Month: December 2011

New CB1 Liquor License Rules

Aaron Short has the info on the new rules and guidelines that CB1 instituted for new liquor license applications. Most of the rules codify what CB1 has been looking for all along, and try to rein in the biggest sources of complaints, in particular outdoor areas – limiting hours of operation for outdoor spaces, etc. (the rules don’t require a full kitchen for bars with outdoor spaces, as reported, but they do require seated food service at all times). As Short notes, all talk of moratoriums and (worse) a ban on liquor licenses in “residentially-zoned” areas (which accounts for 90% of CB1) are off the table.

And for those concerned that the new rules will restrict nightlife, its worth noting that CB1 approved 9 (out of 11) new licenses this month, all of which voluntarily met the new rules (as have most of the applicants for the past year or more). The two rejections were no-shows.

Santorini: Pay What You Feel the Food Is Worth – Forever

What it boils down to is that people are inherently good, and when a decision like this is left up to them they’ll usually take the high road.

And with that, Santorini ends the experiment and makes it a permanent thing. At any price, the food is worth it.

Midnight Lick Leases Space in Williamsburg

This is an interesting development – Kalmon Dolgin/Midnight Lick is converting a number of buildings in industrial locations for creative-arts businesses. Yet another example of viable (and job-creating) uses for former manufacturing buildings that don’t involve condos, clubs or hotels. Encouraging.

Most Holy Trinity Church Holiday Tours

Urban Oyster is leading tours of Most Holy Trinity on Montrose Avenue on December 17 and January 7. The church in its current incarnation dates to 1885 (William Schickel, architect), but the congregation itself goes back to 1841, when it was founded by German immigrants. It was the second Catholic parish in Williamsburg, and Brooklyn first National parish.

Urban Oyster does some great tours – this one is also for a good cause, to raise money for “Trinity Human Service Center, a nondenominational food pantry and charity that operates in the church basement”.

Hipster Highway Hellzone

12/06/2011 | Comment

‘It’s well known that it is a dangerous place,’ said grieving mom Rachel McCulloch, whose hipster son, 28-year-old Neil Chamberlain, was killed during an early morning hit and run on McGuinness in April 2010.

Note to the Daily News – it’s not just hipsters who are losing their lives on McGuinness Boulevard. And Chamberlain’s mother is right – McGuinness Boulevard is a well-known accident waiting to happen. Since 1995, this 15-block, 4-lane “boulevard” has seen over 100 pedestrians or cyclists run over by motor vehicles1. 11 of those pedestrians lost their lives (almost half of them were 60 years old or older), as did 3 cyclists. As best as I can tell, only 2 of these 14 fatalities involved “hipsters”.

For the record, here is a partial list of the people who have lost their lives trying to cross the “hipster hellzone”:

Richard Iwaszkiewicz – 61, a baker was hit in April 1995
In 1996 an unidentified woman, aged 60 was killed
Joseph LoCurto, a construction worker on the McGuinness Boulevard renovation project was killed in December, 1998
In 2002, an unidentified male pedestrian in his 30s was killed
Liz Byrne, aged 45 was killed in September 2005
Maria Piatkiewicz, 67, a neighborhood resident was run over by a van in July 2008
Solange Raulston, a 33-year-old DJ was killed while riding her bicycle in December 2009
Neil Chamberlain a 28-year-old web designer was killed on his bike in April 2010

The thing is, McGuinness Boulevard has been a hell zone for years now. Write an article about that, and skip the gratuitous “hipster” headlines.

1 The data here was compiled from Crashstat.org, which has information through 2009 only; the names of the victims were compiled through Google searches and searches of local newspapers, like the Daily News.↩