reBar is starting a breakfast menu on Monday, February, 22, 2011. Breakfast hours will be between 7am-11am on Monday through Fridays (dine-in).

At $2 or $3 per option, prices are reasonable for the a la carte options. There is even an 8oz 24-day dry aged NY strip steak for $9 for the hungry morning cravings.

(reBar is a current advertiser on DumboNYC. Thanks!)

reBar (rebarnyc.com)
147 Front Street (between Pearl and Jay Street), Brooklyn, NY 11201
Ph: 718.766.9110

The scaffolding has come down at The Gramercy Park Flowers storefront at 32 Adams Street and it looks like it’s progressing well. The industrial-style windows resemble those of the old factories when this 1914 building at 55 Washington Street (Gair Building #6) was a cardboard factory. As posted early this month, the florist plans on opening sometime in March on April 1 (updated 2/23 per Two Trees).

(Top photo thanks to Josh Derr)

Previously:
{Gramercy Park Flower Shop to Open on Adams Street, 01Feb2011}

Groupon’s deal of the day is at O’Crepes in Dumbo. for $7, you get $15 worth of organic crêpes, homemade soups, coffee, and more. Per Groupon:

Combining traditional French and Russian techniques, O’Crepes is a fast-casual café that specializes in delicate, organic crêpes filled with sweet and savory ingredients. The menu showcases both breakfast and lunch-friendly fare, from the vegan crêpe loaded with tofu, pumpkin seeds, guacamole, and red peppers ($8), to the J Hook, a buckwheat crêpe cradling smoked salmon, cream cheese, spinach, and capers ($11) with such flawless technique that bagels study it at toaster college. Sweet teeth clamor to caress dessert options such as the Hula Hoop, brimming with strawberry, banana, Nutella, and whipped cream ($8.50), or the Applepod, a dough envelope stuffed with apple or pear, walnuts, and honey ($7.50). Pancake pioneers can also build their own sweet or savory creations, padding an original ($6), buckwheat ($6), or gluten-free ($7) batter-base with a hearty hodgepodge of more than 20 fresh fillings (starting at $0.50). Defrost after a chilly urban hike or snowman group hug with a bowl of homemade minestrone, chili, or cream of broccoli soup ($3.50–$6.50), or sip your way to steamy satisfaction with a cup of coffee or tea.

O’Crepes (o-crepes.com)
145 Front Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201

P.S. 8 Film Club’s video, “Saving Water 101″ was chosen as one of 6 National finalists for the National Geographics Find Your Footprint competition. The goal is to demonstrate how big our human footprint on the earth is. “We all change the Earth with the stuff that we buy, use, and throw away. This is called our human footprint. How your footprint changes the Earth is up to you.” Through this contest, one lucky classroom will win five Promethean interactive whiteboards for their school, which could help cut down on the amount of paper used in school and National Geographic subscriptions and products worth $36,000.

Help our local Brooklyn School win the Grand Prize by voting here (takes 2 seconds). PS8′s entry is currently 2nd of 6 finalists nationally. VOTE NOW! (Voting ends on March 15, 2011). Congrats PS8!

[UPDATE: You may or may not be aware that PS8 is appealing for community help and are affected by the "more extreme budget cuts that will threaten our extraordinarily talented teaching staff and the educational experience they have created in our wonderful school", as posted by Brooklyn Heights Blog yesterday. To help PS8, please consider a donation by going to nycharities.org/donate/c_donate.asp?CharityCode=2052]

Public School 8
The Robert Fulton School
37 Hicks Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201

Dumbo Gymnastics open gym has resumed for the spring session.

“Open Gym is supervised, unstructured play time in the gym: equipment and mats are set up but each child chooses where to play and what to do rather than moving together as a class. The children can spend extra time on a favorite apparatus, switch as frequently as they’d like, or work on skills they are learning in class. The staffer intervenes only as needed to help the children play safely (one at a time on each piece of equipment, etc). Each child under three must be accompanied in the gym by a parent or caregiver in a 1:1 ratio unless pre-approved by the staff (multiples).”

$5 for students registered for a spring gymnastics class, $20 for others.

Current Open Gym Schedule:

Tuesday 2:00-3:00pm
Wednesday 10:30-11:30am, 2:00-3:00pm, 3:00-4:00pm
Sunday 3:00-4:00pm, 4:00-5:00pm (8+ only)

For the most up to date schedule, go to www.dumbogymnastics.com/schedule. They also host birthday parties.
(Dumbo Gymnastics is a current advertiser on DumboNYC. Thanks!)

DUMBO Gymnastics (dumbogymnastics.com)
68 Jay Street, Suite 509, Brooklyn, NY 11201
718-222-1012
Email info@dumbogymnastics.com

Previously:
{Dumbo Gymnastics Video}
{DUMBO Gymnastics Expands Fall 2010 Schedule}
{Dumbo Gymnastics for Kids Opening in Dumbo}

(Photo courtesy of The Brooklyn Paper)

According to a report on Gothamist yesterday, “The National Park Service has endorsed the Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation’s plan to transfer the Civil War-era Brooklyn Tobacco Warehouse in DUMBO to performing arts presenter St. Ann’s Warehouse. The National Parks Service issued the decision on Monday (see below letter) that it supports its own 2008 decision that allowed the state to redraw the map of the Brooklyn waterfront to allow a historic building in a park to be redeveloped into a theater. As you may recall, the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation (OPRHP) requested the park boundary be amended in 2008, which prompted local community organizations to sue to stop the renovation.

