Brooklyn Heights Blog

The hot mess that is One Front Street in DUMBO has lost its bid for a cabaret license, the Brooklyn Paper reports.   A Community Board 2 committee gave the application a big thumbs down last night.

Brooklyn Heights-DUMBO Brahmin/ Brooklyn Bridge Park Coalition board member/ former Fulton Ferry Landing Association president Gary van der Putten is quoted in the report saying, ““I have lived in the neighborhood for 25 years and I have never objected to any new restaurant or establishment … But what happens is that these kinds of places get cabaret licenses then, all of a sudden, they deteriorate into clubs.”

In a blog post prior to the CB2 meeting, the FFLA reports that “over this last weekend, local Fulton Ferry residents complained about booming vibrations and shouting in the street from what appeared to be two all-night events at One Front.”

One Front owner Marcelo Pevida claimed that dancing [for the community!] would only be offered on the second floor of the venue while the first would remain dedicated to dining. Upon hearing that one DUMBO resident in attendance shouted “we don’t want to dance!”

Former BHA president and retired advertising kingpin Neil Calet lets loose on the city’s plan to allow more tourist helicopters to operate out of the downtown Manhattan heliport, directly across the East River from Brooklyn Heights.  The NY Post speculates that could mean an additional 75 tourist flights above Brooklyn Heights per day.

Chopper noise is so bad now, Calet tells the paper that “[w]e can no longer sit on our balcony because even nose-to-nose conversation is impossible.”

The Brooklyn Heights Association has publicly stated that it wants an outright ban on the helicopter flights.

This just in from the BHB Inbox:

I live in Livingston at Clinton, and we are right now waiting for a dreadful night of road work, just like the one we had 10 days ago, when the pavement of Livingston was scraped out (by the loudest machines you can imagine) between 9pm and 4am. Yes, that’s 4 in the morning. The guys working the machines said they had the permits, and the police and the people on the phones in 311 seemed to agree. But that Friday, around midnight, two dozen neighbors were on the street on the verge of a riot. We’ll see what happens tonight. (We know it’s tonight because of the “No parking” signs, not because anybody in the city told us anything. Their official explanation is that Livingston –and Schemerchorn, they are doing the same thing to them– are “emergency and heavy traffic” streets, or something like that, so they have to work on them at night. But of course, the first block of both streets (ours) is purely residential and not very busy.

I’ll keep you posted. Last week, despite the hell of the cranes, it was fun to be on the street among our pajama-clad neighbors.

The Brooklyn Eagle has published a photo by its  nonagenarian photographer, Don Evans,  of a youngster riding his bike on the Promenade.  This following copy accompanied the picture:

CUTE BUT PROHIBITED: A youngster wheels along the Heights Promenade, which is officially reserved for strolling.

Ouch.  See the photo here.

The Moxie Spot [81 Atlantic Avenue] announced in its weekly email that it will now be charging a $2.50 per child entry fee on weekdays:

NEW POLICY NOTIFICATION:$2.50 Weekday Entry Fee
On Monday January 12th we will begin to charge a Weekday $2.50 per child entry fee (Monday - Friday from 9am to 5:30pm). The fee will allow for multiple entries for the whole day. Non-crawling/playing Infants will not be charged if they attend with siblings. We need to do this to help cover the costs of the materials and activities we provide.

In order to make things smoother for families, we will be offering Moxie Spot Value Cards. To reward our frequent customers, any value purchased of $100 or more will result in a 10% discount (i.e. you’ll buy a $100 card for $90). Any value can be put on them (up to $250), so that a caregiver will be more prepared to cover the entry fee.

DUMBONYC photo

Many Brooklyn blogs and media outlets received a dispatch yesterday from a resident at 7 Old Fulton Street, who really, really doesn’t want a new restaurant planned for his building to get a liquor license.  He’s urging residents to go to the CB2 meeting scheduled for Wednesday night at Brooklyn Hospital Center. The full text of the letter after the jump. Read more »

The Paping Soapbox Derby, which was scheduled for August 23 here in Brooklyn Heights has been killed.  A cryptic email sent out by organizer John Meijas arrived in the BHB Inbox late last night: Read more »

The Daily News confirms what we suspected: The artificial turf installed at around 100 city parks — including Cadman Plaza Park — gets too bloody hot. Though they didn’t visit our local rubber grass, The Daily News did go to five turf-laden parks across the five boroughs and took the temperature of both the grass and the turf. They found that the turf can reach temperatures of over 160 degrees Fahrenheit on a mild day: Read more »

For those who are interested, Community Board 2, which serves Brooklyn Heights (and a few other neighborhoods), will have their monthly meeting at 6pm today. It will be in the basement cafeteria of the Muhlenberg Residence, a 201-unit dwelling for low income, homeless, housing needy, and community people, at 510 Atlantic Avenue (GMAP). Call (718)-596-5410 for more info.

Community Board meetings are open to the public, so if you would like to say your peace, or see Democracy In Action, or just got nothin to do, drop in on the fun! Don’t know much about community boards? There’s helpful information at nyc.gov and Gotham Gazette.

Sidebar: the Community Board 2 website is quite lame when compared to Community Board 6 and Community Board 9. Discuss.

Update: According to Brownstoner, CB2 may be pulling a “Jon Crow” — by stopping the issuing of new liquor licenses in certain “over-saturated” areas. One of those areas: Atlantic Avenue near Henry Street. I kid you not:

District Manager Robert Perris told us his board plans to stop issuing new liquor licenses in certain areas where residents feel over-saturated with noisy bars. As a compromise, the board would suggest either a beer and wine license or an early closing time.

Note: Nothing has been decided, and the community board will be discussing the issue at tonight’s meeting. However, having spent a fair amount of time on that stretch of Atlantic Avenue, I have to say the noisiest aspect of that area is the traffic. It’s a major thoroughfare, the bars are all spaced apart, the restaurants aren’t open that late, and the craziest crowds can be found late Saturday or Sunday morning at Floyd when there is a particularly compelling soccer match. Given all the empty storefronts collecting dust instead of rent in that area of Atlantic, does the community board really want to place further restrictions?

Has The War On Fun begun?