Marty Markowitz

Adam Yauch Park Opens in Brooklyn to Honor MCA

On May 3rd, the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation renamed Palmetto Playground on Columbia Street in Brooklyn Heights "Adam Yauch Park" to honor the Beastie Boy who passed away one year ago. Our photographer, Mark Hewko, was there. (See more of his photos here.)

Holy Crap, the Islanders Are Moving to Brooklyn! (liveblog)

As the Twitterverse is already aware, the New York Islanders are holding a press conference at Brooklyn's Barclays Center at 1 pm, with the word being that they're set to announce a move to the land of Marty Markowitz once their Nassau Coliseum lease expires in 2015. There are all sorts of questions ... More >>

Carroll Gardens Residents Upset Over Plans For Homeless Shelter. Ugh.

Like most gentrified neighborhoods in New Brooklyn, Carroll Gardens looked completely different only a decade ago. There were no coffee shops or strollers on Smith Street and the brownstones were not obsessively recognized for their aesthetic charm just yet. It was a lower-income neighborh ... More >>

Brooklyn Gets Federal Bucks to Combat Domestic Violence Against Immigrant Women

The Brooklyn District Attorney's office will get $900,000 to beef up its program aimed at supporting domestically abused immigrant women. The Department of Justice's Office on Violence Against Women awarded the grant to the borough in order to help Brooklyn better assist domestically abused women w ... More >>

The Nets Vs. The Knicks: The Basketball War for New York Love

While I was on the F train to Prospect Park, I noticed a structure in the distance as the subway came above ground around Carroll Gardens. It was a futuristic building of epic proportions; a huge MSG-like structure in the middle of Atlantic Avenue. For a second, I wondered what the hell this buildin ... More >>

New York University Scores Partnership With City for New Applied Sciences Center -- In Brooklyn!

Mayor Mike Bloomberg, surrounded by around 30 officials -- electeds, reps from his administration, university partners, and more -- announced yesterday that New York City would be partnering with New York University to create an applied sciences center in downtown Brooklyn. It was such an importan ... More >>

GZA, Screaming Females, And About 300 Other Artists Will Play Northside Festival This June

The music portion of the Northside Festival—the North Brooklyn celebration of music, art, film, and (in a nod to Brooklyn's many small businesses) entrepreneurship—will take place at various venues throughout Kings County from June 14 to 17. Participating venues include the usual Brookly ... More >>

Kool Herc (12) Takes On Bette Midler (5) As Round One Of Our Quintessential New York Musician Tournament Continues

The Round of 64 for Sound of the City's own version of March Madness--in which we determine the quintessential New York musician--launches this morning with a series of polls. Up for debate this time: Hip-hop pioneer Kool Herc and the brassy yet divine Bette Midler. Check out the arguments in favor ... More >>

Swastikas Found In Midwood Neighborhood Of Brooklyn

A week after midtown storefronts were vandalized with swastikas, there are reports of more of the symbols being found in Brooklyn over the weekend in Midwood. DCPI told Runnin' Scared they are is being investigated as "possible bias incidents"

Loreley's Doug Darwin Talks German Beer, Oktoberfest and Why He No Longer Enjoys Shotgunning Cheap Domestic Suds

Herr Doug Darwin​OK, so maybe we're feeling a little beery these days, what with Craft Beer Week on its way. That, and a new beer garden opening, like, every other week. We caught up with Doug Darwin, from Loreley, the new-wave German beer hall that started it all. Darwin has been with Loreley ... More >>

On Almost Running Into Marty Markowitz Glad-Handing Abroad

Marty and Jamie with two grooms the day before the big fine was announced​On Same-Sex Sunday, we ran into Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz and his now infamous wife, Jamie "First Lady of Brooklyn" Snow. He was congratulating couples, taking pictures with them with his wife, and crack ... More >>

A Brooklyn State of Mind as Borough Exceeds Same-Sex Marriage Goal (Video)

Brides Stacey Minondo and Barbara Tremblay waiting outside Brooklyn Borough Hall​Brooklyn was number two when it came to the number of weddings it planned to perform yesterday. With 109 lottery winning couples registered in the morning, it was a distant second to Manhattan's planned 459 weddin ... More >>

