There have been numerous calls to the precinct inquiring as to whether or not they need to evacuate their homes. As the mayor has stated repeatedly if you live in “Zone A” you are in a mandatory evacuation zone. Much of the RedHook area is in “Zone A”. If there are any questions as to what zone you reside in go to nyc.gov and click on hurricaine info.
Inquiries can be made to the 76 Precinct at (718) 834-3211, if that number is busy try (718) 834-3231. The mayor has requested that evacuees ride out the storm with friends or family. For those requiring shelter, the nearest evacuation centers are NYC Technical College located at 300 Jay Street, John Jay HS located at 237 4th Avenue , Brooklyn Tecnical HS located at 29 Fort Greene Place and Cobble Hill High School at 347 Baltic Street.
There will be increased patrols by the 76, to deter crime and aid those in need thoughout the duration of the storm.
Those requiring routine Police assistance are asked to call the numbers above, as well as utilizing the 311 system. As always, emergency situations should be called into 911. Be safe.

Don’t know if you’re in a flood zone? Check the interactive map after the jump.

FairWay Market
480 Van Brunt Street
Van Brunt St and Reed St

Bring your Bicycles, Laptop Computers and/or Electronic Devices
(Cell Phones, I-Phones, I-Pads, I-Pods, etc.) to Fairway parking lot
anytime between 12PM and 6PM and the 76 Precinct Crime Prevention Officer will enroll your devices – at no cost to you!

PS 29 is a highly regarded local school that offers many extracurricular activities funded through the PTA. To Cobble Hill parents, what do you think could have been provided with this extra $100,000?

Not sure if you guys are already aware, and I haven’t seen anything online anywhere mentioning it, but the tennis bubble at the NYSC Cobble Hill appears to have collapsed under the snow.

DEVELOPING…

The class ran drop-in style. From 2pm to 7pm, participants could stop by and tune in to presentations every 30 to 60 minutes. All ingredients were provided, but if you wanted to bring your kimchi home, you had to BYOC (bring your own container).

Missed today’s class but want to learn from Brooklyn Brainery too? Sign up for the next class– “Bee Night,” complete with a movie, Q&A session, and honey tasting on January 25th at 7pm. For more details, visit this link.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011 7-8pm : The ABC’s of Mixing Drinks

Saturday, February 5, 2011 4-5pm : American Whiskey

Wednesday, February 9, 2011 7-8pm : Gin and the Winter

Saturday, February 12, 2011 4-5pm : Cocktails and Love Potions

Wednesday, February 16, 2011 7-8pm : Rum, X2

Wednesday, February 23, 2011 7-8pm: PUNCH

Saturday, February 26, 2011 4-5pm: TBD

Don’t need repairs, but want to learn how to make your own original jewelry? The Beginners’ Bead and Wire Work Course starts on Thursday January 27th. The program includes 6 classes– on Thursdays through March 10 (no class on February 3) from 7pm to 9pm, for $150. Students will make earrings and earring wires, create both delicate and old beaded chains, and engage in a variety of other projects. If you’re interested, email or call 718-462-5607.

The Hungry Cat Cafe Jewelry Studio is located at 455 Argyle Road.

At Brooklyn Bead Box, classes are small, with only 4 students per class. If you learn best one-on-one, private lessons are also available. All purchases are 10 percent off on the day of your class for an added bonus! Call 866-504-2702 for more information, or visit their website. Start early and sign up for one of these classes in the first week of January:

Crimping (Necklace/Bracelet): January 2, 2011 at 2pm, $35

Earrings Level 1: January 3, 2011 at 5pm, $35

Wire Wrapped Rings: January 1, 2011 at 2pm, $35

Peyote Stitching: January 8, 2011 at 2pm, $40

With a title like: Giant Icicle Terrorizes Cobble Hill one immediately thinks of a 1950s horror film or something from “The Onion”.  But as they say… “You can’t make this stuff up!”.  The New York Times has definitely lived up to their motto of providing “all the news that’s fit to print”.