Tobacco Warehouse Decision 2-14

A few items for today:
1)



Half Off Southern Fare and Drinks at Water Street

We posted about the new Southern menu at Water Street Restaurant a few weeks ago. If you still have not tried it yet, Groupon is offering a special deal (today only) for $8 for $16 toward “Southern lunch fare and drinks” (or $15 for $30 toward dinner).

2)

Wall Sreet Journal Article: Dumbo: Not Bad for Being Under an Overpass

Many of you have sent this link in, so I’ll post it here. WSJ.com posted a national article about Dumbo. We all know Dumbo has been highlighted a lot in National publications. One of the reasons for the DumboNYC.com site was because no one knew what Dumbo was. Now many people know what it is. However, we noticed that WSJ doesn’t have the Dumbo boundaries correct. The map of Dumbo is incorrect. Per the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission report, Dumbo includes Bridge Street to the West, Main Stret to the East, parts of York Street to the South and the waterfront to the North.

3) 84 Precinct Council Meeting

There is a Community Council Meeting tonight at 7pm at 55 Washington Street, Suite 512. Call community affairs (718-875-6850) for further information. The 84th Precinct covers these residential areas: Brooklyn Heights, Dumbo, Boerum Hill, Vinegar Hill and the Farragut Residences. Someone may want to bring up the incident with the stranger from yesterday.

Sent from a concerned parent:

Our babysitter was approached Friday afternoon by a strange man claiming to be a FBI agent (he had no ID, and fumbled w/ his wallet when she asked). I am curious if anyone else has or knows someone who has had a similar experience with this man. The things he said to her made it clear he had been following her for some time (while she had my children).

Please be aware, and pass on any information that you may have. This happened on Front St. at about 5:30pm Friday.

He pulled up in an older model gray Honda (or Honda type car).

Caucasian man. Tall, very skinny, with a mustache.

He asked if he could speak with her from his car, then got out of his car and approached her. He knew exactly where she had been and described who he had seen with her…. and then some more bizarre talk. When two men approached, he took off and sped away.

I am not being an alarmist – just think it is so important to spread the word. Again, please share any other information that you may have, or if you have a similar situation call 911 immediately. Unfortunately she did not, so there is not much we can do at this point.

Please notify and encourage your family/caregivers/nannys to call 311 (as long as it’s not an emergency situation) if someone approaches them so our precinct is on alert. The 84th Precinct number is 718-875-6811.

(Photo by Jordan Guile)

The following are selected links from this past week on blogs and websites with discussion about Dumbo (and its neighboring areas):

• 36 Hours in Brooklyn, 10Feb11, NYT
• Fulton Ferry Pier Ice Cream Factory, 09Feb11, GoBIG
• Vinegar Hill Hamlet, 11Feb11, NYDP
• LuckyRice Night Market in Dumbo, 11Feb11, NYMag
• Brooklyn Night Bazaar on Kickstarter, 08Feb11, Kickstarter
• Valentine’s Day with Jacques Torres, 11Feb11, CNBC
• Bike-rental Coming to BK Bridge Park, 11Feb11, NYP
• Tell the Way at St. Ann’s Warehouse, 11Feb11, NYT
• 3 BHA Members Quit Over Tobacco Warehouse Suit, 08Feb11, BHB
• Big Secret on Little Street, 10Feb11, NYDP
• 30 Main St Loft Redesigned, 11Feb11, Architizer
• Long Island College Hospital Closing?, 10Feb11, Brownstoner

Can’t say we’re familiar with dating sites, but this is an interesting mash-up of neighborhoods and keywords on dating sites. Manhattan-based artist and programmer R. Luke DuBois quantitatively analyzed the most commonly used words in dating profiles based on geography (ZIP code). According to an article on WNYC, “New York City’s most frequently used online dating word, for example, is ‘Now’—confirming just about every Type A stereotype of our town’s inhabitants. (In Chicago, incidentally, it’s ‘Always’. And in L.A., ‘Acting.’) For big cities, DuBois was able to break the data down further, narrowing down the most frequently used online dating words to individual zip codes. (He analyzed more than 410,000 profiles for New York City alone.)”

DuBois says “the whole DUMBO/Brooklyn Heights area is pretty funny, too. You get works like ‘dick’ and ‘graphic’ and ‘artisanal,’ as well as ‘postmodernism’ and ‘cheese.’” The Dumbo area map includes common words like: graphic, cool, glamour, dick, artisanal, subway, cheese, hilarious. Not sure what that says about the dating profiles of people in the area, but one glance on Craigslist for Dumbo listings leads one to believe there are many “men looking for men”.

R. Luke DuBois’ exhibit, A More Perfect Union, will be at Bitforms Gallery in Chelsea through Feb. 19. Map courtesy of R. Luke DuBois and Bitforms Gallery

(WNYC.org via onlinedatingpost)