On This Rainy Day, Third Street In Gowanus Floods Once Again

Photo credit: Friends and Residents go Greater Gowanus

 

We just heard from a reader that there was quite a bit of flooding near the Third Street Bridge on this rainy afternoon. This was confirmed by Friends and Residents of Greater Gowanus (FROGG) which posted the photos above on its Facebook Page. Police had to actually close the street and tell everyone to turn around at about 2:30pm. They are now letting cars through again.

FROGG, whose mission it is to "work towards an eco-safe and healthy Gowanus Canal" writes :
"There has always been ponding on the south side of 3rd Street here, and cars would take the north side of the street to pass through, but since the large 700 unit Lightstone development has opened, the street drain just up the hill at 3rd & Bond fails to drain. Water now stands a good foot deep over that street drain when it rains preventing any drainage at this location which is now ponding like never before.
Clearly the area now needs new (or additional) infastructure to support new development, unfortunately, the tax payers will have to cover on that as the developers have been granted tax brakes that extend for more than 25 years."

It is interesting to note that Third Street is still the designated Hurricane evacuation route for people in Carroll Gardens and Red Hook, and for the people who live in Lightstone's  365 Bond Street, who will need to follow mandatory evacuation orders during a hurricane.  (Read about the evacuation route here)
Today's rain was steady, but not actually torrential, so one can imagine what it is like during a heavy downpour or a Hurricane like Sandy.



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It's Starting To Look A Lot Like Christmas In the Neighborhood

Our Brooklyn neighborhood is beautiful all year around, but the Holiday season sure adds a touch of magic, don't you think?  Just in the past few days,  Christmas tree vendors have taken their usual spots on Court Street and Smith Street and local stores have begun to decorate their windows.
It is difficult to not get into the spirit, even if the temperatures are still rather mild for the season.

Perhaps this year, we can all make an effort to buy and to dine locally in order to support our local, family-owned  businesses.  Without them, the neighborhood would just not be the same.



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Picture Of The Day: Laundry Day

On Hoyt Street on a crisp fall day.

The more things change in Carroll Gardens....

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Gowanus Canal Superfund Clean-Up: Community Advisory Group To Meet This Tuesday

The Gowanus Canal Community Advisory Group will be hosting its November general meeting on Tuesday, November 29th at 6:30PM. Find out the latest from the EPA Region 2 team responsible for the clean-up of our polluted waterway and connect with members of the CAG.
The meeting is held at Mary Star of the Sea, 41 1st Street. The meeting open to everyone.


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PS29 Hosts Its Beloved "Eat Pie And Shop" Event This Sunday

Some fundraisers are more fun than others. Take the annual Eat Pie and Shop event organized by PS 29 scheduled for this coming Sunday, December 4, from 11am to 4pm. Now in its 8th year, this beloved event benefits the local school’s PTA funded arts and enrichment programs.
Take part in the pie contest, buy holiday presents from 30 local artists and/or have your child's photo portrait taken, or simply drop a gift off for Toys For Tots.  Doesn't get any better than this, does it?

Eat Pie and Shop at Brooklyn’s PS29 

Sunday December 4, 11am - 4pm

425 Henry Street, between Baltic and Kane

www.eatpieandshop.org

Pie Social: Taste delicious homemade and premium pies for $5 a slice or 5 for $20. Both sweet and salty options, so come for lunch and desert.
Celebrity-judged pie contest: Anne Burrell (Food Network and the upcoming Smith Street restaurant, Phil & Anne’s Good Time Lounge), Melissa Clark (Bestselling New York Times Columnist), Allison Kave, author of “First Prize Pies” and co-owner of Butter & Scotch, Brooklyn’s only bar and bakery, Gabriella Gershenson (Food Features Editor at Rachael Ray Everyday Magazine) and Nicholas Morgenstern (Morgenstern’s Finest Ice Cream) and other kitchen pros will name the best pie of the pie contest. Come taste the winning pie. Anyone can enter by bringing a pie before 11am. Winners announced at 1:30.
Artisan Holiday Gift Fair: Take care of your holiday shopping while the kids do crafts. More than 30 of Brooklyn’s best artisans are selling their wares, including jewelry, clothing and beautiful paper products.
Children's Crafts and Activities: Make scarves with Curious Jane, get free Tattly temporary tattoos and enter a vote in the Kids Choice pie contest of kid baked pies. Your kids will have a blast!
Professional Portrait Studio: You can get a beautiful portrait of your child/children taken during the event. $30 for one high-resolution image which you can print, email, gift to grandparents, etc.
Toys for Tots: U.S. Marines will be on hand to pick up all donations of holiday gifts.

All proceeds go to PS 29 programs. For more information, visit www.eatpieandshop.org.

