The church was built in 1894 and rebuilt in 1917.   It is on the National Register of Historic Places (added 1995 - Building – #95001334).

Photo from Brownstoner.

Omala, the yoga shop on Atlantic Avenue, is closing its doors for good after being open for two and a half years. According to Brownstoner, Omala’s owner says she is closing the store because it didn’t get enough foot traffic. The store’s inventory will be on sale until it closes in late February, but will still be available on its website after that.

Recycle your Christmas tree at Mulchfest 2010 this weekend, and take home some mulch for your garden. Bring your trees to Cobble Hill Park (Clinton and Verandah Place) this Saturday and Sunday, January 9th and 10th, between 9:30 am and 2 pm. Please remove all lights, decorations, and garland from the trees; no wreaths or artificial trees will be accepted.

Bus Loops:

The third and final phase of the sign replacement project in Brooklyn Community District 2 that began earlier this year is now complete, with signs in Downtown Brooklyn, Brooklyn Heights (south of Joralemon Street), Boerum Hill, Fort Greene and Clinton Hill having been replaced since Sept. 8. The newly posted Alternate Side Parking Regulations will be enforceable starting Monday, Nov. 9. The attached press release was sent on Oct. 26 to give residents two weeks to adjust to the new rules. Alternate Side Parking Regulations are currently suspended in parts of the Riverdale, Spuyten Duyvil, Marble Hill and Kingsbridge sections of Bronx Community District 8 for the first of two phases of sign replacement.

Check out these fun Halloween events going on tomorrow and on the big day, Saturday, October 31.

Friday, October 30

Halloween Celebration for Kids at the Carroll Gardens Library (396 Clinton Street), 3:30 pm. Wear a costume and enjoy the fun, free activities with your kids after school.

Monster Mash at the Brooklyn Children’s Museum (145 Brooklyn Avenue), 5 – 8 pm, for all ages. Get your face painted, hear spooky stories, and touch slithery snakes. Costumed DJ dance party, “Wee Little Monster” for preschoolers, Mad Scientist’s Laboratory and more. Due to the popularity of the event each year, advance ticket purchase at the museum’s admission desk ($10 per person, $5 per person for Museum members) is recommended.

Tarot-A-Palooza at the Kris Waldherr Art and Words gallery (1501 Newkirk Avenue, Ditmas Park), 6-11 pm. Participating readers at this pre-Halloween tarot reading marathon include urban shaman Mama Donna Henes and acclaimed tarotist Rene Collins. Admission and refreshments are free, but palm readings prices vary.

One World Symphony Nightmare On Montague Street at St. Ann and the Holy Trinity (157 Montague Street), 8 pm. Frightful favorites will be performed: The Sorcerer’s Apprentice; from Nightmare Before Christmas (1993); Toccata and Fugue in D minor; from Songs and Dances of Death; Erlkönig; The Headless Horseman (2009 world premiere).

Halloween Eve Masquerade at the Green Building (405 Union Street), 9 pm, $20. This event is presented by local favorite Michael Arnella and his Dreamland Orchestra and will feature live jazz, special performances, costume contest, hors d’oeuvres, and cocktails by Court & Spark.

Halloween Saturday, October 31

Brooklyn Heights Halloween Parade, Pierrepont Playground, 10 am. Bring your kids to join the parade and show off their costumes. A bake sale will be held to benefit the Brooklyn Heights Playground Committee.

The Legend of Ichabod Crane at the Brooklyn Lyceum (227 Fourth Avenue), 11 am and 12:30 pm. Based on the “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” by Washington Irving, this humorous, is appropriate for kids ages 5 and up. Freely adapted and performed by Dan Kitrosser with Ilan Isakov on piano and Directed by Edward Elefterion. $10 for a single ticket, or $30 for a pack of 4, purchased here.

Prospect Park Halloween Haunted Walk and Carnival, 12 – 3 pm. Prospect Park transforms the Nethermead area of the park for its scary Halloween Haunted Walk and Carnival, for kids of all ages. Look out for zombies, wolf men, headless horsemen, and witches. Plenty of fun, including seasonal treats and a puppet show.

Green-Wood Cemetery walk, 1 pm, $20. Celebrate the holiday with tales of murder, mayhem, spirits, and ghosts on Green-Wood’s annual Halloween walking tour with Green-Wood Historian Jeff Richman. This is a very popular tour, so arrive early. Meeting Point: Inside the main entrance at 25th Street at 5th Avenue. Buy tickets online here.

