Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hannukah, or Kwanzaa, come join us as we celebrate the Holiday Season at the 5^th Annual Columbia Waterfront District Tree Lighting Event. The festivities start at 5:00 pm on Friday, December 9^th, 2011 at the Human Compass Garden, located at the corner of Sackett and Columbia Streets. This year’s event will feature live Holiday Jazz Music by the Less Magnetic Band and an assortment of free refreshments from local restaurants and businesses.  Santa Claus will also spread more cheer by handing out toys to children at the event.

NY Post: “This is the neighborhood where the mob puts their mothers,” a friend explained to me recently. So the nice, friendly men playing cards in the social clubs on Henry Street? Don’t ask, I was told. I’m still the newcomer.

But as certainly as real-estate climbs to dizzying heights, the Carroll Gardens I learned to love disappeared overnight. Strollers took over the sidewalks, along with kids’ trophy-wife moms and investment-banker daddies, while Heath Ledger and seemingly half of Hollywood took up residence in next-door Boerum Hill. Residents got priced out, or sold their homes at a tidy profit to make way for sushi bars, Starbucks and American Apparel.

Now, it seems the old days never really went away. They just went to sleep.

Earlier this month, in an incident straight out of the Brooklyn of old novels, fancy pizza man Mark Iancono got into a knife fight on Carroll Gardens’ posh Smith Street. In broad daylight. With mob-connected ex-con Benny Geritano, whom he’s known for decades. How could this happen in 2011?

As one neighbor told me, “Kids were coming out of school. They had to huddle in the doorways of stores to escape.”

All of a sudden, gossip, the neighborhood’s currency, has dwindled. A man I’ve known for years told me, “I’m not saying anything.”

Others say the beef was over a dame. Though I’ve heard that the fight may not have been over Annette Angeloni, a card-store owner who’s been named as the femme fatale in this piece. (Was it over a Geritano relative?)

Meanwhile, Geritano’s family, including an uncle who owns nearby Bagels by the Park (yummy schmears), are said to be furious that he’s bringing shame on a nabe that’s gone legit.

But Geritano is not saying much of anything. Nor is Iancono, who twirled pizzas at Lucali, a celeb-friendly joint where I’ve waited in line for a table. But cops are discouraged from eating there because of alleged mob ties. Both men have been charged with attempted murder.

Photo: Janice Pullicino

The storefront that formerly housed Naidre’s (502 Henry Street at Sackett) has transformed into Maybelle’s Cafe. Maybelle’s food offerings are vegetarian-focused, and the cafe will offer Intelligentsia coffee, daily specials and free Wi-Fi. For now, the signage and decor definitely feel like a work-in-progress.

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.

Earlier today, work on Court Street between 1st & 2nd Place caused a partial street collapse, closing the block off to traffic. A water line was ruptured, causing flooding in several basements. One lane for traffic was cleared at 6pm and will remain open until 7am tomorrow. At that point, the street will close between President Street and 2nd Place so that Con Ed and National Grid can fix the problem. After their work is complete, city agencies will begin discussions on resurfacing the roadway and sidewalk. Traffic Agents will be on hand to control the flow of traffic tomorrow.

South Brooklyn Post: On windy days–of which there are many in the Red Hook/West Carroll Gardens/Columbia Street Waterfront District, when tarps are removed from the pile for city Department of Sanitation trucks to fill up, the salt blows over the neighborhood. Residents, families, businesses, cars, plants and wildlife face a salty deluge that leaves a film on everything.
The mound, covered with tarp and weighed down with bags of salt, has been an eyesore in the most literal sense since February 2009.
“It started two years ago. It was a little hill, and now it’s a mountain,” said Freddy Saint-Aignan, who owns Sugar Lounge, directly across the street from the salt pile. The city uses the salt to spread on roads when the ice and snow come.

South Brooklyn Post photo

So what do you, people of the internet with day jobs and stuff to do think should be done to fix the ditch?

