This is an interesting development – Kalmon Dolgin/Midnight Lick is converting a number of buildings in industrial locations for creative-arts businesses. Yet another example of viable (and job-creating) uses for former manufacturing buildings that don’t involve condos, clubs or hotels. Encouraging.
Midnight Lick Leases Space in Williamsburg
Most Holy Trinity Church Holiday Tours
Urban Oyster is leading tours of Most Holy Trinity on Montrose Avenue on December 17 and January 7. The church in its current incarnation dates to 1885 (William Schickel, architect), but the congregation itself goes back to 1841, when it was founded by German immigrants. It was the second Catholic parish in Williamsburg, and Brooklyn first National parish.
Urban Oyster does some great tours – this one is also for a good cause, to raise money for “Trinity Human Service Center, a nondenominational food pantry and charity that operates in the church basement”.
Hipster Highway Hellzone
‘It’s well known that it is a dangerous place,’ said grieving mom Rachel McCulloch, whose hipster son, 28-year-old Neil Chamberlain, was killed during an early morning hit and run on McGuinness in April 2010.
Note to the Daily News – it’s not just hipsters who are losing their lives on McGuinness Boulevard. And Chamberlain’s mother is right – McGuinness Boulevard is a well-known accident waiting to happen. Since 1995, this 15-block, 4-lane “boulevard” has seen over 100 pedestrians or cyclists run over by motor vehicles1. 11 of those pedestrians lost their lives (almost half of them were 60 years old or older), as did 3 cyclists. As best as I can tell, only 2 of these 14 fatalities involved “hipsters”.
For the record, here is a partial list of the people who have lost their lives trying to cross the “hipster hellzone”:
Richard Iwaszkiewicz – 61, a baker was hit in April 1995
In 1996 an unidentified woman, aged 60 was killed
Joseph LoCurto, a construction worker on the McGuinness Boulevard renovation project was killed in December, 1998
In 2002, an unidentified male pedestrian in his 30s was killed
Liz Byrne, aged 45 was killed in September 2005
Maria Piatkiewicz, 67, a neighborhood resident was run over by a van in July 2008
Solange Raulston, a 33-year-old DJ was killed while riding her bicycle in December 2009
Neil Chamberlain a 28-year-old web designer was killed on his bike in April 2010
The thing is, McGuinness Boulevard has been a hell zone for years now. Write an article about that, and skip the gratuitous “hipster” headlines.
1 The data here was compiled from Crashstat.org, which has information through 2009 only; the names of the victims were compiled through Google searches and searches of local newspapers, like the Daily News.↩
This Year’s Grinch? The L Train
In addition to ruining your daily commute, all the work the MTA is doing on the L train is hurting local businesses. In classic form, the MTA even shut down service to Williamsburg on Small Business Saturday.
Bah.
Brooklyn Brewery WAREHOUSE Sold
Regarding the earlier confusion (mine and others) as to exactly which part of the Brooklyn Brewery recently sold, I received the following from the Brewery’s PR:
BROOKLYN (29 Nov 2011)—Recent reports have misleadingly indicated that The Brooklyn Brewery building in Williamsburg, Brooklyn has been sold. The Brooklyn Brewery operations are housed in two locations: one at 79 North 11th Street in which the brewery, tasting room and corporate office are situated; and another across the street at 118 North 11th Street, the ground floor of which is occupied by our warehouse. It is only the building holding our warehouse that has been sold – our lease at this location does not expire until 2025. The notion that The Brooklyn Brewery is in danger of losing its home is erroneous.
Haircut for Not an Alternative
Late last summer, the Change You Want See Gallery/Not An Alternative lost its lease on its space at 84 Havemeyer Street. The 240% rent increase was too much for the gallery/co-working space/activist hub. In a sign of the times, Brownstoner now tells us who will be affording that rent – a high-end barbershop (from Carroll Gardens, no less).
All’s well that ends well, though – Not An Alternative has landed new space on the Greenpoint waterfront.
Signal Problems
How was your commute today? According to the MTA, the software problems (caused by the weekend work that shut down the line all day Saturday and Sunday??) that ruined your morning ride to work are still going on this evening. In fact, it’s so bad that @NYC_L_trains hasn’t even bothered tweeting its daily “L train service has resumed with residual delays” message.
Remember, it’s this switching software that is supposed to improve headway on the L train, making it possible to run even more trains per hour during peak times. It’ll be great. So long as there no sick passengers. And no stuck doors. And no inclement weather. And no more software glitches.
Mille Bornes, Curated
Rules of the road.
via Codex 99
Codex 99 on the classic French card game Mille Bornes.
The graphics on the original (mass-produced) sets from the 60s and 70s are wonderful, but I’d never seen the original (hand-lettered!) sets from the 50s nor the very abstract “edition spécial” of 1960 that Codex 99 found. In a sure sign of the decline of Western civilization, the graphics of the latest US edition are so incredibly shitty that I literally threw the set out and went on eBay to get a proper set.