Park Slope: Since the city removed alternate side of the street parking regulations in Park Slope two weeks ago, is the parking situation:

Better? Worse? The same?

Since that time, are the streets:
Cleaner? Dirtier? The same?

Downtown: We broke the news two weeks ago, but MTV has confirmed it: The network’s “Real World” reality show is coming to the Bell Tel Lofts building on Willoughby Street in Downtown. Comment.

Bay Ridge: A Bay Ridge synagogue with a shrinking congregation decided on Wednesday to tear down its sanctuary and sell a portion of its Fourth Avenue property to a developer. Comments (2).

Kensington: Poorly maintained bridle paths in Prospect Park are injuring horses — prompting at least one local equestrian to pull her horses out of Brooklyn entirely. Comments (3).

Art: Artist Jillian May set out some baked goods and a jar for payment. Both disappeared. Comments (2).

Bay Ridge: Kings County will finally get its own throne. Six months after installing the city’s first automatic public toilet in Manhattan, the city announced last week that Bay Ridge’s 69th Street pier — a popular gathering place for all but those needing a restroom — would get one of the fancy, self-cleaning outhouses. Comment.

Downtown: An 88-year-old man was hit by a silver sedan and left to bleed on Court Street on Monday afternoon as the driver sped off, cops said. Comment.

Park Slope: Three young hooligans who had just mugged a man — on his birthday no less! — tried to evade police by hiding in Park Slope’s Berkeley Carroll School on June 3. Comment.

PS … I Love You: Our columnist tries out Babeland, Park Slope’s new sex-toy store. With video … Comment.

Editorial: Why the pro–Atlantic Yards rally on Thursday at Borough Hall was a sham. Comments (19).

Gowanus: The foul Gowanus Canal zone would be reborn as a mixed-use neighborhood of housing, commerce, light industry and — here’s the kicker — green open space under the city’s long-awaited rezoning plan unveiled last week. Comments (1).

Gowanus: A local lawmaker wants the city to ban hotels near the northern end of the Gowanus Canal in what has become the surprisingly hot “Gowanus Canal Hotel District.” Comment.

Coney Island: The most outspoken critic of the city’s plan to transform Coney Island from a seasonal, independent amusement area into a corporate-run, year-round pleasure zone has resigned in protest from the city agency guiding the redevelopment process. Comment.

Greenpoint: When school is out for summer next week at St. Cecilia’s, it’s out forever. The Greenpoint Catholic school is closing. Comment.

Link: Everyone’s talking about the opening of IKEA’s first New York City store — in Red Hook, Brooklyn — on Wednesday, June 18. If you’ve never been to an IKEA, let us show you what all the exciitement’s about. Via podcast, join Brooklyn Paper editors Lisa Curtis and Vince DiMiceli on a mouth-watering visit to IKEA’s Paramus, NJ store — and get ready for a heaping serving of Swedish meatballs along with your cart full of contemporary home furnishings.

DUMBO: A DUMBO developer’s plan to build a controversial 18-story apartment tower with the carrot of a new middle school was handed a setback last Wednesday when a top schools official said that the neighborhood actually doesn’t need a school right now. Comment.

Dooley Noted: Our critic reviews Dan Zanes’s new, all-Spanish LP. Comment.

Red Hook: A popular Red Hook liquor store run by a feisty entrepreneur is scrambling to find a new home after an apparent deal to keep it in the neighborhood collapsed — along with the store’s ceiling — at the 11th hour. Comments (3).

Greenpoint: The city hired an artist to turn the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant from a bane to the nose into a beauty for the eyes. Comment.

Park Slope: The MTA giveth and the MTA taketh away. This time, the almighty transportation agency has abandoned its ambitious plans to renovate the shabby Fourth Avenue station in Park Slope into a glittering, light-filled, Euro-styled stunner, The Brooklyn Paper has learned. Comments (2).

Smartmom: It’s the first week in June and Smartmom still doesn’t know where the Oh So Feisty One will be going to middle school in September. And Smartmom is pissed! Comment.

Bay Ridge: Brooklyn Republicans have joined their Staten Island bedfellows and endorsed dark-horse candidate Francis Powers to retain GOP control of the seat held by outgoing, and disgraced, Rep. Vito Fossella — and at the same time, Democrats are increasingly uniting behind their candidate, Councilman Mike McMahon. Comment.

Bay Ridge: A staffer in embattled Rep. Vito Fossella’s Bay Ridge office says his boss’s tarnished reputation won’t hurt him in his just-announced run for the Assembly. Comments (1).

Kensington: The Postal Service has a simple solution for improving service at its notoriously bad Kensington branch — sending the customers elsewhere. Comment.

Park Slope: Two weeks after the Department of Sanitation suspended alternate-side parking in Park Slope, the streets are getting dirtier and some drivers are getting confused. Comment.

Among the kickball hipsters of Greenpoint’s McCarren Park, the word “freelance” has a new meaning. Comment.

Downtown: A new state Senate report blasts this year’s merger of New York University and Polytechnic University as flawed — and defiant Polytechnic alumni, who couldn’t prevent the Downtown engineering campus from being taken over by the Manhattan-based liberal arts school, are saying, “We told you so.” Comments (2).

Dining: Four months is a long time to go without decent General Tsao’s chicken, but South Slope’s patience will be rewarded when a new Chinese restaurant opens in the former Red Hot Szechuan spot on Seventh Avenue at 10th Street this summer. Comment.

Bay Ridge: In Bay Ridge, Walgreens might actually carry greens. The chain drug store that is slated to replace a popular Key Food supermarket will sell produce and fresh meat, state Sen. Marty Golden (R–Bay Ridge) announced at a rally in front of the Third Avenue grocery on May 31 — but Walgreens officials aren’t making any promises. Comments (1).

Brooklyn Angle: Our columnist was so angry that tickets to Bob Dylan’s Aug. 12 concert in Prospect Park were not available to the general public that he took Dylan’s celebrated relationship screed, “Positively 4th Street” and gave it a few new lyrics. Comments (5).

Atlantic Yards: Our artist’s weekly take on the issues of the day. Comment.

Letters: The mailbag is filled with letters about Bay Ridge politics, Ikea, Park Slope’s alleged Communist leanings, truck traffic in Kensington, judges who park in a city park and The Brooklyn Paper’s fine podcasts! Comment.

Bensonhurst: The man who brought the city’s only drive-through Starbucks to Cropsey Avenue is bringing more retail to the dreary Gateway to Coney Island — and he says it might kick-start the drag’s transition into a shopping destination. Comments (3).

Fort Greene: Fort Greene and Clinton Hill will get a little brighter, a little cleaner, and a little safer this winter, say supporters of a Fulton Street business improvement district, which passed an early hurdle this week. Comment.

DUMBO: The Department of Transportation says it will repaint lanes along Front Street in DUMBO by the end of the week after a routine street repaving left drivers confused (like this mini-van driver) about where to go. Comments (1).

All the latest local gossip, news, tidbits, bric-a-brac, potpourri and fun. Comment.

Parenting: All the fun and games for you and your family. Comment.

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

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