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Homestyle Japanese Family Cooking Workshop At Court Tree Collective

This holiday season, let us remember that it is more important to spend time together with loved ones than about finding that perfect gift.
In that spirit, you may want to sign up for Yumi's Homestyle Japanese Family Cooking Workshop at Court Tree Collective on December 18th, 2016 from 12 to 2:30 pm.
We can't think of a lovelier event for the whole family, and the gallery is located at 371 Court Street right here in Carroll Gardens. What could be easier?
Here are the details:

Yumi’s Homestyle Japanese Family Cooking Workshop
Court Tree Collective and Yumi from K-Seaweed present Yumi's Homestyle Japanese Family Cooking Workshop. Do you like Japanese food but never tried to make it at home? Yumi will share how she prepares some of the most popular Japanese dishes at home. In this hands-on workshop, you will learn all the skills needed to make Maki Sushi and Inside-out rolls (non-raw fish ingredients), two kinds of macrobiotic Seaweed Salads and deeply nourishing Miso Soup. You also learn how to source the best ingredients locally and how to work with the sweet and savory ingredients such as konbu & wakame seaweed, miso, soy sauce, mirin, bonito flakes that infuse unique umani flavor. After you have learned how to cook Japanese beautifully, you will be able to sit down and enjoy the fruits of your labor. You will most certainly walk away finding your kitchen a more inspiring place!

The cost is $45 per person or sign up for the $65 parent/child package here.



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Picture Of The Day: Happy Thanksgiving

Dear Readers,
Many of you are probably already preparing for tomorrow's turkey dinner or heading out of town to be together with loved ones.  Whatever you have planned this Holiday, I wanted to wish you love and peace.
Thank you for your encouragement throughout the year, your invaluable tips and comments along the way and your help in making this little blog site a place where the neighborhood can come together.
So, from my house to your house,  HAPPY THANKSGIVING!


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Bring The Kids To Hannah Senesh's Hanukkah Community Art Festival

Get into the Holiday spirit by bringing the children to Hannah Senesh Community Day School on December 11th for a Hanukkah Community Art Festival.
The event is perfect for kids 2-10 years old. The price per person is $5.
Below is more information:
The Hannah Senesh Community Day School in Carroll Gardens is hosting its annual Hanukkah Community Art Festival on Sunday, December 11th. This holiday art fair is Brooklyn's most popular Hanukkah event featuring a variety of art workshops featuring:
Edible chocolate dreidel making
Mosaic tile workshop
Oil press
Cookie and doughnut decorating
Tzedakah box making
Clay workshop
Beeswax candle making ...and much more!
All run by local artists and community organizations.

Hannah Senesh is located at 342 Smith Street at the corner of First Place
To pre-register, head on over to Hannah Senesh's event page here.


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It Came From The Gowanus: Viewing Debris Recently Removed From 4th Street Basin

Representative of contractor Stevenson going over some safety points before entering site

Christos Tsiamis,

EPA Senior Project Manager for the Gowanus Superfund, (right) speaking to members of the EPA Community Advisory Group's Archaeology Committee

EPA's Christos Tsiamis,

suiting up to handle some of the material recently removed fro the Gowanus Canal 

As an important step in the environmental clean-up of the highly toxic Gowanus Canal, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency began a debris removal Pilot Project at the 4th Street Turning Basin next to the Gowanus Whole Foods this past October. This first phase of the pilot program consisted of clearing obstructions from the basin that prevented navigational access.

For about two weeks, environmental remediation and dredging contractor Sevenson removed all sorts of urban debris that included a sunken boat hull, a smaller fiber glass boat and countless tires. 

The debris was transported by barge to a staging area to the Public Place site at Smith Street and Huntington Street.  Eventually, it will be transported out of the area via barge to appropriate recycling or waste facilities.

Before shipping the debris off-site, Christos Tsiamis,  EPA Senior Project Manager for the Gowanus Superfund, organized a viewing this past Tuesday for members of the press and for the Archaeology Committee of the Gowanus Canal Community Advisory Group.

Accompanied by Natalie Loney, EPA Community Involvement Coordinator, Tsiamis explained to the group that the debris had been neutralized and  assessed by an archaeologist, who found that it held "no archeological importance." A full report will be available at the beginning of December.

 

Since most of the larger items removed from the 4th Street basin broke apart when lifted out of the water, the debris currently stored on Public Place consists of twisted metal and wood. The only recognizable items are an engine and tires.

According to Tsiamis, there really were no big surprises when the material was lifted out of the water, 

The larger items had previously been identified and mapped using sonar technology. 

"There may be more interesting targets when we come to dredge deeper into the soft material at the bottom of the canal," Tsiamis said.

