1) Downtown Brooklyn: Breaking news, per Daily Intel: "A federal judge this afternoon dismissed Goldstein v. Pataki, the key eminent-domain case seeking to block Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards megadevelopment. It's a major setback for the Develop Don't Destroy crowd, right? Wrong, says Matthew Brinckerhoff, DDDB's lead lawyer." Click through for the fully awesome justification. [Daily Intel]
2) Battery Park City: Starchitect Frank Gehry will design his first-ever playground for the Battery Park, a one-acre play space that boasts a green comfort station with vegetal walls. Lock up the kids! [amny]
3) Turtle Bay: A reader emails, "I live on 49th and 2nd avenue in Sterling Plaza. My apt faces south and I've noticed the demolition on the southwest corner of 49th and 2nd (above). I was told a 20 story building might be erected. Do you have any insight? It should be noted that this construction borders the landmarked townhouses of 49th and 48th streets. There seems to be a massive transformation taking shape these days in Turtle Bay with the most recent Venetto building under construction." Quite the construction site. Ladies and gents, what we have here, near as we can tell—is The Splendido! YES! OH YES! [CurbedWire Inbox]
4) East Village: It's been mostly quiet at the old PS64/Charas/El Bohio building on Avenue B as late. Andrew Berman and Co. drop us line with this word: "A demonstration will be held on Thursday, June 7th at 6:30 pm at 9th Street and Avenue B to protest a recent court decision overturning a City decision which prevents the development of a 19-story 'dorm-for-hire' on the site." Further reports from the scene as events warrant. [CurbedWire Inbox]
5) New Jersey: Emails a tipster, "Looks like the NY Waterway has abandoned their summer ferry service to the beaches at Sandy Hook. They claimed that it was because 'not enough people used it.' Which seems crazy cause every time I went there was a near riot to get on board with many people getting turned away. Weird." [CurbedWire Inbox]