Rooftop Films recently created an underground film screening in the tunnel, with a tour hosted by “tunnel aficionado” Bob Diamond. When Rooftop Films discovered just before their event that it would be shut down, they released this statement:

“This came as a complete surprise to us, as we had every reason to believe the events were entirely legal and sanctioned. While we believe that the Atlantic Avenue Tunnel is a valuable and historic New York City landmark, we also have a strong commitment to safety, and hope that arrangements can be made to reopen the Tunnel safely and legally so that it can again be enjoyed by all New Yorkers and visitors.”

Will we ever see below Atlantic Avenue again?

Bring your safe, unopened toys to the councilman’s district office at 410 Atlantic Avenue t Bond Street from 10am to 5pm Monday through Friday to benefit an underprivileged local child ages 1 to 12 years old. For more details, contact Betty Lester at bejay919@yahoo.com or 718-243-1252.

There will be a Gift Fair highlighting local artisans and merchants selling jewelery, toys, clothing and other items.  Rooftop Films will be on hand showing short films for children throughout the day.  Tickets to the films will be $2.  There will also be free crafts for kids throughout the day.  Proceeds will support the school’s PTA.

Full details, including a list of vendors can be found here.

The next showing is Buggs Bunny Cartoons Monday November 29th at 4pm, and then on Monday December 6th at 4pm see Meet me in St. Louis.

Big Movies for Little Kids is sponsored, in part, by the Greater New York Arts Development Fund of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, administered by the Brooklyn Arts Council, Inc. (BAC). Check out the Big Movies for Little Kids website for more details and show times.

What do you think?  Is it a good idea, or just a dream?

The full story, and more renderings, can be viewed on Curbed.

All photos by Mark Hayes

New Italian eatery, Sosta is now open at 145 Atlantic Ave. between Henry and Clinton Streets.  The menu focuses mainly on pizzas, with a selection of appetizers, salads and panini (lunch only).  Sample selections include the Valdostana (mozzarella, ricotta, parmigiano & gorgonzola) and Umbria (tomato, mozzarella, pancetta and prosciuto).

The interior has a cozy, modern feel, with wood floors and an open kitchen.  There is also a large bar stocked with wine and beer.  Take out is available and delivery service will start next week.  The pizza man, Giuseppe (pictured below), said that  Happy Hour and specials begin next week.  Daily pizza, pasta and dessert specials rotate and add to an already extensive menu.  The restaurant is open Tuesday-Sunday 12-11pm.

More photos after the jump.

Conveniently located right next to Cobble Hill Park, the neighborhood eatery Ted & Honey was the subject of a glowing review by the NYTimes entitled, “Coffeehouse Cool Amid the Stroller Scene“.

The NYTimes reports: “The cafe serves lunch (paninis, smoked wings) and will soon stay open into dinner; but it achieves its fullest bustling bloom at breakfast, when moms guide their toddlers around laptop jockeys at communal tables, past Manhattan-bound professionals toting coffee toward the F train.”

Brooklyn Eagle: Andrea Wenner, executive director of Out2Play, a non-profit that plans and oversees playground construction in city schools, assured the Eagle that the garden at P.S. 29 will be back, and better than ever.

“The garden will be replaced with nice new planter beds in a whole new enclosed area. It will be a little bit bigger than it was,” she said.

The garden improvement, however, is just a small part of the bigger picture at P.S. 29. Work has finally begun on a makeover of the bleak asphalt play space surrounding the vaulted garden. The old-fashioned blacktop is being replaced with a colorful new playground, which will include a large open area for sports, a running track and jungle gym equipment.

Rachel Ray and Mayor Bloomberg visited the garden earlier this year.

Reader photo by Steve Julie

What’s on your mind? Have an event to plug? News tip? Something on your chest that needs to jump off? Comment away!

Yournabe.com: South Brooklyn has been around for a long time; long before the real estate names of Red Hook, Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens divided it into essentially three different zones. These neighborhoods survived the Great Depression and the red-lining in the 1980s. Carroll Gardens has survived as essentially an Italian neighborhood with a strong mix of Hispanics, Irish and other groups and also with a good spectrum of incomes, occupations and backgrounds. Recently when buildings over six stories were being built and proposed in our neighborhood, zoning restrictions were introduced to prevent these oversized buildings from destroying the feel and fabric of our neighborhood.

