Happy Halloween, neighbors! It's going to be a gorgeous Saturday with Gowanus filled with trick-or-treaters, so have your candy ready. There’s a pirate party on the canal Saturday and Sunday Fourth Avenue will be filled with nearly 60,000 runners. Early voting runs through Sunday, and Election Day is Tuesday, with polls open 6am to 9pm.
Luckily, we have one extra hour of weekend. (Clocks fall back Sunday morning.) Have a great weekend, Gowanauts!

Now Open / Coming Soon — A favorite Court Street florist, a coffee shop with an all-vegan pastry case, and a Bond Street skincare spa.

The Big Story — Marathon Sunday on Fourth Avenue.

Things to Do — A pirate party on the canal, a Halloween night of comedy and dancing, then a week of shows from Buffy to a festival of sound.

The Local — A Smith Street cafe, its biscuit sandwich and the apprenticeship program behind it.

Development Watch — New renderings for Anagram Gowanus.

Quick Hits — Marathon posters from our friends at Bakline.

Twenty-Two Years of Skincare on Bond Street
Tres Belle Spa
105 Bond Street
Tres Belle has been at it since 2004 and is a partner spa for Biologique Recherche, the French skincare line. The menu runs from signature and lymphatic facials to lash tint and lift and laser hair removal. Clients keep coming back, saying the team and treatment are worth it.

A Court Street Florist Expert at the Casual Look
Edelweiss Floral Atelier
164 Court Street
Owner Eka Dara has arranged Cobble Hill’s flowers since 2012, with a style that leans loose and garden-inspired rather than stiff and formal. Stems come from Holland, Africa, and South America. Weddings are a specialty, from arches and chuppahs to elopement bouquets, with a floral trial before the big day. We have bought many bouquets here ourselves over the years for good reason.

A Garage-Style Coffee Shop Where the Treats Are All Vegan
Principles GI Coffee House
139 9th Street
Principles takes coffee seriously, with pour-overs built around a rotating lineup of rare and unusual beans. The room is big and reads part workshop, part living room, and it is bike-friendly, with tools and pumps on hand. Everything sweet is vegan, donuts included when they are in, and drinks come in, ready for this, real mugs.

Nearly 60,000 runners come up Fourth Avenue on Sunday, November 1, and for a few hours our eastern edge belongs to the TCS New York City Marathon. It is the 50th year of the five-borough course, and it is worth some time this weekend. The whole stretch turns festive. Music fills the air, people party on the curb, and live drumlines and school brass bands keep the avenue loud for hours. It is also the easiest way we know to run into half your neighbors in one morning, no plans required. Bring a friend, claim a patch of sidewalk, and make it a standing date.

The starting waves leave Staten Island from about 8am to 11:30am, so the runners keep coming for hours. Fourth Avenue closes to traffic around 7am and reopens in stages through the afternoon, with exact times set by New York Road Runners and the NYPD. The crossing zones the race lists for Brooklyn are at Lafayette Avenue and Fulton Street and at Bedford Avenue and Broadway, and none of them is on Fourth Avenue, but when there’s more space between the runners, you can make your way across. But there are plenty of options for coffee, snacks, and lunch on either side.

The biggest crowd is at Fourth Avenue and Flatbush Avenue, where runners reach mile 8 and turn toward Lafayette Avenue. Any block of Fourth Avenue will do, and your neighbors will already be there.

Pirates of the Gowanus Halloween Party with Funkrust Brass Band at Gowanus Dredgers
Carroll Street Bridge
Sat Oct 31 · 5:30pm
The Dredgers float Funkrust Brass Band members down the canal for a pirate-themed Halloween dance party. You can watch from the esplanade or from the Carroll Street and Union Street bridges. Pick a bridge, bring a costume if you have one, and let the band do the rest.

Hot Gossip with Jonathan van Halem at Union Hall
702 Union Street
Sat Oct 31 · 7:30pm
Jonathan van Halem, known for his work with Clickhole and Stephen Colbert Presents Tooning Out the News, hosts a stand-up night with Jon Rudnitsky, Ash Diggs, Meredith Dietz and Jenna Sherriton. It is the early comedy slot on a night full of late ones, so it suits anyone who wants to be home before the costumed partiers get loud.

Halloween Spooktacular at Union Hall
702 Union Street
Sat Oct 31 · Doors 9:30pm, show 10pm
Jenny Gorelick hosts a comedy lineup with Josh Nasser, Yoni Lotan, Ellen Harrold, Shaunak Godkhindi, and Megasquirt, plus spooky surprises nobody explained in advance. Costume accordingly.

Slow Jams NYC Halloween Party at Littlefield
635 Sackett Street
Sat Oct 31 · Show 11pm
An R&B party built around slow jams, love songs, and toxic anthems, dressed up for Halloween. The clocks go back at 2am, so the late night comes with a small bonus.

Devil Baby Halloween Edition with DJ Jenny Lion at Union Hall
702 Union Street
Sat Oct 31 · 11:59pm
The Halloween edition of Union Hall’s Saturday dance party runs until 3:30am. With the clocks falling back at 2am, you get the last hour twice.

Steve Martin Presents with Andrew Dismukes and Michael Good at Union Hall
702 Union Street
Sun Nov 1 · 5pm
Saturday Night Live’s Andrew Dismukes and Michael Good host a long-running variety show of the city’s comics, and no, it is not that Steve Martin. The lineup includes Allison O’Conor, Wally Baram, Ashton Womack, Neema Naz, Sarah Adelman and Stevie Baek. A 5pm start leaves you room to watch the marathon first.

