You Should Go Out Of Business More Often!

Things you don’t often see include “Closeout — Everything Must Go!” signs at bars:

The JRG Restaurant and Fashion Cafe — which is on Flatbush Avenue between Atlantic and Fifth avenues — is having a hedonistic last hurrah before it is torn down to make way for Ratner’s Atlantic Yards mega-development.

The bar, which is in the way of the Frank Gehry–designed arena, is liquidating its stock in a $30, all-you-can drink bacchanal.

And rest assured — that cash won’t buy you mere swill.

“It’s all premium liquor — we’re not talking house wine,” said the bar’s general manager Ray Rodriguez. Even better, the $30 gets you 15 percent off all food, which is a substance sometimes ingested during alcoholic binges.

. . .

The liquoricious deal will last only as long as the bar-cum-restaurant-cum-fashion house does — through the end of the month.

That’s because the premises are owned by Forest City Ratner, which has said it intends to start demolition for its 16-tower development as early as next month.

Location Scout: Atlantic Yards.

Wallabout Bay Beach: The Real Kings County

Either that or The (Clinton) Hills:

[MTV] is planning to film a TV pilot called “Brooklyn” focusing on the lives of average high school students in the borough.

MTV officials were hush-hush about the show yesterday, saying they don’t comment on projects in development.

But casting calls are scheduled at Brooklyn Technical High School in Fort Greene, according to the school’s Web site.

The online blurb describes Brooklyn as a “cross between Harlem in its heyday and Paris” and touts the borough’s diversity, from Caribbean-Americans in Flatbush to hipsters in Williamsburg to “peacenik families” in Park Slope.

The borough is “the ultimate city within a city,” the announcement declares.

City Education Department officials said the project is the brainchild of a partner of hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons.

Coming Soon: “Your Bugaboo Frog Caused 9/11” Bumper Stickers

A problem that seems quintessentially Park Slope, too many SUV-sized baby strollers are crowding out shoppers, leading some retailers to take drastic steps to curb their effect on the shopping environment:

In Brooklyn’s child-filled neighborhood of Park Slope, Barnes & Noble has sought to put the brakes on a rolling problem — stroller overcrowding.

The bookstore chain’s Park Slope location set up something of a speed bump for the parental set when it posted a sign recently that said strollers were prohibited on its lower level.

“Due to overcrowding, strollers are NOT allowed downstairs,” the sign read, according to a photo posted on the Internet. “Please park your stroller in the designated area on the first floor.”

Web logs and Web sites picked up on the move, including the message group Park Slope Parents, which has more than 5,000 subscribers. The bookstore has since removed the sign and replaced it with an employee who politely points out the availability of spaces to park the mini-vehicles.

. . .

The bookstore’s move to limit strollers came amid an influx of families to the neighborhood. Residents say they can’t walk down the street without tripping on strollers, and that some coffee shops look more like day care centers.

It’s Stupid That One Hand Doesn’t Know What The Other Is Doing Because Everyone Knows Hands Don’t Think

Apparently no one told Brooklyn Bridge Park planners that the area is slated to be used as a staging area for extensive work on the BQE sometime in the next decade:

Long-overdue renovations to a key stretch of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway would destroy the park component of a soon-to-be-built development along the Brooklyn Heights waterfront — and the state agency doing the roadwork isn’t talking to the state agency building the park.

Repairs to the three-layered portion of the BQE are necessary — but they won’t start for nearly a decade, years after the so-called Brooklyn Bridge Park is mostly completed.

But the only way to make the repairs, experts said, is to use Brooklyn Bridge Park as a staging area.

“It makes no sense for them to build the park, tear it apart, and then build it again,” said Brian Ketcham, a traffic expert who has been lobbying for an alternative to the BQE for more than two decades.

State transportation officials told federal officials about their latest plans last week in Washington — and shockwaves were quickly felt in Brooklyn.

“We haven’t been fully briefed,” said Marianna Koval, executive director of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy.

Roy Sloane, a longtime park advocate, also said that he hadn’t heard about the project.

“The news of the reconstruction was a shocker for the members of the [Brooklyn Bridge Park] board,” he said.

The current plan calls for replacing the cantilevered levels of the BQE near the Brooklyn Bridge by cutting out pieces of the two-mile stretch, and then sliding pre-fabricated pieces in their place.

Doing so would require a large part of Brooklyn Bridge Park as a staging area, transportation officials told the feds.

“It’s going to be a hell of a mess,” said Ketcham.

What Are You Going To Do, Not Build The 4,000-Foot Roller Coaster?

Thor Equities can play hardball, as the Post reports, but what exactly is their leverage? They don’t even have a basketball team to bring to the table:

The developer planning a $2 billion Vegas-style makeover for Coney Island’s boardwalk strip says the project will have to be scrapped if City Hall won’t let him build a luxury apartment building in the heart of the seaside district.

The Coney Island project “isn’t a financially feasible investment” without the inclusion of high-rise housing along Stillwell Avenue just off the fabled seaside boardwalk, Thor Equities spokesman Lee Silberstein — speaking for company chief Joseph Sitt — told The Post.

“Everybody wants Coney Island to be revitalized, and housing has got to be part of it,” Silberstein said, adding that from a planning perspective the project needs guarantees that there will be people on the boardwalk year-round.

The news that the city faces losing its biggest private investment in Coney Island’s future if it doesn’t meet Thor’s request comes while the developer this week took a calculated gamble by beginning to clear some of the land where its planned construction would occur.

Bulldozers have begun removing longtime attractions on Thor property along Stillwell Avenue. In doing so, Thor is banking on city officials granting necessary land-use changes.

Beside housing, Thor’s project calls for a water-park-themed hotel, another full-service hotel, time-share facilities, new retail, a multilevel carousel and a 4,000-foot roller coaster.

Chuck Reichental, a member of the agency that will determine how Coney Island is rezoned, said a majority of residents opposes housing in the amusement district as well as any new development exceeding the height of the 262-foot landmark Parachute Jump.

Sources familiar with informal talks between the city and Thor say these are the two biggest obstacles to the developer’s plan.