Gowanus Nursery Appeals for Help Fighting Likely Eviction

We noted during a Community Board 6 meeting we attended in late spring that one of the Red Hook Garden District’s recent arrivals, the Gowanus Nursery, was being threatened by new residential development. The nursery had been on Third Street and moved this year to Summit Street in Red Hook. Here’s the email from the Nursery’s owner that we just got:

On Wednesday August 22, a small group of business owners, employees and clients attended a city planning meeting that was to decide the fate of a few parcels of land located on Summit and Carroll streets.

The likely outcome is Gowanus Nursery will be forced to move, once again.

Remarkably this change is a thinly disguised ‘spot zoning’ to allow for a residential development in a grandfathered commercial zone. This action, in the words of community Board 6, has been the most aggressive use of ULURP (re-zoning) procedures that the current board has ever seen, forcing out active and flourishing businesses to make way for residential development.

Borough President Marty Markowitz’s recommendations suggested that the nursery occupied lot provided property owners the opportunity to lease under-developed land with minimal investment (part true since the only investment came in the form of our own labor and financial funding.) There seems something fundamentally wrong with labeling well-used open ‘green’ space as ‘under-developed.’ On a personal note, I am frustrated not only by the futility of the work we have already logged here, but also by the casual way that zoning change is happening in ‘our’ neighborhood.

Last year, you my customers and colleagues came to offer your services during the first move. Now I ask for your help to help save this ‘green oasis’ from perishing in the changes affecting all of Brooklyn.

One of the questions asked by the city planning commissioners was “We have heard a lot of testimony about how this is the ‘best’ nursery, could you please give some definite examples to support this statement?” Well we hope that our garden making has been successful; stimulating ideas and offering advice, suggesting different ways of seeing plants and how they effect our environment directly and indirectly. Of course something akin to a mission remains: providing gardeners experience-based knowledge and the broadest selection of perennial plants for Brooklyn gardens.

We hope that you can take the time to email the following parties to let them know in a few words what makes us an important part of the neighborhood and the whole Brooklyn experience.

Council representative – Bill de Blasio; City Council Speaker – Christine Quinn; Land Use Committee Chairperson – Melinda R. Katz; Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

deblasio@council.nyc.ny.us,
quinn@council.nyc.ny.us,
katz@council.nyc.ny.us,,
http://www.nyc.gov/html/mail/html/mayor.html

The following are some statements to paste into your appeal:It’s impossible to run a nursery without land. Businesses such as these provide necessary services to the community, and are the reason we choose Brooklyn.

Please help Gowanus Nursery to remain a Brooklyn institution.

We support green business in Brooklyn.

The building that would replace the Gowanus Nursery, which is at 45 Summit Street, would be nearly a dozen stories tall.

The Bunker in Gowanus Getting an Exterior

Finally! The building we like to call The Bunker on Bond and Carroll Streets in Gowanus because of its stunning street-side lack of windows abundance of wall space, is getting a skin. The facade appears to be white. You will also note the exterior wood paneling, which is a trademark of architect Robert Scarano on some of his buildings. Unfortunately, we’re not sure any sort of exterior treatment will be able to liven up the window-deficient wall space-abundant face The Bunker turns to Bond Street.

New Building Putting the Green Back in Greenpoint

Given that we featured a jaw-dropping Gowanus building designed by Karl Fischer earlier this week, we figure this is a good time to have another look at one of the architect’s buildings rising on Diamond Street in Greenpoint. (We last checked on it July.) The photo comes from our Greenpoint correspondent. Of the green facade she writes:

I finally placed where I have seen this shade of green before. In the late 70’s my dad had an Oldsmobile this color. Its name was Gonzo. When he wanted to get rid of it no one would buy it. My dad ended up donating it to a church and taking a tax-write off.

Should you be in this part of North Brooklyn and wish to see the building for yourself, it’s at 130 Diamond Street. We’re still hoping the green stuff is temporary, knowing deep down that it’s most likely permanent.

The Most Disgusting Gowanus Photo Ever: Do Not View Before or After Meal

We almost hesitate to post this photo because it’s so freaking foul. It and some others were sent to us by a GL reader who submitted it in order to share the situation on Ninth Street between Second and Third Avenue in Gowanus that it depicted. Call it Garbage Porn. Of the trash company whose vehicle is shown our reader wrote:

They park their truck all day and night on 9th street and clean them on 9th street as well. This causes the sewege et al to drain in front of all the houses and into the drains…

Our friendly Gmail service thoughtfully sorted this email into our spam folder, so we don’t know if the problem has been resolved or not. Even if it was taken care of, though, imagine this funky crap marinating in August heat and humidity. We’ve seen and smelled disgusting garbage trucks in our lives, but what the hell was in that thing? Our apologies if you’ve viewed this photo right before or after a meal.

