Has The Springs frozen over? Nope, it’s just been Christmasified! Donner & Blitzen’s Reindeer Lounge can be found this holiday season at The Springs, a local bar in Greenpoint (224 Franklin Street). Don your holiday gear and come get blitzed amidst four grand fireplaces, floor-to-ceiling Christmas trees, and a Candy Cane graphic wall. Graffiti artist PaulNassar created a massive Reindeer Playing Poker mural that will make your holiday season profile pic pop and fill your stockings with cocktails like Festivus mulled wine, Candy Cane Shots, and the Nog-Gonna Make It To Work Tomorrow, along with new creations like an irresistibly addictive Frozen Peppermint Bark Latte.
The lounge serves up holiday munchies like the Fondue You See What I See, The Office Party Cookie Plate, Fried S’mores, and more. Be sure to look out for holiday programming with DJs on the weekends and Ugly Sweater Parties every night. The frozen festivities last now through December 30!
Trees dropped off at Transmitter Park last year. Someone left theirs in a plastic bag – please don’t do this!
Now that all the gifts have been torn open, treasured or returned, it’s time to start disassembling (and storing, disposing of or donating) all your holiday decor. And lo, Mulchfest 2018 is upon us! You can drop off your Christmas Tree at McGolrick Park, McCarren Park or Transmitter Park from Sunday, December 31st to Sunday, January 7th to have it get turned into some very useful mulch. On January 6 and 7 from 10am to 2pm at McCarren Park (a chipping location), the Parks Department will chip your tree and give you your very own FREE bag of mulch! Make sure to strip down your tree and remove all lights, ornaments, and netting before bringing the tree to a MulchFest site.
You can also volunteer on Saturday, January 6th (11am-1pm) to help spread the mulch around McCarren Park to protect them from winter weather! Greening Greenpoint will be holding the tree stewardship event; to volunteer, you should register with NYC Parks and Greening Greenpoint.
The NYC Department of Sanitation will also be conducting special curbside collections for mulching and recycling of Christmas trees. Read below for more info on how to dispose of your holiday decor: Continue reading →
For many folks, attending church is an annual event. Luckily we have some pretty cool houses of worship right here in our neighborhood, if you’d like to dabble in holiday worship this year. Continue reading →
Local bar/coffeeshop/workspace/venue Freehold (45 S 3rd St) is bringing a Christmas wish from a 4-year-old girl with cancer to life! Freehold is working with charity organization The Sisters Project to grant little Ruby’s wish for handmade Christmas cards. Today and tomorrow you can drop off a handmade holiday card to Freehold’s front desk, or make one on the spot—they’ll have art supplies on hand. Happy holidays!
Jingle your bells and wish your neighbors a Merry Christmas by joining the Park Church Co-Op’s Holiday Caroling this weekend, Saturday Dec 2nd at 9am!
“Join us for some singing at Park Church Co-op! We’ll start our morning with hot chocolate and breakfast at 129 Russell Street where we’ll practice kid-friendly holiday tunes. Then we will walk over to St. John Lutheran’s Church (155 Milton St) to sing for those attending their community meal! Meet us promptly at 9am. Get a head start with practicing our song book, available at this link.”
If you can seriously never get enough of the “I have a machine gun… Ho-ho-ho!” line from Die Hard… or if the old man church scene from Home Alone never fails to make you openly weep… Nitehawk (136 Metropolitan Ave) is presenting their Holiday Show Spectacular again this year—where from Thanksgiving through Christmas they host special screenings of movies that are guaranteed to get you into the spirit. Most of the films are weekend brunch screenings, which means there’ll probably be some deliciously creative seasonal food and cocktail parings. We recommend getting your tickets EARLY, because these shows will sell out—quickly!
Trees dropped off at Transmitter Park. Someone left theirs in a plastic bag – please don’t do this!
As of last week, we started seeing trees pile up at McCarren Park, some with lights and stands still attached, which is a big no-no. Here’s what you need to do to get your tree ready for recycling!
The New York City Department of Parks & Recreation, the New York City Department of Sanitation , and GreeNYC are hosting the annual MulchFest this Saturday and Sunday January 7th and 8th, where trees are turned into mulch for the city’s parks and plantings. You can drop off your Christmas trees to recycle them into wood chips. These wood chips are used to nourish trees and plants on streets and gardens citywide. Or, take home your very own bag of mulch to use in your backyard or to make a winter bed for a street tree. More than 30,000 trees were recycled last year.
You can bring your tree to McCarren Park at Lorimer and Driggs on January 7 and 8 from 10am to 2pm. They’ll chip your tree, and give you your very own bag of mulch! McGolrick Park (at Monitor and Driggs) and Transmitter Park are both operating as tree drop-off sites, so you can bring your tree there but it won’t be chipped there (so no free bag of mulch). Please remember to remove all lights, ornaments, tinsel, stands and netting before bringing the tree to a MulchFest chipping or drop-off site. Bags will be provided if you wish to take some free mulch home. Continue reading →
As Christmas 2016 approaches, Greenpoint is prosperous. Hundreds of people are out in the neighborhood shopping and restaurants and bars are doing a brisk business, yet Christmas was not always a time of wealth. During the holidays in 1932 the neighborhood’s atmosphere was totally different. It was the third Christmas of the Great Depression, and by some estimates fifty percent of Greenpointers were out of work. But the Christmas spirit was not dead and there was one man who wanted every family to celebrate Christmas—that man was Peter McGuinness, the “first citizen” of Greenpoint.
McgGuinness born on Eagle street in 1888, and as the third of fourteen children from a working class family he knew poverty and was determined to fight against it. As a teen he had seen Big Tim Sullivan, the leader of the “Tammany Hall” political machine in the Bowery who threw a big Christmas bash for the poor in his area and thousands of the Bowery poor came and received a free meal and a basket of Chirstmas food. McGuinness was so impressed with Sullivan’s Christmas that he later revived this Christmas tradition in Greenpoint. Continue reading →
They say it’s the most wonderful time of the year—but between self-embarrassment at work parties, getting the XS condoms at the white elephant gift exchange, forced family hangouts, and blowing your paycheck on gifts and flights, you might need a little help getting into the holiday spirit. Luckily, North Brooklyn has an abundance of seasonal flicks to bring you some of that Christmas cheer. And at most of these places, there will be booze. Listings after the jump! Continue reading →
Donna Siafakas, the owner of Peter Pan Donuts & Pastry Shop (727 Manhattan Ave.) and Nick Giannios, owner of The Greenpoint Floral Company (703 Manhattan Ave.) are two long-time local residents and successful Manhattan Avenue merchants who are trying to give back the community at holiday time, but they’re learning that things ain’t the way they used to be.
Siafakas loved the holiday lights that used to signal the start of every holiday season on Manhattan Avenue. She related to me how local merchants used to all chip in and collect money for the lights as a thank you to customers who supported local businesses. In those days, Manhattan Avenue business owners were locals with families and had deep ties to the community. Years ago a civic minded local Jewish merchant used to organize the lighting drive and collected the money, which most local store owners were only to happy to contribute.
Giannos and Siafakos have tried to keep the tradition alive, but times have changed and so has the willingness of merchants to fund the holiday lights. Siafakas said that she was shocked by the resistance to contributing for the avenue lights. She does not want local shoppers to chip in, and feels that it’s a way for store owners to show their love for the community; but fewer than half the businesses have contributed so far, and some shop owners told her outright that they would not contribute because they did not celebrate the holiday season. Continue reading →
Donna Siafakas, the owner of 