Stéphane Wrembel at Barbès
376 9th Street
Sun Nov 1 · Show 8pm
The guitarist who wrote the theme to Midnight in Paris plays one of his Sunday-night sets, which he runs almost every week. That means you can go once on the strength of this blurb and still have time to decide whether you are a regular.

Setting with Wednesday Knudsen at Public Records
233 Butler Street
Wed Nov 4 · Doors 7pm
Setting built its improvisational approach by playing live, and its self-titled second album, its first for Thrill Jockey, mixes spontaneous creation with polyrhythmic grooves. Wednesday Knudsen, a multi-instrumentalist with two decades in the experimental scenes of New York and Western Massachusetts, shares the bill. Doors at 7pm means you can hear it all and still be asleep at a reasonable hour.

Cold Plunge with Kurt Braunohler at Union Hall
702 Union Street
Wed Nov 4 · Show 7:30pm
Kurt Braunohler hosts a recurring comedy night that has drawn names like David Cross and Janeane Garofalo in past months. A midweek 7:30pm start keeps it civilized.

Once More, With Feeling Live! 25th Anniversary Show at Littlefield
635 Sackett Street
Thu Nov 5 · Show 8pm
A concert reading of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer musical episode, with a full cast and a live band, staged just ahead of the 25th anniversary of its first airing on November 6, 2001. If you already know who Sweet is, you know where you will be.

Jessie “Jetski” Johnson at Union Hall
702 Union Street
Thu Nov 5 · Show 10pm
A stand-up from Phoenix by way of Los Angeles who left music school and a trumpet scholarship behind for comedy. She is a cast member on both the Kill Tony and Bad Friends podcasts, so a few people in the room will know her voice before she says a word. A 10pm Thursday show is a commitment, but a manageable one.

Mousse T. at Public Records
233 Butler Street
Thu Nov 5 · Doors 10:30pm
Mousse T. is the Hannover-based DJ and producer behind the house hit “Horny ‘98” and “Sex Bomb,” his hit with Tom Jones. Doors at 10:30pm on a Thursday is for people who treat Friday as a suggestion.

DURATIONS Festival at Public Records
233 Butler Street
Mon Nov 9 · Doors 6pm
The fifth DURATIONS runs November 9 to 15 across Public Records, Pioneer Works, Roulette and the Whitney, with seven days of music, talks and audiovisual work. Planned highlights include William Basinski’s three-night run in The Sound Room and sets from Suzanne Ciani, Kara-Lis Coverdale and Matana Roberts. Come ready to listen for a while.

Emma’s Torch
345 Smith Street

The egg and cheese on a buttermilk biscuit is the order, and the biscuit is the reason. It leans pillowy more than crumbly, the scrambled egg stays soft, and the house-made sausage add-on brings real seasoning. It comes out fast, at a price that fits the size.

The rest of the menu runs wider than a biscuit counter has any need to. A big brown butter pancake. Pistachio French toast with pistachio custard. Shakshuka over crispy rice. Steak and eggs with barbecue-spiced skirt steak and broccoli rabe. The pastry case runs to a smoked cheddar broccoli tart, cinnamon buns and a chai-spiced donut. The drinks keep going too, with a house-made chai built on ginger, cardamom, cloves and fennel, and a Hawaij mocha made with a Yemeni spice blend. Breakfast and brunch plates run from 8am to 3pm and pastries and coffee from 7am to 4pm, Tuesday through Sunday. The cafe is closed Mondays.

The corner room is glass-walled, and the shaded private patio is a very nice place to sit when the weather allows.

Everyone cooking here is a student. Emma’s Torch is a nonprofit that runs a paid culinary apprenticeship for refugees, asylees, and survivors of human trafficking, and the cafe is its classroom. The mission is painted on the front window, and plenty of regulars come for years before they read it.

Kerry Brodie started it in June 2016 as a pop-up in Red Hook, after leaving a communications career for culinary school. The Smith Street cafe opened in May 2018 in the former Wilma Jean space, and the name comes from Emma Lazarus, the poet whose words are on the Statue of Liberty. Ten years in, the program has taken on students from more than 75 countries, and a second cafe opened this summer in Silver Spring, Maryland.

New renderings of Anagram Gowanus, the 20-story rental tower at 450 Union Street, give the clearest look yet at SO-IL’s design, with rotated floor plates, scalloped massing, terraces, loggias and Juliet balconies on a tan brick facade. The 158 apartments range from studios to three-bedrooms, and about a quarter will have private terraces. At least 20 percent of the homes will be affordable, and the plan also sets aside six studios for Arts Gowanus and local artists, plus a public esplanade of roughly 5,700 square feet along the canal. It is the first Brooklyn building for the Anagram brand, from Tankhouse with MacArthur Holdings and Global Holdings. The tower topped out in January, and the scaffolding has been coming down since, so the street view is finally catching up with the renderings.

Bakline at 424a 3rd Avenue started in 2008 as a rugby shirt brand, built by Rob Schnabel and Matt Vosburgh, who played together for the New York Rugby Club and wanted to capture the game's spirit. Since then, it has turned to running and hosts weekly group runs around the neighborhood. Bakline also has its own screen-printing studio, The Press Room, where it makes its own brand and custom apparel on site. This week it puts that to work for the marathon, hand-printing posters that carry your finishing time, with a photo booth, Monday and Tuesday after the race from 10am to 8pm. Finishers and fans are both welcome, and it is a good excuse to see a Gowanus brand in its own shop.

Wave at a pirate tonight and cheer for a stranger on Fourth Avenue tomorrow.

If something's happening out there, we want to know. Email, photo, neighborhood gossip — we'll take it.
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Exploring Gowanus · Every Saturday