A tipster writes to Curbed:

Today marks the first day of the Kent Avenue change in traffic direction (one of your favorite topics). And of course, despite assurances by the planners, traffic has been diverted to Wythe Avenue, not Roebling as proposed.

Saw this myself this morning – 18-wheelers trying to make the turn from Broadway onto Wythe (can’t do it in one pass). From what I saw, it wasn’t a case of traffic being diverted onto Wythe, but rather a case of no signs and no police directing traffic anywhere.

Score one point for those who were worried that the City would drop the ball on this.

The Times announced its endorsement for City Comptroller today, choosing David Yassky over Melinda Katz, John Liu and David Weprin. Late last week, an ABC-TV poll had Katz and Liu running neck and neck, with Yassky a distant third (and Undecided beating them all). Given the obscurity of the race (after all, it’s only the second or third most important elected position in the City of New York), the Times endorsement will probably change those polling results, moving a lot of those undecideds.

NAG’s Ryan Kuonen is leading a bike tour of Newtown Creek, “including the industrial heritage, oil spills and pollution plumes, combined sewage overflows, and the ecosystem of estuaries”.

[via Laura]

Warhola was a firefighter at Engine 221 on South 2nd Street. He died last week when he suffered a stroke while responding to a call on Kent Avenue. Our condolences to his family and to his fellow firefighters at 221.

Wow – Brownstoner has it right when he says the Finger building is the gift that keeps giving. Ever since GFI Capital acquired the building last Spring, there has been speculation as to how they will actually build this thing. The BSA has cleared the way for a 16-story building, but the current skeleton stops at 10 (or 10 and a half – there is some steel sticking out the top). There were early rumors that said it would 10 stories, but these were immediately tamped down by GFI reps. Last week, Crain’s quoted a Yassky staff person as saying that it would – really, truly – only rise to 10 stories*. Now the Observer has the construction manager on site saying it will be 14 stories (which is pretty much in line with what GFI’s rep said last Spring). For context, the Observer interviews two retailers on North 7th Street that didn’t even exist when the Finger broke ground – that’s how long this saga has been going on.

There’s more interesting stuff in the Observer article, though – a quote from the manager of Planet Thailand that they are closing down next week. The manager says that “the scaffolding [on North 7th Street] has ‘really hurt this business'”. Of course Planet Thailand shuttered the Berry Street side of the restaurant some months ago – that would be the side that did not have a sidewalk shed in front of it. I think what really hurt Planet Thailand’s business was its increasing irrelevance in a neighborhood that has seen a huge increase in the number of quality restaurants over the 10 years that it has been at this location. When Planet Thailand was on Bedford and was a Thai restaurant, it was one of the only games in town and it served really good Thai food. When it moved to Berry, it adopted a pan-everything menu that didn’t do anything well and soon had to compete with the likes of Sea (who have essentially the same business model, but (for reasons that completely escape me) attract a ton of people).

[At the end of the article, the Observer says that BSA capped the building at 10 stories and that it was GFI that won the approval for 16 stories. If memory serves, DOB capped the development at 10 stories while the BSA and air rights cases were worked out. GFI only acquired the building a month before BSA ruled to let it rise to 16 stories – GFI (or HSBC) was along for the ride at that point. Or 14 stories. Whatever.]

* Curbed link because Crain’s is subscription only.

“there goes the icy”
Photo: Shira Golding on flickr

Parents calling 311 on the icy man? It’s too fucking hot for this crap – just say no to your kids and let the rest of us enjoy our coconut icies.

NPR goes to Pete’s Candy Store.

Planet Money reports on a North Brooklyn group that plans on issuing its own local currency. The plan follows similar initiatives in Ithaca and Madison, Wisconsin. Details are a bit sketchy at this point, but you can learn more about the Brooklyn Torch here.