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In 2007, The Brooklyn Paper’s readers found themselves on The Stoop, our new page dedicated to neighborhood news, gossip and all the other stuff that we talk about on our front steps. And what a year for The Stoop to make its debut!

Indeed, this year had it all: from a booming Downtown to a busted Bay Ridge pharmacy; from a kickball game in Williamsburg to a kicked-out old man in Carroll Gardens; from fat-filled pastries in Cobble Hill to a fat guy in Bay Ridge trying to march his way to fame, fortune and a slimmer waistline on an ABC reality show.

Those are just some of the highlights. Here’s our first-annual roundup of some of the news that made each neighborhood feel like home. Mike McLaughlin reports:

CARROLL GARDENS–COBBLE HILL

The thread this year running through BoCoCa — or should we make that South Brooklyn? — was about the head-on collision of the old borough with the new. The old timers won some battles against the newcomers, but the upstarts are making their mark, too.

Starting over: The year began with the greatest tale of resilience. Dominick Diomede, a 94-year-old man, was evicted from his Carroll Gardens apartment and vowed to sleep in a car rather than leave the neighborhood. But with the help of a persistent city social worker and the Fifth Avenue Committee, he was resettled on Third Avenue and is doing great.

Slow-roasted fine: Who doesn’t like the smell of fresh coffee in the morning — or any hour of the day? The city, that’s who. Gillies Coffee lost its appeal of a $400 odor-pollution fine. The odor? Those locally roasted beans.

Italian renaissance: The beloved Cammareri bakery came back from the dead in January and joined up with the Monteleone pastry shop to form a super sweets business on Court Street.

They’re baa-ck: Also on Court Street, the delimen at Mastellone reclaimed their places behind the counter to much fanfare in March after new ownership failed to win over the regulars.

Nice, but expensive fit: Lucky Brand Jeans announced in May that Smith Street would become a new home for its $200 denim pants.

Standing not-so-tall: The Cobble Hill Historic District’s height restriction lived to see another year as Two Trees Management failed to get permission to construct a 60-feet apartment building — 10 feet over the limit.

DOWNTOWN

Skyscrapers started going up all along the corridor between the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the Manhattan Bridge, a new community that will someday house another 30,000 people. Naturally, Bruce Ratner has a piece of the action. But the best stories were local stories.

Auto zone: We know it’s a park, but this is ridiculous! In January, Supreme Court judges agreed to remove their cars from a portion of Columbus Park so humans could use a long-shuttered walkway. But by the year’s end, we’re still waiting.

Mmmm, waffles: Amy Ruth’s, the Harlem soul-food restaurant known for a fried chicken–and–waffles dish named after Al Sharpton, announces it will take over the old Gage & Tollner spot on Fulton Mall. Finally, an alternative to McDonald’s.

Not so full steam ahead: What to do with the Admirals’ Row in the Navy Yards? The city wants to put in a supermarket, but the feds, who own the crumbling mansions, think they can be renovated. Stay tuned.

The sky’s the limit: Move over Williamsburgh Savings Bank — Bruce Ratner wants to build the city’s tallest residential building. The mega-developer’s plans for the corner of Jay and Tillary streets can go as high as he wants — and he reportedly wants to trump the Donald by going to 1,000 feet.

FORT GREENE–CLINTON HILL

“Green” isn’t just part of the nabe’s name, it’s the way of life, too. This part of Brooklyn saw a profusion of eco-friendly projects in churches, cafes and on brownstone homes. In fact, it seemed the only thing that wasn’t green this year was the neighborhood’s eponymous park.

Wide load: L’Epicerie, a Vanderbilt Avenue boutique grocery, widened its aisles and rearranged its display in January, to make room for increasing numbers of baby strollers in the nabe.

Coming clean: Pratt Institute announced plans to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent over 10 years. The same month, the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church said it would get right with God’s green earth by doing things like “extreme recycling,” switching over to fluorescent lights, and conducting an energy audit. Secular forces got into the act, too. The Fort Greene Association launched an initiative to get people be more aware of their homes’ environmental impact.

Angel folds wings: The Broken Angel may be topless, but don’t call her fallen. Shan Andersen, the developer and co-owner of the one-time Clinton Hill ziggurat, which artist Arthur Wood and his wife Cynthia built by hand over decades, insisted that building will soar again, despite its current run-of-the-mill appearance. By year’s end, the building remained in tatters.

Going for broke: The Parks Department admits that it has misplaced $300,000 pledged for the restoration of historic Fort Greene Park, leaving parts of the park in a state of disrepair.

Put it in writing: A man protested the Atlantic Yards project by covering his Steuben Street home with an anti-Ratner and Bloomberg manifesto in blue painter’s tape.

PARK SLOPE–PROSPECT HEIGHTS

It was “another year, another award” for the Slope, which kept alive the recognition it won in 2006 for high quality of life by capturing honors in October from the American Planning Association. But everything wasn’t hunky-dory.

Garden of ire: The Church of Gethsemane — ironically named after the garden where Christ spent his last free night — unleashed a fury when its pastor announced in January it would sell its 10th Street backyard to developers, who would turn it into condos. The church finalized the deal in September and construction is ongoing.

Wrong way one way: Slopers beat back a plan in the spring to speed traffic on Sixth and Seventh avenues by turning them into one-way streets.

Terrible tweens: In at least three instances over two months, a group of Prospect Heights adolescents approached pedestrians and either hit them over the head with a blunt object or pointed what looked to be a toy gun in their direction. The perpetrators demanded nothing. Indeed, they appeared to have no motive beyond the sheer fun of harassing pedestrians, according to victims and the police.

Sharing in the rain: Seventh Avenue became a laboratory for the honors system. Businesses dispensed free yellow umbrellas to shoppers with the expectation they would be returned to other participating stores. The experiment has been a success so far.

