Brooklyn Daily: Saturday, Oct. 6, 2007

Island paradise

By Dana Rubinstein

Park Slope: The city started work this week on a master plan that could transform the dizzying chaos of Grand Army Plaza into a well-engineered traffic circle worthy of Western Europe, by taking 11,000 square feet of street space and giving it to pedestrians and cyclists. Comment.

Hunks in the Heights

By Gersh Kuntzman

The Brooklyn Paper / Tom Callan

Downtown: At last! Celebrity-watchers in Brooklyn Heights were finally rewarded for their patience — and for allowing their neighborhood to be overrun with film trucks —Â and got to drink in the handsome hunkiness of actors George Clooney and Brad Pitt, who are both in the ’hood to shoot the Coen Brothers’ new movie, “Burn After Reading.” Comment.

Park Conservancy on hip-hop snub: It wasn’t us!

By Gersh Kuntzman

Bridge ‘Park’: The head of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy this week strongly denied a Brooklyn Paper story that she had replaced a popular hip-hop festival with a production of Shakespeare’s “Macbeth,” saying the decision to give away the rap event’s June, 2008 dates was made entirely by state Parks officials. Comment.

Co-op members shop like it’s 1993

By Michael McLaughlin

Park Slope: The Park Slope Food Co-op began accepting payment by debit cards on Tuesday, thereby closing the gap between its reputation for fresh produce and low regard for shopper convenience. “The Co-op goes techno!” one member gushed. Comment.

Candy factory conversion leaving a bitter taste

By Dana Rubinstein

Downtown: The owner of the legendary “Candy Factory” building on Henry Street has flipped the property for nearly $20 million to a real-estate developer who is expected to turn the one-time artists’ colony into luxury apartments. Comment.

Met life is the only life for him

By Gersh Kuntzman

PS … I Love You: The Mets stink — but our columnist is addicted to the stench. Comments (2).

Freebird books to soar again

By Ariella Cohen

Brooklyn South: Our columnist gets the scoop on the man who saved a beloved bookstore. Comments (1).

Fall festivals fill the Ridge

By Matthew Lysiak

Yellow Hooker: Our columnist loves those fall festivals! Comment.

All drawn out

By Cristian Fleming

Cartoon: Our cartoonist’s take. Comment.

Park’s slippery slope

Editorial: More evidence of why the state condo, commercial and open space project commonly referred to as Brooklyn Bridge Park is not, in fact, a park. Comment.

Race, me and Mel Gibson

By Tom Gilbert

Beside the Point: Our columnist wants to know why he and his black friends are always being mistaken for cops. Comments (1).

Taking a bite out of dentists

By Dana Rubinstein

Greene Acres: Our columnist hopes that the dentists will remain in their old haunts at the Williamsburgh Savings Bank tower. Comment.

Walrus dad still a self-lover

By Gersh Kuntzman

Brooklyn Angle: Ayveq may finally be mating, but he’s still the same old self-lovable walrus! Comments (1).

A tribute to an old friend

By Louise Crawford

Smartmom: A tribute to Best and Oldest — Smartmom’s best and oldest. Comment.

Boxers trade ring for rings

By Adam F. Hutton

Downtown: So many marriages today are filled with fights. But that’s exactly how Darryl Wells and Keisher McLeod want it. They’re boxers, you see — and on Oct. 14, they’ll get married at Gleason’s Gym. Comments (3).

Kelly shows faith along swastika-hit Remsen Street

By Adam F. Hutton

Downtown: The outpouring of support for the Jewish community in Brooklyn Heights got a boost from Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and Israel’s Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who came to Congregation B’nai Avraham on Sunday to denounce vandals who spray-painted 23 swastikas and other hate messages around the neighborhood on Sept. 24. Comment.

The city game — of old

By Adam Klasfeld

Bay Ridge: Once, stickball was played on every street, on every day, in every corner of Brooklyn. Now, it’s kept alive by an increasingly small band of old-timers. But pity the youngsters who try to take these guys down! Comment.

The Euros are spending!

By Juliana Bunim

Heights Lowdown: No one in the Heights likes the Fulton Mall — but the tourists love it. Comment.

Tish: Duffield St co-name could save historic homes

Letters: Our mailbag is filled with complaints from a City Councilwoman, a Polytechnic University alum, a member of the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, the head of the Chamber of Commerce and others. Comment.

Slave Theater could be sold to pay judge’s ‘debts’

By Dana Rubinstein

Fort Greene: The Slave Theater — a half-century-old Bedford-Stuyvesant institution where generations of kids saw their first movies and Al Sharpton held rallies — may soon be put up for sale, thanks to the county’s epic mismanagement of former Civil Court Judge John Phillips’s dwindling estate. Comments (5).

$weetest deal for Domino lobbyists

By Adam F. Hutton

Williamsburg Waterfront: Developers who want to line Williamsburg’s shore with nine luxury condo towers lined the pockets of influence peddlers with more than half-million dollars over the past two years to lobby for a city rezoning that will make it possible for them to convert the 11-acre waterfront site into a residential complex. Comments (1).

Power plant off the grid

By Michael McLaughlin

Williamsburg: Bad news for all you gadget-addicted Brooklynites out there: artist Mouna Andraos’s solar- and arm-powered recharger contraption is heading to — say it ain’t so! — Manhattan. Comment.

Nothing stinks about this nature walk

By Sarah Rivette

Williamsburg: Turns out, that new “nature walk” along side the Newtown Creek sewage treatment plant on Provost Street doesn’t smell like the Port Authority men’s room. Comments (2).

Asian-Americans fail to find FEMA funds

By Matthew Lysiak

Bay Ridge: Eight weeks after a freak storm struck, Bay Ridge’s tornado-ravaged Asian-American community still won’t open the door to Uncle Sam’s handouts. Comments (1).

The err of our ways

Bay Ridge: Last week’s article about a prematurely unearthed time capsule suggested that local activist Peter Killen was against the idea of reburying it on private property (“Capsule unearthed 46 years early,” Sept. 29). The comment was actually made by Councilman Vince Gentile (D–Bay Ridge). Comments (1).