As we put this edition of the Brooklyn Heights Press and Cobble Hill News to bed, stakeholders will be gathering with staff members of the Brooklyn Department of City Planning (DCP) at a meeting at Borough Hall organized by Borough President Marty Markowitz. The meeting is the next step in the ULURP process for DCP’s Carroll Gardens/Columbia Street Waterfront District Contextual Rezoning proposal. The idea, DCP staffers have explained at previous meetings, is to install “preservation rezoning� changes, {read more...}

A Corcoran Group real estate listing has lifted a veil — or at least caused the veil to flutter a bit — on the future of 110 Amity Street and its surrounding Henry Street and Amity Street lots. In March of this year, after development plans had finally been approved by the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) many months before, neighbors noticed that “For Sale� signs had been posted on the building and on the fence surrounding the Henry {read more...}

Sosie Hublitz began to make her mark in the central Virginian restaurant scene in the 1980s. There was the popular Millie’s Diner in Richmond and then The Kitchen Table. The latter, lovingly conceived by Hublitz, a former motion picture set designer, to harmonize with the historic 1835 building in which it was situated, was destroyed by Hurricane Gaston in 2004. Hublitz’s restaurant was not alone; the flood spawned by the hurricane wiped out much of Richmond’s historic district. {read more...}

Last week’s meeting of the Carroll Gardens Neighborhood Association (CGNA) — the last before summer hiatus — put the cherry on top of what has all the markings of a successful bid to downzone the neighborhood in an effort to prevent out-of-scale development. Glenn Kelly, who heads the neighborhood group’s Land Use Committee, explained how after a May meeting with the Department of City Planning (DCP) at which the city agency outlined the zoning changes it is recommending {read more...}

Planet Earth is in trouble. Predictions about global warming and its consequences are dire, indeed, and have resulted in lifestyle changes for most people I know. Carrying cloth totes around on errands to reduce the number of plastic shopping bags headed to landfills, and turning the water off while brushing teeth seem rather {read more...}

It’s raining creativity at Heights Chateau. As is widely known, the popular wine and spirits shop at 123 Atlantic Avenue devotes one of its display windows to showcasing the work of local artists.

Currently, pieces from Robin Melton Joradan’s “Umbrella� series are featured. Jordan works in her Cobble Hill studio in a variety of mediums, always with an eye toward recycling found objects, reassembling, she says, “the detritus of society� into paper and animated sculptural forms.

Jordan’s mobiles {read more...}

It is approaching one year since the Carroll Gardens Places Text Amendment was put in place. A Department of City Planning (DCP) measure that lassoed a loophole permitting out-of-context development and home additions on blocks with deep front gardens, the Text Amendment was seen as a partial remedy for Carroll Gardens as the community pursued downzoning and landmarking.

Downzoning is now on the agenda, as evidenced by an informational meeting hosted by Community Board 6’s Landmarks/Land Use Committee last {read more...}

By Trudy Whitman

There was music and good food; there was merrymaking; there was a major announcement; and there was — finally — no downpour. All made for a perfect evening of celebration commemorating the Cobble Hill Association’s 50th Anniversary. It all took place in the rotunda of Brooklyn Borough Hall on May 7, where the venue’s elegance was heightened by lovely arrangements from Atlantic Avenue’s Floral Heights. As memories of {read more...}

Last week Borough President Marty Markowitz addressed a room filled with citizens concerned with the fate of Long Island College Hospital. The occasion was a President’s Reception — a light dinner and information session at the hospital organized by LICH’s interim president and CEO, Dominick Stanzione.

Markowitz acknowledged the “many challenges� the institution still faces, but professed to feeling positive about the community hospital’s future and particularly happy that “Dominick is steering the ship.� “His demeanor,� the borough president {read more...}

With Community Board 6 District Manager Craig Hammerman and former Councilmember Stephen DiBrienza recently scooping their hats out of the ring of the race for City Council for the 39th District, one expected to see five chairs occupied by contenders at Saturday’s candidate debate. There were six, however. David Pechefsky, a Green candidate — all the others are Democrats — has joined the contest.

A CB 6 board member, David Pachefsky has worked in city government for 12 years, {read more...}

By Trudy Whitman

Calling State Senator Daniel Squadron’s plan for Brooklyn Bridge Park “visionary yet viable,� Cobble Hill Association President Jeff Strabone has sent a mass email to residents, asking them to sign a prepared letter to Mayor Bloomberg and other elected officials that supports the senator’s ideas for the park. “Every public meeting that we have held for the past several years has reiterated that removing the proposed new apartments {read more...}

Alex Grabcheski’s role model was Paul Newman Grabcheski is not, as one might assume, an aspiring matinee idol. He is, rather, a humanitarian who admires Newman’s simple idea of turning a hobby — in the late actor’s case, concocting recipes; in Grabcheski’s, collecting objets d’art — into a business that helps others. Newman’s Own is a multi-million-dollar foundation funded by sales of salad dressings, tomato sauce, and cookies. Fork & Pencil, a much more modest endeavor, Grabcheski {read more...}

Daniel Squadron talked a lot about Brooklyn Bridge Park during his successful campaign for the New York State Senate. True to his word, the issue has remained front and center during his first few months on the job. Sunday, after responsibilities in Albany forced him to cancel a scheduled public presentation of his {read more...}

The lobby of the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Jay Street office was swarming with media types on March 16, as DA Charles Hynes announced the recipients of the Third Annual Extraordinary Women’s awards — 31 in all, one for each day of the month of March, Women’s History Month. Hynes has said in the past that as the son of a mother who was the victim of domestic abuse, he has felt that it is part of his mission {read more...}