The district leader position might be unpaid and little-noticed, but Lincoln Restler continued to prove it can be transformed into a noticeable political force…
Which is precisely why he deserves to be reelected.
Outside of Restler’s 50th Assembly District, you’d be hard pressed to find one in 10,000 New Yorkers who could name their District Leader (either one – you have two). In northern Brooklyn, that percentage is a bit higher.
The lawsuit backed by the [unnamed] grass roots organization will argue that the city’s Department of Homeless Services illegally circumvented the stringent “fair share” approval process by converting the four-story industrial warehouse without formal Community Board or City Council approval.
20 beds in the facility will be set aside for Greenpoint residents – nowhere near enough to begin to address the local homeless population or their needs.
It appears that my initial skepticism about J. Crew’s imminent arrival on Bedford Avenue was misplaced…
For the Williamsburg location, we have adopted some practices that, while a bit unconventional, will reflect our new community and its values.
The former Albest Metal Stamping building at 9 Kent Avenue is being marketed as a potential hotel or office building – but notably not for any sort of “industrial” use. It is becoming very clear that the industrial-retention part of the 2005 rezoning – which included reserving a big area around Bushwick Inlet for traditional manufacturing use – was a big missed opportunity. Given the transformation of industry in Brooklyn over the past decade, the opportunity for a new kind of mixed-use zoning – lighter impact industry below with residential above (something the city refused to consider at Bushwick Inlet or anywhere else) could be a big promoter of local jobs.
Instead, we are manufacturing hotels, bars and bowling alleys.
Beautiful pictures and nice synopsis of the Greenpoint Boathouse project at Brooklyn Based:
Community advocates want to reclaim Newtown Creek by constructing a boathouse in the ground floor of the Greenpoint Manufacturing and Design Center (GMDC). The project would also include a repaired bulkhead and an esplanade along the waterfront. For boaters and the kayak-curious, it will mean storage space for non-motorized watercrafts and a training center for recreational boating. For all other visitors, it will provide a place to enjoy the waterfront, as the development would create a public gathering spot that is more of a park than a club.
If all goes according to plan, Greenpoint will have this new waterfront park by 2014.
Despite being a character-defining feature of north Brooklyn, aluminum awnings on row houses are not well loved. At least in this case, the Times was not able to find journalistic balance.
This is a week or so old, but the brunch kerfuffle has now received the New Yorker treatment.
At the Swinging 60s Senior Citizens Center in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, in a room filled with cafeteria tables veiled in plastic, a sign hanging from the wall says, “Old ladies never die. They just play bingo,” and another below it reads, “LUNCH will be served 12 noon to 12:30 P.M.” When the local community board gathered there for a meeting the other night, concerned citizens chimed in on a dispute over exactly when Sunday brunch is served. Certainly, it’s meant to come before lunchtime—though they may overlap—and ideally, if rarely, brunch belongs in the sweet spot of a late, lazy weekend afternoon. But the timing is a hotly contested issue, among sleepy relatives and New York bureaucrats alike. The official answer, according to a rarely enforced city law for sidewalk cafés, is not before noon. But this week, three New York City Council members set out to legislate in favor of morning brunching.
Closing out a mini-theme on abandonment and decay, I’d be remiss in not linking to this excellent profile of Mitch Waxman from Sunday’s Times.
The Post seems to be confusing private property with public parks:
Last weekend, my family had the pleasure of eating our way through the amazing Smorgasburg food festival in Williamsburg. But, in between bites of fish tacos, sandwiches piled high with smoked meat and the obligatory sweet-and-salty s’mores, something was missing.
Something, perhaps, like a locally crafted beer or a Long Island-produced wine. An adult beverage to complement the farm-to-table offerings would have made the day just perfect.
Yet the city’s made that all but impossible.
Smorgasburg (and the Brooklyn Flea) are on private property at the Edge, not in a park. Plus, they’ve already applied for, and will soon have a liquor license.
One quote from [Senator Dan] Squadron though struck a chord. As he noted that some rush hour trains will likely be below the MTA’s load guidelines, he let slip a key line. “This is not going to be the silver bullet, but this is real good news for L train riders,” he said. “Anyone tired of the crushing crowds and overflowing trains will now have an L train trip less likely to feel like hell.” What exactly does Squadron expect? What kind of silver bullet does he want? The MTA isn’t about to build a parallel line through Williamsburg or third-track the L train, and running trains every 180 seconds should be at least sufficient to ease some of the crowding concerns.
I can’t speak for the Senator, but his comments echo my points from last Friday – there is no silver bullet on the L train. Increased service is great, and an extra train every hour or so actually will make a difference. But no amount of automation or optimization is going to going to overcome a sick passenger on a two-track line. So overcrowding and delays will remain a fact of life, and those “residual delays” tweets will keep coming.
