Williamsburg-Greenpoint won’t be a boutique hotel near Bedford Avenue. It will be one at 40 Withers, right up against the BQE, in Greenpoint. We don’t know if it will be affiliated with any chains (it has that Days Inn kind of look) or if there will be mirrors on the ceilings (yes, it’s a cheap shot, just like the headline), but it’s seven stories tall and will have 54 rooms. It’s also very convenient to Bamonte’s (like, overlooking the Bamonte’s parking lot) and should offer excellent, if not dramatic, views of traffic on the BQE. Another view of the place North Brooklynites can put mom up for the night or go when there are too many roommates around is below.