Gotham Gazette has an-depth look the candidates and issues in the special election for Assembly district 54.
Three Candidates Vie in a Special Special Election
How to Get $12 Billion of Gold to Venezuela
A Departure from McMansions
Along with praise for a Toll Brothers project in DUMBO* comes this dig at Northside Piers:
The buildings were, in effect, exactly what you’d expect, aesthetically, from a builder of mass-produced McMansions: shiny, modern and drab.
I’ve long been on the record as preferring the shiny, modern “drabness” of FX Fowle’s NSP to the shiny, modern cacophony of its next-door neighbor.
*Full disclosure – a project I worked on.
Now at 77 Box Street
Per the last post, industry is alive and well in Brooklyn, it’s just different than what a lot of people think of as industry. But hotels and nightlife – two uses that are as-of-right in industrial zones – are probably the biggest threats to the viability of all that.
Prime Time in NYC
The Mayor held a press conference yesterday to tout the fact that a record number of prime-time shows – 23 – are currently filmed in New York.
“We see this as the manufacturing for the 21st century,” said Doug Steiner, who owns the studio in Brooklyn where [Pan Am, one of the shows] is shot.
Steiner is right – most of those shows are filming in Brooklyn and Queens, and a lot of the support industry (set design, construction, etc.) are also happening here.
Catholic Church Extinguishes Arts Community at St. Cecilia’s
A sad end to what was a great rebirth. St. Cecilia’s has an amazing collection of buildings, and it was nice to see some of them used for the benefit of the community.
[via Brownstoner]
Motorino Shuttered
By the DOB (their building is in danger of falling over):
‘The stupidity of our landlord is a force we were not able to overcome. While this setback is unfortunate, we promise to soon re-open in a new location,’ chef/owner Matieu Palombino told Eater.
Don Draper Was NOT in Williamsburg
The heat must be getting to the Brooklyn Paper:
Yep, that was Don Draper taking in the summer breeze from one of the best places around — a Williamsburg stoop.
Technically, it was Jon Hamm, who was not filming for Mad Men. And the stoop was at 365 Grand Avenue (at Gates), which most Brooklynites know is not in Williamsburg (that would be Grand Street).
Don Draper, being a Manhattanite, probably wouldn’t know the difference. But you’d think the Brooklyn Paper would.
Lentol on Bushwick Inlet Park
PIX interviews Assemblyman Joe Lentol on Bushwick Inlet Park, and the City’s decision to walk away from its commitments in the 2005 zoning.
City Too Poor to Build Promised Bushwick Inlet Park
Aaron Short covers the City’s abandonment of Bushwick Inlet Park.