Results tagged “williamsburg”

Last night marked the official start to the long, eight month public review process for the mixed-use residential and retail development proposed at Williamsburg's old Domino Sugar Refinery. As the Brooklyn Paper reports, it did not go so well for the developer behind the $1.2-billion project, which would transform the vacant 11-acre industrial site into a complex with 2,200 apartments, 30% of which would be set aside for low- and moderate-income families, plus a waterfront esplanade. more ›

A thug in Williamsburg was incited to violence when a man brushed up against his car earlier this month. Dominck Auricchio, a 49-year-old from Manhattan, got out of his car near the Brooklyn Brewery and yelled to his 30-year-old victim, "I'm going to kill you!" reports the Post's police blotter. As he was screaming he punched the man in the face. Worst of all, he was wearing a metal ring! After the beating, which took place on North 11th Street near Wythe Avenue at 9:55 p.m., he fled in his vehicle, but police tracked him down and arrested him on charges of assault Thursday. His victim was taken to the hospital where he required 11 stitches for a cut on his face. New York: Still the #1 city for meathead road rage! more ›

Remember when you fell on that patch of ice on North 12th and Bedford? Your embarrassment was caught on tape and will now live forever on the internet. One Williamsburg voyeur says he "noticed 4 out of every 5 people that walked by ate it on the ice there." Instead of warning the unfortunate pedestrians or throwing some salt down, he hit record and later uploaded the montage to YouTube: more ›

Of all the performing arts, theater has a tendency to be the most unbearable. You can easily walk out of most concerts, and with dance there's usually at least a certain technical proficiency to be admired. But particularly in small Off Broadway theaters—where, ironically, the potential for magnificence is greatest—it's almost impossible to escape without causing a major disruption. When theater stinks, which is often, you've usually got no choice but to suffer through it without anesthetic, as time slows to a crawl and your captors torment you with boredom. more ›

There's a newish sex toy shop in Williamsburg called Shag, and the Brooklyn Paper has the scoop. The proprietors, artists from the neighborhood, say it's not your typical sex shop storefront. There are vibrating necklaces, hand-made lingerie, and yadda yadda yadda "workers will happily make a silicone dildo that’s an exact replica of a customer’s penis." They say "it may sound like a gag gift" (hey that's not what they're used for!) "but when a husband has to leave town on business there’s no reason why a wife can’t still have a little pleasure." What is this the '50s... what about when women leave on a business trip? According to this gallery of photos from the store, all they can leave behind is a doorknob cast from a stranger's vagina. more ›

Senator Schumer has saved the Brooklyn Pool Parties! We just received a press release announcing the news that will surely put a smile on disaffected hipster's faces borough-wide. more ›

Since he announced his interest in running against Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, former Tennessee lawmaker and New York newcomer Harold Ford was having a hard time making friends in this "city of transients." But that's come to an end now that he's buddied up with Brooklyn political boss and power broker Assemblyman Vito Lopez (D-Bushwick), whose influence might help Ford avoid the lengthy and costly process of petitioning to get his name on the primary ballot. According to the Observer, after lunching with the Lopez twice at Cono and Sons in Williamsburg, the Party Boss was willing to offer a "personal endorsement" of Ford, while the likely Senate candidate said this of his new friendship with the Lopez: "It's amazing that it's been a week. I feel like it's been about two years, three years since we've known each other." Recent polls show Gillibrand leading Ford 44 percent to 27 percent, however 25 percent of voters are still undecided. more ›

Free Williamsburg found this YouTube video taken by a UFO enthusiast, supposedly from his back yard in Williamsburg. Does it show an alien ship with pretty changing colors, or is this how a star looks when a stoned scenester messes with the auto-focus? It's difficult to tell from this vantage point whether the alien star people will kill the hipsters or merely enslave them, but one thing is certain: there is no stopping them. And we here at Gothamist would like to welcome our new alien overlords, and remind them that we can be helpful in rounding up others to work in their underground ironic T-shirt factories. more ›

We're halfway through the G train's month-long disappearance on weekends, and naturally there have been horror stories of inconvenient commutes by shuttle bus to under-served parts of Brooklyn and Queens. That Greenpoint blog New York Shitty published a photo series of forsaken commuters waiting for the shuttle bus in Williamsburg, calling it "Waiting for G(odot)," with a dedication to the MTA. And another blogger described an annoying ride on packed shuttle that passed her usual stop by half a block. Nightmare! But not everyone misses the G train, and some wish it would stay disappeared for good. more ›

