Comments gone wild.
Hasids Fight for Naming Rights
The Al Franken Decade
The 1980s were supposed to be the Al Franken decade, but the junior Senator from Minnesota is have a pretty good decade right now. Here he is giving a woman from the Hudson Institute a schooling on why we need health care reform.
[via Animal]
Best Neighborhood Blog
I wuz robbed.
City Planning Approves Broadway Triangle
By a vote of 12 to 1.
Now it’s on to the City Council, where the real changes will be made (and where, despite what Gotham Gazette says, Diana Reyna is not the city council member).
What Give With the Williamsburg Wine Bar Battle?
NBC New York weighs in on the Custom Wine Bar story:
The Custom American Wine Bar, a fancy schmancy Driggs Street tapas bar, has faced seemingly inexplicable resistance from locals, who have levied every charge at the place short of saying it will harbor prostitutes servicing Al Queda sleeper cells hell-bent on destroying the American way of life.
In case you missed it, the Community Board approved the application.
Obsolete
Rivington Street, 14 October
I wonder if Verizon distributes phone books with recycling bags or if you have to supply your own?
Whine Merchants
I’m ready to admit that the nightlife situation is getting out of hand in Williamsburg – being ground zero for a moveable frat party is not my idea of quality of life. But drawing a line in the sand over a wine bar is not the right answer. The community really needs to encourage restaurants and lower-impact establishments (ahem, wine bars), and work to shut down and curtail the nuisance establishments (or, ideally, stop them from opening in the first place).
Locale Condo on the Auction Block
The Locale
Photo: TreeTop Development
Curbed reports that the Locale condo development is about to hit the auction block. This was, I suppose, inevitable, given the utter desperation of the development’s latest marketing ploy – creating a subway-themed development. Which makes sense, since the building is 10 blocks from the nearest subway station (the G at Nassau), you’ll probably forget what one looked like by the time you get home.
Nothing says misguided more than emphasizing your project’s biggest weakness. But then again, when you’re developing across the street from a toxic plume, your opportunities for positive spin are few and far between. (Not that anything else in their marketing plan made sense – if your Manhattan views are over the Newtown Creek sewage plant, you might not want to bring that up, either.)