"Hand Across The Sand" at Coney Island.

F.I.B stumbled upon the "Hands Across the Sand" protest against off shore oil drilling at Coney Island yesterday, which was part of a nation wide action that occurred along the beaches at noon. About 350 people participated on the shores of Coney. One of the organizers who hails from Rockaway, said she was motivated to take part in this event when she heard that there is talk of drilling off the shores of the Rockaway peninsula!

While the event sort of reminded me of that old "I'd like to give a world a coke" commercial, these folks were doing the reverse, they were not selling anything but the idea that corporations are destroying our waters.

Read and see images about the event on the oil tainted beaches of Penescola, Florida.

And sign the petition asking President Obama to Move beyond oil.

A Puzzling Blog Fest.

I was pretty horrified on how the Brooklyn Blogfest was more about that vodka that begins with an “A” than anything else. As someone who turned to blogging to escape the man, I wanted to escape this blogfest but was so shocked at the corporate branding and the blogs being secondary to the whole event that I just had stay to watch this corporate love fest. In the past the actual bloggers were given a face to their blogs and that was the whole point, you got to finally meet the people behind the blogs. At this year’s blog fest, an actor did the “shout out” and if you didn’t know the blogs, or were into hip hop style poetry you wouldn’t really know what the hell he was saying.

The appearance of Marty Markowitz was the cherry on the sundae. If the organizers of the blogfest wanted to alienate many of the bloggers in the audience who have spent the last couple years fighting the Atlantic Yards, the Sitt invasion of Coney Island or the Toll Brothers plans for the Gowanus, they did it here. I was incredulous!

Spike Lee graciously admitted he really didn’t know much about blogs and it is was just so painfully apparent that this was all about this vodka company using the blogs for free advertising for their new Brooklyn vodka! Apparently, many blogs were approached to pimp their vodka with the award of a flip camera. I actually received this email and deleted it immediately. I actually did not even bother reading it, too much work and not F.I.B’s style. Now if they offered to pay me what they would pay a regular media outlet, I might consider. But for a flip camera?
Anyway I have to run to work and could go on and on. Check out Norman Oder’s excellent recap of the event here.

PS- On the plus side after the “shill fest” was over I did meet some lovely people including my doppelganger Lisanne!

Reminder that the doc about Freddy's is playing tonite, you can be sure that is one Brooklyn event that Marty might not have the nerve to make an appearance!

DUMBO! Get Ready to Fight! The Toll Brothers are trying to move in...

I rarely look to the the press for local news but this time I can't help myself.The Troll Brothers are now looking to annoy the people of DUMBO now with another unneccesary condo. Toll Brother V.P David Von Sprecklesen is all hot and bothered about clogging the open sky with another Toll Brothers montrosity. He says and I quote from The Brooklyn Paper article:“It’s a big vacant site — people would like to see some activity there,”. “Our goal is to have the whole process finished by April, and start building shortly thereafter.” He also mentioned that if there were no landsmarks commision they would just build over 12 stories. Hello! David! This site is located between two very important NYC bridges. This man just is crazy to build near the water no matter what!This is what they built in Williamsburg..BARF!
*Photocredit: Curbed

People of DUMBO get ready to rally!!!!!

I hope the neighborhood of DUMBO proves your assumptions wrong as far as what "people would like to see". Just give it up. Please. The condos in Brooklyn are festering and empty. Why are you so intent in littering the landscape?

Click here for over 50 F.I.B posts about the Toll Brothers and the Gowanus.

Doubts About Toll Brothers? - C.B 6 Meeting Tonight

Waterfront property anyone?

Despite the fact that luxury condos stand largely unrented, despite the fact that condo projects languish unworked on due to lack of funds and the big one: despite the fact that this project needs a huge enviromental cleanup which STILL has not been addressed in any serious detailed manner, The Toll Brother's think now is the perfect time to build. Recently, local Community Board 6, which had given their O.K on the rezoning so they can build this project has questioned the if the Tolls are going to include affordable housing in the project. Affordable housing was essentially the deal breaker for their OK. NOW with public monies drying up it is likely the Toll's won't get that funding. They don't have any intention in funding it themselves which would make the project an entire village of luxury condominiums.

A quote from Toll Brothers V.P and relentless optimist David Von Spreckelsen:

" the fiscal crisis is not expected to disrupt Toll’s plan, or prevent it from securing funding from the city.

Read the whole article by Gary Buiso in the Courier here.

Meeting is Monday February 23rd.

Public School 32
317 Hoyt Street
Brooklyn NY
TIME: 6:30 PM

Also on the plate at the meeting is recent happenings at Public Place, the other neighborhood toxic site.

Toll Brothers Public Hearing with City Planning * WEDNESDAY

This was written on this building, a couple months before the "crash".
Well, with the economy as it is and with vacant condos throughout the city I am hoping the Toll Brothers will just throw in the towel on the 363-365 Bond Street condo project, just too many health and environmental risks on top of the financial ones! Toll Brothers' condos on the Williamsburg waterfront are fairly vacant and "renting to own" at this point. I hope big Daddy Robert Toll puts the final kabosh on this one, I heard he was never really keen on the city projects and that VP for Development David Von Spreckelsen had to work hard to convince him, kill it Robert!!!PLEASE!!!!

