From the 475Kent.com blog:
At 3pm the sprinklers passed the hydrostatic test mandated by DOB and FDNY. The vacate is lifted as of 4pm. Hooray! We are back thanks not only to the huge amount of work by building residents and owners but by city agencies and electeds especially Councilman David Yassky, Assemblymen Joe Lentol and Vito Lopez and Senator Martin Connor. Thank you everyone!
Its about time!
If either of you have seen this gray tiger cat in the vicinity of Hooper between South 2nd and South 3rd Streets, please call 646-620-5702. He (or she) went missing on Sunday, and his (or her) owner is anxious to have him (or her) back. I don’t know what name he (or she)He answers to Livie; but then cats don’t usually answer unless they want to, do they?
[Our record for a cat going missing is about 6 days – turns out he was up a tree at Sheridan Playground.]
Closed by Order of the Department of Health
It has been noted elsewhere that Kellogg’s Diner has closed for renovations. Turns out, the closing might not be so voluntary. It seems the Department of Health happened to stop by and – surprise, surprise – found a few things amiss. So as the sticker here indicates, Kellogg’s was shut down on 9 April with 77 violation points. It probably had something to do with the fact that no surface in that place was fit to be in contact with food.
I’m often skeptical of DOH inspections (Brick Oven Gallery) but in this case, its long overdue. And I’m not alone there – witness the comments here and here. And from the “commenters” on the sticker in Kellog’s window – which say “Finally!” and “Good Riddance”.
UPDATE: In the comments, Mr. Fact points out that Kelloggs had applied for permits to do work six to nine months ago. True enough (I missed that on DOB because the permits are under a few different BINs). Still, the final permits were not pulled until after the DOH inspection. And to date, no one has expressed the least bit of surprise that Kelloggs would be shut down by DOH.
Things look different here (hopefully for the better), but most of the content and workings are the same. The goal of the redesign was to simplify the design and focus on the content as exclusively as possible. The only real difference in terms of usage is that the linked entries now have the permalink icon at the front of the entry instead of at the end (its the little fisheye icon before the entry header/outgoing link).
Hope you like the new design.
UPDATE: The redesign is intended to be clean and simple. If things don’t look clean and simple, try reloading this page. If things still dont’t look clean and simple, chances are your browser is not clean and simple (i.e., standards compliant). I am working on workarounds for such browsers (ahem, Explorer), but if you really want to enjoy this site and the web in general, get a standards-compliant browser such as Firefox.
Dueling cranes on North 5th Street. To the right, 90 North 5th Street is loading in more steel; to the left, 154 Berry is pumping in concrete.
If you’re keeping score at home, 90 North 5th is Robert Scarano & Associates, 154 Berry is Karl Fisher Architect. The Northside in a nutshell – at least this picture was taken on a weekday.
The Firpo Building, ca. 2006 (aka, the glory days).
As long as we’ve lived in Williamsburg there has been a decrepit tin-sided house on Roebling at the head of Fillmore Place. The pitched roof has been sagging for over 15 years, and the siding has been slowly peeling away all that time. To us, it was always the Firpo Building, so named for its sole distinguishing feature, a Kenn Firpo Realty billboard. It never seemed that Firpo was selling the building, just using using it for free advertising. Maybe he owned it, maybe it was his office once upon a time.
Back then, Kenn Firpo was the main source (other than the bulletin boards on Bedford) for rental “apartments” in northside and southside Williamsburg. We use quotes, because many of the rentals were clearly not intended for human habitation. Most of the now-thriving commercial spaces in the Grand Street area, for instance, were once rented out as apartments. Most of them to friends of ours. We had one friend who rented a windowless basement apartment in a loft building through Firpo (it was actually a nice and spacious place, despite its bunker-like qualities).
As we have been out of the rental market for awhile, and most of friends have moved on to more affordable parts of the country, we have no idea if Firpo has been the unavoidable force in local real lately that he was in the 1990s. But back then, he downright unavoidable. Still, it always struck us as a questionable move for someone selling real estate to take such a prominent advertisement on a crumbling wreck of a building.
So it brought a small (OK, really small) pang of nostalgia when we passed by in early September and saw that the Firpo building was being prepped for demolition. Last week, the demo finally came (sniff).
Fall of the House of Firpo, October 2007.
No sooner did the Firpo building come down than did we hear that Firpo himself might be going down. In the middle of last week, a sign appeared on Firpo’s almost brand-new offices at Bedford and N8 advertising office furniture for sale. Two days later, the office was empty and locked tight, and sign in the window directed patrons to call a number.
So was the demolition of the Firpo building really foreshadowing the fall of the house of Firpo? Whither Kenn Firpo Realty?
North 5th and Bedford
Pier 41, Red Hook
110 William Street: before (left) and after (right).
Updating Modern buildings is always a dilemma – how do you make a tired, old metal and glass building feel new again? At Lever House, RFR undertook a painstaking (and award-winning) restoration, and the results are fabulous.
At 110 William Street, Swig Equities is going the Earl Scheib route – just paint the sucker. Wonder if they’ll spring for the pinstriping – or maybe flames?.
110 William Street: In progress
Kent Avenue, Domino
Greenpoint has its dog shit, the Southside has… crabs? These little guys have been littering the sidewalk in front of Domino for almost a week now.
