A week ago, I received an email about a vacant industrial warehouse on 46th Street in Sunset Park that recently sold for $1,100,000. Each of the 4,900 square feet came to $225. I wondered why a bare bones property like this would cost so much, but somewhere out there a landlord was probably excited that Read More
"WE ARE IN A RECESSION!" screamed the words from my in-box back on Nov. 16, and whether it was official yet or not, the wardrobes of Brooklyn's 20-somethings were feeling it. The email was from my friend Rachel, inviting me to a clothing swap at her Boerum Hill apartment. After listing other monetary commitments, family Read More
On the day before Thanksgiving, at the corner of Prospect Place and Washington Avenue, Harvey Keitel put back the driver's seat of a vintage ambulance and caught a little shut-eye. Looking like his role as the similarly vice-ridden cop in the 1992 film Bad Lieutenant, Mr. Keitel awaited set-up for his next scene as Lieutenant Read More
On Monday, the door to the new and expanded Beacon's Closet, a consignment shop now on the corner of Warren Street and Fifth Avenue in Park Slope, opened. Along with a burst of cold air came not a customer but a stink bomb. "All I heard was a bang and then ahhhh," said Tiffany, a Read More
"It's not like libraries are over-funded!" said Soledad O'Brien, master of ceremonies for the 12th annual fundraising gala for the Brooklyn Public Library on Thursday. "It's not like, ‘Trim the fat off those libraries!' Those are cuts that are going to be very much felt." Ms. O'Brien was drinking a glass of water in the Read More
Over the last weekend of the presidential election, the now ubiquitous Shepard Fairey-designed poster of a sacrosanct Barack Obama dotted the windows of shops and homes throughout Brooklyn. At the Gate, in Park Slope, the word "hope" below the senator's smiling countenance had been amended to Slope. Brooklyn, like the rest of New York State, Read More
"I've often heard people say it doesn't matter who you vote for, they're all the same," said Jimmy Ellis, a 56-year-old MoveOn.Org member and host of a calling party Thursday night for Barack Obama in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. "But now, since the election in 2000, I think we can see really clearly, even if you don't Read More
Last Wednesday, on the evening of the final presidential debate of this cycle, held at Hofstra University, Senator John McCain alleged in the most cautious terms he could muster, that ACORN "is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy." Nearby, Read More
Danny Hoch knows where the money is. "It's funny," Mr. Hoch said via phone from his home in Williamsburg. "There's a guy about a block away from me – an old school Puerto Rican cat – and there's a new ATM machine on Grand Street, so he's like, 'Yo man, I be seeing these kids, Read More
These days, Mr. Jafri might hear crickets more often than he'd like. It was Read More
When the Dow plummeted on Monday after Congress failed to pass a bailout for Wall Street's many woes, Brooklyn's creative class was already bracing itself. A downturn at the top of the food chain can't bode well for those closer to the bottom, like the plethora of visual and performing artists that reside here. "It's Read More
As a chillier wind sliced through Brooklyn's popular corridors last Saturday night, it was hard to imagine by the looks of things that anything was wrong with the economy. On North Sixth Street in Williamsburg, young women with Louis Vuitton bags teetered in Manolo Blahniks on the arms of their white-collared dates. Booze coursed through Read More
"First off, there's no question--in my humble opinion--that the literary center of New York has moved to Brooklyn," said our oh-so-humble Borough President Marty Markowitz celebrating the Brooklyn Book Festival in the ornate lobby of Borough Hall this past Sunday. "The authors live here, the illustrators live here, and the energy--there's that energy!--among residents of Read More
I love the Q train. O.K., I love the B, too, but it's the Q that's stolen my heart. When I moved back to Brooklyn in January, the biggest factor in finding an apartment was its proximity to this train line, and especially to the 7th Avenue station (a nice change of pace after riding Read More
One of my favorite things about the suburbs are the supermarkets. I love the sprawling aisles, the enormous selection, the friendly cashier and, of course, the car that brings all those heavy, super-sized containers home. Though the suburban life is plentiful in many ways, space is a major one, it is urban dwelling that I Read More