Cat Greenleaf, the Mermaid Parade's Queen Mermaid, Stoop Talks With Us

Esther Zuckerman​When I arrived at Cat Greenleaf's Cobble Hill brownstone this morning, she offered me some "Brooklyn seltzer," which she proceeded to pour into a small cup from an old-fashioned bottle. Greenleaf has made a lot of her Brooklyn residency. Her red door near the corner of Wyckoff ... More >>

Live: Andrew Bird Bewitches At Prospect Park

Andrew Bird Celebrate Brooklyn! at Prospect Park Bandshell Friday, June 10 Better than: Being at a show in a stuffy room somewhere. Outdoor shows are always a risk. The weather can be a temperamental thing—something that many people in New York received a soggy lesson in last week—an ... More >>

Tourists Love New York City, and Especially Brooklyn

​​​Oh, goody. The New York Times' City Room reports that tourism in New York City hit a new high last year, raking in a record 48.7 million slow-walking, skyscraper-gazing, sidewalk-congesting, Century 21-shopping visitors.

2010: The Year In Music Photos

​The year in music, circa 2010, started at the Cake Shop, with a shred-down to the New Year courtesy of Siren Festival MVP-to-be Marissa Paternoster and her band Screaming Females. After a tour through the NYE fetes of the Lower East Side and Williamsburg, that night ended amidst a marathon sh ... More >>

In the Footprint's Hoop Schemes

The Civilians charge into the Atlantic Yards project

The Coney Island Boardwalk Army Meets Tonight to Fight the Concrete Menace of Change with...Recycling.

​Many people -- especially Brooklynites -- are of the opinion that Coney Island is going to gentrified culture-dead hell, as a bunch of classic Coney businesses are being given the boot by its new owners. Brooklyn borough president Marty Markowitz knows, and kinda cares. But what of the actual ... More >>

Sign a Petition to Save Ruby's

Ruby's Bar & Grill​ Ruby's Bar & Grill may have gotten the shiv from the barbarians at Zamperla, but it's not going down without a fight. Per Amusing the Zillion, the bar, which has sat on the Coney Island boardwalk since 1934, is holding a party-cum-rally this Saturday, beginning at 12:30 p.m ... More >>

Pras Michel v. Vito Lopez: Brooklyn's Latest Democratic Throwdown

​Now even rap stars are giving Brooklyn Democratic Party leader Vito Lopez trouble. Yesterday, Pras Michel -- late of the Grammy-winning Fugees and whose 1998 "Ghetto Supastar (That's What You Are)" was a hit on the movie "Bulworth" with Warren Beatty -- endorsed a challenger to one of Lopez's ... More >>

Striped-Jumpsuit Prisoners No Longer Acceptable Setup/Cleanup Crew For Coney Island Shows

​Here is one problem, at least, the Jelly Pool Parties don't have: They didn't just lose their cheap supply of chain-gang labor. Per The Brooklyn Paper comes news that whatever trash you left behind at last week's B-52s show at Coney Island was picked up by a prison inmate. Striped jumpsuit an ... More >>

Live: George Clinton Rasps His Way Through Another P-Funk Spectacular At Wingate Field

Not from this show, no, but it is called "George Clinton humps an alien" George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic/The Ohio Players Wingate Field Monday, July 12 "Yes, it's me," croaks George Clinton, materializing maybe a half-hour into P-Funk's dependably rambling, bewildering, and nonetheless ... More >>

Brownsville Before the Stop-And-Frisks: From Neglect to Harassment

The Times' front page reveals this morning that the NYPD did 52,000 stop and frisks in an eight-square-block area of the Brownsville section of Brooklyn over the last four years, making arrests in less than one percent of the cases. On a single day in January 2009, cops stopped 109 people and bagg ... More >>

McCarren Park Pool Takes The Final Plunge

Photo of MPP groundbreaking via DBOB​Not that there were any illusions that the Greenpoint pool would remain a venue--the Williamsburg Waterfront area took over hosting duties for Jelly NYC's Summer Pool Parties a year ago. But now that the Williamsburg Waterfront space also appears to be in j ... More >>

Helsinki "World Design Capital" for 2012; New York Lags Badly

​ The International Council of Societies of Industrial Design has announced at their World Design Congress that Helsinki is the "World Design Capital" for 2012. Fast Company has a nice photo series of design highlights from the Finnish capital, and they are dazzling. Eindhoven was the runne ... More >>

