Oh great, now the Guardian (UK) is on the Duane Reade story. Must be news.
Give me a break.
It’s not news.
It’s a drugstore.
A shiny new, clean and characterless drugstore (I never thought I would use the words “shiny”, “clean” or “characterless” in describing a Duane Reade, but there you go). The second such shiny new, clean and characterless Duane Reade to open on the Northside in the past year.
In an article practically oozing with ridiculous Williamsburg stereotypes – hipsters, beards, tattoos, piercings, lifestyles “funded by middle-class parents” (in Ohio, no doubt), and rumors (rumors) of a Starbucks (a boogey man we’ve been hearing about for 15 years) – the Guardian tries to find deeper meaning in the opening of a new Duane Reade in a ugly condo on Bedford Avenue.
There isn’t any deeper meaning. It’s a drugstore. A lot of the “poor… Jewish, eastern European and Hispanic working-class immigrants” who populated the neighborhood until a decade ago are probably just fine with a new drugstore. But who knows? – the Guardian (and every other newspaper that has decided that this is “news”) didn’t interview anyone who has lived in the neighborhood for more than 7 years. The basis of the entire article is that people who have lived here for less than a decade are being forced out by the taint of corporatism. Other than acknowledging that there were groups of people who lived here before 2000 (but no artists or non-ethnic white people, apparently), there is no attempt to find out what longtime residents think about this – or even if, and more importantly, to what extent, those residents are moving/have moved out of the neighborhood.
Maybe the longtime residents aren’t shopping at Duane Reade. Maybe they don’t need growlers and frozen frat food. Maybe they like their neighborhood pharmacies but don’t sign petitions. (BTW – has anyone actually comparison shopped between DR and King’s? My scientific sampling shows that they both charge exactly the same amount ($10.99) for a bottle of contact lens solution, but that King’s has way better music).
The only sane person in the entire article is Josh Freeman, history professor at CUNY, who notes “Cities and neighbourhoods change all the time. You can’t freeze them. You don’t want to create a sort of museum”.
Amen.
So shop where you want. Just shut up about it. And remember, it’s just a drugstore.
As you might have noticed, things have been quieter than usual around here. In addition to a flood of work, a busy semester and a lot of local activity, my Movable Type installation went haywire on me a couple of months ago. Unfortunately, MT support has declined to almost nil (at least for semi-pro bloggers like myself who don’t want to pony up a few hundred a year for paid support) – it now consists of two or three very knowledgable people on the MT forums. I suppose Six Apart knows what it’s doing, but I don’t want anything to do with it (maybe that’s their point).
So, after more than 8 years using Six Apart’s Movable Type, I’ve now moved everything over to WordPress. Bit the bullet and figured out PHP. I started out by launching a side project (because I don’t have enough to do), and then worked on shifting Brooklyn 11211 over – 499 regular posts and over 1,000 linked list posts since I relaunched the site in 2007. I’m still getting used to it, and there are still some kinks (don’t click on the “Archives” link), but for the most part I’ve been able to recreate the functionality of my MT design and add new functionality (pushing to Twitter!).
Hopefully, with all this new functionality, I’ll be able to get back to my volume of semi-regular posting.” At least I now have one less excuse for not posting.
According the Wall Street Journal (but behind a pay wall), Manhattan-based Ark Restaurants is going to be opening a new eatery at the Edge’s waterfront-side retail space. Ark operates 9 establishments across the river, including Bryant Park Grill. The 7,000 sf restaurant would be the first to open on the waterfront (two restaurants are already under construction along Kent Avenue, one at Northside Piers and the other at 110 Kent Avenue).
The new restaurant would open in late 2011 at the earliest, and would overlook the public waterfront esplanade – which might even be open to the public by then.
UPDATE: Here is a link to the full article behind the pay wall (thanks @withers).
UPDATE #2:Oy. The link above won’t get you past the pay wall. Google “williamsburg by water wsj” and follow the first result to see the article. (Again, thanks @withers)
259 Banker Street (you remember it as the former home of nightclub Studio B) has sold, and it doesn’t look like it is coming back as a nightclub. According to Curbed, the sales price was $2 million, which sounds cheap for a building of this size and in this location. But it is zoned for manufacturing and within the Greenpoint-Williamsburg IBZ, both of which severely limit the development potential.
