Convert Vacant Stores to Apartments

Actually, they should put stores in the vacant stores at Williamsburg Houses.

Given all the talk of a lack of decent food buying options in public housing, why not put good supermarkets in there? Local residents won’t have to travel far for decent food, and a quality supermarket would even attract people from outside the given project, making the retail more viable and (theoretically) the goods more affordable.

Yes, affordable housing is important, but so too are good jobs and local groceries.

The Price of Security

An architect, in the process of designing a very high-profile office tower in Manhattan, once told me about the elaborate, effective, and largely undetectable security measures that had been incorporated into the building. His client, a very high-profile financial concern, looked at the plans and announced that they needed the building surrounded in bollards. The client told the architect that they wanted something noticeable, something that would, ideally, send the opportunistic terrorist off to the next building.

Williamsburger Panned

Williamsburger opened last Friday, and already one correspondent at Eater has panned it based on the menu alone. But if you read down to the comments, people who have actually eaten at the restaurant like it.

Sastre

A great time trial ride by Carlos Sastre, ensuring the second Spanish win at the Tour in as many years. (By the way, BoulderReport turns out to have had a great live blog of the race.)

50 Cent’s Reality Show to Be on “Greenpoint Waterfront”

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Actually, the show will be based at 118 Greenpoint Avenue, a couple blocks up from the Greenpoint waterfront. And about a dozen blocks from the nearest public access to the waterfront.

(Three years after the Greenpoint-Williamsburg Rezoning, and there still is no construction on the Greenpoint waterfront, and no public access to the Greenpoint waterfront. Transmitter Park is the closest to being reality, and that is still on the drawing boards.)