New York Times: Judy Stanton, the executive director of the Brooklyn Heights Association, has battled with both David and Jed Walentas over numerous projects.

“I think Jed has better manners — which is not to say he is well mannered — than his father,” she said. “He does not come up to people out of the blue and say really crude, rude things.”

David Walentas, whose shirt cuffs bear not his monogram but his motto, “No Guts No Glory,” makes no apologies for the battles he has waged. “I was the lone ranger out there at war with everyone,” he said, noting that his success had allowed his son the luxury of patience.

But critics like Ms. Stanton still get under his skin. “They are up there on the hill, holier than thou,” he said. “But if it had been up to them, there would be no Dumbo.”

DUMBONYC: Grimaldi’s move to 1 Front Street is delayed due to an untimely death in the family and the Department of Buildings has issued a stop-work order at the 1 Front Street location. According to the BOD website, the stop work order issued on 11/28/2011 is for “illegally installed coal burning oven @ 1st floor done w/o propper approvals & presents a potential danger to patrons”.

Russell Ciolli, son of Frank Ciolli, both owners of Grimaldi’s Pizza, died last Wednesday at 39. Our condolences go out to the Ciolli family.

Which pizza pie will remain supreme?

NY Post: The pizza-slinger switcheroo came about after landlord Mark Waxman decided not to renew Ciolli’s lease for 19 Old Fulton St. The move came a year after Waxman tried to evict Ciolli for being delinquent in rent.

“A year after I sold Grimaldi’s, I was very sorry,” Grimaldi told The Post. “So when Mr. Waxman called me and asked if I wanted to come back, I thought I was dreaming. I couldn’t say ‘yes’ fast enough.”
Grimaldi, who plans to open in March, said he’s spent the past 13 years traveling with Carol, his wife of 40 years.

Brooklyn Paper: “We’re moving into a bigger, nicer, and cleaner facility,” said Gina Peluso, daughter of owner Frank Ciolli. “It will be nice to have a little more room.”

Grimaldi’s will serve its final pie at its current location on Nov. 28, then open one day later open in 1 Front St. — a former bank turned bar and lounge. The eatery will take over the first floor, while the second floor will remain a nightclub.

[via DUMBONYC]

The Land Use Committee will meet on Wednesday evening, October 19, also starting at 6:00, in Room LC400 of the Dibner Building of NYU-Polytechnic (see map, 5 MetroTech Center. The following matters affecting local properties are on the agenda: (1) “89 Joralemon Street – Brooklyn Heights Historic District – Application is replace deteriorating brownstone stucco newel posts and adjacent brownstone stucco low fence”; (2) “135 Plymouth Street – DUMBO Historic District – Application is to create a new building entry with new storefront at one of the existing truck bays on Plymouth Street”; and (3) “146 Hicks Street – Brooklyn Heights Historic District – Application is to replace damaged asbestos-cement siding.”

On a quiet Tuesday evening Karl, with cam, takes a walk along Hicks Street and down to DUMBO, along the way admiring the Halloween window decorations at Perfect Paws, UVA’s artistic construction at the Tobacco Warehouse, and the crowd lined up for Karen O’s “psycho opera” Stop the Virgens at St. Ann’s Warehouse. Video after the jump.

Dog obsessed Brooklynites: You know what time it is!

The 9th Annual Howl-o-Ween Charity Doggie Costume Parade and Contest has been scheduled for Sunday, October 30th from 1-3pm on the Promenade.

If you’d like to enter your dog in the parade/costume contest, you’ll need to pre-register at Perfect Paws, 102 Hicks Street (corner of Pineapple). The cost of entry is $25/dog, all of which is a  tax deductible charitable donation and all of which will be distributed among three animal-related charities:

• Sean Casey Animal Rescue in Windsor Terrace, Bklyn
• Friends of Hillside Dog Park right here in Bklyn Heights
• Blue Rider Stables near Great Barrington, Massachusetts

Fabulous prizes awarded in many categories.  If you’re participated in previous years, you know how much fun this is and if it is your first time, come on down!  If you don’t have a dog in this race, it’s free to be an observer and cheer on the contestants.  Last year several hundred bemused locals and tourists watched over 70 parade participants strut their stuff for fun and glory.

Dr. Sara Neuman and the gang over at Vinegar Hill Vet are hosting the catered after party immediately following the contest judging–now three years running (yea Dr. Sara!).  Contest winners will be announced around 4pm at the after party. You won’t want to miss this!