Cobble Hill Halloween Parade, Cobble Hill Park, 4pm. Join the costume parade behind the Jah Pan Steel Drum Band, then trick-or-treat (if you’re and older kid!) around the neighborhood.

BAMboo! BAM Under the Sea, 4-7 pm. Come dressed in your costume best to BAM’s eighth annual Halloween extravaganza,an evening of underwater activities and submarine adventures. From candy giveaways to costume contests and tons of great games, there’s fun for kids of all ages in front of BAM. Lafayette Ave between Ashland Pl. and St. Felix St.

Monster Mash at the Brooklyn Children’s Museum (145 Brooklyn Avenue), 5 – 8 pm, for all ages. Get your face painted, hear spooky stories, and touch slithery snakes. Costumed DJ dance party, “Wee Little Monster” for preschoolers, Mad Scientist’s Laboratory and more. Due to the popularity of the event each year, advance ticket purchase at the museum’s admission desk ($10 per person, $5 per person for Museum members) is recommended.

Flavorpill Halloween 2009 Benefit for Charity Water, undisclosed Brooklyn location, 9pm – 3am, $35. Live performances and open bar all night long, with all proceeds going to Charity Water. The location of this 21+ Brooklyn event will be sent to you after you RSVP, and is easily accessible from trains/Manhattan. Purchase tickets here.

Halloween isn’t for another week, but there are plenty of events going on before then. Here’s a list of Halloween-y events going on this weekend. Let us know if there’s anything happening that we’ve missed. Enjoy!

The New York Times has deemed HBO’s new series, “Bored to Death,” as “Brooklyn’s coming-out party to the HBO-watching world,” as “Sex and the City” and “Friends” did for Manhattan. What do you think of the show?

But if Jonathan Ames’s new HBO series, drolly titled “Bored to Death,” heralds a new era of New York in television and in the nation’s imagination, it’s now the era of downtown Brooklyn – or, at least, of Park Slope, Boerum Hill and Fort Greene. Grab your Bugaboo stroller, throw a New Yorker into your WNYC tote bag and let’s take the F.

Brooklyn Eagle: According to a release sent out by the dozen or so homeowners, “IBEC said they’d [build townhouses] and won the project-88,000 square feet of prime New York City real estate for just $3.5 million. They signed a contract specifying an apartment building with a quota of affordable housing on Schermerhorn and townhouses on State. Now they want to flip the property and reverse the thoughtful course set by the community.”

The group acknowledges the excellent reputation of Brooklyn Friends School (BFS) – with its International Baccalaureate Diploma program and emphasis on Quaker values – but just want it to build elsewhere.

“Now, BFS is a fine school, currently undertaking an ambitious improvement plan. We wish BFS success, but think their new school will find a more appropriate home at one of the other nearby sites they’re considering.”

The fourth annual Brooklyn Book Festival will be held this Sunday, September 13, at locations throughout downtown Brooklyn (including Borough Hall, St. Francis, and the Brooklyn Historical Society). Amongst the authors participating in the festival are Russell Banks, Jonathan Lethem, Anne Carson, Paul Auster, Claire Messud, Colson Whitehead, and David Cross. All events are free, but those taking places at Borough Hall and St. Francis require tickets, which will be available one hour before the program starts on Plaza and Montague Street. For a complete schedule click here, and for a festival map click here.

According to an Examiner article, Brooklyn Councilwoman Tish James wants the MTA to put a commemorative plaque in the Hoyt-Schermerhorn subway station, where Michael Jackson’s video for “Bad” was filmed in 1987. The screenshot above shows a clip of the video, directed by Martin Scorsese. James has had trouble with getting the plaque put up because the MTA has a rule against them.

On the phone from her Brooklyn office, Councilwoman James told me that the idea was originally to have Jackson’s name added to the station in downtown Brooklyn, but according to Crain’s New York, that is unlikely to happen. “The MTA had taken some money from Barclays in anticipation of the Atlantic Yards project, which I oppose.” So the least they could do is name another station after Jackson.

Two BHB tipsters have alerted us that F. Martinella, the “old style New York deli”  from Boar’s Head [119 Court Street]  is down and out for the count.  Read more.

This weekend marks the sixth annual Atlantic Avenue ArtWalk, a self-guided tour of open artist studios and area exhibitions, public art projects, and special events (all events are free and open to the public). A list of the weekend’s events and restaurants offering a discount can be found here.

Brooklyn Paper: Spencer Rothschild, the man behind much-loved Park Slope restaurants Barrio, Playa and Cabana Bar, is now serving his Latino-influenced beach cuisine on the plaza in front of the central branch of America’s fifth-largest public library.

