Jessica Stockton-Bagnulo, the events coordinator at the Nolita bookstore McNally Jackson, has been public about her intention to open a new independent bookstore in Brooklyn since at least January, when she won a $15,000 grant for the project from the Brooklyn Public Library. Since then, she seems to have zeroed in on Fort Greene as her neighborhood of choice, and the Fort Greene Association, which administered a survey to 380 locals and found that 74% of them wanted a bookstore in the neighborhood, is trying to help her make it happen.

Over the weekend a launch party was scheduled and announced for what's being called the Fort Greene Bookstore Initiative.  read more »

Scarpetta chef Scott Conant may be "too modest" to say it, but here's proof that Italian is the new French.

Literally, in this case: beloved former French bistro Cocotte in Park Slope is being converted into some type of red-sauce joint, described simply as an "Italian restaurant," according to some new signage posted on the premises.

Cocotte, one of this author's favorites in the neighborhood, was suddenly shuttered back in February, with chef and co-owner Bill Snell blaming stiff competition along Fifth Avenue, the Slope's premier restaurant row.

The media hubbub surrounding Toys in Babeland's opening in Park Slope earlier this summer ranged from a Post screamer ("Sex-Toy Shop Has Bad Vibes in Park Slope") to a Daily Intel piece about how Internet buzz on the new store was largely favorable. In between, the Daily News informed that the shop would have a baby changing table to cater to the famously family-friendly hood, a tidbit that netted Babeland’s owners an irate phone call from Focus on the Family.

So how's business going now that the store's been open a couple months?

"We're doubling our sales projections," says Claire Cavanah, one of Babeland's owners.  read more »

Brooklyn Paper senior reporter Mike McLaughlin just got dumped -- now he needs a new girlfriend and, more importantly, a new apartment.

Cue the cameras! Mr. McLaughlin will be chronicling his search for love and shelter in a new weekly video segment called "The Search."

"It's a classic New York story," said his boss, Gersh Kuntzman.

Note the comments:

"All my lady friends are going to be beating down his door... granted he needs to get a door first."

Environmentally friendly performance club Galapagos Art Space opens officially tonight at 7 at 16 Main Steet in Brooklyn.

The Observer's Gillian Reagan wrote recently about the whole green nightlife movement:

...[W]ith gas prices soaring and the words “energy crisis” tumbling off even the most un-Gore-like lips, the whole project of greening up nightlife seems perfectly prescient. The typical club—with its blasting sound systems, sweat-cooling air-conditioners and lights blazing three nights a week—gobbles up 150 times more energy than a four-person family every year, according to Enviu, a Netherlands-based, environmental nonprofit group. In New York City, dance spots tend to be open five to six days a week, making their consumption that much higher.  read more »

The local economic woes are impacting not just Manhattan's faltering office market.

The Brooklyn office market vacancy rate ended the first half of 2008 slightly higher than at the same time last year and it's expected to rise more before the year is out, according to a new report. The report (PDF), from investment-sales firm Marcus & Millichap, forecasts a year-end vacancy rate of 10.5 percent, up from the 10.4 percent at the end of the second quarter on June 30.

As many as 2,000 office-based jobs in Brooklyn are expected to be eliminated this year, according to the report, mirroring the trend in Manhattan.

Meanwhile, the average asking rent for Brooklyn office space has increased in 2008. It was $27.58 a square foot by the end of the second quarter, up 5.1 percent annualy and 4.9 percent since January.

"What is so special about Brooklyn?? That's all we ever read about in this rag. Are you telling me the snotty (white) infants in Park Slope will be getting a better slice of life than the (brown/white/asian) kids in Astoria and Jackson Heights??" ["Brooklyn, The Borough: Growing Up New York"]

When Peter Eide moved to Clinton Hill, he had a "fantastical" idea.

The sculptor had spent 12 years moving around the borough after arriving from Philadelphia: Greenpoint, Williamsburg, back to Clinton Hill. But Mr. Eide, now 37, never strayed far from the G train, the only subway line in the city that doesn't travel through Manhattan. And he never stopped thinking of that idea he had: to connect his neighborhood G train stop, Fulton Street, to the Atlantic Avenue/Pacific Street transit hub, effectively linking the line to almost a dozen other routes.

The fantastical part? A 660-foot tunnel buried under Fort Greene.  read more »

Decades of so-called white flight from American cities, including New York, are ending, according to a Wall Street Journal article on Saturday by Conor Dougherty. This end has spawned a fresh set of clashes and challenges:

[I]n Brooklyn, in a majority African-American section of the borough, Councilwoman Letitia James says a handful of predominantly white parents last year asked her if some of their local tax money could be steered to schools in a nearby neighborhood. The parents wanted their kids in schools with a more diverse racial mix, Ms. James says, rather than the majority-black schools in her district.

The parents felt "tax dollars should follow the children, and not the school," Ms.  read more »

]]> http://origin.observermediagroup.com/2008/real-estate/challenges-end-white-flight-brooklyn-other-big-cities#comments Brooklyn demographics population Mon, 21 Jul 2008 08:12:05 -0400 Tom Acitelli 72107 at http://origin.observermediagroup.com http://origin.observermediagroup.com/2008/real-estate/bad-times-biggest-boroughs

Home sales in Queens plunged annually from the spring of 2007, according to a new report, joining Brooklyn and Manhattan in steep year-over-year sales slides.

Queens home sales were down 23.7 percent from the second quarter of 2007 through the second quarter of 2008, to 2,363, according to the report out this week from appraisal firm Miller Samuel and brokerage Prudential Douglas Elliman. The second quarter sales amount--nearly 3,100--represents, apparently, a quarterly peak since 2004.  read more »

A report earlier this month showed Brooklyn home sales plunging 43.6 percent annually. And, in Manhattan, sales dropped 21.8 percent year over year. The reports tracked deals closed in the quarter ending June 30 (the Manhattan and Brooklyn ones are available ]]> http://origin.observermediagroup.com/2008/real-estate/bad-times-biggest-boroughs#comments Real Estate Brooklyn Housing market miller samuel Prudential Douglas Elliman Queens Thu, 17 Jul 2008 07:54:16 -0400 Tom Acitelli 71974 at http://origin.observermediagroup.com