Local Businesses Owners:  Get your business in front of hundreds of locals and support animal charity at the same time. You can sponsor a table at the parade/contest, or donate items for the contest goodie bags.   Call Tom at the above number 501(c)(3) certificate on file if you need a copy for your business.

See you there!  May the best costumes win!

More photos and text after the jump.

Max Pelzmann’s Canopy, formerly white, became bright red just before the DUMBO Arts Festival. You can find it near the park entrance at the foot of Main Street.

The East Tower of the Brooklyn Bridge from a new perspective, the lawn just south of Jane’s Carousel.

Has this been contributing to my wife’s and daughter’s sneezing? Goldenrod on Pier 1.

At least it’s keeping the bees busy making late-season honey.

A profusion of fall flowers on the landward side of Pier 1.

The schooner Clipper City heading out on a tourist cruise from the Seaport Museum, as seen from the pedestrian path near the south end of Pier 1.

Showy blossoms and berries, landward side of Pier 6.

Photos by Claude Scales for BHB.

In the pilot episode that aired Sept. 23, we see Dr. Michael Holt jogging in Brooklyn Bridge Park, picking up dinner at the River Cafe and enduring a self-reflective moment at Fulton Landing.

The show garnered 9.3 million viewers for its premiere, the top-rated scripted program during the time period and among viewers 25-54, which is regarded as a “decent” opening. All the same, better tune in quick, considering that Williamsburg, BK-based ” Broke Girls,” also on CBS, drew 19.2 million viewers.

The DUMBO Arts Festival returns this weekend, with plenty of treats for eye, ear, and mind, and perhaps even for your backside if you choose to perch on one of the rocks upholstered by Elizabeth Demaray, an artist and Rutgers professor with a background in cognitive psychology and neuroscience, shown here working on a project for the Festival, done in conjunction with the design collective Pillow Culture, called “24 Stones I’d Like to Know”.

The Festival will begin this Friday evening, September 23 from 6:00 to 9:00, and will continue Saturday from noon until 8:00 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 6:00 p.m. Outdoor video projections will be shown from sundown to midnight. The Festival will feature visual art, music, performance art, video and projection, literary readings and discussions, and events for kids and parents, as well as Jane’s Carousel.

You can find the Festival on Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr. It is produced by Dalzell Productions and Two Trees Management.

MTA crews are reporting widespread impacts following Hurricane Irene, including track and yard flooding, downed trees and power outages across our region. We are moving as quickly as possible to restore service while ensuring the safety of our customers, employees and equipment. Determinations about the timing of restoration of services will be made after assessments are complete and in consultation with the Governor and Mayor.

Update: The MTA will restore “limited bus service” beginning at 4:30 p.m. today, starting in Manhattan and the Bronx, then proceeding to Brooklyn and Queens, but not Staten Island, where conditions are still unsuitable. No fares will be charged today. The PATH will run again starting at 4:00 a.m., but no word yet on city subways or commuter trains.

The New York Times: After months of uncertainty over the fate of the popular Brooklyn Bridge Park, city and state officials plan to sign an agreement on Tuesday that would allow limited private housing to be built there, to help pay an expected annual operating cost of $16 million.

The agreement ensures that the park, which now measures 20 acres, will be completed, eventually expanding to 85 acres on five disused piers along the East River.

According to the Times story, the agreement will allow a building planned for John Street in DUMBO to proceed, but at a greatly reduced scale. The story also mentions in passing the planned combination hotel and apartment complex (although it characterizes it as “a hotel and retail complex” and asserts that it has “attracted less controversy”) planned for the landward side of Pier 1, for which the Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation has announced its intention of issuing a request for proposal this month, and which apparently will not be affected by the agreement.

The big news is that the city has agreed to consider revenues from the sale of Watchtower properties as a source of park funding. Under the agreement, to which the Watchtower is not a party, should the Watchtower sell all or some of its properties in conjunction with its planned move upstate before January 1, 2014, the city will consider tax revenue from those properties as offsetting the need for payments in lieu of taxes from the residential buildings planned for Pier 6. Under the proposed offset formula, according to the Times, it would take sales of 1.5 million square feet of Watchtower property to eliminate the need for both Pier 6 buildings.

State Senator Daniel Squadron, who has been a strong advocate of use of revenues from the Watchtower properties to fund park opeartion and maintenance, and who, under the earlier agreement between the city and state authorizing the city to take over development of the Park, has been given veto power over the construction of housing on park land, is quoted by the Times as saying the new agreement is “not as extreme as the plan that we’re changing, but a way to build a great new park in tough times.”

