Thought we’d take a cue from the Man over at Gotham City Insider, and mosey on down to check in on ‘that darn Basile’ aka ‘Cento.’

If eyes are a window into the soul, than windows for Basile & Radusky’s latest baby are a harbinger of things to come.

Progress has been breakneck in the past few months, with this new development rumored to come online by mid-summer.

While Cento’s website doesn’t offer up any floor plans or detailed marketing info unless you register (and one can only speculate as to why), it doesn’t look like Cento will be providing any underground parking for its budding 18 units of ‘luxury’ living.

Which begs the question: in a neighborhood where parking is not only considered a ‘luxury,’ but a necessity – where’s the luxury in spending 2 1/2 hours circling 100th street for parking on the eve of alternate side, just to relieve yourself inside your 940,000.00 ‘penthouse?’

For all intents and purposes, our notoriously Conservative-Republican stronghold of Kings County, Brooklyn is considered ‘Rudy Country.’

However, as New York Magazine’s Intelligencer asked back in December: ‘when did New York [more specifically, Bay Ridge] become Ron Paul Country?

According to New York Mag; “in July, when George Stephanopoulos told Paul that he would bet his “every cent” that he won’t be president. Suddenly, it seemed, Paul found an audience… his popularity has soared, and he’s amassed more MySpace friends, YouTube views, and MeetUp groups than the rest of the Republican field combined. His New York MeetUp group, with 957, is second only to Austin’s in membership.”

With voters in Bay Ridge embracing the plainspoken Constitutionalist, such as the owner of the Corrolla seen here, supporters aren’t simply content to wear their support for Paul on their sleeves’ – but also on their rears’.

Seen here with a medley of bumper stickers ranging from:
“Ron Paul ‘08, It’s 100% Constitutional”

“Ron Paul for President 2008″

Even including shock-jock O&As’: ‘WOW‘ (“Whip ‘em Out Wednesday“) bumper stickers.

Is this Bay Ridge Ron Paul supporter telling us it’s finally time to get the real boobs out of Washington, for a change?

When ‘Club Shadows‘ poised to open their doors in 2006 as a rumored quasi-strip establishment, the reviled club’s first order of business was to deprive anyone the opportunity to see inside by bricking over virtually every window at street level – ‘turning this house of whores, into a house of horrors!’

Hence, making ‘Shadows’ about as inviting as a Great White concert at a Rhode Island nightclub.

Well, two years and a stack of State Liquor Authority Violations later; an alert tipster just shot us this pic of Club Shadows over the weekend, where it appears at least one of the two large preexisting windows has in fact been excavated. Allowing natural light and air inside – not to mention the possibility of escape.

Shadows’ extreme makeover (coincidentally) comes after last week’s 68th Precinct Community Council meeting, where Captain Rodriguez issued an open invite to Bay Ridge bar owners for a dialog on bar related incidents – urging proprietors to use the 68 as a pro-active resource, rather than a last resort.

While there’s no word on whether Club Shadows was represented at the 68 C.C. to take part in the community dialog – Shadows brilliant media savvy PR campaign is available online, where according to their MySpace page, the club’s billed as:

A “NEW CREATIVE OUTLET FOR LOCAL TALENTS IN ART LACKING BAY RIDGE COMMUNITY.”

Where, “The goal is to promote live music back into the Bay Ridge community.”

Shadows is apparently; “excited to become not only an outlet for local talents but also offer something to the neighborhood that it now lacks.”

Shadows evidently responding to the community’s need for an increase in stabbings.

As reported by fellow blogger RIBR and the Daily News -
7 year old Rachel Rodin of Bay Ridge, and a student at P.S. 185, is in dire need of a bone marrow transplant to treat a recently re-diagnosed case of Leukemia, which has resurfaced after 2 years in remission.

- from the Daily News

“The bone-marrow transplant is vitally important because it is part of her treatment in combination with chemotherapy, which her doctors hope will rid her body of the cancer in her blood and bones once and for all.”

“The donor drive is being held Jan. 19 at the Sheridan Council Knights of Columbus, 8417 Seventh Ave., Bay Ridge, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. to find a marrow donor and matches for the frequent blood and platelets Rachel requires. Marathon Bank has agreed to pay the $25-per-test cost.”

(photo courtesy of NY Daily News)

The Brooklyn Eagle reports this week that yet another local civic group has cropped up in Bay Ridge’s fight to stave off over-development, as The Bay Ridge Community Council launches – the BRCC Preservation Committee.‘
B.R.C.C is reportedly comprised of some 105 other community organizations, (some of which may even exist) and is touted as being a leader in preserving the community’s ‘essential character and form,’ according to local preservationist and civic leader Victoria Hofmo – who’s been tapped by BRCC’s president Bob Cassara to chair the new committee.