We’re so totally convinced Google already has time travel technology not to mention the fact that they’re thisclose to getting Skynet off the ground that it’s totally do-able to send Terminator back in time to whack Robert Moses. Whack Bobby, no ditch. What? Too much?

Comment away or tweet @cobblehill_blog with hashtag #fixtheditch .

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

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

To view the flier click here.  RSVP to BQE@nycedc.com.

via Cobble Hill Association

On Thursday, November 4th, P.S. 58 The Carroll School will unveil its newly renovated playground at a ribbon cutting ceremony.  Special guests and local officials will be honored, including Borough President Marty Markowitz and Public Advocate Bill de Blasio.  Festivities are open to the public and will begin at 9:45am at the corner of Smith and Carroll Streets.

The reconstructed schoolyard has new courts for basketball, tennis, roller hockey and track.  There are multi-color play grids, chess tables, and an outdoor stage for performances and improvised games.  The schoolyard was designed through a collaboration with Out2Play, a non-profit organization that refurbishes playgrounds in New York City.  Financial support was given by Markowitz, de Blasio and the Barclays Nets Community Alliance.

October 9th, 1pm- Italian Cheese I- Mountains $25/$60

October 10th, 1pm- Cheese 101 $25

October 16th, 1pm- Italian Cheese II-Rivers $25/$60

October 23rd, 1pm- Italian Cheese III- Islands $25/$60

October 30th, 1pm-Dessert Wine and Cheese $40

November 6th, 1pm- Cheese and Wine $30

Visit the shop’s website for full class descriptions.

There wasn’t a dry eye at dinner tables in the New York City area tonight as a tearful Carmen Ojeda addressed the WABC-TV cameras. She told the officer responsible for fatally delaying her daughter’s chance at survival and treatment at LICH, “show your face, can’t you just apologize… I don’t want anything… Everybody makes mistakes.”

NY Post: An 11-year-old Brooklyn girl died after her mom was detained by a man in uniform as she tried desperately to rush her to a hospital.

“She was my angel. I cannot believe my baby is gone,” the devastated mother, Carmen Ojeda, said of daughter Briana.

The NYPD is trying to determine whether the man was a cop, auxiliary officer, traffic agent or private security guard.

The tragedy happened after Briana suffered an asthma attack at 5:15 p.m. Friday at a playground in Carroll Gardens.

“We have all the equipment in the car but nothing was working. Her eyes started to get really, really big,” Briana’s heartbroken dad, Michael, told The Post.

Carmen Ojeda called 911 but couldn’t wait for the ambulance and took off in her car.

To break free from heavy traffic, Ojeda turned the wrong way on a one-way street, and hit a parked car.

She then flagged down a marked car and the uniformed man got out and screamed, “What the f–k are you doing going down the wrong way?” Michael said.

“My wife screamed at him, ‘Help! My daughter needs CPR.’ ”

The man “smirked” and responded, “I don’t do CPR,” Michael said.

CGD: I’m going to call Smith Union Market (on, you guessed it, the corner of Smith and Union) our very own “corner store.” You can’t miss it. That red and white lettered sign and storefront – iconic, in my opinion – has been doing business for 65 years now. (Some items in the store have been there for 65 years, too.) It wouldn’t win the prize for “most inviting,” especially compared to the shinier places that move in and attract the buzz, but there really is no denying that this corner’s got character. And that’s with or without the actual characters loitering outside day in, day out.

This is Vinny Taliercio’s corner.

It wasn’t always though.

Placido Scopelliti was Vinny’s mother’s father. He and his family lived on Cheever Place in Cobble Hill, but he was from Reggio Calabria in Southern Italy and he specialized in wholesale meats. Big into real estate at the time, he bought three corner buildings in Brooklyn. It was 1945 and all of them would begin operation as meat markets. There was a store on Rogers Avenue in East New York, Henry and Degraw in Cobble Hill, and Smith and Union in Carroll Gardens. He had seven butchers employed, delivering all over, as far away as Staten Island. Business boomed.

