Category: Linked

Today’s Daily News has a piece on overcrowded Brooklyn schools and the slow response of the Department of Education. The article includes these nuggets of local interest:

– In Williamsburg and Greenpoint, the City Planning Commission projects a general population increase of 12.5% from 2000 to 2010 because of thousands of new apartments being built. But Education Department consultants project an enrollment decline of 19.5%.

– In Bushwick, the neighborhood population is projected to increase by nearly 11%, but school enrollment is projected to decline 14%.

Much of the blame is put at the feet of DOE, but City Planning certainly deserves its share. After all, Williamsburg and Greenpoint have undergone a comprehensive rezoning that is projected to add 10,000 new housing units by the middle of the next decade. And yet this rezoning included no provisions for expanded school services.

Via Save the G, word of another chance to rally in support of our crosstown local tomorrow evening.

Brooklyn Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries is organizing a G train advocacy kick-off rally:

Wednesday, May 21 at 6:30 p.m.
at Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church
85 S. Oxford Street
(between Fulton St. and Lafayette Ave.)

Call the Assemblyman’s district office at (718) 596-0100 for more information.

(As StreetsBlog points out, this is the same Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries who voted against congestion pricing and for a cut in MTA funding. But them’s a different issues.)

John McCain won the Indiana Republican primary with just over 75% of the vote. That’s right, almost one in four Republicans (in this very Republican state) went to the polls to vote for someone else. He actually fared less well in North Carolina, where – running unopposed – he received less than 75% of the votes (ditto for Pennsylvania two weeks ago).

Photo: Fred Conrad (via NYT)

A stunning image of the (almost complete) digester eggs at Newtown Creek WPCP. Designed by Polshek Partnership, this is probably the pinnacle of contemporary design in Greenpoint.

The Williamsburgh Savings Bank (the one on Flatbush, not ours) may soon be home to the world’s first Microsoft Store. [Insert joke here.] That, at least, according to the new broker for the landmarked space. Its not clear if this is actual news or just an attempt by a broker to get Apple’s competitive juices flowing.

But really, a Microsoft store? A 33,000 square foot Microsoft store? In a landmark interior? In a building with no street-level retail presence? For $2 million a year in rent? With your only store in the world on Flatbush and Atlantic? I’m no fan of Microsoft, but even I don’t think they’re that dumb.

This space would make a great Apple store. But Apple already has three other stores in the city, in very high traffic areas. Apple also has the goods to sell – once you get past Zunes and XBoxes, what’s left? The Vista Bar?

David Yassky is pushing a bill that would extend most-favored-parker status for some large businesses in the city. As I understand it, businesses that agree to give up their right to contest tickets are given a break on the total fines of the tickets they are issued. Yassky says this bill makes it a little bit easier for businesses making deliveries to do business in the city. Opponents say the law increases traffic and congestion and gives large businesses preferential treatment.

As part of the congestion pricing plan, I thought that parking fines for commercial vehicles should be reduced in the city. This would have offset the cost of entering the congestion zone for commercial vehicles, and, combined with the benefits of less congestion, would have addressed much of the “working class” objection to Blomberg’s plan.

Via Wired, news that BMW looking to reintroduce its Isetta as a zero-emissions electric car. The original Isetta (seen at Wired ) was a three-wheeled ugly duckling that fit into the era of other classic post-war Eurocars (2CV, Morris Mini, 500, et al). Unlike the new Mini Cooper, the new Isetta concept (seen in the Autocar link, above) pales in comparison (the 500 has been in more or less continuous production, for better and worse).

Also intriguing: BMW is considering using this as the base for a “range of city cars”, including internal combustion models based on its motorcycle engines.

This one’s a little stale, but via the Real Estate, an article on the artist behind the sculpture that is to go on the pier at Northside Piers.

Whether or not it was Landmark worthy, I sure do miss the old 2 Columbus Circle. In photos at least, its replacement is nothing to get excited about, and its reuse of the lollipop structure leaves me scratching my head. The old building had a dignity that I find lacking here – it would have been better to just tear it down (there are, as a friend of mine likes to say, worse things you can do to a building than to tear it down).