Best Comment Of The Day: Post-Cleanup Vision

Anonymous has left the Following comment on the post "State Department Visitor From Italy Given Tour O Gowanus Area By Members Of FROGG":

Yes visitors from around the world are interested in how we cleanup and reuse this 19th century industrial canal; which even today serves the community as an open sewer.

But in making our post-cleanup vision for this area, we need to recognize that the canal and it's early industrial past may serve as a much greater asset to the community that a bunch of tall modern housing developments.

The Gowanus is already a destination place and is a valuable asset as such. So how do we build on that aspect rather than turning it into a private enclave of residential buildings claiming the street ends? How do we open up the minds of the city planners to a better vision for this place?

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Photo Of The Day: Time Of Roses In Carroll Gardens

Is there a nicer time

in Carroll Gardens

than when the roses bloom?

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Best Comment Of The Day: Every-Night Thing

Anonymous has left the following comment on the post "Noisy Bar Patrons Keeping You Awake? CB6 To Host Meeting On Rules Governing Eating And Drinking Establishments":

We've experienced more noise recently from bars in our neighborhood, enough to make opening the windows prohibitive. What was a rarer occurrence seems now to be an every-night thing!

Sleep-less on President

Home Page

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State Department Visitor From Italy Given Tour Of Gowanus Canal Area By Members Of FROGG

The Gowanus Canal

State Department International Visitor Francesco Pascale of Italy

Marlene Donnelly of FROGG with Mr. Pascale

At the EPA's filed office On Bond Street

Marlene Donnelly, interpreter Elisabetta Mazzantini-Clark and Mr. Pascale

Christos Tsiamis, EPA Project Manager For Gowanus

Rebecca Krucoff of The Urban Memory Project

with students Nicol Medina and Carina Escoto

of The Secondary School For Research

A few weeks ago, the State Department contacted the Friends And Residents Of Greater Gowanus, FROGG, to ask if members of the organization would kindly give a tour of the Gowanus Canal area to Francesco Pascale of Italy, who had been invited through the International Visitor Leadership Program. Mr Pascale had requested that the Gowanus Canal be on his list of things he wanted to see on this visit to New York City.

Mr. Pascale is a member of Legambiente Campania ONLUS, an Italian environmental non-government organization. He holds a Master’s Degree in Environmental Science.

Marlene Donnelly and Bette Stoltz of FROGG met Mr. Pascale and his interpreter Elisabetta Mazzantini-Clark at Proteus Gowanus to take a walking tour of the canal area on Thursday morning.

Joining the tour was Matt Gross, a freelance writer, Rebecca Krucoff of the Urban Memory Project and students Nicol Medina and Corinna Escoto from the Secondary School For Research.

The first stop on the walking tour was the Environmental Protection Agency Region 2's field office on Bond Street, were the group met up with Christos Tsiamis, EPA's Project Manager for the Gowanus Canal.

Mr. Tsiamis explained to Mr. Pascale how the Superfund program works, what the environmental issues are, what data has been collected so far and how the agency is planning to remediate the polluted waterway.

Mr. Tsiamis also took the group to the Toll Brothers' development site on First Street, between the canal and Bond Street, where EPA sub-contractor, McVac Environmental was installing a well into the ground for data collection.

Well drilling on Toll Brothers site at First Street and the canal

I would like to thank Marlene Donnelly and Bette Stoltz for inviting me to join the tour. It was a pleasure meeting Mr. Pasquale and as always, it was truly informative and inspiring to hear Mr.Tsiamis speak about the Gowanus Canal and his work.

Please take the time to view the videos below. They contain a lot of pertinent information regarding the Gowanus.

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Noisy Bar Patrons Keeping You Awake? CB6 To Host Meeting On Rules Governing Eating And Drinking Establishments

****MEETING REMINDER****

As the weather has warmed up in the last few weeks, many local residents have had to close their back windows and take out the ear plugs. All along commercial strips like Smith Street, Court Street, and 5th Avenue, restaurants and bars have swung open their doors and are infringing on their neighbors' right to a good night's sleep.

The proliferation of drinking establishments has certainly aggravated the problem in our mostly residential neighborhoods.

To help clarify the rules and regulations governing eating and drinking establishments, Community Board 6 is addressing the complaints from residents by hosting an informational meeting. Read the information below.

CB6 Public Safety/Environmental Protection/Permits & License Committee

is pleased to host…

An Informational Meeting

In an effort to better understand the rules and regulations governing restaurants and bars in our district, representatives from City agencies and local precincts will be on hand to answer any questions in respect to noise, smoking, backyard usage, garbage and other related issues.

Please join us on:

DATE: Monday, May 24, 2010

TIME: 6:30 pm

PLACE: Community Board 6 District Office

250 Baltic Street, Auditorium

(Between Court & Clinton Streets)

Bring your neighbors! Bring your friends! Find out what’s going on.

If you are having a problem with a particularly noisy establishment, this is the meeting for you. Please also take the time to write a comment below to document your complaint!

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Picture Of The Day: "Free" Real Estate On Smith Street

It was just sitting there

on Smith Street:

a three-story town house.

Not quite a brownstone,

but

free

for the taking.

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Best Comment Of The Day: Just Part Of The Problem

Anonymous has left the following comment on the post "On June 27th, Say Good-Bye To The B71 And B75 Bus Lines":

MTA mismanagement may be part of the problem, but the primary reason that the agency is out of money, year after year, is because the state government takes it away, plain and simple. Albany simply removed hundreds of millions of dollars from the MTA budget, including money that had already been allocated to the agency.

Public transit needs public money in order to keep running and keep fares low. The MTA isn't getting it from our government. Too few New Yorkers seem to realize this. There would be more hope for a resolution if we identified the correct problem.

Some more info here (also recommend looking around this blog in general): http://www.streetsblog.org/2010/03/09/albany-didnt-cut-the-mta-budget-they-stole-from-it/

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