Gowanus Expy Vus

A new benchmark for overpriced undesirable apartments may have been reached:

Just $3,600-a-month will get a luxury Brooklyn apartment with jaw-dropping, scenic views — of the truck-filled, exhaust-choked Gowanus Expressway.

Developers Jack Basile and Nick Barone are building a brownstone-style 10-unit apartment building with ground-floor commercial space in Carroll Gardens — just a stone’s throw from the elevated expressway.

In fact, their five-story building at the corner of Court and Garnett streets is so close to the highway that future tenants heading into Manhattan won’t need to check traffic reports before battling the morning rush, they can just step onto their terrace or peek out a window.

While the fumes and noise from passing vehicles could be a deterrent, Basile and Barone expect a lot of interest.

“The apartments will do very well because they have a Court Street address, which is desirable, and it’s great for people who can’t afford Manhattan but want that Manhattan feel,” Basile said.

“That Manhattan feel” — read: bedrooms with value-added car exhaust smell.

Hey, Buddy, Get Back Out There — You Sound Like Walt Whitman’s Wussy Nephew With This “Brooklyn Is Enormous” Crap!

Gary Jarvis, who vowed to run every street in Brooklyn after moving there in June, has reached the halfway point and is perhaps running out of steam:

Gary Jarvis’s quest to traverse the length, width and depth of Brooklyn has been well-documented — but the enormity of the task has, frankly, taken its toll.

“I didn’t realize how big and dense and concentrated Brooklyn is,” said the Iowa native, who had apparently failed to look at a map before predicting that he could run the entire borough.

“Brooklyn is enormous.”

Perhaps by comparison to Iowa City, whose 230 miles of streets Jarvis once ran. As he learned, however, that’s nothing compared to Brooklyn’s 1,599 miles of mean streets.

Jarvis had never spent time in Brooklyn until he moved here to be with his girlfriend. Like any newcomer, he figured the best way to get to know his new home would be to get out.

“Talk about not thinking things through,” said Jarvis, whose presence has been noticed everywhere from Greenpoint to Bensonhurst.

. . .

On Friday, Jan. 19, Jarvis hit the halfway mark and started a much-needed break.

He claims he’ll be back on the roads in six weeks — but it’s no longer clear if he’ll make it.

“I feel so awful and so tired,” said Jarvis, who doesn’t warm up or stretch.

24-Hour Daven People

Not as cool as a drive-thru synagogue but close:

At 10 o’clock on a recent Thursday night, the corner of 53rd Street and 13th Avenue in the heart of Borough Park was bustling with traffic. In this neighborhood, an ultra-Orthodox stronghold for the past decade, a sea of religious Jews clad in traditional black and white garb scurried in every direction for late-night prayer, shopping or something to eat. This corner of Brooklyn never sleeps, or so it seems.

The main attraction is Congregation Shomrei Shabbos, a 24-hour synagogue where a service begins every 15 minutes. What started more than three-quarters of a century ago as a tiny congregation has grown into a mainstay of this community: transit hub, soup kitchen, community center, bookstore and prayer hall all in one.

The late-night traffic generated by the synagogue has spilled onto the streets, so much so that over the past few years a neighborhood has literally grown up around it. Restaurants and stores are open long past midnight. Peddlers vie for street space in the wee hours. Religious music streams from a small boombox. Men stop their cars in the middle of darkened streets to announce the birth of a child.

Even in a city renowned for the hours it keeps, the late-night liveliness here is remarkable.

. . .

Thanks to all this activity, the once-inconspicuous synagogue is now a trigger for local nightlife.

“Real estate surrounding the synagogue is in high demand,” said Mendy Handler, owner of Cellular 4 Less, one of several local businesses that stay open past midnight to attract late-night synagogue-goers. His busiest hours are from 6 p.m. to midnight. “People can drop off their phones to be fixed while they are praying next door,” said Sol Oberlander, the store’s manager.

Other businesses have followed suit. Copy Corner stays open until midnight, as does Gal Paz, a music store. Sub Express, a kosher fast-food restaurant whose menu includes what is described as a unique “brisket egg roll,” keeps its doors open until 1 a.m.

Modern America’s Emptiest Promise: “Whatever You Come Looking For, It’s All Going To Be There”

The Daily News reports that Astroland will soon be transformed into a glittery hulking mass of commercialism and obsequiousness:

The big-bucks developer who bought Coney Island’s oldest amusement park plans to replace it with a glitzy $250 million playground anchored by a roller coaster that dips under the Boardwalk, the Daily News has learned.

Double the size of Astroland, the multitiered park will include 21 rides, a hotel, a manmade canal for boat rides, a glass-encased atrium and commercial space.

“We’re trying to deliver on the promise of what Coney Island is,” said Chris Durmick, creative director of Thinkwell Design & Production, the California group that is drawing up the 6-acre plan. “Whatever you come looking for at Coney Island, it’s all going to be there.”

And The Ford Foundation Is Named For A Virulent Anti-Semit . . . The Horror!

How many Brooklyn Paper reporters does it take to write a cheap and easy gotcha piece? Three:

The future home for the Brooklyn Nets will be emblazoned with the corporate logo of a British bank that was founded on the slave trade, collaborated with the Nazis and did business with South Africa’s apartheid government.

Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner announced his mega-deal with Barclays Bank on Thursday — but critics slammed the developer for plastering the controversial bank’s name atop the arena after having courted African-American support for his mega-development.

. . .

At a press conference at the Brooklyn Museum on Thursday, Mayor Bloomberg joined Ratner and Barclays CEO Bob Diamond to officially announce the deal.

When a Brooklyn Paper reporter asked Diamond about his company’s historic connection to the slave trade and apartheid, Bloomberg jumped in and, answering for Diamond, said: “Barclays is a great corporation. We could not have picked a better one. Barclays is as good as we could have found.”

He added that Barclays and Ratner would work together to rebuild basketball courts all over Brooklyn — and then abruptly closed the press conference without allowing follow-up questions, or even letting Diamond answer the original question.