Hotly-anticipated peace talks between supporters and opponents of the recently-erased Bedford Avenue bicycle lane fell short last night when both parties left a discussion at Pete's Candy Store in Williamsburg with the same seemingly irreparable differences that they brought to the table. Supporters of the Bedford Avenue lane insisted that a biking path on Brooklyn's longest road is necessary for both transportation and safety, while a community activist representing South Williamsburg's Hasidic Jewish residents expressed concerns about dangerous biking etiquette. more ›

Starting today, the "Fatty Crew" is hiding prizes in a few of their house-made Fatty Chocolate Bars, sold at all three of Pelaccio's restaurants. According to the restaurants' publicist, a small number of the bars will contain special tickets in the wrapping redeemable for items like free cocktails, free Fatty T-Shirts, and free appetizers. The golden ticket will entitle the lucky winner (and a guest) to attend one of a handful of "exclusive" Fatty ‘Cue preview parties, and "meet NYC’s own Willy Wonka of Asian cuisine, Zak Pelaccio." Which can only mean one thing: Pelaccio is preparing to disappear into retirement and wants someone to take over his fatty empire. Don't fall into the bubbling pig fat river! more ›

Well this is positively Poltergeisty: Williamsburg arcade game/beer haven, Barcade, was built on a cemetery! ScoutingNY researched the the area's history a little while ago — after spotting the burial ground on an 1849 map of Brooklyn — and we're here to resurrect the haunted history! more ›

If you live on Union Street in Carroll Gardens, you may have a holiday card coming to you. That is, if the dreaded Williamsburg Post Office ever figures out that the 11215 ≠ 11211. The envelope above, sent in by a Gothamist reader, was apparently mis-scanned by the post office and then delivered to the same wrong address four times. One theory by the 11211 recipient is that the bar code is causing the envelope to be sent to the wrong address again and again. But, as it turns out, the letter was delivered to the same address a fifth time even after the bar code was blacked out. Clearly, there was some sort of error in the complex USPS sorting process. Quick, cue Elvis! more ›

Why live in a Bushwick trailer park when you can live in a Williamsburg shipping container? The folks over at Curbed say shipping container architecture is a "Bigfoot" in the city's development circles, meaning it's "endlessly discussed yet rarely seen." Though it's been used in commercial applications — like the modular Subway sandwich shop installed atop a crane at the World Trade Center site — this narrow two-family home at 351 Keap Street in Williamsburg might be the city's first residential use of the environmentally-friendly, cost-conscious building material. Back in 2008, the Office of Emergency Management held a contest to design temporary housing for the thousands of New Yorkers who might be displaced in the event of a catastrophe, like a direct hit from a Category 3 hurricane. Most of those designs utilized shipping containers, so these Keap Street residents aren't just setting trends, they're braced for the end of days! more ›

Website Very Small Array put together this funny map of apartments described in Craigslist ads as being located in Williamsburg or East Williamsburg. The result, heh, confirms that if real estate brokers had their way, the boundaries of gentrified Hipsterstan would stretch all the way from the fertile blocks of Bushwick to the sleepy lanes of God's Country (northwest Greenpoint). Watch your back, Queens, only toxic Newtown Creek and that narrow pedestrian/bike path on the Pulaski Bridge can save you from Williamsburg now! more ›

You wanna be in a band that sounds like "James Chance getting stupid with Brian Chippendale who had a coveted love affair with Mary Poppins and Brix E. Smith in a Peruvian hotel room while Kiwi Kilgour brothers watched after eating a lime-cured octopus"? Well first of all, how derivative, and secondly, have we got the band for you: more ›

Cops released positive new statistics for Williamsburg gun crime—the number of shootings in 2009 was about half of the previous year's count. According to the Daily Courier ten people were shot in 2009, that's eleven fewer than in than the 21 gun victims in 2008, a 52.4 percent decrease for the Bedford Avenue belt. Those are good stats, but is 2010 bucking the trend already? more ›

There hasn't been much news in a while on the status of the ambitious, mixed-use development planned for the former Domino Sugar refinery on the South Side of Williamsburg. You'll recall that for years now a developer has been planning to build a massive residential and retail development at the site of the landmarked plant, but it was an open question as to how the tanking housing market would affect the plans. Well, turns out the project is entering the public review phase, possibly facing the local community board this month. Here are some new renderings! more ›

The Hasidic community in South Williamsburg may have discouraged immodestly dressed bike riders by getting rid of the Bedford Avenue bike lane, but is the neighborhood now free from kidnappers, too? One rabbi apparently thinks so; today the Chaptzem Blog received an irate email from someone who says they witnessed a teacher at a local Yeshiva school leave 35 5-year-old children unattended in a public playground for almost a half hour—while he went for coffee. more ›

A 49-year-old has been charged with murder for drunkenly shooting and killing another man in a pool hall in Williamsburg on Saturday. Mauro Lopez was cuffed just after the shooting, which broke out in a billiards room behind Maria's Grocery on Broadway at around 4 pm, according to the Daily News. more ›