Goodwill towards men: Homeless men who congregated and drank on the steps of the Old First Reformed Church tested the patience of the church and split the neighborhood opinion on what to do. (The men eventually abandoned their haunt in November.)

BROOKLYN HEIGHTS–DUMBO

It’s not easy covering this corner of Brooklyn. Racists skulk the streets at night. Jagged pieces of glass are breaking news. And you never know who might snap when our camera flashes.

Smacked: The Brooklyn Paper’s fearless photographer, Tom Callan, was attacked while snapping shots of the owner of a Montague Street restaurant that had been shut for health code violations. (No photographers were hurt in the making of this article.)

Hate crimes: Two Brooklyn Heights synagogues were vandalized with swastikas in September. The Nazi symbols were found on other buildings, too. Top cop Ray Kelly journeyed to Remsen Street to show support.

Jarred: Customers at Sahadi’s fumed this fall when the Atlantic Avenue grocer has replaced the classic glass jars with generic plastic containers in the nuts, dried fruits and candies section — making it nearly impossible for customers to get glass shards stuck in their throats.

Recent history: The city created the DUMBO Historic District in December, even though the neighborhood didn’t exist (in name) 20 years ago.

Crime wave: A series of break-ins and robberies on Washington and Main streets since the summer led to a beefed-up police presence in the neighborhood down under the Manhattan and Brooklyn bridge overpass and the formation of a civilian anti-crime group DUMBOwatch.

All mixed up: The opening night party for graffiti legend Shepard Fairey descended into chaos after a guest — quite possibly the equally famous art-world pest called “The Splasher” — started a fire. It turned out, the would-be arsonist was not the Splasher.

BAY RIDGE–DYKER HEIGHTS–BENSONHURST

Look at what the wind blew in this year. Of course, there was the Twister of ’07, but the tempestuous local news was actually national with the steroid scandal, a reality TV saga and the immigration debate all unfolding, at least partially, in this neck of the woods.

Raw truth: There’s an underground movement in Bay Ridge to enjoy forbidden fruit. Actually, it’s illegal, un-pastereurized milk from Pennsylvania that has spawned a subculture of risk-taking milk-drinkers. Who knew? (Well, our readers did.)

They only come out at night: The troubles that started at Club Shadows last year carried into ’07. In June, a big fight happened on the premises, and in August, a man was stabbed outside the nightspot.

‘E’ for effort: Will Millender, 26, was tearfully voted off ABC’s reality show, “Fat March” for slowing down his team on its 550-mile weight-loss walk from Boston to Washington. The bright side? Now he can go back to his first stab at fame: Competitive eating.

Happy Birthday: The New Utrecht Reformed Church celebrated its 330th birthday in October. But what’s so “new” about it?

Leave it to Dyker: Ernie Nardi of Dyker Heights not only incited a debate about illegal immigration at a Republican debate, but also thrust himself and his neighborhood into an international spotlight. The 59-year-old Dyker resident proved that he’s not afraid to take an unpopular, anti-immigrant position on a controversial issue.

Drug bust: State drug enforcement agents raided Lowen’s pharmacy on Third Avenue in May, and again in October, seizing millions of dollars of human growth hormone and steroids.

RED HOOK

Red Hook feels trapped in a time warp, but it’s catching up to modernity. Its second traffic light was installed this year. And city bureaucrats finally got around to realizing that the Latin American food vendors at Red Hook Park had created something that the city could co-opt.

Big city, bright lights: Every Red Hooker will tell his grandchildren about the day in April when the city installed the Hook’s second stoplight — at Van Brunt and Sullivan streets.

The vendors’ last stand: This summer, supporters mobilized to prevent the city from booting the beloved Latino food vendors, who’ve sold tasty treats at the Red Hook ball fields for decades. The season ended with the vendors’ future uncertain — they’ll face an open bidding process in the fall and could lose their spots to vendors with deeper pockets. So much for the rule that hard work pays off.

Dome down: The Revere Sugar Refinery’s iconic dome disappeared from Red Hook’s waterfront to make way for new development.

WILLIAMSBURG–GREENPOINT

This was the year of the body in Williamsburg and Greenpoint. Hipsters exercised their soft, fleshy muscles as year-round (and suitably ironic) “athletic” activity became cool. On the Southside, some Hasidic Jews tried to force out a kosher food truck because they didn’t dig his unhealthy menu. And the “Finger” building ever so slowly extended itself above the neighborhood.

Just kickin’ it: Kickball mania, the likes of which hasn’t been seen since phys ed class at an elementary school, swept through Williamsburg and culminated in a playoff tournament for adults in McCarren Park in September.

Right up Greenpoint’s alley: In another sign of the borough’s hipster athletic resurgence, a retro bowling alley, The Gutter (it’s really a bar with a few throwback lanes) opened on North 14th Street in September.

Semi-sweet relief: Parts of the Domino Sugar factory earned landmark status in September, but other parts of the dormant waterfront complex are slated for demolition as part of a $1.5-billion market-rate and below-market-rate housing development.

Sub on wheels: A kosher food vendor, whose truck is called “Sub on Wheels,” was nearly run out of town by angry residents who did not want their children being tempted by unhealthy fare like hamburgers, hot dogs and knishes. (Not knishes! Say it ain’t so!)

It’s not just a movie: A full-fledged competitive dodgeball league began accepting teams in November for its winter league in Williamsburg and Park Slope.

Stubby finger: Construction on the controversial “finger” building on North Eighth Street, which critics say will resemble a middle finger when complete, was stalled for months, keeping the building six stories short of its proposed 16 floors. A December ruling from the Board of Standards and Appeals gave the developer the green light to finish up the project.

©2007 The Brooklyn Paper