Nice of you to leave everything in such good order.

So much for silver linings.

Seems like it was only last week that the opening of the pier at Northside Piers* was blunting the impact of the seasonal closing of East River State Park. Then, suddenly, the pier was closed again. Now its reopened, but only on weekends (and presumably only until dusk).

* And what are we supposed to call this lovely, inaccessible, part-time public amenity? Northside Pier? Smacks of real estate marketer branding. Palmer’s Dock? Smacks of real estate marketer branding with a dollop of historical authenticity thrown in. North 5th Street Pier? About as inspired as East River State Park. The-only-part-time-park-in-the-city Pier? True, but it doesn’t roll trippingly off the tongue (nor does it lend itself to a pithy acronym).

How about a little preemptive branding on this one? Comments are open.

East River State Park – 4 January 2009
Photo: NAG

Via NAG, above is a photo of Williamsurg’s East River State Park in hibernation. By keeping East River State Park open for geese only, the State saved $444.44 today. Below, via Flickr, is a photo of Empire-Fulton Ferry Ferry State Park in Dumbo – which the State can afford to keep open to both geese and humans all winter long.

Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park – 4 January 2009
Photo: enderospeaker on Flickr

Last night, NAG had a packed house at its town hall organizing meeting. The meeting drew about 150 area residents to hear about and discuss the critical issues facing Williamsburg and Greenpoint. In the latter part of the meeting, the crowd was broken up into groups to brainstorm about the issues they would like to NAG tackle in the coming year and beyond. Interestingly, the big ticket issues – affordable housing, parks and open space, industrial retention and development – took a back seat to issues that have a more direct impact on people’s day-to-day lives. Which is not to say that these larger issues weren’t issues – housing, construction, and open space all came up – they just manifested themselves in different ways. The most commonly cited issues were related to community preservation, infrastructure and quality of life.
As promised, we all got to leave in time to watch Frances McDormond reprise her Academy award winning role in last night’s vice presidential debate. You betcha.

Via commenter #4 on this Curbed post, here is a screen shot from the Northside Piers website. This is the purported “West View” from your luxury waterfront condominium (rental?) in hip-hip-hip Williamsburg.
And what a view it is – the Empire State Building to the right, the Chrysler Building to the left. Which is pretty funny, because when most Brooklynites look to Manhattan, they see the Empire State on the left (south) and Chrysler on the right (north). We also don’t look out over the Hudson River.
This Northside Piers must be a magical and wonderful place. They should rename it – somehow Weehawken sounds appropriate.

Berry and North 11th.

At Seven Berry, evidence of what happens when luxury condos are built without bike racks balconies.
On a related note, Seven Berry is yet another example of the folly of glass houses. Most of the units on the upper floors facing Berry look to be occupied, and they are hodgepodge of window treatments. This was clearly not the look the architect intended – renderings of these buildings always show luminescent glass boxes, with people living fabulous lives for all to see. Of course few people are capable of living a life for all to see, so people put up curtains. Mies van der Rohe got it right at the Seagram Building – everyone gets a venetian blind with three positions, up, middle and down.
At the ground floor, they have opted for mirror glass. This too is not an elegant solution.
(To be fair, this photo was taken in the late morning, when the sun is pretty harsh on this side of the building.)

Photo from BushwickBK of 326 Melrose, used in here conjunction with a blog post commenting on a blog post at BushwickBK.

Over at BushwickBK, Jeremy has gotten himself into a “hep of poop” – sorry, “HEP OF POOP” – over the posting of this picture. Seems the broker, one Janet Corona of Flushing, did not appreciate the free advertising BBK’s blog posting was giving her project, even if the title of post described the building as “attractive”. Nor did she appreciate the fact that commentary on a building, or even on the listed broker’s complete inability to have a working web link, is not the same as poaching someone’s EXCLUSIVE listing. BBK would need to be a realtor to do that. Janet also did not appreciate the fact that taking a picture of a building is, in fact, legal; nor did she appreciate the fact that including an image of an artists rendering from a publicly available website as part of that commentary constitutes fair use.

As a result of Janet’s rants, Googling “326 Melrose Street” will not lead you to any information about Janet’s listing; instead, it will take you directly to the two BushwickBK posts in which Janet’s rants figure prominently (better still, the BushwickBK posts are also the first two hits if you Google “Janet Corona“). Also high up on the front page of 326 Melrose hits is a link to the Real Deal with the headline “Broker lashes out at blog“. Only at the bottom of the first page do you find any link to the project itself, and that is a link to Leecon Construction*, the design/build outfit for the project. You will not find on any page any links the real estate listing for this building. It must be very EXCLUSIVE, indeed.

(* Which, based on their website, seems to be a pretty decent firm. See, Janet, it pays to have a good web presence.)

Pretty soon, the marketers are just going to run out of words.

Case in point – Urban Green (as far as I can tell, not a “green” project), which is the new development going up on North 5th and North 6th between Bedford and Berry. The broker’s website includes the requisite “Neighborhood” tab, which describes their location as “perfectly located at the confluence of Wiliamsburg’s two most exciting streets, Bedford and Berry…”. There is (sort of) a confluence of Bedford and Berry, its just 10 blocks north in Greenpoint (and its really Nassau and Bedford crossing).