A 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.
Williamsburg Tenants Win Yearlong Fight For Their Homes
Lost City: Goodbye to All That
Brooks of Sheffield has decided to shut down his excellent blog, Lost City. A shame, because his was one of the better written, better researched blogs on ephemeral New York.
And he’s not going out on an optimistic note:
Most of the City is lost after all — the good parts, anyway… It’s like writing a volcano report from Pompei; you know the communiques are going to end sometime.
As it happened, I did a lecture at NYU last week on New York City, its ephemeral nature and its enduring qualities, so I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about these issues lately. And while much is certainly lost, I disagree with Brooks’ pessimism. New York is a city that is defined by change and reinvention, and it has gone through an inordinate amount of both over the past 15 or so years. But the alternative could be worse – a city that stagnates is a dead city. That is why I think that all that change and reinvention – cliched as those terms might be in talking about New York – is good. Though it sure could be managed a bit better.
Brooks is leaving the site and almost 3,000 posts intact. If you’ve never read Lost City, I strongly suggest you spend some time with him.
Occupied: 400 Bedford
Judging by the bikes on the balconies, 400 Bedford Avenue, the new building going up right next to the Williamsburg Bridge is now open for business. Pretty impressive, considering they started construction less than 18 months (a year ago the steel was just starting to go up).
The Seven Worst Outdoor Drinking Spots in New York City
Radegast 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.]
Absolut Ethics
The Time’s Week in Review section had a piece on the fallout from the “viral” marketing campaign to pay local bloggers to promote Absolut’s new Brooklyn brand of vodka. In case you missed it (and you probably did), the whole thing spilled over after the latest Brooklyn Blogfest, when some people took exception to the lack of transparency on the part of the Blogfest’s organizers and local blogs that were shilling for Absolut. This isn’t about the Blogfest itself – clearly that was an above-board sponsorship arrangement, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
There’s also nothing wrong with bloggers getting swag to promote a product. Just tell us. If you’re getting something for promoting a product, let your readers know. It’s that simple.
And while I’m on the subject on blogger ethics (a favorite topic of professional journalists, it seems), if a blogger cuts and pastes an article without crediting the original publication, that’s plagiarism. If a reporter doesn’t give credit for a lead dug up by a blog, that’s poaching. If your publication has “a policy” of not crediting blogs or not crediting stories that have been “independently verified”, you work for a sleazy publication. It’s that simple.
Vandals Attack BP Station in Williamsburg
At Hewes and Kent.
Uncovered: 142 North 1st Street
For the past year or two, the nondescript garage on North 1st between Berry and Bedford has been under renovation. A few months ago, the work revealed something a bit more descript – the ghosts of an old city health clinic. The clinic was constructed in 1938 on the site of what was the village of Williamsburgh’s first public school, and sold at auction in 1988 for $33,000.