A sad end to Monday’s hit and run on Manhattan Avenue.
Violetta Krzyzak
Metropolitan Taco Cart
Kudos for the “mostly nameless Metropolitan taco cart”:
When compared to their peers on Bedford (the mostly regrettable Endless Summer Truck at North 6th and mostly depressing L.A. Burrito at South 1st), these tacos are a true standout in Mexican flavor.
Mostly depressing? How about utterly and completely? We long ago dubbed L.A. Burrito “Blando Burrito” – a name they have never failed to live up to.
[via Serious Eats]
Williamsburg Hotty – Not a Brownstone
Great moments in real estate listings – this is not a brownstone, nor is it even a row house. There is an outside chance that the lintels and sills are brownstone, but from the picture I’d put my money on cast iron. Funnier still is that the sign on the building says “Lofts for Rent”. Lofts?, brownstones? – pick a story and stick with it, folks. I’d suggest brick tenement, but that’s just me being honest.
As for the interior, the gut renovation has pretty much sucked the life out of the place, leaving a white box with brick walls (charming!). The countertops might be Caesarstone (and that might be impressive, I honestly don’t know), but from the picture there’s about 1.5 square feet of countertop. I’m not sure what a stone-covered bathroom is, but its fun to contemplate.
Back on the exterior, the shutters are completely out of place (as are the multi-light windows and their fake muntins), but probably not as ridiculous as the air-conditioned shutter on the building to the left. Oh, and to complete the brownstone ambience, there’s a pizzeria downstairs (a long-time favorite, by the way – Tony and Concetto deserve a better broker* than this).
(This broker* seems to specialize in “brownstones” (and using “hot” to describe them) – they have another one listed on Graham Avenue. No exterior shot, but its not a brownstone, trust me. That one has a “new front door” and a “brick pho-fireplace”.)
(*The site seems to be connected to aptsandlofts.com (see comments), but its not actually clear that they are trying to market these apartments.)
Thursday: The Show to Save the Show
It is a busy week, even with DOT as a no-show. Tomorrow night, Act Local is putting on a concert to benefit the drama department of Automotive High School. Automotive High’s music and drama departments were cut this year and they were considering cancelling their school play but now the creative community of Williamsburg and Greenpoint is coming together to support them.
As seen above, the main attractions are Japanther, Ninjasonik and the Automotive High Hip Hop Jazz Band. If that’s not enough excitement for you, there is also a raffle (Spiewak, Teddy’s, the Mark, Beehive and more). The concert is organized by Act Local, the same group that put together the Don’t Demo Domino concert a couple of years back.
This is another great show for another great cause.
Where: Automotive High Auditorium (Bedford, across from McCarren Park)
When: Thursday, April 30 – doors at 7:00 pm (show at 8:00 pm).
Parking to be Restored on Kent Avenue! [?]
Aaron Short says so.
Possibly related – the joint Transportation/Waterfront Committee scheduled for this evening has been cancelled (replaced by Transportation only). Reason for the cancellation? DOT was supposed to attend to talk about Kent Avenue, but backed out.
Is There Too Much Design?
Design Glut, which is two young Bushwick designers, contend that there is a “gluttony” of design out there – “so many objects… and so little of it [has] a reason to exist”.
My first reaction was to was to say “No” and show a snarky photo. But on second thought, they might have a point:
Pontiac, R.I.P.
Surely not news, but GM today confirmed that it is shutting down its Pontiac division.
Putting aside for the moment that GM’s entire lineup has been crap for a couple of decades, why Pontiac? Its a youth-oriented marque that has produced some of the most storied vehicles from GM’s past. Look around Williamsburg – a statistically significant percentage of the hot vintage cars you see are probably Pontiacs. Put another way, why not add Buick to the ash heap of history (along with Oldsmobile) – neither bring anything to the table that isn’t already covered the rest of the GM line up (and yeah, both made great cars in the past, but does an aging boomer demographic really need Caddy, Olds and Buick?). Drop the old-folks cars, make Pontiac the performance division, keep Chevy (which will no longer be siphoned off by Pontiac, Buick and Olds), and keep Caddy as the luxury division (but lose the Karl Fischer designs).
GM is also looking to sell Saturn. Brand-wise it was never that well defined, but its the only GM line that doesn’t make typical GM cars. And considering where “typical GM cars” have led the company, maybe they want to be keeping Saturn.
Saab, on the other hand, makes sense to sell off. It was a good company with a distinctive product. GM has only managed to homogenize all the character out of Saab.
Steep Circulation Losses
Recession or not, things are not looking good for the daily print media in this country. Journalism, I suspect, will survive. But in what form is not clear. Newspapers need to figure out how to make money off journalism, as they’ve lost the market for just about everything else. Paying for content is an option, but it has to be done in a way that recognizes how the Internet works – not in a way that fights the Internet. Erecting walls, trying to dam up the flow of information and fighting content sharing (as in my link above) will fail for all but those with the most exclusive content.
(For what its worth, I have no idea why national weekly magazines (Time, Newsweek, USNews) are still in business.)
WG New + Arts Online
Local newspaper Williamsburg Greenpoint News+Arts is (finally) online, with both their offline (paper) content and a blog.
WG is a great paper, and has done some good reporting over the past few years, so its great to see their content online. And the website looks really good.