Editorial: The Brooklyn Paper would love to be the loudest cheerleaders for Ratner’s City Tech tower, reportedly slated to be the tallest residential building in the city. But until public officials answer reasonable questions about this backroom deal, we will remain skeptical. Comments (1).

Atlantic Yards: Borough President Markowitz’s appointee to the city’s powerful Planning Commission violated ethical standards by investing in the controversial Atlantic Yards project and then voting on the project three weeks later. Comment.

Atlantic Yards: Two hundred and three days after promising to appoint someone to oversee demolition and construction work at the Atlantic Yards project — and after three other people reportedly turned down the job — state officials have finally hired their long-awaited watchdog: former Giuliani staffer Forrest Taylor. Comment.

Books: “Imbibe!: From Absinthe Cocktail to Whiskey Smash, a Salute in Stories and Drinks to ‘Professor’ Jerry Thomas, Pioneer of the American Bar,” is an awfully long name for a book when you’re sober. And after a few drinks, it becomes next to impossible. Comment.

Customers at Sahadi’s, Brooklyn’s primary stop on the Near Eastern spice route, are still fuming that the grocer has replaced the classic glass jars with generic plastic containers in the nuts, dried fruits and candies section. “Everyone is talking about it,” said Charlie Sahadi, the second-generation owner. Comments (5).

Park Slope: The three homeless men who sparked a flurry of soul searching in Park Slope — and the ire of a local pastor — after refusing to moderate their drinking and noise-making have abandoned their long-time hangout on the steps of the Old First Reformed Church, but they have left a legacy behind. Comments (2).

Dining: With the holidays approaching, there’s no drink more seasonal than eggnog. in “Imbibe!: From Absinthe Cocktail to Whiskey Smash, a Salute in Stories and Drinks to ‘Professor’ Jerry Thomas, Pioneer of the American Bar,” David Wondrich revisits Thomas’s recipe for “Baltimore Egg Nog.” Comment.

With eight nights to celebrate, you might think that Hanukkah would seem like it lasts forever. But with all of the events planned boroughwide, eight nights hardly seems to be enough time. Comment.

Atlantic Yards: On the same day that news broke of his plan to build Brooklyn’s tallest building, Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner kicked off the holiday season on Wednesday at Metrotech in Downtown Brooklyn with the borough’s first major tree-lighting. Comment.

Williamsburg: A controversial Williamsburg bar that has run up thousands of dollars in fines is about to be sold to a new owner who is vowing to clean up the joint’s act. Comments (2).

Carroll Gardens: A bunch of Berliners were in Red Hook earlier this month — and they liked what they saw. Comments (1).

Bay Ridge: Calling Bay Ridge’s Christmas tree a “holiday tree” was just a mistake, said the woman who made it. Comments (3).

Cinema: Brooklyn’s own Steiner Studios provided the star-studded stage for the Gotham Awards on Tuesday night. The Independent Feature Project’s 17th annual gala bestowed the prizes for excellence in filmmaking. Comment.

Carroll Gardens: The oldest Italian church in Carroll Gardens — an old Italian neighborhood — is 125 years old. But how much longer can it hold on? Comments (3).

Bay Ridge: Two cops responding to a call of a woman in pain rushed to her Fifth Avenue apartment and got there just in time to deliver her baby boy on Tuesday morning. Comment.

Bay Ridge: Somebody doesn’t like Councilman Domenic Recchia — and has taken it upon himself to “go negative” against the Bensonhurst Democrat even before it’s clear what higher office he’s seeking. Comments (5).

Park Slope: The controversial idea of giving residents — and maybe no one else! — the right to park in their neighborhoods, seems to have been jumpstarted by the mayor’s congestion pricing plan to charge drivers to enter Manhattan below 86th Street. Comments (4).

Bay Ridge: Three lawmakers have sued the state to demand that it keep the emergency room at Victory Memorial Hospital open, even if the rest of the medical center is forced to close down. Comment.

Dining: Sidecar is one sexy place. Opened in July by brothers Bart and Jon DeCoursy, the bar and restaurant evokes a swanky, classic New York with one well-appointed large room. Comments (1).

Williamsburg: In a move with grave implications for the pigeon community, a Red-tailed hawk appears to be shopping for a new home in or around North Brooklyn’s hip McCarren Park. Comments (4).

Downtown: A Universal Studios–like film and TV complex will rise on the East River, turning the industrial Brooklyn Navy Yard into a Tinseltown East under a new city proposal. Comment.

Cartoon: Our cartoonist’s take on the writers’ strike. Comment.

Bridge ‘Park’: A long-awaited meeting on Monday night to discuss the recreational activities people want in Brooklyn Bridge Park quickly became a gripe session where residents — including DUMBO’s principle developer, David Walentas — complained that the development is being “rammed down” their throats. Comment.

Theater: Last week at the BAM Harvey Theater, the eponymous heroine of “Lulu” quietly flitted onto the stage, leaving me, I must confess, with raised gooseflesh on my neck. Comment.