Using Carroll Park as their only set and eliminating elaborate costumes, Smith Street Stage hopes to put emphasis on the language by having it spoken by classically trained actors. The cast consists of locals from NYU Tisch, UConn Drama, and Yale Grad Acting.

Fore more information, including cast info, albums, and directions to the park, visit www.smithstreetstage.org.

NY Daily News: Walking along Court St. between Degraw and President Sts. in Carroll Gardens is a feast for the senses, in all the right ways.

“The whole street smells of brewing coffee, the smell of croissants, of freshly made dough. It’s an amazing mix,” said Maria Vasquez, 73. “But there’s one problem: It makes me hungry!”

With D’Amico’s coffee shop, Sal’s Pizzeria and Caputos Bake Shop, folks never seem to be in a rush as they amble by.

“This block is one of the best-smelling places in the city,” said UPS delivery man Matty Ianelli, 24. “This place smells homey. Like your mom just made a fresh pot of sauce.”

USA Today: Based on a count of lists on Google and Yahoo, they seem to be more an urban than suburban phenomenon. “You live in New York City, you’re one of 8 million people, but yet you can feel all alone,” says Sheryl Braun, who founded the Bococa parents list for the neighborhoods of Boerum Hill, Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens in Brooklyn.

Parents tell Braun that they felt isolated and disconnected. But then they joined the list, which has 2,500 members, “and it made those things go away.”

Are you a parent? What local online resources do you use?

A CHB tipster alerts us that  Bagels by the Park [323 Smith Street] has been DOH’d.  A seemingly chewed up handwritten note claims the closure is due to their “outside area” and its “proximity to subway”.  They claim they’ll be re-opening “shortly”.  More photos after the jump.

Cool. So sharks were all over the harbor. But what about the Gowanus Canal?:

“Without doubt the most noteworthy biological event within the canal’s industrial history was the appearance of a large shark in 1950. Ali showed me a scrapbook about the canal that included a photograph of the shark from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. Fittingly, it is a dismal scene – policemens bullets spray the water near the creature as hundreds of people watch along the bulkheads.”

This is great for so many reasons. Could you imagine the hysteria that abounded in the 1950s at sharks? So misunderstood, as they continue to be to this day, that the police thought it would be a public hazard to keep the fish alive?

Carroll Gardens Diary: Although the fight against the proposed expansion of the Hannah Senesh school into their Carroll Gardens Courtyard is seemingly over, there remains a hanging chad in the room. Back in January, the Brooklyn Paper reported that the Department of Buildings had in fact, attempted to inspect the Hannah Senesh courtyard for violating New York City Administrative Code Section 19-132 which states that “It shall be unlawful for any person, directly or indirectly, to use any portion of a sidewalk or courtyard, established by law, between the building line and the curb line for the parking, storage, display or sale of motor vehicles.”

Squeezed between the similarly charming (and high-ranking) neighborhoods of Carroll Gardens and Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill offers the best of both of those worlds. It’s one stop closer to Manhattan on the F train than the former, and $200 to $300 cheaper per month than the latter. Smith and Court Streets are among the most interesting and diverse retail corridors in the city, and the housing stock is superb, with beautiful and well-maintained nineteenth-century homes and plenty of modern amenities.

Neighborhoods were ranked on a reader-adjustable grading scale that author Nate Silver and staff thoughtfully designed to help housing seekers find their perfect match. Here’s how Cobble Hill/Boerum Hill stacked up (rankings are out of 50):

Brooklyn Heights placed sixth and Carroll Gardens/Gowanus seventh, respectively. It looks like it’s hard to go wrong on this side of town!

Marius Cafe at Henry Street and Union has been plastered with the deadly yellow sticker. The DOH report here mentions issues with mice, among other problems. There’s also a note from the management:

Luckily, the nabe is full of café options. Did anyone depend on Marius? If so, where are you headed while Marius works things out?

[UPDATE 4/13]

Cobble Hillbilly and charity clothing designer JJ sent this pic this morning. Looks like they’ve worked out their issues. Thanks JJ!