Your correspondent took his morning walk today along Brooklyn Bridge Park from Pier 6 to DUMBO, and got some photos along the way. Here is the East River Ferry passing Pier 1 on its northbound run, making haste from downtown Manhattan to Fulton Ferry Landing. More photos and text follow the jump.

Plants along the pond at the southeastern edge of Pier 1 have grown considerably over the past month, and blossomed.

Seen from Brooklyn bridge Park in DUMBO, a catamaran yacht sails under the Brooklyn Bridge heading up the East River.

Violation points: 56

Violations were cited in the following area(s).

Sanitary Violations
1) Raw, cooked or prepared food is adulterated, contaminated, cross-contaminated, or not discarded in accordance with HACCP plan.
2) Live roaches present in facility’s food and/or non-food areas.
3) Filth flies or food/refuse/sewage-associated (FRSA) flies present in facility’s food and/or non-food areas. Filth flies include house flies, little house flies, blow flies, bottle flies and flesh flies. Food/refuse/sewage-associated flies include fruit flies, drain flies and Phorid flies.
4) Food not protected from potential source of contamination during storage, preparation, transportation, display or service.
5) Food contact surface not properly washed, rinsed and sanitized after each use and following any activity when contamination may have occurred.
6) Facility not vermin proof. Harborage or conditions conducive to attracting vermin to the premises and/or allowing vermin to exist.
7) Plumbing not properly installed or maintained; anti-siphonage or backflow prevention device not provided where required; equipment or floor not properly drained; sewage disposal system in disrepair or not functioning properly.

We were there a couple of weeks ago and the food was good and no one ended up in the Emergency Room. However, they were “86′d” on many regular menu items and the waitstaff seemed to be compensating for a horribly run and inefficient kitchen. We hope they resolve the issue soon as Bubby’s is overall a great place to eat and to take kids.

Though Engine 205 is in danger of closing, Ladder 118 will remain at the Middagh St. location. If you’re not sure what that means, read the comments section here for an explanation courtesy of our own weegee.

Video of the rally after the jump.

Population explosion—especially in DUMBO— and the danger a lack of manpower would pose to both residents and firefighters were just a couple of concerns cited by those who spoke, including State Sen. Daniel Squadron, Assemblywoman Joan Millman, City Councilman Steve Levin, Public Advocate Bill DeBlasio and Borough President Marty Markowitz.

In the video you’ll hear Edward Bowles and John Kelly of the Uniformed Firefighters Association, Jane McGroarty of the Brooklyn Heights Association, and Steve Buscemi, former firefighter from Engine 55.

Though there were concerns that a 1 p.m. start would mean poor attendance, residents of all ages—including young protesters from P.S. 8, who showed up with posters and chutzpah—joined firefighters from across the city who rallied for the cause. At the end of the clip, a self-described “camera-shy” Buscemi told me he was going to a rally for Engine 220 this evening in Park Slope.

Our flagship monthly event has served as a platform for some of the hottest, most innovative companies in New York City to connect with a highly talented group of digital influencers and professionals.
The Digital DUMBO Workshop Series will be an extension of our marquee event, providing the community with an educational (not to be confused with boring) workshop series hosted by some of the same innovative companies that have helped shape what the Digital DUMBO community has become, but in a more focused setting. Workshops may cover any range of topics, and no idea is off limits.
If you’re interested in hosting a Digital DUMBO Workshop, please complete our online form and email Andrew Zarick (andrew@digitaldumbo.com) and Kaitlin Villanova (kaitlin@digitaldumbo.com)

The first workshop in the series will take place on May 24 12pm – 1:30pm at reRun at reBar [147 Front Street]. Featured speakers will be Ron J. Williams, Co-Founder of SnapGoods and Campbell McKellar, Founder of Loosecubes. Find out more here.

Unless you’re of the same mind as Mark Oppenheimer in Slate, you may be looking forward to Friday’s royal nuptials. If you’re enough of a hard-core Anglophile or insomniac, you can hie yourself to The Archway, where Water Street crosses under the Manhattan Bridge in DUMBO, at 5:30 a.m. for a free giant screening of the ceremony presented by DUMBO Improvement District in partnership with BBC America. If you wish, you may stick around for more wedding-related activities “including contests and prizes for the best fancy hat and costumes for both children and adults.”

As might be expected, the Atlantic Chip Shop, 129 Atlantic Avenue (between Henry and Clinton) will be celebrating the event, though it won’t be open in the wee hours for live viewing.

