It appears that that whole moment-of-truth thing might have been a tad premature. I just learned that the owner’s attorney’s have requested a one-week adjournment. No word yet on BSA’s response to the request.

Developing, as they say.

For those unaware, Bedford Ave between Metropolitan Avenue and North 9th street will be open as a pedestrian mall from noon to 7pm for the next four Saturdays (July 19th, 26th, August 2nd & 9th) as an experiment in re-imagining the use of public space in the neighborhood.

Neighbors Allied for Good Growth (NAG) is one of the organizers of the event, and they are looking for volunteers for Williamsburg Walks to help with either with event logistics or with non-partisan voter registration, especially for this upcoming Saturday (July 19th). If you are interested, contact NAG at (718) 384-2248 or email mfs at mikebot dot com.

More information about the event is available at http://www.billburg.com/walks/about/

NY WATER TAXI

Photo:Cassandra

Also while I was away, the Water Taxi returned to Shaefer Landing – finally! Months late, and more than half a year after the initial “seasonal” shutdown, service was finally restored to the full East River route on the 7th. And today, I enjoyed my first summer evening ride up the East River – as a special bonus, the voyage now includes an up-close look at the waterfalls.

Not that there’s nothing to complain about – since last winter, NYWT has adjusted its afternoon commuter schedule, eliminating the 7:00 p.m. boat and adding a boat at 3 p.m. I’m not sure if that’s for the bankers or the tourists, but it sucks for anyone who doesn’t work in the financial sector (a growing proportion of downtown’s workforce).

Still, it was a beautiful evening, and a great ride.

No Gas.

The last post, in particular Will Femia’s photo, reminds me that Mobil sign in Will’s photo is no more. Above is a picture I took on 1 July, showing the new chain link fence and the decapitated Mobil sign. The sign itself was lay in the parking lot, freshly cut, the day I walked by. I have no idea when a Mobil (or any other gas) station last operated at this site – never in my Williamsburg life. The service station moved out in 2001 or so (they’re now at McGuinness and Java).

Based on this recent activity, the site is being prepped for work. Shockingly, it will not be luxury housing. The owner wants to open a Tibetan cultural center of some sort. This requires a partial rezoning, as part of the site does not allow commercial uses as of right.

144 North 8th Street (aka The Finger Building)
Photo: A Test of Will

The moment of truth for the Finger Building may finally be at hand. On 22 July, the Board of Standard and Appeals will hear an appeal by community residents on the BSA’s previous decision to allow the construction of the building to go forward. (That decision is still pending resolution of the partnership dispute over air rights between developer Mendel Brach and the owner of the adjoining properties, Scott Specter.) The hearing will be at the BSA, 40 Rector Street in Manhattan, 10 a.m. on 22 July. By mass transit, take the J/M/Z to Broad Street or the 1 via the L to Rector Street.

Slick’s in 2006. That’s Mike in the sweatshirt.
Photo: Jac Currie

If you’ve ever eaten at Relish or had a drink at Zebulon, you’ve certainly noticed the motorcycle shop at the corner of North 3rd and Wythe. On summer days, you’d find the proprietor, Slick, sitting out front. Sometimes, he’d even work on a bike, but mostly he was talking about them (and letting Mike do most of the work). In the evening, he’d watch TV on a small black & white set out front. Year round, the line of bikes out front would get moved across the street from time to time in rough accordance with City’s street-cleaning regulations.

Slick, who was well into 70s, passed away a few weeks ago. As best as I could tell from his stories, Slick was originally from Philadelphia, where he got into some sort of trouble that necessitated a move to NYC. That was back in the late 50s. Slick was a hell of a mechanic and also a racer – drag races in the streets and flat tracks in the dirt. For a long time, Slick was a Harley man – he raced them and he fixed them. But as Harley started losing the racing edge to Japanese bikes, Slick became disillusioned with the marque. Eventually he stopped working on Harleys altogether, and switched over to the Japanese bikes (if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em). To his dying day, Slick was disgusted with Harley, or at least with what Harley had become since the 60s.

