The sale of the Hotel Williamsburg, which I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, is now official (or official news, the sale itself is still not completed).
Hotel Williamsburg Sells
Study of Retail Workers Finds $9.50 Median Pay
$9.50 an hour median pay for what for most is part-time or temp work, with only 3 in 10 receiving health benefits.
These are the jobs that are created as better paying jobs with better benefits get squeezed out on the industrial side.
And no, the living wage bill working its way through the Council won’t do anything to make this better.
A New Law Firm With 161 Years if Experience
Norm Siegel is joining forces with Herb Teitelbaum, Saralee Evans (Siegel’s wife) and Emily Jane Goodman (the retiring state judge who recently wrote the Broadway Triangle decision) to form a new firm.
Billboard Collapse Video
Nowy Dziennik has a security camera video of the billboard collapsing onto the BQE this afternoon. It looks as though the billboard that went down was the one that had been tagged for ages (most recently by “Rambo”).
As a special bonus, I now know the Polish words for “billboard” and “Brooklyn Queens Expressway”.
[via City Room]
New Tenant at 475 Driggs
Fushimi gets a neighbor. Something tells me this isn’t going to be the hippest part of the neighborhood.
Leopoldo Hernandez
Lepoldo Hernandez, 57, was struck and killed by two vans at the intersection of Borinquen and Keap yesterday morning. This is a particularly pedestrian-unfriendly intersection, in the pre-dawn hours, with a (allegedly) speeding van. DNA Info (which is new to the neighborhood beat) includes a set of heart-wrenching on-the-scene photos.
Three Williamsburg Charters to Close
Three charter high schools run by the Believe Network, which has had numerous problems over the years. As one state official put it:
Over the last few months, both the State Education Department and the Department of Education have laid out a very troubling pattern of what is, at best, financial irregularities by the school’s management and perhaps much worse
This “troubling pattern” will likely leave as many as 1,500 local high school students without a school come June.
“Rape”
Interesting use of quotation marks by the Post.
Former HPD Commissioner to Head CPC, Domino Developer
Rafael Cestero, who headed HPD for two years, will take over the helm at Community Preservation Corporation/CPC Resources (the latter is the developer of the Domino project). Michael Lappin, who was CEO of CPC/CPCR for 30 years, announced his retirement in November.
C. P. H. Gilbert – The Permastone Years
705 and 707 Willoughby Avenue
Architect: C. P. H. Gilbert?, 1885
Photo: via PropertyShark
Chris Gray and his Streetscapes column were back in Brooklyn this week, profiling one of the great architects of the Gilded Age. Much of Gilbert’s early work was done in the Park Slope area, but his first Brooklyn commission may have been this pair of buildings on Willoughby Avenue in Bed-Stuy.
Despite the permastone, there are some traces of old stuff, particularly the profile of the roof and the cresting atop it. And the massing of the buildings looks quite consistent with Gilbert’s other work of the period.