Author: linked

Tom Agnotti takes City Planning to task for, well, not doing planning. A lot of good points in there, though much to take issue with as well (for one, his Waterfront Access Scam conflates developer-built esplanades and upland connectors with City-promised waterfront parks – they are not the same, and the fact that the City hasn’t followed through on its promise doesn’t mean that esplanades too are a scam).

The hipster rebellion – a sham? (But they’re not talking about you. I think.)

Guy puts fuel additive into his motorcycle, hilarity ensures.

(Read at least through page 2, if you don’t get it, I’ll be back to the regular programming shortly; if you do get it, put aside some time to read – the thread is 96 pages long.)

Aaron Short was otherwise engaged, so he gave Juliet Linderman the keys to the blog. Nice summation of last Tuesday’s 33rd council district debate – though no mention of the Abbott and Costello snowball (or did I hallucinate that?). But seriously, the entire evening can be summed up thusly:

Baer: can’t wrap his head around a yes or no question

And don’t forget, we do it all over again next Tuesday evening, 7:00 at the John Ericsson School (MS 126), 434 Leonard Avenue.

Probably not “the first of a new breed of Williamsburg bars and performance places”, but definitely a big part of the first wave.Back when every new bar or restaurant opening was big news.

From a presumably serious effort at cataloguing the tweet quality of local bars & restaurants:

Gowanus Lounge: @gowanuslounge
Lots of tweets about a Robert Guskind memorial. Not much else.

Really hard to figure out what the hell the Mayor’s people were thinking.

<sarcasm>

Then again Gerry has always been a loose cannon, a hot head and trouble maker.

</sarcasm>

Chuck is right, but why stop at one? Put them all here. The rest of the country has its shorts in a knot over the prospect of “releasing [terrorists] into our communities“, but New York can handle it. Turn the Verizon building into modern-day Spandau and let them look at the WTC memorial for the rest of their natural lives.

If you read one summary of last night’s 33rd debate, this should be it.

Via WG, the Observer reports that the Broadway Triangle rezoning has been certified by the City Planning Commission. Expect the application to be before CB1 at the June public hearing, with a vote by the Board in July (also expect CB1’s July vacation to be cancelled – maybe we’ll get August off).

The Domino Sugar rezoning was not certified in Monday’s round of mass certification (theoretically, Monday was the last certification date to guarantee that a project would be reviewed by the current administration and council). WG says it has a line on another possible hold up for CPCR, Domino’s developer, but we’ll have to wait for the new issue to hit the newsstands (and the interweb) to find out what this delay is.

For opponents and proponents alike, Domino and Broadway Triangle have some parallels. Domino seeks to supersize the allowed height and density of recent rezonings in exchange for more affordable housing; many community activists would like to see Broadway Triangle do the same, while the proposal that was certified is more in keeping with heights and densities approved in recent rezonings.