A Succulent Wall Grows in Williamsburg

Have you ever wanted to call a place succulent? Well, now you can. Perhaps you’ve read about the Green Wall in Williamsburg. It was covered not long after installation in Dwell. Well, we figured we’d post these photos of the exterior wall of the new Williamsburg bar called Oulu, which is on N. 4th Street (west of Bedford) and named after a coastal town in northern Finland. The wall, which consists of trays of succulents comes, in part, from Marni Horwitz (who has been active trying to promote the idea of a green roof for the Gowanus Whole Foods). She wrote in an email:

I organized and installed this Green Wall project with the help of architect Evangeline Dennie, LEED AP, the company Green Living Technologies.

Dwell filled in more detail:

The succulents are planted in 35 or so panels of soil, each less than three inches thick, which are screwed to the wall. A hidden watering system gives them a steady spritz. A living wall can easily be planted on a residential façade, Marni says, at a cost of about $50 a square foot. Interior walls are roughly $30 more per square foot because they contain tropical plants, which are more expensive.

You should check it out on your next wander around the Burg. It’s quite the look.

Brooklyn Nibbles: Special Slope Pizza Edition

We’re especially happy to run this item, because it concerns Pizza Plus, the little Seventh Avenue pizza place that was devastated by a bad fire in May that also displaced residents upstairs. As you can see in the photo above, Pizza Plus is almost back. It’s been a long haul, but the restaurant has gotten a top-to-bottom remodeling and looks like it’s set to reopen very, very soon. Welcome back!!!

Brooklinks: Friday Long Weekend Edition

Brooklinks is a selection of Brooklyn-related information and images. Have a Happy Labor Day Weekend. We’ll be here if you need us! And, we’ll have some exciting news to share on other side of the holiday.

• The Times Knows How to Do Better, But Not With Atlantic Yards [AYR]
• The Greenpoint 100 [11222]
• Dog Shit Diva [newyorkshitty]
• F Express Update: Boo Hiss! [Kensington Brooklyn]
• Inside Third & Bond: Week Three [Brownstoner]
• Debut of the Brooklyn Traffic Calming Mural [Streets Blog]
• Forest City in the News [No Land Grab]
• Brooklyn to be a Very Rocking Borough [Gothamist]
• Clarence Norman Sentenced. Again. [NYT]
• “Taking Fort Greene” [Metro]
• The Season’s Ending, So Go to Coney Island [Found in Brooklyn]
• Darfur Exhibition at Powerhouse Arena [Dumbo NYC]
• Dumbo Block Party on Saturday, September 8 [Brooklyn Enthusiast]

GL Brooklyn TV: West Indian Carnival Videos

It’s time for the 40th Annual West Indian Day Parade on Monday, so here are some vids posted to the YouTube of the parade & carnival in past years. Enjoy.

Spend Time at Hank’s with the Freddy’s Crew Tonight

[Photo courtesy of dlemieux/flickr]

Ever wonder what it would be like spending time in two possibly doomed bars at once? Tonight’s your chance. Via No Land Grab we find that the crew at Freddy’s Bar, which sits in the path of Forest City Ratner’s Atlantic Yards Project, is taking over Hank’s, the bar at Atlantic Avenue at Third Avenue. You might have noticed that Hanks has been sporting a “development site” for sale sign recently–which we’ve been meaning to photograph and post for some time. This means that Hank’s days are limited. The people at Lucid, from whence the info originally came, write:This night is pretty appropriate since both venues’ days are numbered by encroaching luxury housing, [Freddy’s] by the Ratso Ratner Atlantic Yards goons while Hank’s owner has put the place up for sale as a “development site” – you know what that means. John Sharples and his jangly crew play around 10 followed by Plastic Beef who will have the nonpareil Erica Smith singing this time, and jam the hell out of everything they touch with some pretty way-out results.Brooklyn drinkers, you know your assignment.

Disco Don’t Destroy

While there may be a lot of bulldozing and drilling going on in the vicintity of Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues, the future of the Atlantic Yards development hinges on the various legal battles against it, which include a still active lawsuit against the use of eminent domain and a suit about the environmental review process. To that end, Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn is holding a Kids Disco Don’t Destroy fundraiser on Sunday, September 23 from 2PM-6PM at the Grand Space at 778 Bergen Street in Prospect Heights. Suggest contributions per family are $25, $50 and $100. Meanwhile, the Third Annual Develop Don’t Destroy Walkathon will be coming up on October 14.