"Some of you are completely insane. The community protest is completely valid. The end result will be compromise for both parties. The future will contain a Chinatown that is modified and cleaner but ultimately still authentic. An empassioned community will ensure some of the local flavor is maintained." [EV / LES Rezone: Chinatown's Rage]

The latest resident of the Williamsburg waterfront is a big 28-by-16 foot sculpture installed yesterday behind the Toll Brothers Northside Piers. It was made by a Burg-based artist in a studio upstate, then driven to Brooklyn. Like many other thing related to Burg developments, it arrived a few weeks late. No word on when the "public accessible" waterfront access behind the Toll project will be open to the public. [Brownstoner]

Look, we're not going to say that we're happy about the crippled state of most of New York City's megaprojects, but if the credit-crunched real estate market means we get to see more awesome graphics like this one, we say bring on the slowdown! [Gotham Gazette]

Down in Marine Park in Southern Brooklyn, a bunch of local children have been made very sad by adults, which is nothing new, except that they had designed a park for a local public school and when they got up to present their plans, residents of the street where it would go got up and started protesting it. "The kids were obviously sad...after all who would protest a park?" And you thought people in Carroll Gardens were cranky. [GerritsenBeach.Net]

Lost City reports that NYU is backing off its controversial plan to demolish and rebuild the Provincetown Playhouse on MacDougal Street in the Village, with an official announcement expected later today: Details are sketchy, but the idea is the university—known for its cold-blooded passion for swinging wrecking balls at pieces of New York history—will keep the theatre building in place and build a new structure around it, rather than destroy the entire address in favor of a new edifice. [Lost City; Provincetown Playhouse coverage]

In the most depressing piece of news to come along today, the opening of the big Xanadu proect in Jersey is being postponed until next summer. The $2 billion retail and entertainment complex was supposed to open in November. No indoor ski slope or fishing. No mega-bowling. No big wheel. We are doomed. [Newsday; previously]

Now that operator BD Hotels has been cast out of the Hotel Chelsea, the Hotel Chelsea Blog wants residents to revolt against the rules put in place by BD: "That area behind the desk is a common area that was stolen from us by BD. And now that they are no more, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t reclaim it. If you have mail in your box, go back there and get it yourself. And strike a blow for freedom!" ¡Viva la revolución! [Living With Legends]

Yesterday was the last day of business at John De Lorenzo & Bro. metalworkers, which has operated out of a one-story building at 43 Grand Street since 1907. Thomas De Lorenzo, 84, who owns the shop with his son Thomas 2nd, sold their Soho building (at West Broadway) to a developer "seeking to put up a luxury condominium building." Interesting! Both One York and Soho Mews are mere steps away. So, what's the new luxury building coming to the block? [NYT]

This has to be wrong: "Sources familiar with the discussions" about where Real World BK will be set say that BellTel Lofts in not-at-all hipster Downtown Brooklyn will be the pick. Wow. A producer did confirm that MTV scouted penthouse units at BellTel, but also said they're considering Greenpoint, Williamsburg, Dumbo, Park Slope, Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn Heights, Red Hook and Coney Island. So, how many developers will be emailing in the next week saying they've been scouted? [Brooklyn Paper]

A Brooklyn landlord's been indicted for trying to kill a tenant he wanted to evict from a commercial building in Bay Ridge. With a bomb. The case dates back to 2002 and the tenant lost a leg in the blast. The tenant owed $100,000 in back rent. The landlord's lawyer says there's more to the case than "meets the eye." [AP/amNY; NYP]

After already branding the city's proposed EV/LES rezoning "racist," Chinatown supporters turned up at a Community Board 3 meeting to make their voices heard, and heard, and heard: "But shortly after Huh stepped up to the microphone, a man in the audience interrupted him to ask for a Chinese translation. Someone else then asked for a Spanish translation. C.B. 3 Chairperson David McWater explained that the community board doesn’t have money to pay for translators. At that point, more than 100 audience members started chanting, 'Chinatown — not for sale; Lower East Side — not for sale' ... Protesters chanted for more than half an hour." [Villager]

"New York really needs a single planning czar -- the number of missed opportunities for re-use of beautiful old buildings is no less than the number of mega-projects that have failed, or have no one agency clearly in charge of them. London or Hamburg would turn this structure into an art museum or symphony hall. New York destroys it to hand the site over to Scarano/"Hot Karl" for a cheaply built "luxury" tower. Guess who gets the fly-covered end of that shit stick." [As Burg Power Plant Falls, A Vision of What It Could Be]