Brookspring: Gravesend Blossoms

A GL reader who's been following our Spring photo series and caught yesterday's pic of the fallen Magnolia blossoms on Prospect Park West, sent us this lovely photo from Gravesend along with the reminder that Spring is by no means finished. We agree, except that the Magnolias come and go too fast.

Bklink: Brooklyn Amusement Park

Brooklyn does have another amusement park besides Astroland and Deno's Wonder Wheel Park. It's not in Coney Island, although there is a big Joe Sitt development nearby. "Adventurers Family Entertainment Center has taken over the park formerly known as Nellie Bly amusement park. The group running this endeavor formerly operated Adventurer's Inn in Queens. Thankfully the mini-golf course is still there but the bumper car pavilion has been razed...--Jimvid/SmugMug

Upcoming: Forgotten NY Tours Gravesend

The inimitable Kevin Walsh, whose Forgotten New York site is one of our favorite things anywhere, is holding his 33rd Forgotten NY tour on Sunday, April 20, in Gravesend, the neighborhood between Bensonhurst and Coney Island. He writes that it is:

one of the oldest populated areas on Long Island and in the nation itself. It contains numerous historic homes, and even its street plan is the original one first adopted after the area was first settled in 1643.

There are several historic houses and cemeteries in the area, which we will visit, and along the way we'll look at one of Brooklyn's oldest thoroughfares, hunt for remaining trolley tracks, discuss a long-forgotten "bicycle railroad" and spot a few ancient subway cars as we walk past Coney Island Yards, and finish at Nathan's Famous, where several hot dogs will be consumed.

The group will me up at the Avenue U Station on the F Line, meeting at the SW corner at the Carvel. The cost is $5 and it will last 2 1/2 to 3 hours, covering Avenue U, Village Roads N & S and end at Nathans in Coney Island. (The rain date is Sunday, May 5.) Register by emailing erpietri (at) earthlink (dot) net. Deadline is April 18 and FNY asks for a cell number in the email.

Il Palazzo di Gravesend: the Venetian

This is a building on Avenue P in Gravesend (near Ocean Parkway) that was featured yesterday on Curbed in both its rendering and under construction state It is being developed by Sitt Asset Management (no relationship to Joe Sitt and/or Thor Equities). It is called The Venetian and condos start at $1 million and go up to $4 million.

Tiny Toronto House = New Brooklyn Urban Legend

We've actually lost track of the number of emails we've gotten saying "check out this Brooklyn house" with a photo of the house shown above. The email is circulating around and says "You have to know this part of brooklyn to appreciate this! This house, located near the intersection of Ave T and Van Sicklen is believed to be Brooklyns smallest house..." The only problem being that the house is in Toronto, not Gravesend. The Toronto house was first featured on Curbed on February 1 via an email with photos that said, "This house, located near the intersection of Dufferin Street and Rogers Road is believed to be Toronto's smallest house." Someone changed it and started sending it to people in Brooklyn, who sent it to other people, who sent it to more people. Etc. Etc. Etc. The tiny Toronto house even has its own website and it's available for $173,000. By some NYC standards, it's not even as small as it would seem to people from other places.

Preventing a Different Kind of Brooklyn Waterfront Boom

The Federal government is going to try to figure out whether there is unexploded ordinance at the bottom of Gravesend Bay that might cause a very unwanted kind of boom on the Southern Brooklyn waterfront. The issue has come up in the context of plans to dredge the bay so the city can open up a marine garbage transfer station. The latest development is that the Department of Defense is going to try to figure out if live ammunition is still down there more than a half century after a barge with more than 200 tons of live ammunition capsized. Depending on which story one listens to, it was either all recovered or there is a lot still sitting down there. The Brooklyn Paper calls it "a key win for opponents of a city plan to put a garbage transfer station near the possibly explosive site." There are other objections to the dredging. Besides massive underwater explosions, some are afraid that dredging will stir up a "black mayonnaise" of toxins dumped into the water that have settled on the bottom. There is also a push to have the bay declared a Superfund site because of the toxic dumping thanks to an incinerator that was on the site of the proposed waste transfer station.

