Crepe Myrtle
Sheridan Playground
Despite misgivings on the authenticity front (“new businesses cannot help but name themselves for whatever working-class business used to exist at the same location. It has always struck me as being an inside joke that’s in poor taste…”), author Willy Staley finds some hope in the New Domino proposal.
One evening a couple of months ago I was walking down North Third Street between Berry and Wythe and thought to myself that this one block really embodied what everyone (the city, the community, the politicians, the planners) envisioned when the waterfront rezoning went through in 2005. Here you can find a vibrant and diverse collection retail stores that create a real eyes-on-the-street vibe, new residential construction and rehabbed loft buildings. The north side of the block is lined with old loft buildings, rehabbed for residential use. The south side has a well-designed new condo set amidst single-story industrial buildings. There are a host of local retailers, anchored at the corners by bars and restaurants (the Levee, Radegast, Relish and Zebulon (OK, the latter is technically not on North Third, but it counts)). There are small retail establishments (books, second-hand furniture, clothing, books, jewelry, a gallery and even gourmet chocolate), a large retail establishment (Lumber City) and even offices (Vamos Architects).
I meant to chronicle the block back then, and it’s been on my mind to do so ever since, but WG New + Arts has beat me to it. It’s worth a read, and a walk down the block.
“Abstract” is of course a way to dismiss the bookish Mr Obama, as opposed to Mr Kristol,
a decorated Afghanistan veteran and noted military tacticianthe editor of an opinion magazine.
The City Reliquary is a fantastic local institution. Unfortunately, they are caught up in the bureaucracy of City funding, which hits small, legitimate non-profits the worst.
You can send them money directly, or go to their Fire Sale: NYC Firefighter Date Auction at The Knitting Factory (361 Metropolitan Avenue) on February 18th. Doors are open at 6:00 PM/ Show opens at 7:30 pm. Tickets are $20 and available at the door.
In other … neighborhoods, leaders say their litter problem could be ameliorated if they had more public garbage cans and if the sanitation department swung by more often.
You can walk for blocks in Northside or Soutside Williamsburg without seeing a public trash receptacle. And where there are public trash cans (Bedford throughout the Northside, e.g.), they are often overflowing.
If you are thinking of buying at Warehouse 11, here is a new incentive to bid low. Way low.
Tomorrow afternoon, District # 14 and Progress High School will join forces with local elected officials and community leaders to provide direct assistance to the victims of the earthquake in Haiti.
Come to 441 Lorimer Street (corner of Maujer Street) between 12pm and 5pm with donations for the relief effort. They will be accepting supplies for the immediate relief effort, including:
Remember my post about the V train coming to Williamsburg? Old news, it turns out – as linked above, Second Avenue Sagas had full post on it two weeks ago. As I surmised, the switch from the BMT to the IND is west of the Delancey/Essex station, but what I didn’t know is that the transfer has a name – the Chrystie Street Cut.
Clearly I don’t read enough blogs.
TGE’s dream – denied (again)
TransGas Energy System’s latest legal gambit has fallen flat. In a terse decision [pdf], the New York State Court of Appeals has denied TGE’s motion to appeal a prior appellate court ruling.
This all goes back to TGE’s 2002 acquisition of rights to the Bayside Fuel Oil site at North 12th Street and Kent Avenue. In 2004, the New York State Board on Electric Generating Siting and Environment voted to deny TGE’s application to build an above-ground power plant on the site. In May, 2005, the City rezoned the site for parkland. In March, 2008, the siting board rejected a revised TGE plan for an underground plant on the same site, and in September, 2009, the Appellate Court upheld that siting board decision. And now, the Court of Appeals has refused to hear TGE’s appeal (“motion for leave to appeal denied”).
If you are keeping score at home, that’s community 4, TGE 0. (Actually it’s worse than that – TGE has had a series of smaller rejections over that time.)
Despite the fact that this has gone completely under the radar, this is very big news for Williamsburg and Greenpoint. The City can now move ahead with condemnation proceedings to acquire the property. And the City might be able to afford it too – with no viable power plant use (and massive environmental remediation needed), the value of the property is considerably less.
In other words, we are one step closer to a park on the Bushwick Inlet. (And from what I understand, TGE’s option on the Bayside site expires in a couple of months, so maybe this time TGE’s plan is not only merely dead but really most sincerely dead.)