“This is a chance to do real food, not just a hot dog, and give people a great new gathering place,” said Rothschild, who cut the ribbon on Open Book Cafe by Mambo with Borough President Markowitz this morning.

The concept is classic Rothschild: breakfast, beginning at 8:30 to serve incoming library workers and some commuters, will consist of homemade granola, espresso drinks, muffins and croissants.

At 11 am, the menu expands to include lobster salad sliders (a bargain at three for $8.75), mini pulled pork sandwiches (three for $5.95), chips and guacamole, tacos, quesadillas and salads.

Brooklyn Public Library and Better World Books host the Great American Book Drive on the Plaza at Central Library on Saturday, May 16th from 10am-3pm. The Great American Book Drive is a to turn donated books into dollars to support Brooklyn Public Library. At last year’s event, over 15,000 books were donated. Bring your books to the Central Library tomorrow from 10am-3pm, and enjoy the music of the Library’s own Lost in the Stacks from 10-12, and crafts for kids throughout the day.

Time Out‘s new issue focuses on the best independent shopping in New York, featuring the indie shops of Atlantic Avenue. One place I’ve never checked out: Darr.

This unusual shop offers taxidermy specimens—a South African Cape buffalo, wildebeests—and tamer curiosities like Indian horn tableware ($20–$80). Owners Brian Cousins and Hicham Benmira (who also own Hollander & Lexer) stock the space—a favorite among set designers—with plenty of metal factory cabinets ($700–$1,200), but there’s affordable quirk too: Look for glassware ($10), handmade scissors from India ($12–$40) and wooden serving spoons ($35). 369 Atlantic Ave between Bond and Hoyt Sts, Boerum Hill, Brooklyn (718-797-9733, shopdarr.com)

CHA: Senator Squadron has devised a visionary yet viable plan for Brooklyn Bridge Park. The plan calls for more amenities, better governance, and, most importantly, a revenue-generating model that would allow the proposed high-rise apartments to be permanently eliminated from the park… Every public meeting that we have held for the past several years has reiterated that removing the proposed new apartments from the park is a very high priority for our community. Now, with a new proposal on the table and the old plan in greatest doubt, is the time for all of us to act.

Below is the text of our letter to Mayor Bloomberg. We ask that you copy it, add your name and address to it, print it, and mail it. You may modify it as you see fit.

April 12, 2009

The Honorable Michael Bloomberg

City Hall
New York, New York 10007

Re: Senator Daniel Squadron’s proposal for Brooklyn Bridge Park

Dear Mayor Bloomberg,

The Cobble Hill Association has been one of the strongest advocates for a Brooklyn Bridge Park for more than two decades. Continuing our historic role as park advocates, we are writing to encourage you to support Senator Daniel Squadron’s plan for the Park’s amenities, governance, and revenue. The Squadron plan is a viable way forward that we believe will lead to a world-class park on the site and will heal the divisions sown in our community when new housing was added to the Park as a revenue-generating element.

We wholeheartedly endorse the Squadron plan in nearly all its particulars. In the amenities portion of the plan, we support the Senator’s call for:

• active, affordable, year-round athletic recreation, housed within a bubble if necessary;
• a floating pool dedicated to the Park;
• a seasonal ice-skating rink;
• a ferry landing at Pier 6 that will link Atlantic Avenue to Governors Island; and
• a facility for community recreation and the arts.

We are intrigued by Senator Squadron’s call for a public school at 360 Furman Street, or elsewhere in the Park, and we urge the City and State to consider it seriously. A school in the Park would have the added benefits of insuring year-round use of the Park and would obviate the need for a school at 10 Dock Street in Dumbo, a project that threatens to obscure the historic views of Brooklyn’s great bridges.

In the governance portion of the plan, we agree with Senator Squadron on all of the following points:

• designating Brooklyn Bridge Park as parkland, as defined by law and regulation;
• creating a Harbor Park Task Force to coordinate governance of all the parks in the harbor; and
• creating a Marine Infrastructure Task Force to coordinate efforts to attract federal and state revenues for the maintenance of the harbor parks’ marine infrastructure.

We are especially excited by Senator Squadron’s proposal for a new revenue model, the Park Increment Recapture (PIRC). The PIRC will not raise anyone’s property taxes, nor will it take any revenue from the City’s financial plan since it is based only on future rezonings. It is a simple and elegant solution to a problem that has vexed Park supporters for half a decade: how to maintain the Park without the proposed new housing. The argument all along has been that housing is necessary to pay for the park’s operations budget. No one wants the housing per se. The housing plan has only sown division and distrust since it was first foisted on the neighborhood. Nor does housing belong in a park as a matter of principle. What an awful precedent the City would be setting by building apartments inside a park. Senator Squadron’s PIRC proposal may be the way to prevent that dreadful precedent from ever happening. It deserves your support.

