Gowanus Lounge is Back (Online)

03/06/2009 | Comment

Opened Twitter this morning and saw the usual flood of auto-links from Gowanus Lounge. It almost made yesterday seem like a bad dream – it looks as though someone got GL back online, with Bob’s last posts up, which is what generated the auto-tweets. I hope that something will be done to archive Bob’s work at GL.com for the long term.

The last post was on the third. Fittingly, it is a street couch.



✦✦

Bob Guskind

03/05/2009 | 3 Comments

bob.jpg

Photo: Miss Heather

I just read about the death of Bob Guskind. Like most people, I am at a loss for words. Bob was a passionate, tireless, dedicated reporter on Brooklyn and everything that has been happening to it.

I will miss him.

More (and more eloquent) tributes can be found at the following (the list is evolving):


Dedicated To A Good Friend [NYShitty]
Gowanus Lounge, You Had Brooklyn’s Back [A very thoughtfully written remembrance by Louise at OTBKB – highly recommended]
Robert Guskind, Founder of Gowanus Lounge, Dies [Brownstoner]
Robert Guskind 1958 – 2009: Founder of Gowanus Lounge Dies [OTBKB]
Robert Guskind: A Walk Around The Blog with Gowanus Lounge [also OTBKB]
Bob Guskind: I Am Not A Fan of the Looming Manhattanization of Brooklyn [yes, OTBKB again]
Bob Guskind, Gowanus Lounge Blogger, Dies [Gothamist]
Robert Guskind [Curbed]
Robert Guskind, R.I.P. [Curbed’s official remembrance]
Death of a Blogger – Robert Guskind, R.I.P. [Brooklyn Paper – as noted in the comments here, the original version of this article was a journalistic disgrace. BP has now cleaned up the article so that it is sourced and so that it is news.]
Bob Guskind, RIP [The Albany Project]
R.I.P. Bob Guskind [Brooklyn Heights Blog]
In Memoriam: Bob Guskind [No Land Grab]
RIP: Bob Guskind [Dope on the Slope]
Silent Post For Big RG [FiPS, with whom Bob had his share of run ins]
Robert Guskind, Founder of Gowanus Lounge, 1958-2009 [Flatbush Gardener]
RIP Bob Guskind [NAG]
Sad on a Thursday [Bad Advice]
Famed B’klyn Blogger Robert Guskind, 50, Dies [Brooklyn Eagle – a nicely reported piece]
Bob Guskind – An Appreciation [Brooklyn Paper – Gersh’s appreciation of Bob, nicely done]

Note: Gowanus Lounge is offline entirely, but for the moment at least you can see Bob’s last postings via Google cache (unformatted, since the CSS is offline), and you can still see the old Blogger version of Gowanus Lounge. If you don’t know Bob’s work, you can get a good sense of why he’ll be missed here.

In addition to being a prolific (and very good) writer, Bob was also a prolific (and very good) photographer, which you can see at his Flickr stream.



✦✦

Marty Says ¡NO! on Tolls

Marty Markowitz continues to be the most vocal opponent to East River tolls. I don’t think tolls are as evil as Marty says, but he does have some very good alternate revenue-generating ideas (commuter tax, service cuts on the J/M/Z). Though he misses one (congestion pricing).

On a related note, there is another benefit to tolls on the East River bridges – the end to the free ride that sends most westbound truck traffic through downtown Brooklyn and lower Manhattan.

Developer Blight: Domino

03/04/2009 | Comment

When you own 7 blocks of street frontage, shoveling your sidewalk can be a chore. Still, 48 hours after the last snow flake hit Kent Avenue, the New Domino has only cleared one block of sidewalk. Which means there is a huge stretch of Kent Avenue where pedestrians have to choose between walking on an impassable sidewalk or walking in traffic on Kent Avenue.

If you want to try your hand at luge, I suggest you check out the corner of Grand and Kent, which is sheer ice. Heading downhill. Maybe CPCR is trying to make blight an Olympic sport?



✦✦

The Price of Tomatoes

I gave up off-season tomatoes a few years ago, based on taste alone. After a season of fresh farmer’s-market tomatoes, the dull, tasteless and mealy off-season variety just wasn’t worth it. If that’s not reason enough for you, maybe this article will be.

[Via Gothamist]

General Mill Retro Cereal Boxes

General Mills turns back the clock 40 years on their package designs. Even the “G” goes back in time. The simplicity of the design versus today’s complete design overload almost makes old Trix seem wholesome. Its enough to make one wonder if its the sugar or the packaging that leads to ADHD.

Via DF

Adjectives Get Evicted

“Luxury” and “condo” are no longer joined at the hip, as brokers struggle to find ways to say the market is tanking without saying the market is tanking.