The Pianos are Coming to Our Hood in June!

Have you heard of the Sing for Hope Pianos program?  Here's a brief summary.  88 artist-designed pianos will be placed around the city starting in June.  Not only are these beautifully designed from them spontaneous performances will occur daily.  After their time with the public they will be donated to under-served schools,and other community organizations in need.  A couple of these pianos are coming pretty close by.  One will be at Columbus Park near Borough Hall, one in Brooklyn Bridge Park and another in Gowanus at 336 3rd Street.  Check out their site for more info.

Bed-Stuy Fish Fry

A neighborhood favorite in Bed-Stuy is coming to our hood soon!  Bed-Stuy Fish Fry will be opening at the corner of Hoyt and Schermerhorn Streets and we are excited.  The place is a seafood and soul food restaurant and is really well-liked.  The only complaints we heard was that the food takes a long time to make and that the wait to get in can be long.  Both of these sound like the place is good (made to order food that's so good people wait in line to eat it).  Everyone on Urbanspoon raved about the menu, which consists of different seafood dishes, mainly shrimp and fish, and fried chicken.  Mmmmmm.  Bring it!

Starbucks calls for volunteers

We were walking by the Starbucks on Court Street last week and discovered this sign. We looked it up to see what it was all about, as it doesn't explain on the sign exactly what you'd be volunteering to do. Here's some more info though from their website.

Description of volunteer effort:

Please join us on Saturday, April 28th, 2012 as we kick-off a day of service dedicated to beautification and revitalization projects in parks throughout New York City. Working with the City Parks Foundation, Columbus Park has been identified as a park where Starbucks NY Metro partners and customers volunteering together have the potential to make the greatest impact by painting playground equipment, benches and fences, weeding, spreading wood chips, planting flowers, trees and shrubs, cleaning benches, etc. The day will kick-off at Columbus Park (Court Street & Montague) at 9am where volunteers will register and receive their assignment for a day of service that is scheduled to last until 2pm.

Fight Like a Girl.

"Fight Like a Girl" is a health event where you can schedule a mammogram on the premises, and also get fitness, wellness and beauty advice from some experts that will be present. You can make an appointment at LICH's Breast Imaging Center as well as chat with doctors and attend a self exam demo. On the beauty/fitness side of things there will be trainers from Gleason’s Gym on hand to discuss work-out routines, nutrition experts, make-over experts from CityChemist, as well as body treatments and facials. All the info for where and when is below.

DATE: Saturday, October 15, 2011
TIME: 12:00 noon – 4:00 pm
LOCATION: CityChemist
129 Montague St., Brooklyn
(718) 237-CITY

Big News for Downtown.

We recently read in the Carroll Gardens Patch that Downtown Brooklyn will be seeing a major change in the future, along with all the other changes that have been happening in the growing area. Mayor Bloomberg recently announced that the first floor of the Municipal Building, at the corner of Joralemon and Court Streets, is set to be sold to developers for 10 million dollars and made into a restaurant and shops. Developer, Albert Laboz says the restaurant will be cool and hip with a mid-level price range and that construction will begin next year.This is exciting news for residents since there will be new businesses opening up and good news for the economy of New York City. According to Mayor Bloomberg "the project will create 64 construction jobs and 114 permanent jobs for people all across the five boroughs". Bring it on!

Dekalb Market Opens This Weekend!

Back in April we reported on the Dekalb Market coming to Downtown Brooklyn, at 332 Flatbush avenue Ext. Well, months have passed, we have been waiting anxiously for it's arrival, and it's finally here...almost. July 23rd, this Saturday, will be the first day they open their doors to the public, although some vendors will be outdoors through the warm months. Open seven days a week not just on the weekends! This is all very exciting. The list of vendors is below (taken from an article in Zagat. They were especially psyched about Robicelli's and Maharlika so you may want to keep those in mind). It's all making us very hungry!

-Robicelli’s (cupcakes, whoopie pies, brownies, cookies, and ice cream sandwiches plus candy and items from Liddabit Sweets amongst others)

-Joe The Art of Coffee

-Sour Puss Pickles

-Maisy's (Soul Food)

-Tea by Tiffany

-Cuzin's Duzin (Doughnuts)

-Maharlika (Fillipino)

-Wright and Goebel Wines (Wine Bar)

-Nile Valley Juice and Salads (Vegan)

-Cheeky (Cajun)

-Pasticcio (Italian)

Market coming to Downtown Brooklyn!

First came reports about Shake Shack coming to the Fulton Mall, (read about that here: http://realtycollective.blogspot.com/2010/11/shack-is-coming.html) and now there's news about the Dekalb Market coming this summer. Yup, Downtown Brooklyn's getting hipper.

Located at the intersection of Flatbush and Willoughby, this market will be comprised of a collection of salvaged shipping containers and will be open 7 days a week. The vendors for the market are accross the board and so far include "an incubator farm, food market, events and performance venue, and a collection of eateries and work-sell spaces." But the one thing they all have in common is that they are independent, with a focus on community and sustainability.

For more info on the creators of this market and updates go to. http://www.urbanspacenyc.com/

Tio Pio on the way.

On the corner of Court Street and State Street there is a big commercial space, which used to be a deli called F. Martinella then Danny's on Court (both short-lived), that has been unoccupied for quite some time. We've been wondering what might open up on that corner. Well, the wait is over because there is a new sign up and it's pretty hard to miss. A bright red sign with a picture of a chicken wearing sneakers has gone up and we now know the space is now going to be a Latin-American rotisserie chicken chain restaurant called Tio Pio. Considering there's a pretty big lunch crowd around this area and not too many quick places to eat aside from fast food chains like McDonalds, there is a Chipotle around the corner which does very well, this place might outlast it's predecessors.