Wednesday, April 18th, 2018. Downtown Brooklyn from Flatbush and Fulton Mall.

Image via Google Maps

After a tip to police, a believed serial robber was arrested in Vivi Bubble Tea at 113 Court St on Monday.

From Pix11:

The employee began to put money in the bag when two officers entered the store and confronted Price, police said.

Construction appears to be at a standstill at 9 Dekalb Ave, the giant skyscraper coming to Downtown Brooklyn that will be twice as tall as any current building in the neighborhood.

The image is an aerial view of the construction site, with the old Dime Savings Bank in the lower right-hand corner of the image. Construction crews were hard at work removing floors of the attached building last summer/fall, but it seems like no progress has been made since then.

Image via 80 Flatbush

Not everyone is happy with all the high rises coming to the neighborhood. Members of our community have banded around stopping the two towers coming to 80 Flatbush Avenue, right across from Atlantic Terminal.

The main argument against this building, as far as I can tell (the official Block 80 Flatbush Towers website is currently down for me, is it working for you?) is that this giant tower will drastically alter several neighborhoods. The tower will be imposing to Boerum Hill, Ft. Greene, Park Slope, Gowanus, Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill, and Carroll Gardens, all of which consist mostly of brownstone buildings.

Looks like the 84th Precinct (which covers Downtown Brooklyn) is having a city council meeting today at 7pm.

Join us at our next Community Council Meeting on April 17th, 2018, 7pm at the Brooklyn Borough Hall, 209 Joralemon St. #Brooklyn Come meet Cop of the Month, here about our Crime Report and results and Transit Police Report. See Flyer for more details #brooklynheights #boerumhills pic.twitter.com/pC7PBZ8cnx

It can be hard to see from the street, but Macy’s old parking garage is no longer a parking garage. The first step in constructing the next skyscraper being added to Downtown Brooklyn’s skyline, at 11 Hoyt. I shot this photo from our roof on April 14th, 2018, so everyone could get a look at the current progress.

_Photo by _Eugene Zemlyanskiy

Scaffolding at a Starbucks on Court Street and Joralemon collapsed on Saturday, April 14th. Three people were sent to the hospital with minor injuries — fortunately nothing more. The NY Post has the full story.

I recently downloaded the Citizen mobile app, which sent me an alert shortly after it happened. A user had submitted a picture of the scene, but unfortunately I didn’t have the foresight to capture it for this website. I’m finding Citizen pretty useful though. It reminds me of Gothamist’s (now-defunct) Maps, but with much better UI.

The Bridge, on the plethora of chain stores opening in NYC (emphasis ours):

Last year, Brooklyn saw the biggest percentage increase in the number of chain stores of all the city’s boroughs, with 1,587 locations, a 3.1% increase from the previous year, according to a December report from Center for an Urban Future. The greatest concentration of these stores is in zip code 11201 (Brooklyn Heights/Downtown Brooklyn), which has 145 national retailer locations including City Point’s Target, Fulton Street’s H&M, and Sephora on Joralemon Street.

The Urban Land Institute New York (ULI NY) award ceremony was on April 10th, and a few of our very own buildings were among the winners (emphasis theirs):

Some of this year’s winners from Brooklyn included Dumbo-based Two Trees Development, which nabbed the Excellence in Market-Rate Housing Development award for their breathtaking 300 Ashland building, which is already being regarded as iconic as part of the BAM Cultural District.

It came out last week that the promised park-above-a-parking-garage might not be going as planned.

Back in 2004, when this neighborhood was first rezoned (prompting the building frenzy that’s happening now), the city promised a one-acre public park right across from the new City Point structure. The city even approved tearing down rent stabilized buildings to make way for this new park slash parking garage.