Ninth Street’s Not Big Enough For The Both Of Us

On second thought, since it’s Park Slope, it probably is:

Two exes each own a pastry shop: one is the shop they built together, Delices de Paris, and the other is the just-opened patisserie on Seventh Avenue that will be called Zana Café.

Owner Rosana Rosa opened the cute shop without her ex-husband, Michael Martin — with whom she opened Delices de Paris during happier times six years ago.

At her new joint, she sells French-Italian pastries and European products — just like Delices de Paris. And her walls are painted happy yellow — just like Delices de Paris.

No wonder Martin hung a sign in his front window (inset) telling his customers that he has nothing to do with his ex’s new shop — despite how much it looks like Delices de Paris.

“They are completely different products,” he said. “She used the same [paint] to mislead the customers and make them think that the two shops are related.”

. . .

Rosa also said she has nothing to be ashamed of: “I built Delices de Paris with my own hands. When we began, there was no place in Park Slope to get a chocolate croissant, now you have Colson Patisserie on Sixth Avenue and everyone is doing the French thing.”

What about her ex-husband’s sign on his door?

“Well you know divorce is tough, it is complicated,” she explained. “Some people never get over it.”

Silver: That’s Oversight For MSG, Not For Kings

Sheldon Silver is eager to show that he doesn’t just block any major project:

A state oversight board voted yesterday to approve the Atlantic Yards project near Downtown Brooklyn, removing the last regulatory hurdle for one of the biggest real estate projects in the city’s history.

The vote by the Public Authorities Control Board capped three years of battles between opponents and supporters of the $4 billion project. The version approved yesterday — eight million square feet over 22 acres along Atlantic Avenue — includes a huge residential housing complex with about 6,400 market-rate and subsidized apartments, a basketball arena for the Nets, and a smattering of office space, with a design punctuated by elaborate towers that dwarf nearby residential neighborhoods.

The approval of Atlantic Yards, which would be built by Forest City Ratner Companies, came after several other ambitious development projects in New York City — like a West Side football stadium and the Moynihan Station, both in Manhattan — were rejected or stalled by community opposition and political rivalry. Atlantic Yards still faces two lawsuits, with more probably on the way, but Forest City officials say they are confident that they will prevail in court.

. . .

A once-sizable chunk of office space was given over to yet more apartments, to woo Brooklynites eager for housing, and to allay potential concerns by Mr. Silver that the project would compete with commercial properties in the speaker’s Lower Manhattan district.

On paper, the project grew to a peak of more than nine million square feet, before shrinking back to the roughly eight million square feet originally planned — a decrease that did little to mollify those residents and officials who said that the project had been far too big and dense from the beginning.

. . .

Opponents of the project strongly criticized yesterday’s decision.

“From the beginning, the project has been a public-private partnership in which the public has not been represented,” said Kent Barwick, president of the Municipal Art Society, part of a coalition of civic groups known as Brooklyn Speaks that had urged Mr. Silver to delay the project. “The vote today reflected a process that simply did not allow New Yorkers to shape the project, and the result is a plan that will not work for Brooklyn.”

Location Scout: Atlantic Yards.

Who Still Walks Around With Slingshots?

Latter-day Dennis The Menace terrorizes co-workers at Brooklyn high school:

A Brooklyn high-school teacher was sent home after he showed up for work drunk and got into an argument with a co-worker yesterday — then returned to the school with a slingshot to confront the colleague, police and education sources said.

Judson Kilpatrick, a 42-year-old teacher at Paul Robeson HS in Crown Heights, landed in hot water after he started fighting with another teacher and officials discovered that he had been drinking, the sources said.

Kilpatrick was promptly sent home.

But he continued to harass the co-worker by repeatedly calling him on the phone, authorities said.

Kilpatrick then returned to the school after classes let out, armed with the slingshot and empty gun holsters, sources said.

There’s No Zoning For Good Taste

Unless Mayor Mike suddenly moves to crack down on architectural transfat, no one will be able to legislate what many are thinking*:

Manhattan Beach residents are reacting to a new housing study currently underway this week which could impact the way new homes in the community are constructed and existing ones enlarged.

Councilmember Mike Nelson dropped the bombshell at the November meeting of the Manhattan Beach Community Group, held at P.S. 195 on Irwin Street.

For months, Manhattan Beach has been held in the grips of a bitter stalemate between homeowners seeking relief from the housing code violations preventing them from moving into their new homes, and neighbors who insist that they follow the rules and comply with existing zoning regulations.

“Obviously there’s been a problem,” said Nelson, who approached Borough President Marty Markowitz’s office for help in conducting the study, due to be released in January. “Some people want change, and others do not.”

The councilman’s office, however, stressed that the study will not contain any recommendations.

“There’s passion on both sides,” Nelson said. “Hopefully, we can clarify the situation.”

Which means what exactly?

“There are lies, damned lies and statistics,” said Nelson’s deputy chief of staff, Robert Varley. “This will probably be the greatest tool for the facts in the debate. Until the numbers are looked at, it’s tough to come in with an educated opinion.’

Neighbors are skeptical:

Some, however, are not at all happy about the existence of the study and fear it could be a prelude to more relaxed zoning regulations.

“This flies in the face of the Manhattan Beach Community Group,” member and past president Dr. Oliver Klapper said. “The Manhattan Beach Community Group is a group with 75 years of success whose 58 members met and voted unanimously not to change zoning in our neighborhood.”

*For a representative example, don’t miss the article’s photo.

See also: “Bloated On Beaumont St.”

Fold Your Slice Like A Man!

Don’t say Domino’s never did anything for you, because that Brooklyn-style thing has paid off:

Even though the new TV ads promise an authentic taste of the borough at its franchise stores, out-of-towners who are hankering for the real thing have been flocking to a unique tour that eats its way across Brooklyn.

Tony Muia’s “Slice of Brooklyn Pizza Tour” visits two famed pizzerias — Grimaldi’s and L&B Spumoni Gardens — and tops it off with a four-hour tour of the neighborhoods along the way.

Muia, 41, of Bensonhurst, started the tour a year ago. But interest has soared since the Domino’s ads hit the airwaves last month.