Dutch Kills, connected to the Newtown Creek Superfund site is the next “It Zone” (MTA)
Amazon’s plan to build half of its HQ2 at Anabel Basin in Long Island City, just a brisk walk from Greenpoint over the Pulaski Bridge, is proving to be a Rorschch test. The homeownership rate in Brooklyn is around 30 percent, leaving the majority of residents in the area feeling the stress of a potential for increased rent, similar to Seatle where rent has risen 39.8 percent over the past fives years.
On the other hand, real estate speculators are salivating at the HQ2 news and see an opportunity for a quick return on investment; online searches for LIC real estate have jumped 300 percent since the HQ2 announcement less than a week ago.
To “help capitalize on local growth,” NYC-based Compound Asset Management, Inc. has launched an “NYC HQ2 Fund” offering an investment opportunity with a “diversified portfolio of properties in neighborhoods such as Sunnyside, Woodside, Astoria, Greenpoint, Maspeth, and Long Island City itself.”
Meet Compound’s newest fund, NYC HQ2. This fund will acquire and manage a portfolio of properties in and around Long Island City, Amazon’s newest headquarters location and will be available to both individual and institutional investors. https://t.co/fAMpsE7miE#AmazonHQ2
Yes, the speculators are coming (in even greater numbers) and are setting their fiesty eyes on the few neighborhoods with remaining charm in NYC. The highest accolades, according to Compound, are reserved for Dutch Kills, the next “It Zone,” a small waterway where raw sewage often overflows connected to the Newtown Creek Superfund. Compound cites in the fact that four luxury buildings are going up at Dutch Kills already. Continue reading →
“Wielka Polska” tagged at the end of Kent St. near the North entrance of Transmitter Park.
Graffiti with the words “Wielka Polska” (Great Poland in English) and the Celtic cross, which according to the Anti-Defamation League is one of the most common white supremacist symbols, appeared at the Kent St. entrance to Transmitter Park next to East River Studios, where the Showtime production “Billions” is currently filming.
The hate symbol appeared on Monday morning following the Nov. 11, Polish Independence centennial celebration of “Sto Lat,” which also marks the end of World War I in 1918.
The graffiti features the Celtic cross, a common white supremacist symbol.
Gazing through the luminous 100-year-old stained glass windows at Teddy’s Bar and Grill (96 Berry St.) in the Northside of Williamsburg, it’s possible to imagine that time has stood still. The bar is in fact so old that it predates the windows by about three decades. The 130-year-old mahogany bar and tiled floor are original, adding to Teddy’s 19th-century ambiance. Opened in 1887, the bar makes the claim to be Brooklyn’s oldest continually run bar. The Brooklyn Inn (148 Hoyt St.), which claims to have opened in 1885, might dispute Teddy’s claim, but there’s no disputing that Teddy’s retains a unique 19th-century feel. Continue reading →
The Collective, a London-based real estate development firm, will launch its $450 million co-living building at 277 Lorimer St. on the border of Bushwick and Williamsburg by 2020.
The 350,000 square-foot building on the land purchased from Bless Properties for just over $54 million will be Brooklyn’s first co-living building and The Collective’s only U.S. location to date. Continue reading →
♦ Halloween Pumpkins with Lillian Farag @ The Hoxton (97 Wythe Ave.), 7pm, $20, learn to paint pumpkins1 Buy Tix ^ Extraordinary Deaths Book Launch@ WORD (126 Franklin St.), 7:30pm, $5 voucher, Buy tix ♫ Three Nights of Gutterween! @ Gutter Bar (200 North 14th St.), 8pm, FREE, Cover bands all night long! More Info ♫ Holy Ghost! DJ set, Paul Raffaele & Barbie Bertisch, Spicy Boys @ The Good Room (98 Meserole Ave.), 10pm, $15, celebrate the Good Room’s 4th Anniversary Halloween Weekend! Buy Tix
FRIDAY 10/26
* Fascination Street Halloween Market 2018 @ Brooklyn Bazaar (150 Greenpoint Ave.), 6pm, FREE, Punk, rock n roll, goth, kawaii, Lolita fashion/jewelry/art, oddities and MORE. More Info ♫ Halloween 2018 w/ Evolfo, Night Powers, Six Time Users @ Rubulad (Bushwick) 9pm, $15, email [email protected] for address, More info ♫ The Haunting in Brooklyn @ Lot 45 Bushwick (411 Troutman St.), 10pm, FREE w/ RSVP before 11, More info Continue reading →
♫ Vibe Emitter: Official MONDO.nyc Showcase @ Coco SixtySix (66 Greenpoint Ave), 6pm, $8, OFFICIAL Mondo.NYC Music Festival and Tech Conference showcase, VIBE EMITTER! Buy Tix ♫ St. Paul & The Broken Bones @ Brooklyn Steel (319 Frost St.), 7pm, $39.50, Every ticket for this show includes a physical CD of St. Paul & The Broken Bones’ forthcoming album! Buy tix ♫ GABI (Record Release), Julianna Barwick, Foxes in Fiction @ The Park Church Co-op (129 Russell St.), 7pm, $12, Buy Tix ♦ Stranger Things Bingo @ Videology (308 Bedford Ave.), 9pm, FREE, every Wednesday night through the month of October, Videology will be watching the first season of Stranger Things and playing BINGO, More Info
THURSDAY 10/4
♫ A Pale Horse Names Death, Pist.On, Black Dawn, & Witch Kings @ The Kingsland (269 Norman Ave), 6:30pm, $15, Buy Ticket * Mugwort Magic: Plant and Sound Journey @ Anima Mundi (35 Noble St) 7pm, $30, this event will connect to the vibrations of Mugwort, a sacred witches’ herb known for its protective energy and to support lucid dreams., Buy tix ♫ Dark Tea, Baby Jey, New Love Crowd, Babies’ Babies @ Brooklyn Bazaar (150 Greenpoint Ave.), 8pm, $8, Buy Tix ♫ Oblivion 05 @ Magick City (37 Box St.), 8pm, FREE, a relaxed night of musical exploration, More InfoContinue reading →
Hey Greenpoint, it’s time to get out the vote! Traditionally, elections are held on Tuesdays but this week’s Gubernatorial Primary will take place on Thursday, 9/13 (TOMORROW) so as not to conflict with commemorations of 9/11.