Staten Island's McMahon Latest Dem to Endorse Bloomberg; Calls Him "Our Mr. October"

​Previously Brooklyn Beep Marty Markowitz, both former council speaker Peter Vallone Sr. and current councilman Peter Vallone Jr., and former Mayor Ed Koch had endorsed Mayor Bloomberg for reelection, and now Staten Island Democratic Representative Michael McMahon has joined them. McMahon is " ... More >>

Right Wing Gillibrand Continues to Destroy Democratic Party

​Today, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand blogged about her unyielding support to repeal the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. We have to wonder, what happened to the too conservative Gillibrand that was once predicted? When Gov. Paterson tapped her from New York's Republican-leaning 20th di ... More >>

Cheek, in Review: 7 Days of Runnin' Scared

​Twitpic by Mom101. Mayor Bloomberg asked Obama for antiterrorism money. Yet his NYPD minions busted a Staten Island citizen for keeping guns 'n' ammo in his kid's bedroom, so how serious can Bloomberg be about fighting terrorists where it counts? No matter, Marty Markowitz backed him anyway ... More >>

Thousands Attend Michael Jackson Birthday Event in Prospect Park

Despite sometimes disagreeable weather, thousands showed up in Prospect Park on Saturday for Spike Lee's birthday tribute to Michael Jackson. Borough President Marty Markowitz proclaimed August 29th "Michael 'King of Pop' Jackson Memorial Day." "It was great to see so many people out without anyth ... More >>

Live: Spike Lee Throws Michael Jackson One Hell Of A Birthday Party In Prospect Park

Pix by Puja Patel, many more below Thousands of people flooded Prospect Park Saturday afternoon for Michael Jackson's 51st birthday party. Hosted by Spike Lee (who worked on the "They Don't Really Care About Us" video), the five-hour event, held together by an epic, all-MJ set from Brooklyn's DJ Sp ... More >>

Our New Board of Ed: Seven Members, No Kids Now in School

It may not be around much longer, but it seems worth noting that the new seven-member city Board of Education that met last week for the first time after the mayoral control law lapsed includes not a single current public school parent as a member. The closest to having a personal vested interest ... More >>

Board of Ed Revives But, Packed with Shills, Will Do Nothing

We gotta admit, we thought it was a bluff. We assumed that when the Albany Coup senators let mayoral control of schools lapse at midnight, no one would step forward and say, "it is the time of the Judges!" But the Board of Education rose from the dead today and is meeting at the Tweed Courthouse to ... More >>

Coney's Giant Rat Stays In Out of the Rain

Joe Sitt's much-hyped Festival By The Sea, famed of story and subway ads, was supposed to have its grand opening this weekend, but it was called on account of rain. Or alleged rain: Total precipitation for Friday and Saturday was less than a tenth of an inch, so skeptics will be forgiven for wonderi ... More >>

City Saving Astroland Rocket (in Space-Saving Vacuum Bag)

There hasn't been much good news coming out of Coney Island of late, unless you count the news that Nathan's is staying put even if its building doesn't. So this morning's announcement by the city of a major press conference on "Coney Island redevelopment" at noon, featuring everyone from deputy ma ... More >>

Bushwick Rallies Against Hate Crimes

NYC RFD: Bad Cops, Larcenous Pol, and Filler

Red Hook Ballfields Up and Running

A Great Piece of Property For Sale Turns 125: Celebrating the Brooklyn Bridge

Class Action: Listings

The Disorientation of Lauryn Hill

Wherein a volatile r&b superstar wrestles a hostile crowd to the ground

Live: Superchunk Oakley Hall, 06.24.07

Beefin' Burgers

Our intrepid critic stuffs his face with the latest examples

Hope Floats

Wet hot American bummer: Chris Adrian's post-flood Magic Mountain

A Tent Grows Across the Bridge

Bryant Park, meet Brooklyn Fashion Week

Brooklyn's Surprise Posterchild

The Battle of Brooklyn

Bill Thompson Wins!!

Gifford Has A Plan

The speaker has cash, backers—and a low rank in polls. What gives?

Fleeing America

Post–9-11, Thousands of New York's Pakistanis Leave the U.S. Under Pressure

Who’s Afraid of Carl Thomas?

A Black-Jewish Alliance Stirs Up Racial Fears in Battle for Crown Heights Seat