Author: linked

Gowanus Lounge first put out the news about the impending dislocation of the Gowanus Nursery. The nursery is currently in Red Hook, on a street that may be rezoned for residential use. If it does get rezoned, expect them to be out of a home at about the time you’ll be looking for plants for the new season (next May).

The Gowanus Nursery is a great place. We’ve been going there for all the years that they have been open (originally in Gowanus), and its the kind of place that makes NYC special. On the other hand, their business model is predicated on taking advantage of underdeveloped land, as close as possible to upscale residential neighborhoods. In that respect, they are in the same boat as Chelsea Gardens, which has had locations in Chelsea (multiple locations), the Bowery, Red Hook, Hudson Yards, etc.

Still, any business needs stability to thrive. And right now, businesses that rely on manufacturing land in North or South Brooklyn have anything but stability in their lives. I hope they find a location where they can continue to thrive beyond a one-year lease.

Brownstoner has more.

From The Daily News: Emergency calls to 911 are up 300% in North Brooklyn; construction complaints to 311 are up a similar number; DOB is issuing 50,000 violations a year citywide, 5,000 stop work orders.

The DOB says:

The fact that we have been out there issuing violations shows our enforcement initiatives are working.

No, this shows that large numbers of contractors and developers don’t give a shit about your rules. No one has to look very hard to find unsafe buildings sites.

Via Curbed, a new entry into the Domino alternative field. This one highlights the Tate Modern, as well as a host of other highly successful cultural institutions that have transformed former industrial sites as part of their success.

The highlighting of Tate is somehow appropriate here – Henry Tate made his fortune in the sugar business, and the successor to his firm, Tate & Lyle, went on to acquire Domino Sugar in 1988 (and sold the brand to the Fanjul family in 2001). It was under Tate & Lyle’s watch that the Brooklyn plant endured three strikes, the longest of which ran from 1999 to 2001, and was effectively the death knell for the Williamsburg plant.

The Brooklyn Eagle is shocked to discover that there is a lot of development planned for the Williamsburg waterfront:

The city has been warned, but maybe it hasn’t paid attention to the three developments — all announced at different times, all approved at different times. A model maker, just from the information recorded in this column, could build a physical rendering of this new South Beach for all to see. Is this what we want? Is this good public policy, or — in truth — no public policy at all?

Here’s some news for the Brooklyn Eagle:

1. The Toll Brothers and Levine site were REZONED by the city. For better or worse, the density is exactly what everyone thought they were getting.
2. The city also rezoned a whole bunch of other sites in Greenpoint – multiply Williamsburg by about 3.
3. The Domino site has not been rezoned (yet).
   3a – You obviously do not understand the scope of the New Domino project.
4. This is all called planning – you may not like it, but you are arriving at this party about three years too late.

Daily News:

Brooklyn hospitals led the city in malpractice payouts last year, with Kings County Hospital paying a whopping $33.6 million in claims, according to a report issued yesterday.

Two other municipal hospitals, Woodhull Hospital and Coney Island Hospital, shelled out millions in malpractice claims – even as the total cost of claims to the city plunged by 10%.

In my one Brooklyn ambulance experience, the paramedics asked me which hospital I wanted to go to. After determining that Manhattan was off limits, I asked them where they would go. That’s how I wound up at the emergency room at Long Island College Hospital (LICH, on Atlantic and Hicks). If you are a trauma case, you don’t get a choice, but if you do get a choice, don’t go to Woodhull.

Hamptons.com:

Owner of Triple Crown, a funky hip hop spot in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Popalardo feels that music can break down barriers and create an environment where people can not only have fun but celebrate music that empowers and inspires.

If, by breaking down barriers, you mean being one of the worst neighbors in Williamsburg, yes, that is Triple Crown.

Greenpoint Star:

Although none of the homes or shops interviewed by the Star lacked landline capabilities more than eight days

I don’t think “although” is the right way to start that sentence. And this was not the first (or, for some, the longest) Greenpoint phone outage this summer.

I was surprised to learn that Greendome is only 10 years old – its the kind of place that seems as though its been there forever, even though I passed by it for years when it wasn’t there.

Anyway, they are celebrating their 10th anniversary at Enid’s on Monday night – a very good cause. Heather has more details (last item).

Greenpoint is Brooklyn’s smokingest neighborhood. This won’t come as a surprise to too many people, though I suspect there is at least one person out there who will blame this news on Williamsburg developers, the Department of Health, the tobacco companies, or all three.

StreetsBlog has an interesting thread dissecting a recent Daily News article, which had reported that bicycle accidents were way up in Greenpoint and Williamsburg. The News is playing fast and loose with the statistics on fault by not reporting all of the “at fault” numbers. “Fault” in this case is not a binary equation – the driver of the car, the pedestrian and the bicyclist can all be at fault. The number of people at fault can be (and probably is) much larger than the number of accidents, so simply reporting the number of bike riders at fault is misleading.

Still, some of the StreetsBlog comments are typical knee jerk reactions from two-wheelers who refuse to admit that a bicyclist might ever be responsible for what they hit (or what hits them). Its a busy world out there, that’s why there are rules of the road.