Month: June 2008

The rise, fall and subsequent rise of Bushwick, via City Journal. A decent history, though I wonder about the final gentrification-is-nothing-but-good conclusion:

Still, there’s little evidence that the trans­formation will do anything but benefit most Bushwick residents. “Gentrification drives few low-income residents from their homes,” writes Columbia University urban-planning professor Lance Freeman, who has studied the effects of neighborhood change in New York. Instead, demographic changes take place gradually, prompted not by precipitous hikes in rent but by normal turnover in the housing market. Far from pushing people out, Freeman has found, neighborhood upgrades like Bushwick’s encourage many residents to stay and enjoy the fruits of revival.

Seems McCain is also ready, willing and able to extend Bush’s war powers claims.

Cloying, annoying and just downright obnoxious Williamsburg piece from the Observer (hey! there are a lot of young people here doing crazy young people things!).

They do manage to get a couple of things right without being obnoxious about it, like Aurora and activism. On the latter: “after you’ve been here a while, you may find that some things need improvement”. Complete with solutions from City Council candidate Evan Thies and a plug for NAG.

From the inbox:

Please join the Newtown Creek Monitoring Committee & DEP for the Digester Egg lighting ceremony.
Tonight. June 3, 2008, 8 p.m.
Newtown Creek Wastewater Pollution Control Plant Nature Walk
(entrance gate located at Provost St & Paidge Ave. )
Greenpoint, Brooklyn 11222

Which gives me a good excuse to post this picture again:

Photo: Fred Conrad (via NYT)

It seems those grand plans for new parkland in Greenpoint and Williamsburg are a little bit behind schedule. Not surprising, really. Much of Bushwick Inlet is contingent upon acquisition (in a rising real estate market) or eminent domain. The MTA lot on Commercial (which is part of a land swap for both open space and affordable housing) is contingent upon locating comparable space elsewhere for the MTA (when all of the city-owned land in North Brooklyn has already been promised to others). The sludge tank site at Barge Park is contingent upon the relocation of the sludge tank (which is on hold until the city can get new barges to ply Newtown Creek).

Seems like the only thing that is not contingent based is the construction of luxury towers in Williamsburg (which will mean the completion of an esplanade sooner rather than later).

By winning the Giro d’Italia yesterday, Alberto Contador became the first rider to win the Tour de France and the Giro back to back since his fellow Spaniard Miguel Indurain did it 1993 (Indurain did it in the same year; Contador across years).

But the best Grand Tour rider won’t be defending his Tour de France title this year. In whst dhould go down as one of the more boneheaded responses to its ongoing doping scandal, the organizers of the Tour – have dropped Contador’s (new) team from this year’s invitation list.