We disagree with the Squadron plan on only one substantive point: we believe that the PIRC’s cap ought to be raised so that the proposed hotel at Pier 1 can also be removed from the Park.

Our community in Cobble Hill has been known for its keen criticism, these past five years, of nearly all aspects of the Park: its revenue model, its design, its governance, and so on. We have made these criticisms because we care deeply about the Park. We believe that the Squadron plan is the best way forward. It eliminates the need for new housing inside the park by replacing the revenue from the development parcels with revenue from future rezonings that, by definition, are no part of the City’s financial plan. If the Park increases property values, as it undoubtedly will, we think it’s a fine idea for the Park itself to benefit from that outcome.

We urge you to adopt the Squadron plan so that the Park can be built housing-free and without the re-direction of a single budgeted dollar from the City’s coffers.

Thanks.

Observer: In 2006, Mr. Murdoch purchased a rival chain of papers, The Courier-Life chain, which publishes 12 papers in Brooklyn. Last year, when Gawkerspeculated that the Paper was in financial trouble, Mr. Kuntzman was dismissive of that report—and of Mr. Murdoch’s chain of papers.

“The Brooklyn Paper, which just won ‘Newspaper of the Year’ from a major national trade group, is certainly not going out of business,” he told Gothamist. “Brooklyn needs us too much right now, what with local papers being snapped up by billionaire moguls who have no interest in local news except maximizing classified ad sales. Has Rupert Murdoch even BEEN to Brooklyn? His reporters don’t know the territory, either.”

Re: Brooklyn Bridge Park, financial data, and the federal stimulus

On January 29, 2009, the Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corporation released some financial data about the park’s construction and operations budgets to the public. We are grateful that, since its last public disclosures in October 2005, the BBPDC agreed once again to provide such data. (The appendix to this letter contains data and text taken directly from the BBPDC’s presentation of January 29, 2009.)

The Cobble Hill Association has been one of the strongest advocates for a Brooklyn Bridge Park for more than two decades. Continuing our historic role as park advocates, I am writing to you out of concern regarding both what the January 29 financial data reveal and what they do not.

We would like to ask your help in seeking answers to lingering, important questions about the financial disclosures. We make this request for the sake of transparency and good government. Putting aside for the moment controversies about the park’s design, we are concerned that the park’s finances are a mess. The worst-case scenario would be one where millions of dollars were ill-managed and ill-spent and the public wound up without a world-class park. No one wants that to happen. Can you help us in seeking answers to these Ten Unanswered Questions about Brooklyn Bridge Park? We are confident that greater transparency will make a great park more likely.

1. Utilities for what exactly?

The financial disclosures for construction show a $61 million cost for utilities. That is so high a cost that we believe it includes the cost of providing utilities to the development parcels. The unique funding scheme for the park’s maintenance calls for the development parcels to pay for the park. If any portion of the park’s construction budget is spent to benefit the development parcels, then the reverse would be true: the park would be paying for the development parcels. That would be a theft of public moneys and must never be allowed to happen.

Question: Will any portion of the $61 million utilities cost provide utilities or utilities infrastructure for the development parcels?

2. Construction or Operations?

The unique, controversial funding scheme for the park’s maintenance and operations budget designates certain items as “Maintenance and Operations” which would, in any other park financial model, be classified as “Construction Costs.” One such example is the pilings beneath the piers. Slide 26 of the January 29 presentation reveals that these “Marine Infrastructure Costs” are part of the Maintenance and Operations Budget. The annual amount of Marine Infrastructure Cost is $4,060,000, or 25% of the annual Maintenance and Operations budget of $16,104,000. These costs are obviously misclassified.

Question: By classifying traditional Construction Costs as “Maintenance and Operations,” isn’t the result that the M&O budget is artificially high and that, therefore, the development parcels will have to generate commensurately more revenue to pay for the park’s inflated M&O budget?

3. Where will the money come from?

We have a second question about the marine infrastructure mentioned in question 2. Slide 26 of the January 29 BBPDC presentation reveals the following: “The cost of this work could be as high as $150 million, which must be performed over the next 15 years.” That is a lot of money without any apparent funding source.

Question: How can marine infrastructure costs be budgeted at $4,060,000 per year in the M&O budget yet also cost $150 million over 15 years? And where will the money come from to pay this unbudgeted $150 million cost?