YourNabe.com: For the past few weeks now, the restaurant has featured a caricature of Wills and Kate in its front window, leading up to the wedding. On the big day, you can celebrate the British couple by dining on traditional “old boys club” type food, including kippers — smoked herring — and kedgeree — a curried rice with smoked haddock and hard-boiled eggs.

“Every time I say it, it sounds awful, but it’s really quite nice,” said [owner Chris] Sell. “I’m putting it on the menu because I want to eat it.”

Festivities at the Chip Shop begin at 11:00 a.m., and will include a toast to the newlyweds and a royal quiz.

[T]hey’ve eliminated two of the potential alternatives which would have involved taking much of DUMBO and portions of Brooklyn Heights around Squibb Hill. The alternatives still on the table include:
– rebuild existing roadway & cantilever, making almost no changes to clearance or lane widths[;]
– a number of tunnel options: under the Heights (a couple of variants), under 4th Avenue, and a couple of options which run under the river (either cutting through DUMBO, right through [the] Dock Street development if I understand the map correctly, then under the park; alternately going under the river much farther north and returning inland around 65th St).

I haven’t been attending the meetings so I kept my questions to one: whether or not the various alternatives which rely on the existing BQE to serve as a collector road include renovation and the cost of renovation of the existing cantilever in the separate estimates, the answer was that they did (so the approximate $4bn for one of the tunnels included $250MM for renovating the cantilever).

The next meeting is expected to be in May. They will return with an analysis of the various options using funding and likelihood of funding as the criteria for making a determination.

We’ll keep you advised of further developments, including the date of the next meeting when determined.

A Tale of Two Bridges best exemplifies the importance of historical restoration and upkeep versus relegating a bridge to the proverbial trash heap. Limited economic resources apparently have to be distributed with some structures assigned priority designation while others are orphaned and laid to rest. The pedestrian path on the Manhattan Bridge, for example, was closed for decades before reopening in 2001.

We all know about the Brooklyn Bridge from numerous films, music and books. The Manhattan Bridge, on the other hand, is a forgotten child that is better off ignored and kept out of sight.

Well, this film will provide a walk across the bridge with its expansive views and insight into an underbelly of the beast.

The film will expose the good and the bad via pictures and video that clearly demonstrates the results of a city that has nourished one and assigned the other to functioning as a subway and vehicle transportation hub with little regard to its original grandeur.

It’s strange to think of a company founded in the year 2000 as a member of an “old guard,” but by DUMBO (aka the New York Digital District) standards, that’s exactly what Big Spaceship, a digital creative agency, is.

“It was all unfinished, raw space,” Joshua Hirsch, Big Spaceship’s Minister of Technology, said of their first home at 70 Washington Street, where a decrepit bathroom down the hall once showed up on a website they were creating for the horror movie “Identity.”

From 70 Washington, Big Spaceship didn’t move far to its current home at 45 Main Street, where their door is always open to anyone looking for advice. “We tell people how we do things, which we think is maybe a little different from the way a lot of people do things,” Hirsch, 36, a self-described video game junkie who joined Big Spaceship in 2002, said. “It may or may not be the right way, but it works for us.”

With 11 successful years behind them, including their best year ever in 2010, Big Spaceship’s willingness to divulge its secrets doesn’t seem to be a problem. Started by Michael Lebowitz, Big Spaceship made its mark creating websites for movie studios, a “good place to get known,” according to Hirsch, because people in the film industry like to talk.

“We were doing something a lot of companies like ours weren’t, which was working directly with a client rather than with an ad agency in between, and doing all the work from concepts all the way through design, development, build, and deployment,” Hirsch said, sitting in his artfully decorated office that contains remnants, like a hulking bass guitar in one corner, of his former life as a musician in Chicago.
Quarterbacking every step of the creative process from inception to implementation, and receiving feedback directly from clients along the way, has allowed Big Spaceship to catch problems or inconsistencies before they spin out of control.

“We don’t have anybody with ‘creative’ in their title,” he explained. “Everybody’s creative, and everybody contributes to the creative process. And if you’re not creative, you won’t work here.”

That includes programmers, normally not considered the most artistic employees at a digital media agency. “Writing code and thinking about the technology of a project, and how something’s going to work and how something’s going to behave, is just as creative as coming up with an idea or creating a visual,” said Hirsch, who, as the leader of the technology team, quickly leapt to his cohort’s defense.

Throughout a campaign’s evolution, Big Spaceship ensures all disciplines are represented, which Hirsch said “is very different from how a lot of agencies work,” especially traditional agencies, where a Don Draper-like “creative director” tends to “own” an idea. In Hirsch’s view, that’s a dangerous approach.

