Among the 15 hotels shut down by the city in the past few weeks is Williamsburg’s Hotel Toshi (three other Toshi branches were also closed by the city).
Illegal Hotel Crackdown
2011 McCarren Park Summerscreen Announced
The L Magazine and EPIX, co-sponsors of the 6th annual Summerscreen movie series in McCarren Park have announced their 2011 line up. The shows, which run Wednesday evenings from July 6 through August include Wayne’s World, Ghost World, Ferris Bueller and Clueless.
East Williamsburg Foodways Tour
Urban Oyster, which runs some of the more intelligent tours in Brooklyn and beyond, is adding a “foodways” tour centered around Moore Street Market and the Latino foods around Graham Avenue.
2011 Building Brooklyn Awards – North Brooklyn Represents
Wyckoff Exchange
22-28 Wyckoff Avenue
Andre Kikoski Architect
Photo: Dezeen
The Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce announced its Building Brooklyn awards (Brownstoner has the details; they’re not up on the BB site yet). For a change, North Brooklyn has some really good projects in the mix, including the Newtown Creek sewage plant (Ennead Architects), the Austin Nichols & Company Warehouse (aka 184 Kent Avenue; SLCE Architects with Walter B. Melvin Architects preservation architect), the Mason Fisk Building (72 Berry; Meshberg Group), the Brooklyn Brewery (Fradkin & McAlpin Architects) and the Wyckoff Exchange (Andre Kikoski Architect).
CB1 Supports OSA Concerts
CB1 voted tonight to partially overturn the recommendation of the Parks Committee and not recommend a reduction in the number of OSA concerts or the number of concert attendees.
This came after OSA Secretary Adam Perlmutter made the case for OSA and it’s concert series. Perlmutter pointed out that last year’s promoter was out and that OSA would be running quieter and shorter shows this year. Long before the community spoke out on the issue, OSA had already decided to cut the number of shows from 22 to 15, the number of attendees from 7,500 to 6,500 and the number of bands per show from 5 to 2. And of the 15 shows, two will be children’s concerts, one will be a comedy show and one will be a philharmonic show, so there will be only 11 rock concerts (the Parks Committee recommended 10).
These changes seemed to be acceptable to some of the park’s neighbors, and since they brought the concerts more in line with what the committee had recommended anyhow, it was agreed to drop the numerical requirements and give OSA a chance to run a more neighborhood-friendly concert series.
What’s Up At Slick’s?
Photo: NYShitty
Someone has been doing some decorating. Miss Heather has a photo of Slick’s old shop on Wythe and North 3rd. The space has been empty since Slick (R.I.P.) died in 2008 – is this a sign of an impending retail establishment?
It Is Still Safe to Drink in Williamsburg
CB1’s Public Safety Committee held a very long meeting tonight, which ended with a discussion of the “moratorium” (apparently it started with that too, but I missed the opening hour). CB1 Chairman Chris Olechowski presented some recommendations from the Board’s Executive Committee that were based on guidelines used by CB3 in Manhattan. They were, for the most part, pretty common sensical – using the 500′ rule more, not approving rear yard uses in residential districts, limiting approvals on residential streets. It’s not clear how those rules would fit into the reality of CB1, but the Committee agreed that they were worth further study.
And so, no moratorium (this month).
Bikers, Drivers Clash Over Bedford Avenue
Drivers in South Williamsburg are apparently harassing and in some cases physically (and vehicularly) assaulting bicyclists. Of course no one could have predicted that when the DOT removed the bike lanes on Bedford Avenue that it would lead to a sense of entitlement to the road on the part of local drivers.
As I said when the bike lanes were originally removed, a lot of the controversy over the lanes was about the very mundane issue of parking. Baruch Herzfeld backs up this notion:
Williamsburg bike maven Baruch Herzfeld, who hosted a debate between bikers and Hasidim last January, says the tension has resulted from the lack of parking spaces in South Williamsburg and not a conflict between Orthodox residents and yuppie cyclists.
“The Hasidim park in the [former] bike lane because there is no other place to park and the city has limited resources to enforce it,” said Herzfeld.
Of course local political leaders have a solution:
Hasidic leaders say that cyclists should find another route.
“You have a densely populated area that hundreds of people cross those streets every single day,” said former Council candidate Isaac Abraham. “You’ve got a ballroom, two schools and five synagogues. Traffic there is tremendous.”
It sounds to me as though these leaders need a refresher course in driver’s ed. It’s pretty simple really – riding a bicycle on a public street is legal, bike lane or not. Double parking is not legal. Kicking bicyclists, running them off the road with your minivan or school bus and otherwise intimidating or harassing fellow citizens is very illegal. Sounds to me as though the NYPD needs redirect some of its efforts to parking and traffic enforcement on Bedford Avenue.