Anyway, The City Planning Commission is holding a public hearing for the Toll Brothers' project at 363-365 Bond Street . Anyone can speak their mind, please attend if you are lucky enough to be able to make it on this Tuesday morning.

The hearing is scheduled for:
January 7
22 Reade Street in Manhattan.
The public meeting begins at 10:00AM.

Defend Gowanus! NO LOVE CANAL HERE! Please sign!

Even though CB6 approved the Toll Brothers project the community is still fighting, FOR GOOD REASON! I quote the Urban Divers comment on the petition here- because they tell it like it is:
"The Gowanus Canal has historically and continues to be the catalyst for the severe environmental denigration that challenges public health and has caused the economic decline of the community. CLEANING THE GOWANUS CANAL FIRST, before IMPOSING ENCROACHING LUXURY HOUSING and or OTHER HUMAN DENSITY DWELLINGS, is the only way to PROTECT PUBLIC HEALTH, and RESTORE ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY and SUSTAINABILITY. THE CLEANING AND RESTORING OF ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY OF THE GOWANUS CANAL FIRST, is the only way that the community, the city and the state will ever reap a REAL BENEFIT, and restore economic viability of the Gowanus Canal community and beyond."

Click here to sign the Defend Gowanus petition.

This petition is targeted at:Mayor Bloomberg, Borough President Marty Markowitz, Councilman Bill de DeBlasio.

Bad News this week in NYC

Would you want to live here? The Toll Brothers project.
Our arrogant Mayor has scored a coup and has followed through on his proclamation that he will continue to be Mayor even though his time is up.

Meanwhile back in Brooklyn, Commmunity Board 6 has been swayed to say yes (money talks) on the spot zoning for the huge condo complex on polluted water and land so that the Toll Brothers (see rant below) can screw up the eco system a bit more.


Click on those links to read full coverage of the Community Board meeting from the Pardon Me for Asking blog and scathing commentary regarding Bloomies dictatorship over at Who Walk in Brooklyn.

O.K I have to go to work now in the school that is in near the Toll Brothers site that has the children learning in trailers in an area that should be their playground. Gotta love the infrastructure they say we have! but we all know that they would never send their kids to THAT school! too many minority children!!!

I would just LOVE to take a break from this but I can't.

I'm tired (grad school is a lot more work than I imagined!) and I haven't ranted about the Toll Brothers project on Bond Street in a while but after coming home from a highly charged F.R.O.G.G meeting, that's FRIENDS and RESIDENTS of the GOWANUS CANAL y'all (contact me to get involved and not a member of the Gowanus Conservancy or Dredgers) one of the issues discussed was hurricanes and flooding, the latter being a HUGE problem around the Gowanus, although the Toll Brothers feel they can fix all that,but I digress. The other day I crossed the canal and we hadn't had rain in days and the tide was abnormally high. Just imagine what will happen in a hurricane, we will be getting them more with global warming y'know!

I would also like to add my two cents or have a cathartic little rant about the Toll Brothers. O.K we are in a recession. A big part of it is home mortgages defaulting. The Toll Brothers have made their fortune building the huge excessive suburban McMansion Homes that are largely the ones defaulting. The Toll Brothers take no responsibility, interviews with Robert Toll usually run a "no remorse" attitude, like "it's not my fault these people signed the dotted line". ANYWAY so the government bailed them out. So isn't that our money now? To use more wisely? WHY WOULD ANYONE WANT A CORPORATION SUCH AS THIS TO BE TRUSTED WITH A FRAGILE ECO SYSTEM SUCH AS THE AREA THEY WANT TO PLUNK DOWN A BUNCH OF CONDOS WITH A PRECIOUS "ESPLANADE"? and of course a parking garage.

Why are people in opposition to this project vilified and mocked (hello Brooklyn Paper!!) because they have ENVIRONMENTAL concerns? Flooding, raw sewage, pathogens, brownfields etc. And these corporate self involved, dried out, consciousless Toll Brothers reps and their political aliases (hello Bill DiBlasio and Community Board 6!!) just will not take the actual people who live in the communities opinion as a concern. The scary thing is that we have a Mayor who thinks in this fashion as well, term limits schmerm limits is has attitude and to hell with what the democratic process is.

Our world is majorly screwed up right now. War and greed have the country hurting. Can't we all just take a break and just LIVE our lives? Isn't this recession enough of a sign?

signed
Found in Brooklyn
naively simple
and wants people to just stop it.
(war and greed)

OK I feel better now. Check out this link over at my compadre Pardon Me for Asking (who was also at this evenings meeting) to find out more about the photo above of what the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel will look like with a type TWO hurricane,it's just around the corner y'know.

Open Your Eyes!

"OPEN YOUR EYES" & "NO MORE CORPORATE RULE"!

Looks like the "batcave" building over near 3rd and 3rd got bombed over the weekend. Nice to see some quality messages after all the downright bad grafitti (particularly around the Carroll Street bridge) that has been around the Gowanus of late.To whomever did this (the building not this awful fence), I salute you! You got skills!Many thanks to the keen eye of Brian Berger for the photos (except for the first one that one is mine! and is what i see from the front of my house, reminds me of Minor Threat "in my eyes".)