I just noticed the new paint job in the window of Leon’s the other day – was going to take a pic, but now Gothamist has saved me the trouble. Maybe its been like that for ages, but I don’t get by Leon’s during their regular hours.

In 15 years or so, I’ve been to Leon’s maybe half a dozen times. Maybe. That’s because of their hours, not the food (which is OK, not worth going out of your way for). Once upon a time, all the restaurants in the area closed right after lunch – workers’ hours, not for anyone looking for dinner. La Villita used to be that way, but they’ve seen the light. The restaurant that was in the Bonita space was too, in a big way – show up much after 12:30 and they were breaking everything down for the day.

Via Kottke, an exhaustive list of ethnic food in the Washington, D.C. area (from Afghan and, yes, American to West African, and every cuisine in between). A bit off topic, but we find ourselves in the D.C. suburbs fairly often, and they are filled with all sorts of great new immigrant cuisine. The only problem is, we never have time to figure out what’s good and what’s not. So I’m posting this as a bookmark for my future self.

Greenpoint’s ironclad is 147 years old.

Gowanus Lounge (again) has a very good post about the plight of the neighborhood in the face of abandoned or under-financed development sites. As Robert says, this developer blight has the potential to make “the neighborhood unsafe, unfriendly and [ugly]”.

Developer blight is not just abandoned construction sites – it also covers new developments that ignore the basics of maintenance. A few days after one of the recent snowstorms, I noticed that a lot of the unshoveled sidewalks were in front of new – and occupied – developments (of course some of those have proven to be chronic problems). This is on top of all the vacant sites that don’t bother to shovel their walks either (I’m looking at you, Domino).

And its only going to get worse – particularly if all these new condos are underfunding their maintenance reserves.

INSIJS has the on-the-scene report of the Miss Williamsburg fire last night. According to Brooklyn Vegan, no one was hurt, and reports of damage to Monster Island are greatly exaggerated, so there is some good news in all this. As GL points out, the 718 site (it hasn’t been Miss Williamsburg in ages) has been open to mischief for some time now, although as far as I know, there is no word on how the fire actually started.

I remember when MW opened (10-plus years ago?) – before they had the outdoor space. It was one of the first new eateries with any ambition, and was part of the diner renaissance at the time.

I had been meaning to about post this, but GL got there first. The Tracy Feith store at 64 Grand has been in the works for a month or two now, promising another in an ongoing trend of good retail and restaurants for Grand Street. The end of Grand down towards the river has become a particular nexus of design and home furnishings stores, starting with Sodafine and running down to APC and Sprout.

As of this evening, the plywood is down and the windows are in.

Good news, indeed, from Gowanus Lounge. This is one case where the various political forces in the neighborhood came together to do the right thing.

Good work.

Not sure what this is all about, other than an affordable housing project that is (or isn’t) being built on Jefferson Street.

A group of East Williamsburg counterfeiters were apparently not very good money launderers. As a result, the City’s supply of cheap Chanel knock-offs is perilously low.

The Eagle doesn’t say, but the warehouse in question would appear to be at 537 Johnson Avenue, corner of Stewart.