From Streetsblog:

“Today is a sad day for New Yorkers and a sad day for New York City. Not only won’t we see the realization of a plan that would have cut traffic, spurred our economy, reduced pollution and improved public health, we will also lose out on nearly $500 million annually for mass transit improvements and $354 million in immediate federal funds.

“I will be speaking with Secretary Peters and will express my thanks for her commitment to innovative solutions to real problems facing large cities today. I will also express my deep disappointment that, sadly, even Washington, which most Americans agree is completely dysfunctional, is more willing to try new approaches to longstanding problems than our elected officials in the State Assembly. It takes true leadership and courage to embrace new concepts and ideas and to be willing to try something. Unfortunately, both are lacking in the Assembly today.

“If that wasn’t shameful enough, it takes a special type of cowardice for elected officials to refuse to stand up and vote their conscience– on an issue that has been debated, and amended significantly to resolve many outstanding issues, for more than a year. Every New Yorker has a right to know if the person they send to Albany was for or against better transit and cleaner air. People know where I stood, and where members of the City Council stood. They deserved at least that from Albany…

In honor of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s Cherry Blossom Festival, Park Slope’s Rosewater Restauarant will have a RW-does-Japanese-American menu at a special price. There will be sake, beer and wine pairings for those that want ’em. The special meals will be on: Monday, April 28th through Sunday, May 4th. All the details will be on the Events page of Rosewater website by April 21st.

If you’ve never done the Cherry Blossoms at the BBG, do yourself a favor this year. Go! And, if you can, stop by us and say heyThere’s no clearer evidence that Spring has Sprung in Brooklyn than Hanami – the Viewing of the Cherry Blossoms, under way now at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Hanami culminates each year with Sakura Matsuri, the beloved and astonishly attended Cherry Blossom Festival at the BBG. Sakura Matsuri first came to our attention after we’d gotten our butts kicked two years in a row on the same weekend, early on in our history. Why are we so busy, we asked? We’re a little slow sometimes, but we usually figure stuff out eventually. (Sakura Matsuri will be held this year on Saturday, May 3rd and Sunday, May 4th.)

This time around, for the first time, we’ve decided to do something to honor the flowers and all the folks that come to see them. We remembered that Chef Marcellus Coleman has a deep background in how Japanese cooking dovetails so nicely into the larger mantle of New American cuisine, and asked if he’d like to run with a special menu for a week at blossom time? (Being a Maryland boy, he knows blossoms, too!) His reply was something like, “well, hellyesss!”

It was a cold and unsunny day for the first Brooklyn Flea but that didn’t stop thousands from checking out the brand new Brooklyn Flea in Fort Greene.

The Flea will take place every Sunday from 10am to 5pm—rain or shine—at Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, on Lafayette Ave. between Clermont and Vanderbilt Ave. The Flea will feature 200 vendors of vintage furniture, clothing and antiques alongside new designs by local makers of everything from jewelry to textiles

Brownstoner, who is running the Flea, wants feedback from those who were there about the vendor mix and other suggestions. Here’s what he had to say about yesterday.

By some miracle, it didn’t rain and the day went off without a hitch. While some of them were double-counts to be sure, the security guard at the door clicked off 20,000 entries into the market throughout the day. Insane. We’ll have more candids up later in the day. If you took photos, please put them up on Flickr and tag with “brooklynflea”; if you a post a big Flickr set, please email us with a link. We also want to hear your feedback about vendor mix and other suggestions. Obviously we need more food; unfortunately dealing with the Department of Health isn’t exactly a simple and transparent process, but we’re working on it. Personally, we want to see more furniture and classic category-killers like antique silver and old watches; maybe a little less new jewelry and arts-and-crafty stuff. This first month will be a gradually tweaking and culling process, so please throw in your two cents.

Check out Brooklyn Flea today. Here are the ‘tails:

Brooklyn Flea will take place every Sunday from 10am to 5pm—rain or shine—starting April 6, 2008, at Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, on Lafayette Ave. between Clermont and Vanderbilt Ave. The Flea will feature 200 vendors of vintage furniture, clothing and antiques alongside new designs by local makers of everything from jewelry to textiles

Here’s Brownstoner’s blog post from Friday:

Garbage cans? Check. Orange “Flea Staff” caps? Check. Insane amounts of media attention? Uh huh. (Signore Flea is about to do an interview with an Italian journalist for La Repubblica’s weekly magazine, D. Molto bene!)

So a few things before ze Flea takes flight. The food court we’ve been touting so highly will be only halfway complete by this Sunday. Choice Market and Wafels + Dinges will be in the yard, plus all the cookies, cupcakes, and ricotta cheese. (OMG alert: Salvatore Bklyn Ricotta will be debuting their heavily researched cannolis on Sunday.) And we’re hopeful that within the month our BBQ dude, soup gals, Mexican ices chica, and Cuban empanadas hombre will join them. (A little red tape has held us up ever so briefly.)

Bring dough. There are ATMs within a block or two, but not at the Flea itself. We’re not set up to take credit cards (yet), although many vendors can handle them manually, or by Paypal via wireless internet. But for the first few weeks it’s safer to assume you’ll be paying cash. And finally, enjoy yourself.

I want reports. I want pictures. Did anyone go? What’s it like. What did you buy?

Sometime between 7 and 8 tonight, there will be a segment about Park Slope’s Simone Dinnerstein on WNYC’s Studio 360. She will perform a few of the Goldberg Variations and talk about what it means to play the piece.

The segment about Simone is already on their website:

34-year-old pianist Simone Dinnerstein scraped together the cash to record Bach’s “Goldberg Variations.” The album was picked up by a major label, and reached #1 on the Billboard classical charts. She performs live and tells Kurt why that piece never goes out of style.

There was the baseball parade, loads of activities, buds on the trees and more in the park yesterday. Here’s an excerpt (and a lovely Picture) from Brenda’s A Year in the Park Coverage.

Rain was forecast, but there were blue skies instead for Prospect Park’s “Opening Day.” As I biked around the East Drive, the calliope music of the Carousel floated through the trees, and life was absolutely good.

Brownstoner had this to say about getting to Brooklyn Flea:

Just a quick note to check the weekend subway changes on the A/C and G lines this weekend at the MTA site before heading out to Fort Greene. Seems like the F is running on the A/C line from Hoyt-Schermerhorn to the Flea (use the Lafayette Ave. stop, 5 minutes away), and buses are replacing the F/G from Bergen St. to 7th Avenue. The G is stopping normally at Clinton-Washington Ave., which is literally a block from the Flea (use Clinton Ave. exit).

Your other subway option is any train that goes to Atlantic Ave.-Pacific St., which is at the intersection of 4th Avenue and Flatbush Avenue. The 2/3, 4/5, B/D, M/N/Q/R and Long Island Railroad all stop there–the Flea is a lovely 10-15 minute stroll from there.

Check out this map to find your way. It shows all the subway stops mentioned above.