[Photo courtesy of gkjarvis/flickr]

Bklink: Under the Water

Gravesend Bay hides a potentially explosive secret, and it's not the soup of toxins sitting at the bottom. "A HALF-CENTURY ago, an ammunition barge broke loose from the U.S.S. Bennington, an aircraft carrier anchored a mile offshore in Gravesend Bay. The barge drifted over to Rockaway Point, but somewhere along the way it overturned, scattering 15,000 live antiaircraft shells, each as long as a man’s leg, onto the sea floor." Five hundred fifty shells were recovered. Two hundred tons of ordinance are still down there. So what happens if they dredge for a marine waste transfer station?--NYT

Bklink: Stirring the Gravesend Muck

The proposed waste-transfer station in Gravesend wouldn't be popular among some people for obvious reasons, but there is also a lot of fear that the dredging that will be done could stir up generations of toxins and other things. A sampling: lead, PCBs, mercury and toxic ash. And there's more.--NYDN

Remember White Sands (Brooklyn)?

If you read GL, you know we dig Kevin Walsh's Forgotten NY. The site is full of fascinating nuggets of information, like his FNY webpage on the corner of Brooklyn known as White Sands. If you know the part of Brooklyn between Gravesend and Coney Island, you might know it as the site of a Home Depot. But, not too long ago it was an odd little neighborhood. Mr. Walsh explains:

Ever heard of a Brooklyn neighborhood called White Sands? If you haven't, no big deal...most Brooklyn historians haven't either! Perched in the no man's land between Bath Beach and Coney Island, White Sands, settled around 1925-1930, lies between Cropsey Avenue on the east, Dreier-Offerman Park on the west, the Belt Parkway on the north, and Coney Island Creek on the south.

Up until a year ago, it was a collection of modest homes and bungalows arranged neatly on four dead-end streets. The bungalows were originally built on stilts above white-colored sand, which was eventually removed to fill the Coney Island beach, decimated by a hurricane in 1938. (Broad Channel still has houses on stilts). Landfill replaced the white sand, but the neighborhood's name has remained.

A year ago, most of White Sands began to evacuate.

Why is most of White Sands clearing out? Mosquitoes? Malathion? Asbestos? No, the answer is much more prosaic. Money.

This area of Brooklyn is becoming attractive to big-box retailers, who erect vast stores on as much acreage as they can find. With its handy location next to the Belt Parkway and Cropsey Avenue, White Sands attracted the notice of Home Depot.

Check out the full FNY page on White Sands by clicking here.

Will Trash Stink Mess Up Brooklyn Park?

So, who would spend millions of dollars on a park on Gravesend Bay while opening a trash transfer station nearby? New York City.

At issue is the proposed new Dreier-Offerman Park. We'll let the Bay News pick up the narrative:

The city is spending millions to renovate a Brooklyn park – and open a trash facility on a nearby lot.

While local residents and politicians are overjoyed that the dilapidated Dreier-Offerman Park will finally get a $40 million makeover, they’re concerned about how future parkgoers will be impacted by the presence of the proposed Southwest Brooklyn Converted Marine Transfer Station. The facility would be built at 1824 Shore Parkway, while the park runs from Bay 44 – 49 streets between Shore Parkway and Gravesend Bay.

“I’m afraid that these wonderful plans that the mayor has [for Dreier-Offerman Park] are going to be blocked and inhibited by the devastating effects that the waste transfer station is going to have,” said Assemblymember William Colton.

Those “effects” are odors emanating from the trash collected at the station – the site will not be a landfill but rather a facility connecting trucks carrying garbage and the barges that will transport the refuse.

Of course, the trash transfer station backer say it will have state-of-the-art odor elimination systems. Do read the rest of the potentially stinky tale.