As I said, Slick was a good mechanic, but he worked at his pace, which was usually dictated by his convenience. About 12 or 13 years ago, a friend of mine bought a KZ 200 cafe racer wheelie machine. The bike was in good shape, but the fork seals were shot, and no matter how hard we tried, we couldn’t pull the seals. We brought the forks down to Slick’s to get him to pull the seals with the proper tool. It was a nice Spring day, and Slick was sitting in front of the shop. He looked at the tubes, looked at the tools around him, and announced it would take him at least three hours to do the job. He didn’t have the tool handy, and wasn’t going to get up to find it. Just as we were leaving, Slick saw something on the ground – the tool he needed to pull the seals – picked it up, popped the seals out in less than a minute and charged us $20 for the effort.

More recently, I was rebuilding a CB 750. I had the bike running well, and was working on the cosmetics. The side covers were painted, but the badges were missing. I stopped by and asked Slick if he had them. “Oh yeah, oh yeah, I got ’em right in here – come back tomorrow night and I’ll have ’em for you.” Tomorrow night, it was the same story, and it continued that way for a good week and a half. Eventually, Slick did look for the badges, and found them exactly where he knew they were all along. A few months later, I sold the bike, and about a year after than, it appeared in the line of bikes in front of Relish. It sat there a while, and then someone bought it off Slick. Six months later, it was back at Slicks a different color, but definitely the same bike. He recognized it and so did I.

Slick was always best when he was hanging out, shooting the shit about motorcycles, the old racing days, and how royally Harley screwed up its racing program. He would talk to anyone about bikes, even me on my European bikes, and even Harley riders. But he wouldn’t work on Harleys – said he sold all his tools and parts years ago. He particularly liked to talk to the kids in the neighborhood, and a lot of kids would take their parents out of their way to see him. He couldn’t always remember kids’ names, but he’d write them down on the side of the store next to usual seat. Even that didn’t help – he never got my son’s name right, but he tried. We’ll both miss him.

New York Slick’s Corner – may he be in a biker’s paradise.

Yesterday, I posted about yet another delay in the resumption of water taxi service at Schaefer Landing, and almost immediately had a comment noting that the dock installation was imminent. And then this morning, another post from the same commenter stating that the dock was going in at that moment (2:00 p.m.). Sure enough, when I went across the bridge this afternoon, there was a barge and crane in place in front of Schaefer. If it wasn’t installing a dock, it was certainly getting ready to. Clearly, my post shook things up and jump started the process…

Seriously, though, this is great news, and hopefully means that NYWT will be operating at Schaefer come next Monday morning. Though given the track record of the past few months, its far from a safe bet.

UPDATE: Yesterday afternoon, Curbed posted photos of the arrival of the dock and barge, including this one:

The Water Taxi dock arrives!
(The dock is the small thing floating in front of the tug; the larger barge is doing the installation.)
Photo: Curbed.

Yes, we’re recycling this image, but its the same
old story.

For those of us who have been waiting for July, and the return of NY Water Taxi’s East River Service, life continues to be a good news/bad news kind of thing.

The good news? As of today (30 June), NYWT has supposedly resumed its East River service.

I say supposedly, because as a Williamsburg resident, I would have no way of verifying this. That’s because the bad news is that – according to the NYWT website – East River service will not include Schaefer Landing until 7 July.

Riding across the East River on the J train today, I noted (as I do just about every day) the singular lack of any docking structure at Schaefer Landing. Yes, the dock that was supposed to arrive in May, is still not there. Nor is there any activity around the area where one might expect a dock to be indicating that anyone is remotely interested in actually building a dock-like structure.

Not that I don’t believe NYWT when they say service will resume on 7 July. Its just that we’ve all been, uh, mislead a few times over the past few months.

Meanwhile, I encourage everyone to try out the Ikea Express. It departs every 20 minutes from Pier 11 in Manhattan and runs right to Ikea’s new Red Hook store. And its free! No purchase necessary. 36 boats a day – gratis (or fri, if we are getting in the Ikea spirit)! Amazing what a little subsidy will do. As far as I know, you don’t even have to set foot in the big blue store. Go to the ball fields and get a taco. Go to Pier 41 in Red Hook for delicious key lime pie. Go to Baked on Van Brunt for more dessert. Go to Lenelles’s for some good hootch. Go to Fairway for a decent selection of food (you won’t find that in Williamsburg). Consider it your steal-this-book moment while you wait for NYWT to show up at Schaefer Landing with four pitiful boats every morning and four more in the afternoon.