Brooklyn Paper has the word on the buyer – Matthew Day Jackson. (via L Magazine).
The Court Square transfer from the G train to the 7 train will go live in February, NY1 (via 2nd Avenue Sagas) reports.
Mike Al-Humaidi, proprietor of Deli Mart, which has been on the southeast corner of Bedford and N. Seventh Street for 25 years, shuttered on Wednesday after rejecting a proposed $25,000 per month lease — up from the current $18,000, which had already been hiked from $12,000 earlier this year, according to neighborhood sources.
I bet the landlord is holding out for an Apple Store.
One of Williamsburg’s true architectural gems – and a landmark twice over – is changing hands. No word on what the new owner has planned for the building or the vacant lot next door. But apparently “Apple wasn’t interested” in moving in to a large landmark interior space with poor transit connections and little foot traffic nearby. Go figure.
Photo: via FreeWilliamsburg
So Duane Reade has come to Bedford Avenue and everyone is up in arms. Supporters like Shari Lind (if she exists) think that we need more Duane Reades, Dunkin’ Donuts and other chain stores, all in the name of convenience. Opponents like Tracy Kinney think Williamsburgers should shop locally, fight the greed and enjoy the music.
Personally, I like local shops and will probably do most of my shopping at Kings (which, by the way is also a Manhattan transplant) or Northside Pharmacy (the only true local). I won’t be “boycotting” Duane Reade, and I do hope the competition forces Kings to lower some of their more outrageous pricing.
But in terms of convenience and economy, is anyone else more bothered by the fact that we now have three large chain drug stores but still no supermarkets in Williamsburg? (Sorry, Tops doesn’t rise to the level of super.) Our fresh food needs are served by chain pharmacies, local bodegas and the overpriced chain of Khim’s Millenium stores (new location opening at South 2nd and Bedford!!). For a neighborhood that supports a bustling farmers’ market and at least three CSAs, this is insane. No wonder so many people schlep bags of groceries on the L train.
Don’t expect a real food market anytime soon – there really isn’t any place to put one. The Domino project is the only development site with the square footage for a proper (in industry terms) supermarket, but that won’t be completed until 2013 at the earliest (and will still be a car ride away for most neighborhood residents). This wouldn’t be the end of the world if there were local food shops to fill in the void – green grocers, butchers, bakers and the like. But the two local butchers have sold out to the lure of rising rents, and most of the new alternatives (as good as they are) are unaffordable to many long-time neighborhood residents.
Weidmann Cooperage
80 Wythe Avenue
(photo: WPA)
The Wall Street Journal reports that Two Trees Management is looking for federal tax-exempt financing for its hotel project at 80 Wythe Avenue.
Two Trees, the DUMBO-based development firm, bought the former Weidmann Cooperage a few years ago, and has planned a hotel there all along. The subsidies are controversial because the site is zoned for manufacturing use. While hotel use is allowed in a manufacturing zone, city support for the subsidy would run counter to the city’s prior commitments to maintaining manufacturing uses in the Bushwick Inlet area. The other project that is competing for the subsidy is a film-production studio on Kingsland Avenue in Greenpoint (a manufacturing use in a manufacturing zone).
Industrial retention advocates have questioned the project for its impact on the surrounding Industrial Business Zone and for the quality of the jobs that the hotel would create. City Comptroller John Liu has also raised questions about the validity of Two Trees’ claims with respect to the number of jobs the project would produce.
The Daily News reports this morning that TNS Development – the group that won the bid from the City to build affordable housing at the Greenpoint Hospital site – may not have the funding lined up to do the project. Specifically, TNS’s bid to the City included almost $4 million in funding from Borough President Marty Markowitz – money that Markowitz says he has not been asked for and probably wouldn’t give if he was asked for it:
‘I have not received any request for funding … nor have I made any commitment to this organization.’ [Markowitz] wrote in a letter this month to Housing Preservation and Development officials.
‘Your development staff should be familiar with my past … appropriations to realize that the sums being requested exceed the funds I have provided to individual housing projects during my tenure.’
This confirms what I have been hearing for some time now: that TNS probably does not – and will not – have the funding to do the project.