A man was shot and killed after a dispute in a backroom pool hall in Williamsburg on Saturday. The victim — whose name has not yet been released — was shot in the chest just before 4 pm in a billiards room behind a Broadway bodega, reportedly by his drunken uncle. more ›

Fire officials believe that a two-alarm fire that left a teenager dead and many others injured was caused by arson. The Post reports, "Investigators found a large red gasoline canister at 55 Harrison Place," which is on the Williamsburg-Bushwick border, and the NY Times says, "A surveillance video showed a man entering the three-story building shortly before the fire began, and the man was shown leaving as the flames began to erupt." more ›

City Council approved a residential rezoning plan for the so-called Broadway Triangle — a largely industrial swath of land on the border of Williamsburg, Bushwick and Bedford Stuyvessant where developmental interests have pitted neighborhoods, religious groups, and ethnic groups against each other. The Council voted 36 to 10 with four abstentions in favor of the rezoning, which will allow the construction of low-rise buildings containing 1,851 units of housing, more than 800 for people with low and moderate incomes. Courier Life reporter Aaron Short captures some of the drama from inside City Hall on his blog. more ›

Brooklyn's atavistic artisanal food fetish has reached its nadir or its zenith, depending on whether you want high-proof alcohol distilled in an old radiator from some bearded dude's Chevy Nova. At least, that's one way of making Moonshine. But David Haskell (an editor at New York) and Colin Spoelman (a Kentucky native) seem classier than that. They've applied for a license from the SLA to start producing their own "locavore liquor" in East Williamsburg, and Spoelman tells Grub Street he plans to make 80-proof, unaged corn whiskey that "will be more refined than anything in a jug or a mason jar." But will it still make us want to go down to the dump and shoot some rats? more ›

While electric shocks reaching through the sidewalk pavement can happen during any season — a Post reporter's dog died in June 2007, another shocked in August — most incidents take place during the winter months. This is because wet and salt-covered sidewalks can conduct stray electricity from underground utilities. more ›

For the past two weekends, bicycling advocates have planned high-profile demonstrations to protest the city's surprise removal of a 14-block stretch of bike lane on Bedford Avenue in South Williamsburg. But both rides have been severely undermined by inclement weather, much to the dismay of cyclists, media, and even the NYPD. Saturday night's snow foiled what was supposed to be a topless bike ride through the predominantly Hasidic community, some of whom are said to object to the presence of immodestly dressed women. Others, of course, are all for immodesty: "I want to see some boobs!" shouted one disappointed cop. more ›

"I want to see some boobs," shouted a lone NYPD officer (seen here) who pulled up to our photographer at Bedford Avenue in South Williamsburg, ironically blocking the former bike lane in the process. "I've been trying to find out online when this is happening and nobody had the start time! Did I miss it?" Minutes later, a group of 15-20 fully clothed cyclists pedaled by, trailed by almost twice as many photographers, TV news crews, and assorted media. The "topless" protest over the controversially removed bike lane was not the NC-17 provocation the media and others had hoped for. At one point, two men in a parked car near Division Street shouted at the cyclists, "We've been waiting for two hours! Where's the skin?" more ›

Williamsburg got a brand new shiny Duane Reade just a few months ago, currently up and running on Kent Avenue and North 5th. And now like Gremlins doused in water, the store is multiplying — Curbed notes that the neighborhood is getting another one on Bedford Avenue and North 3rd! This is dangerously close to Kings Pharmacy, which has been the area's go-to drugstore and still has a prescription filling time one hour faster than the chain... but can they survive the Duane Reade-ification of the neighborhood? more ›

If you wondered how much the DOT has spent so far to add and subtract a controversial 14-block stretch of bike lane on Bedford Avenue in South Williamsburg, here's your answer: $11,000 to install and $15,000 to sandblast it away. As NBCNewYork.com observes, "That's $26,000 of taxpayer money that isn't making bicyclists any safer." But at least now that the bike lane's gone, the Hasidic rabbis in the neighborhood can protect their flock from immodestly dressed outsiders—that is, unless bicyclists do something crazy like ride without a bike lane. This weekend, some are planning to do just that. And without clothes. more ›

We're guessing that somewhere in the Squatter's Handbook it says something about keeping quiet, not complaining, laying low... that sort of thing. The NY Post reports on one man who found himself a nice $2,500/month Williamsburg apartment... for free, because he didn't, like, tell anyone he was moving in. They report, the "squatter felt so at home that he called the city to complain about the heat," or lack thereof. When the NYPD showed up Tuesday, he started punching and kicking them! And as a grand finale to his squatting stint, while being taken away, he told the landlord that he was going to fucking kill him. more ›