“If a developer gets something he’s never seen before, and is told to make it work in a certain way—why should they care?” he said. “Whereas if the developer’s been there since the beginning, and contributed to the idea, and understands the growth of it, and sees themselves in it, they’ll take a lot of pride and ownership in it.”

For proof of this method’s merit, ask companies like Coca-Cola, General Electric, Microsoft, HBO, Target, and Victoria’s Secret, which have all enlisted Big Spaceship’s work. Recently, Big Spaceship was hired to shake up the online presence of Skittles, a brand so ubiquitous that it seems like it would exist no matter what, kind of like air. Hirsch and his colleagues overhauled the Skittles website from just basic nutritional information to a full-on interactive experience with kitschy videos, and developed a more vibrant Facebook presence by giving the Skittles “rainbow” a personality. In just ten months, Skittles went from having a very respectable 3 million Facebook fans to almost 15 million at present.

Despite its stature, and that of many of its clients, Big Spaceship employs just around 50 people, a number Hirsch thinks is perfect for maintaining a particular culture.

“We really want to have a place where people want to come to work everyday, especially in a creative environment,” he said, gesturing out toward the white-walled, airy open space where the majority of employees sit around oval tables, staring at computers. “You want people to be happy so they can create. Ping-pong tables, and foosball, and video games are cliché, but really, those things do add value.”

The ambitious yet friendly dynamic at agencies like Big Spaceship has spilled over into the larger industry, as the neighborhood’s Digital Dumbo meet-ups attest. But as Hirsch noted, “Being in a creative industry comes with a lot of ego.” Big Spaceship prides itself on a lack thereof, but with a Creative Arts Emmy Award nomination for its work for HBO under its belt, it’s difficult to think of this thriving digital agency as being on the same level as its start-up neighbors.

“At the end of the day, we’re making freaking websites and apps and stuff, which is fun and great and I love being a part of it, but this whole ongoing conversation about transitional agencies versus digital agencies, and getting in fights—all this crap is hysterical to me,” Hirsch said sheepishly, as he fiddled with the string of his hoodie sweater, a wardrobe essential in the region. But Hirsch’s was no run-of-the-mill hoodie; a sign, perhaps, of Big Spaceship’s role, and its success.

“My hoodie is cashmere,” Hirsch admitted, smiling. “From Barney’s.”

Flickr photo by Andy Polaine

Longing for the silent movies of the past? Attend “Silent Movie Night” at Galapagos Art Space on January 25th. They’ll be screening the original “Metropolis,” a classic German-Expressionist silent film released in 1927. The film explores the social crisis between workers and owners in capitalism, and is the most expensive silent film ever made.

No need to buy popcorn– chow down on Grimaldi’s pizza for $4 per slice. Doors open at 7:30 and the show starts at 8pm. Tickets are just $2, so get yours here!

New York Post: The city is moving to stop droves of double-decker tour buses from idling and clogging the foot of Old Fulton Street during the summer — a traffic debacle that’s reached a breaking point since Pier 1 of Brooklyn Bridge Park opened early last year.

Actions planned include installing “no parking” signs near the entrance to Pier 1 of Brooklyn Bridge Park and building a raised concrete median barrier to rplace the painted median on Old Fulton Street, where buses have parked and idled. A long term solution to the problem, though, will have to await construction of off-street parking facilities.

Update: Matt Chaban at the New York Observer gets really snarky.

Looking for a little aerial entertainment this holiday season? Watch “Under the Tree,” the latest show by Suspended Cirque, New York’s only Aerial Theater Company. The show comes to Galapagos Art Space in Dumbo on December 22nd and 23rd. Unlike other shows where the line between the audience and the stage is clear, this how surrounds and engages the audience. For an extra bit of holiday cheer, viewers can sip on cocktails while enjoying the performance.

As its name suggests, the show’s story begins underneath a Christmas tree, until the toys come to life.

For more details about the show and about Suspended Cirque, visit Galapagos Art Space’s event page. Tickets are $20, doors open at 7pm and the show begins at 8pm.

The Brooklyn Heights/DUMBO Cadman Plaza region is a tourist hot spot, and until now left with little direction. Good news, confused out-of-towners! When arriving in Brooklyn, you will be greeted by signs, pointing you to the Brooklyn Bridge, Dumbo, the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, and other landmarks. This sign is right outside the High Street station, but there are several scattered around the neighborhood.