Indeed, the second phase of the 4th Street Basin pilot study will continue at the end of the summer in 2017. It will consist of dredging the toxic black sediment at the bottom of the canal and capping to prevent recontamination. The results of that work will inform the EPA on how best to dredge the entire length of the canal at a later time.

So there is still a chance that the Gowanus Canal will give up some of its darker secrets and live up to its infamous reputation as the resting place of the Maryland 400, as a notorious mafia dumping ground  and home of a revengeful toxic sludge monster.

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{F.O.B.} Brings Authentic Filipino BBQ To Smith Street

{f.o.b.} has been open at 271 Smith Street in Carroll Gardens for just over a week now and things are going very well, according to owners Armando Litiatco and manager Ahmet Kiranbay.

Their new casual eatery offers authentic filipino barbecue and fresh seafood, all expertly cooked by chef Litiatco. The dishes are reminiscent of the meals his family "cooks on a Sunday afternoon" in the Philippines, "with father grilling in the backyard and mother baking in the kitchen."

The menu includes spicy chicken langkawas, (grilled wings, galangal, chillies, lime, palm sugar, and coconut milk) as an appetizer. Main meal choices consists of chicken or pork skewers smothered in filipino bbq sauce, Cebu style chicken roasted with lemongrass and garlic, and the grilled spare ribs slow braised in San Miguel beer and served with banana bbq sauce.

Fish Inihaw consists of a filet grilled in banana leaves and topped with adabong kamatis.

Pair all with a side of egg noodles, rice or sautéed morning glories seasoned with chili and garlic.

"This is the restaurant we have always wanted to open" Litiatco and Kiranbay told me on a recent visit. The two partners met ten years ago in San Francisco, where they ran a catering company together. More recently, they worked at Shokudo, an Asian restaurant in Miami.

The search for a perfect location for their eatery took almost a year. After looking all over New York City, they settled on Carroll Gardens because "it felt like a real neighborhood."

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Let's Be A Neighborhood That Cares: Contribute To City Harvest Holiday Food Drive

With the Holidays upon us, we may want to remember that many struggle to feed their family during this time and throughout the year.  Let us show that Carroll Gardeners care by contributing to City Harvest.
All you have to do is to bring non-perishable food such as peanut butter, cereal and canned food to the Apple Bank branch at 326 Court Street, which is one of the collection points for the current food drive in partnership with the Daily News.
It is as easy as picking up some additional items while we grocery shop on Court Street and dropping them  off. Please encourage your neighbors to do the same.



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Despite Assurances From DOT, New Signage Eliminates Parking On North Side Of 2nd Street Between Bond Street And Gowanus Canal

2nd Street between Bond Street and the Gowanus Canal

New "No Parking and No Standing" signs on North side of the block

 Newly opened "Quick Park" garage on north side of this block

New bicycle lane and parking signage on Bond Street

Prior to construction of Lightstone Group's mega housing development at 363- 365 Bond Street in Gowanus, 1st Street and 2nd Street between Bond and the Gowanus Canal provided public parking
both day and night for local residents.
Those parking spots were taken away when these two blocks were blocked off as construction began in 2014.

Concerned that Lightstone may apply to make  the1st and 2nd Street blocks a “no parking zone" permanently, Gowanus resident Carl Teitelbaum reached out to the NYC Department of Transportation in the fall of 2015 to ask if the developer had done so already.  "Is there any public scrutiny and feedback if that is their intention? How can we make public the desires of the neighborhood in this matter?" Teitelbaum inquired. He added: "Parking is very tight in our neighborhood and taking away what were public spaces would be a great disservice to existing residents."

The answer he received came directly from DoT's Brooklyn Borough Commissioner Keith Bray.
"All parking regulations will be restored once the work on this conduction project is complete," Bray assured Teitelbaum.
This, however, does not seem to be the case.

While this stretch of 1st Street remains closed during ongoing construction at 363 Bond Street, the 2nd Street block was reopened this fall. At the beginning of this month, local resident Michael McGinn reached out to neighbors to report that new D.o.T. signage "eliminates all parking on the north side of Second Street between Bond and the canal."

Incidentally, the entrance to a new private parking garage in Lightstone's 365 Bond Street building is located on the north side of Second Street.

Coïncidence?  "I have a lot of trouble with the idea that a for-profit parking garage means eliminating public parking spaces," Michael McGinn wrote to his neighbors.

The loss of parking spots on 2nd Street is in addition to new parking rules on Bond Street which were implemented in September  to create a bicycle lane.  According to DNA Info: "DOT removed 13 parking spots on the east side of Bond between Sackett and Douglass streets and changed the entire west side of Bond between Third and Douglass into a 'no stopping any time' zone."

As more people move into the 700  apartments at 363-365 Bond Street, parking will just get tighter, especially if additional spots are removed when 1st Street between Bond and the canal re-opens.

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