PS … I Love You: Our local baker does Brooklyn proud, winning a Food Network competition despite severe gastric distress (of course she was in distress, she was in North Carolina!). Comment.

Brooklyn South: Our columnist discovers that the venerable D’Amico’s coffee shop on Court Street is considering a jump into Starbucks’ territory: flavored coffee. Comment.

Bay Ridge: Thieves stole a safe containing $170,000, plus some jewelry, from a 23rd Avenue apartment on Nov. 25. Plus all the other crime news from Bensonhurst’s 62nd Precinct. Comment.

Theater: Tan Dun will be in China, where he is the official composer of the 2008 Olympics, until the day before ‘The Gate,’ his over-the-top music-theater work, opens at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, but two of Brooklyn’s cultural titans are making sure the show goes off without a hitch. Comment.

Williamsburg: ExxonMobil officials blew off a City Council hearing on the company’s clean up of Greenpoint’s 30-million-gallon underground oil spill — and by doing so, the energy giant missed an opportunity to defend itself from accusations that it isn’t doing all it could to expedite the process. Comments (1).

Williamsburg: Two rather poorly matched roommates called the cops twice in the matter of just two days, accusing each other of exceptionally bad behavior. Plus all the other crime news from Williasmburg’s 90th Precinct. Comment.

Beside the Point: Our columnist gets an exclusive sit-down (or is that flyby?) with the new Red-tail hawk that’s taken up residence in McCarren Park. Comments (1).

Williamsburg: Thirty-thousand Hassidic Jews will party as only the Hassidim know how to under an enormous white tent in Brooklyn Bridge Park on Saturday, the largest party the condo-and-greenspace development has hosted yet. The festivities commemorate the arrival of European Jews to the Unites States after World War II. Comments (1).

Yellow Hooker: Curtis Sliwa — Guardian Angel, radio host, self-promoter — came to Bay Ridge to talk about his future, which may someday be inexorably linked to yours. Comment.

Bay Ridge: Brooklyn’s bravest at Engine 284 and Ladder 149 in Dyker Heights are holding a fundraiser for one of their own, supporting a 17-year vet who came down with cancer after volunteering at Ground Zero. Comment.

Park Slope: Getting your car broken into is bad. Getting $23,000 worth of jewelry taken out of your car — which happened to a woman on Nov. 21 — is much, much worse. Plus all the other crime news from Park Slope’s 78th Precinct. Comment.

Art: Brooklynites know better than anyone the havoc that development can wreak on a habitat. So on Saturday, Dec. 4, the Kentler International Drawing Space in Red Hook will host an artist’s talk on “Observing the Edge,” the gallery’s current show, which features works on paper relating to flora and fauna with habitats threatened by progressive development. Comments (1).

Downtown: A woman walking out of the subway ran into a purse-snatcher who roughed her up before taking her bag on Nov. 21. Plus all the other crime news from Downtown, Brooklyn Heights and DUMBO’s 84th Precinct. Comment.

Carroll Gardens: A 20-year-old woman was struck and killed by a car on Degraw Street on Nov. 16, police said. Plus all the other crime news from the 76th Precinct. Comment.

Fort Greene: A plumber who was doing a job inside a Classon Avenue building on Nov. 20 came out to discover that someone had done a job on his van at the same time. Plus all the other crime news from Fort Greene and Clinton Hill’s 88th Precinct. Comment.

Breaking Chews: We’re dishing up Brooklyn’s latest food news. Comment.

Downtown: Students at PS 8 are bucking the nationwide trend — and are reading. Comments (1).

Bay Ridge: Not on my kid’s school’s block! That’s what local parents were saying about a huge adult video advertisement that was plastered on a storefront just a few doors up from two Bay Ridge elementary schools. Comment.

Smartmom: Smartmom runs in the Turkey Trot — but why didn’t she tell the hubby and kids? Comment.

Shopping: There’s an easy way to give your loved ones the gift of Brooklyn this year, and it doesn’t involve shipping them a cheesecake from Junior’s.  Comment.

Dining: It’s long been the curse of Greenpoint that the neighborhood’s great restaurants — Queen’s Hideaway, Lamb and Jaffy — are in such remote corners that sometimes it’s easier to just grab a slice than trek to a restaurant and wait for a table. Now that Lokal has opened, all that has changed. Comments (1).

Waiting in the Wings: GO’s guide to what’s new in Brooklyn theater. Comment.

Letters: The mailbag is full with letters about the Brooklyn Navy Yard, Mayor Bloomberg’s Coney Island plan, the death of bicycle rider Sam Hindy, and Brooklyn Heights’ favorite son, Norman Mailer. Comment.

All the important meetings you should be going to. Comment.

Parenting: All the action for you and your kids! Comment.

In the spirit of encouraging a free exchange of ideas, The Brooklyn Paper makes this space available to our readers. Comments (3).