That means you have a few more days to brush up on your choices: Continue reading →
Preparing the NCA curriculum, via Newtown Creek Alliance
Happy first day of school, Greenpoint! This year, the local conservationists at Newtown Creek Alliance are bringing the creek to the curriculum as part of the National Wildlife Federation’s Greenpoint EcoSchools initiative.
NCA will pioneer its new STEM Urban Ecology curriculum in the four Greenpoint Public schools: PS 31, PS 34, PS 110, and MS 126. The learning modules and field trips, designed for elementary and middle school students, cover Flora and Fauna relationships, invasive and native species, topography, water and soil quality, ecological health and legacy and ongoing pollution sources.
Each lesson will culminate in a “design based applied learning project,” and NCA staff will serve as expert guides, leading classes through related activities and offering guest lecturers in the classroom. Continue reading →
A rendering of the tanks, transformed. Via Maker Park
Maker Park, the proposed 7-acre waterfront space once home to Astral Oil Works and now within the larger scope of Bushwick Inlet Park, has been aiming to bring art, education, community and performance to the Williamsburg waterfront by adapting industrial infrastructure since 2015. Now, the team behind the reimagined industrial-space-turned-community-hub is moving forward with a whole new vision based on open dialogue, communication and feedback from the community.
Since their December 2016 design display for Maker Park, Stacey Anderson and Karen Zabarsky, co-founders of Maker Park, and the project’s Executive and Creative directors respectively, have taken the past year to listen to the community. Each time, they heard community members call for open space, and environmental remediation of the land.
Stacey and Karen touted North Brooklyn’s “Civic Warriors,” who have worked so hard to get the city to deliver on the full 28-acres Mayor Bloomberg promised for Bushwick Inlet Park in 2005. They hope that Maker Park will be one feature of Bushwick Inlet Park, which they aim to incorporate into the community’s vision for the park space as a whole.
Given the increased density that Bloomberg’s 2005 rezoning has engendered, open space is a paramount concern on the North Brooklyn Waterfront. In order to increase green space, Maker Park will no longer advocate for repurposing the 3-story brick factory building on the site, and will instead focus on remediating the 50-foot decommissioned fuel tanks that speak to the land’s long and sometimes painful industrial history.
The Maker Park team hopes to honor the community’s complex relationship with the tanks, and the industrial history they represent, while also reinventing them in “playful and contemporary ways” that will make them available to the community as a resource for art, education and performance.
The idea has successful precedent. For example, in 2017, the Mapo Oil Depot in Seoul, South Korea was repurposed as Mapo Cultural Depot Park; the site’s oil tanks are now used as exhibition spaces and concert halls.
To make sure our own tanks here in North Brooklyn will be a safe and sustainable asset to the community, the Maker Park team is working with environmental lawyers, scientists and architects on a preliminary remediation plan, which they will make accessible to the public.
Ultimately, Stacey and Karen said, they hope Maker Park will help transform the tanks into something “beautiful and green,” which will be “literally creating new life.”
For on-going updates on all things Maker Park, you can follow the project on Instagram @makerparkBK
Hey Greenpoint history nerds! Welcome to the second installment of “Do the Time Warp!”This post will check in with Greenpoint’s industrial past, when Newtown Creek was mightier than the Mississippi, and instead of a BQX trolly, Greenpointers were united in their demand for “a marginal railroad which shall extend all along the Brooklyn Waterfront from Bay Ridge to Newtown Creek, with spurs into all of the big factories.” Continue reading →
THURSDAY 10/25
FRIDAY 10/26
♫ Vibe Emitter: Official MONDO.nyc Showcase @ Coco SixtySix (66 Greenpoint Ave), 6pm, $8, OFFICIAL Mondo.NYC Music Festival and Tech Conference showcase, VIBE EMITTER! 
THURSDAY 10/4