4. Soft costs?

The construction budget shows “Miscellaneous Soft Costs” of $13,100,000. That’s a lot of miscellaneous.

Question: Can we obtain a breakdown of this large miscellaneous cost?

5. Architects and engineers?

The construction budget shows “Architecture and Engineering” costs of $20,400,000. In answer to a question of mine at the January 29 public meeting, Regina Myers of the BBPDC revealed that, so far, Van Valkenburgh Associates has been paid $18 million. That leaves only $2.4 million for all remaining landscaping design and architectural work, not to mention all past and future engineering.

Question: Since the architecture and engineering costs have almost entirely been spent already just on the landscape architect, how will the engineers’ and architects’ fees be paid as the project moves forward?

6. How much development?

The acreage devoted to private development has grown from 7 acres in 2006, to 8 acres in 2007, to 10.2 acres at the January 29 meeting. We do not understand why the acreage keeps growing since the total park area has not grown.

Question: What accounts for the progressive growth in land area occupied by the development parcels? Can we see the development acreage broken down by building and surrounding private amenities?

7. Alternative funding?

The unique, controversial funding scheme for the park’s maintenance and operations budget relies chiefly on housing, a revenue source that is subject to huge market swings. We know that there will also be concessions and automobile parking in the park, yet these were not included in the financial disclosures, nor was the revenue generated by the River Café.

Question: What amount of revenue is expected to come from park concessions and automobile parking, and might it be enough to allow reductions in the height of the development parcels? Will the revenue from the hotel restaurant and a possible grocery store at 360 Furman Street go to the park, or will it be kept by the operators of the development parcels?

8. Furman Street Freeze-Out?

The building at 360 Furman Street is expected to generate annual revenue of $2,982,000 towards the park’s Maintenance and Operations budget through PILOTs and ground rent.

Question: If the developer of 360 Furman Street, Robert A. Levine, defaults on his loan, who will be responsible for paying the revenue that the site is expected to generate?

9. Pop-up money?

We learned at the January 29 meeting that the BBPDC incurred costs to create the so-called “pop-up park” for the summer of 2008, but no other details were provided.

Question: Can we see a detailed breakdown of the costs to create the pop-up park and the revenue that it generated? We are particularly interested in itemized costs for design, construction, programming, security, operations, food, and liquor, as well as to whom the costs were paid.

10. Old data or new?

The Final Environmental Impact Statement was issued in December 2005. Appendix C devoted many pages to explaining in detail the park’s Revenue Assumptions and Maintenance & Operations budget.

Question: Since the financial data released on January 29, 2009 are so different than the data that were the basis of the 2005 FEIS, would the BBPDC provide similarly detailed explanations of its Revenue Assumptions and M&O calculations in 2009?

One more point: the federal stimulus

We are aware that our elected officials are considering asking Governor Paterson to direct some of the state’s 2009 federal stimulus money to pay for the $150 million in marine infrastructure costs mentioned above. I myself publicly asked Senator Gillibrand on February 18, 2009 to consider lending her support to this idea.

We believe that the stimulus money should be used for this purpose but only on one condition: that in exchange for removing this massive cost, which the BBPDC classifies as Maintenance and Operations, the hotel and the new housing in the park should be eliminated forever from the park plans.

Why do we feel that this arrangement would be justified? The reason for the new housing has always been explained in terms of the park’s uniquely expensive operating costs. But consider this: With the annual $3 million from 360 Furman Street and without the need for the annual $4 million for marine infrastructure costs, the park would no longer be uniquely expensive to operate. With this combined $7,042,000 plus the unknown revenue from concessions, the park’s operating costs would be cut in half. Why then would we need new high-rise apartments at Pier 6 and a hotel at Pier 1?

Let’s find a way to use the federal stimulus money to knock out the housing and the hotel. Haven’t we all said that we do not want housing if it proves unnecessary to pay for the park?

Please let us know when we might be able to meet with you in person to discuss these questions and to ask your support in finding the answers.

Thanks.

Jeff Strabone

Photo from The Brooklyn Paper.

The result is a kind of frat house for modern-day mad scientists. Outside the collective’s home is the bustling Fulton Street Mall, where vendors hawk sneakers and bundles of incense. Inside the converted laboratory, circuit boards, gadgets and spare parts overflow from every shelf. A minifridge near the entrance is stocked with beer. Members eager to quench their thirst can also consult Bar Bot, a silvery drink-dispensing robot that resembles the Jetsons’ maid, Rosie.