However, that scare has restarted the movement to broaden the Historic District to include from Degraw Street to Hamilton Avenue and from Hicks Street to Hoyt Street. When you ask why, the answer is usually to keep the tall oversized buildings out. When you point out that this has been prevented by zoning already, then the answer becomes, We do not want ugly buildings like what can be found on this block or that block.

Dear Jeep Guy –
This photo was taken two weeks ago, and posted in a discussion about Barneys. This morning I noticed that your car is still parked in the same spot, but now covered in Sanitation Dept stickers and scribbles about NYPD Towing.
You might want to move it ASAP.

Sincerely,
CHB

“I just put one and one together and that’s how we got shave ice and dumplings.”

It’s not quite the formula one might expect, but the combination of shave ice and dumplings has quickly made Eton at 205 Sackett Street one of the most lauded food vendors in the neighborhood. The dumplings in particular (and the pork and beef combination recipe specifically) have received rave reviews and multiple local awards, a surprise to none who have pinned the delicious pockets between chopsticks, dipped them in the house-made plum sauce and given themselves over to dough-wrapped heaven.
In case you can’t tell, this reporter is a fan.

Owner and chef Eton Chan stands proudly next to his ice shaving machine and a rainbow of flavor options. Eton explained how his fascination with shave ice began:

When my wife and I got married, we went to Hawaii for our honeymoon. When we got there, we heard about this Hawaiian shave ice… it was like the most amazing thing we’d ever had. It was like no other ice. We came back and we really missed it. So we bought a machine and we’re like, great, let’s sell it on the sidewalk… it just so happens we need a mobile food vendor license. And that… it’s like a lottery pick.

So we’re looking around, and there’s a store right across from where live – I used to live on Henry and Sackett. We’re like, oh, that spot would be perfect. It’s across the street, it’s small, simple.

Though Eton has since moved to a more pedestrian-friendly location just off of Smith Street, the recipe has stayed the same. Small, simple – and delicious.

The honeymoon explains the shave ice. Chan also happens to be a sucker for a good dumpling. But it’s wasn’t his choice alone. “My wife,” he explained. “She’s the number one reason we picked dumplings – we both like eating dumplings and she’s the reason why I started making them.”

In Eton’s first location, the landlord wouldn’t allow Chan to install gas burners. Not a problem for an astute chef:

We had to be creative… what do we have? We have electricity. So what we use are induction units. They use electromagnetic waves to conduct heat in a stainless steel pan. If you put plastic on it, aluminum, copper, brass – it won’t work. It’s gotta be stainless steel. So that solved our cooking problem.

The induction units aren’t the only equipment that makes Eton a unique dining experience. The colorful stacks of cups for shave ice are imported from Hawaii, as are the straws, the flavors, and of course the shaving machine.

Though the shave ice gear has a long way to travel, much of the supplies are locally sourced, says Chan. “The chicken and the pork and beef come from Los Paisanos. We try to keep it local. Most of the produce we get from around the neighborhood, except for the dough.”

So what is the special ingredient that makes this reporter crave the dumplings fortnightly? It’s all in the flour:

The flour we get from China. And I think that’s one of the secrets. It’s different. The flour’s different if you get it from North Dakota or Indiana or wherever – it depends on the climate, depends on the soil. [I asked myself] why don’t my dumplings taste the same as the ones in China? It’s the dough. And the water. But mostly the dough. The protein’s different, the wheat’s different, it grows different, the sun is different. There’s a whole alchemy to that. So that’s what sets us apart, is the flour.

Since their expansion, Eton has added small pulled pork sandwiches and bubble tea to their menu. The few Manhattanites who read CHB should know they’re also serving dumplings and shave ice at the flea market at 121 W. 3rd Street. And this Saturday, Eton will debut their new plum-glazed Asian Wings at Brooklyn Flea. They’re sure to be divine.

All Photos © THE SHALTZES/photographers

While we try to be everywhere and cover everything, the sad truth is that it ain’t possible (especially while working in Manhattan).
What do you want to know more about? What are we lacking? What are you doing this weekend?