According to Cassara, ‘preservation is very important… If you can’t change it, you can’t muck it up.‘

BRCC’s Preservation Committee has their work cut out for ‘em, as their announcement comes on the not-so-timely heels of a Brooklyn Supreme Court order allowing the sale of what, so far, has been the only focus of local preservationists – The Bay Ridge United Methodist Church.

Judge Larry Martin writing what’s likely to be the final chapter in the drama surrounding the 109 year old structure, that’s been a mix of passion and ire, with all the surreal hysterics of Alexander Payne’s Citizen Ruth in between.

The tenuous existence of the structure has inspired an almost cult-like reaction among devoted preservationists who, ironically, are not among its congregation.

Consequently, if Hofmo and the BRCC have come to the table solely for the benefit of Bay Ridge’s Green Church, as their political and civic counterparts have – namely, the Committee to Save the Green Church – then the train has left the station without them.

For those groups who wish to stick around after the administrative reality has settled in, there awaits a greater truth, and a more significant challenge.

A truth outside the tantrum driven remonstrations of those, who, instead of building consensus, have sequestered themselves from the greater community – operating under the belief that being ‘right’ by virtue of something simply being ‘beautiful’ is somehow sufficient.

If only all things were so convenient; to have the administrative come so neatly in line with the aesthetic and historical – we’d hardly ever suffer a casualty.

Yes, the loss of the Green Church undoubtedly means one less landmark of distinction to admire, one less piece of beauty to behold, and certainly one more useless and over-taxing residential development to contend with, rather than which to coexist.

These are all givens.

However they are also the arguments of admirers and sentimentalists – not those of the war-planner, which this community requires.

The challenge requires the resources of skilled volunteers, with both aptitude and acumen – not just false authority and a lot of chest pounding.

Serious people who can find de jure solutions that put our community’s shared truths (aesthetic, historical and infrastructural) on an equal administrative footing with those of developers’.

While, more importantly, recognizing a pragmatic and elemental truth in compromise – somewhere between an outright rejection of change and unbridled development – with a watchful eye to beauty and utility.

The relief that comes from Judge Martin’s decision is as much about healing, as it is closure.

That being said; there’s no rejoicing over the loss of our Green Church, among anyone.

No more so than a group of local ‘activists’ have to rejoice around a slash and burn PR campaign in which a meek, dwindling congregation were painted as crooks and underachieving investors (too busy selfishly feeding the poor to effectively manage their portfolio, no doubt) – rather than taking stock of their own whereabouts prior to their involvement with the 100+ yr old Church – a whopping 6 months ago.

a blogged week:
Right in Bay Ridge: Meter Maids Know No Discretion, Bay Ridge Traffic goes International
Gowanus Lounge: Carroll Gardeners defend feline hard-line, Coney Island delivered by 2019?
Left in Bay Ridge: has beef with Landmarks Commish, to preserve or not preserve
Sunset Park Blog: Cultural Happenings, Sunset Park’s Castle
Gotham City Insider: resisting wine culture, the ice cream of our youth

In a story first broke by blogger Right in Bay Ridge: The Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported Tuesday that the 68th precinct made an arrest in the December 3rd stabbing death of 26 year old Bay Ridge man David Diaz at the 4th avenue Best Western Gregory Hotel.

According to the Eagle: “Pamela Hanson, 20, of Bedford-Stuyvesant, was arrested Tuesday morning by 68th Precinct police in connection with the killing.”

The relationship between Hanson and Diaz remains unclear.

Diaz lived only a few blocks away from the murder scene on 5th avenue, above the Zahran meat market between 77th and 76th.

‘Dog’ owners make haste with their gut job/conversion of the former Irish pub Henry Grattan’s to ‘upscale Mexican sports bar.’

Completion rumored to be sometime in mid March.

Posted by The Bay Ridge Rover

Billed as ‘International Tapas,’ Aura Bay Ridge recently opened their doors to the general public after a soft open about three weeks ago on 3rd avenue between 83rd and 84th.

The view from Bay Ridge’s 69th street Veterans Memorial Pier where the three Cunard ocean liners – the Queen Elizabeth II, Mary, and Victoria – were all honored Sunday evening with a brilliant fireworks display for a once-in-a-lifetime ensemble appearance in Upper New York Bay.