Desk space for start-ups and freelancers will be available in the former Hot Potato offices (the Northpoint Lofts on North 11th and Driggs).
26 Aug 2010Things might be heating up at the Greenpoint Hospital:
Councilwoman Diana Reyna (D-Williamsburg) is vowing to fight a plan to build housing at the site of shuttered Greenpoint Hospital after a private Bronx-based developer was picked to build the housing over the coalition of local nonprofits she favored.29 Jul 2010
This is a couple of weeks old, but Aaron Short has written one of the best pro/con analyses of the new loft law that I have seen.
28 Jul 2010As you've probably heard, Relish closed last weekend (we happened to be there for dinner the Wednesday before it closed, so we (unwittingly) had a last meal there). For many years, Relish's diner was a ghost ship in the neighborhood - this cool old building that sat vacant and unused. I guess now it will go back to being a ghost ship.
24 Jul 2010Gothamist [via FreeWilliamsburg] has a new take on the future of the Kedem Winery site, or more specifically, the huge parking lot there. According to the post, JellyNYC is going to start a smaller Saturday concert series somewhere in South Williamsburg. The concerts would be outdoors, and the original Gothamist speculation was that the parking lot at Kedem Winery was the chosen location. JellyNYC has confirmed the new series, but - while not naming a location - has said that they won't be at Kedem.
If the concerts are really in South Williamsburg (as opposed to the Southside), this would open a whole new chapter in the hipster-Hasid culture wars.
09 Jul 2010Aaron Short follows up on the CineMagic story at Kedem Winery.
Sort of makes you wonder about all those claims about manufacturing no longer being viable on the waterfront. This project will bring far more high-paying, good-benefit jobs to the waterfront than the eventual mixed-use residential/retail project will. The problem isn't that manufacturing isn't viable, the problem is that we haven't changed our definition of "industrial" to match the changing face of manufacturing in 21st-century Brooklyn.
08 Jul 2010When asked whether she lived in [Bushwick], Ms. Snyder replied: “I live by the Montrose stop on the L, which is technically East Williamsburg. But I tell everybody I live in Bushwick.”03 Jul 2010
The law passed by the legislature is aimed more at SROs and apartment hotels in Manhattan, but should help enforcement of illegal "hotels" in Williamsburg.
02 Jul 2010Only one minor injury, thankfully.
02 Jul 2010In the end, construction of the Chrystie St. Connection took 10 years while K trains ran through the Cut for just eight.
But now it's back in business for the M train.
30 Jun 2010At the brand-new Capital NY blog Katherine Jose has a blow-by-blow of the City Council's deliberations on the Domino rezoning (spoiler - it was very unexciting).
[I'm excited to see how Capital NY works out - they have some great talent and pretty far-reaching mandate.]
30 Jun 2010The Times has an update on the saga of 172 North 8th Street, whose residents were evacuated last June by DOB, let back in, and then evacuated again.
Among other things, the tenants and the landlord are now fighting over who did the most recent work in the cellar that led to the latest vacate order. The tenants say the landlord was trying to excavate the basement to create retail space. The landlord suggests the tenants are culpable. The landlord's lawyer says "eh, maybe it just happened".
30 Jun 2010DOT met with the Community Board last night about the Kent Avenue bike lanes and traffic on Wythe. Highlights included the news that Kent Avenue is now the second busiest bike route, traffic on Wythe is up 600%, and DOT is planning on installing traffic lights along Wythe at North 6th, North 4th, Grand and South 4th (no news about lights on Kent, though, which surely needs them).
30 Jun 2010Aaron Short has the story.
22 Jun 2010NY1 has the story.
22 Jun 2010The Daily News on the show before the show at yesterday's council hearing. Jump to the end for the real story:
The inside word is that it will have to go through some modifications but is expected to eventually pass, with or without [Vito] Lopez' backing. Mayor Bloomberg has strongly supported the development.
Negotiation and modification is the name of the game when land-use items reach the Council (viz. Rose Plaza, Greenpoint/Williamsburg 2005 rezoning). But right now, there are no negotiations happening, which has a lot of people frustrated. Is that because Domino is refusing to come to the table or because Domino doesn't know who to sit down with?.
22 Jun 2010Last week, the City Planning Commission approved the New Domino in a unanimous vote. One of the only changes the commission demanded from the project's developers was to eliminate one parking lot, reducing the number of parking spaces from 1,694 to 1,428. The 266-space reduction was not based on studies or research. It came straight from a request by Borough President Marty Markowitz.
Any reduction in parking is a benefit to the community, but clearly there is room for more to be cut.
17 Jun 2010This is across the river, but worth a look: it's based on the excellent work my students did in the Spring studio at Columbia.
16 Jun 2010Turns out the legal saga at 172 North 8th Street is not over (and the NY1 report I linked to yesterday didn't tell the whole story).
The tenants have been thrown out of their homes again, and again by DOB. DOB apparently discovered new damage to the foundation, after having lifted the vacate order issued a year ago.
As for the tenants, they weren't let back into the building when the vacate order was lifted, they had to force their way back in. And they were prepared to live there without water, electric or gas.
UPDATE: Aaron Short has more on this:
City officials vacated tenants from the four-story N. Eighth Street house once again on Tuesday night after discovering that the corner of the basement had been destabilized and the building was close to collapsing... City contractors worked well into the night to temporarily add several 10-foot-long wooden beams to support the shaky wall, stabilizing the foundation.
A complete nightmare.
16 Jun 2010New Domino would fit in much better in Los Angeles than it would in Williamsburg.
I guess the green building crowd is buying into Domino's reduction in parking (to only 1,428 spaces) as a step in the right direction.
UPDATE: The original link was not working for some reason. The article is here (http://bit.ly/dunvaS) 15 Jun 2010
Today marks the 106th anniversary of the General Slocum fire. 1,021 passengers, almost all of them German-Americans from Kleindeutschsland (the East Village and Lower East Side), died as the steamboat burned in the middle of the East River. It was the city's worst loss of life during the 20th century.
15 Jun 2010A year after work by the landlord undermined the structural integrity of their building, eight families have moved back into their homes at 172 North 8th Street (Juliet Linderman wrote about their travails last year). Thanks in large measure to Marty Needleman and his crew at Brooklyn Legal Services Corporation A, who did some heroic work on behalf of the tenants.
15 Jun 2010Radegast Hall is one of Eater's 7 worst outdoor drinking spots.
Why?
Because it's, uh, not actually outdoors. Oh, and there are too many kids on the weekend [kudos to Jack Barber in the comments for laying out once for and for all what are family-friendly and what are kid-free places in 11211].
[Eater also gives Bushwick Country Club the Yogi Berra treatment.]
14 Jun 2010At Hewes and Kent.
13 Jun 2010I missed this (luckily Heather is on it): the folks at Greenpoint Reformed Church have added a Friday afternoon flea market to their list of good works.
06 Jun 2010