Nicole Brydson

I was on my way to work recently when I noticed Park Place in Prospect Heights totally shut down to cars. Only one remained: a purple mini cooper on the block between Flatbush and Vanderbilt. A tow truck scooped it up and made way for huge trucks to rip up the pavement. For a few weeks, it was difficult to cross the street. Small pebbles would wedge themselves into the soles of my shoes. Wind kicked up dust on Vanderbilt. I held my breath.

A lot of people have been holding their breath in Prospect Heights and Crown Heights lately, waiting for the potential onslaught of new residents.  read more »

What do Jasper Johns, Cindy Sherman, Annie Leibovitz and Keith Haring all have in common? Each artist has work up for sale at the 4th Annual Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM to us locals) Silent Auction.

BAM certainly plays an integral part in the Brooklyn art scene, and the auction, which raises money for BAM's various programs, raked in $237,500 last year. Artists from all over the borough have work for sale—which you can bid on on BAM's Web site—many from Williamsburg, Fort Greene and Prospect Heights. Bidding is open until April 13, when the closing reception will bring in the final bids.

Brooklyn has certainly always nurtured creative talent—nothing new there. The borough has increasingly become home to prominent names in the fine-arts community. While an afternoon spent in Manhattan's great museums or in Chelsea's galleries is certainly invigorating, poking around unconventional spaces that have sprung up all over Brooklyn can turn into quite the adventure. Brooklyn is an urban jungle peppered with art, inside and outside of the spaces that facilitate creativity.  read more »

It seems like every time you turn the corner these days you run into yet another new bar. This is especially true in the gentrified neighborhoods of Brooklyn and very much so in Prospect Heights. Time Out New York recently ran a page-long charticle on the heavy bar presence on Vanderbilt Avenue, the go-to strip for ProHo nightlife.

The eight-block avenue boasts restaurants, cafes and boutiques for moms and dads puttering around with their stroller-strapped kids during the day and by night there are no less than four drinking establishments and one on the verge of receiving its liquor license. Recently, my friends Adam and Dave joined me in hitting a few of my local spots, including the brand-new Weather Up and the six-year-old Soda.  read more »

It isn't often that New Yorkers get an intimate peek behind their neighbors' closed doors. Even more unusual is a peek inside the intimate life of our state's chief executive. But I digress.

As a child growing up in a 25-story filing cabinet for families and young professionals on West 53rd Street, I lived in apartment 10E. When trick-or-treating or selling my annual Christmas raffle tickets for school, I would get an intimate window into how my neighbors lived. We all have our domains, and regardless of how small they might be, they are ours. But what are we all doing behind those doors?

On March 5, the Center for an Urban Future and the Brooklyn Economic Development Corporation hosted a forum on the population boom within Brooklyn’s "creative crescent." The number of creative freelancers--artists, writers, designers, architects, performance artists, musicians, graphic designers and others--increased 33.2 percent from 2002 through 2005; now, roughly 28 percent of the city's creative freelancers live and work in the borough. The Brooklyn home is often more than just a place to lay our heads – it can often act as the genesis for our creative and professional lives.  read more »

If you live in Brooklyn, or any outer-borough really, I'm sure you've seen it before: the requisite post-work grocery bag getting lugged home on the train. Often it's the ubiquitous Whole Foods and Trader Joe bags bouncing along the platform awaiting voyages across the East River.

Recently, the City Council passed a bill – despite intense lobbying against it by food retailers – to issue street vending permits for vegetable stands in the city's poorer neighborhoods. It's clear to anyone living in the areas included in the measure – like my neighbors in Bushwick and Bedford-Stuyvesant – that fresh, decent produce is not as readily available as it is in much of Manhattan. Cue that long trip home from Whole Foods.  read more »

As a teenager I spent a fair amount of time traversing New York City's urban terrain in search of live music. I was partial to punk. I spent a lot of time at Saturday punk matinees at ABC No Rio and the Dumbo art collective DUMBA. At 16, I marched down to the DMV to get a resident ID to prove to CBGB's Hilly Kristal that I was old enough to shove people to an orchestra of power chords.

I remember the devastation of Giuliani's ruling against dancing in bars and the death knell of advancing gentrification, the demise of the places I used to frequent (except for ABC No Rio, which managed to buy its squatted building from the city in the late 90's and is now planning a serious renovation). In a recent article for The Observer, Chris Shott described the debilitating regulatory environment that many music venues contend with now.  read more »

>> The National, Feb. 22-23, Brooklyn Academy of Music (sold out)

"No way! A 2,500 seat theater!" said The National’s Bryce Dessner, sounding more like one his band’s teenage fans than a well-traveled 34-year-old guitarist. He was calling from Ditmas Park—a few neighborhoods south of the Brooklyn Academy of Music where his brooding hometown band will take the stage for two sold-out nights tonight and tomorrow night. "It's just not something we would have considered."  read more »

Though I spent three years living in Greenpoint, I often found myself shunning the local nightlife—aside from a few restaurants and my local watering hole the Pencil Factory—for cozy nights in on my quiet residential street. Especially during this time of year. But despite no longer residing there, I've recently found myself traveling north to Williamsburg and Greenpoint for a night out more often and apparently, I'm not alone!

On a recent Thursday, I headed to the Music Hall of Williamsburg to catch a few bands play. On my walk toward the venue, which stands just short of the East River, I bypassed the Thai restaurant Sea, now North 6th Street's bridge-and-tunnel capital. Patrons were falling out of the doors, the line for a table immense, while a DJ boomed hip hop to a crowd donning their Sunday (or Thursday) best. Similarly, up the street, Planet Thai was packed to the brim with people seeking a lounge, restaurant and bar feel all in one.  read more »

One of the major differences, generally speaking, between Manhattan and Brooklyn is the proximity you have to your neighbor. In Manhattan, residents may feel piled on top of each other in shoeboxes or filing cabinets, depending on your metaphor preference, but rarely will they ever get to know one another. In Brooklyn, residents tend to have more space and fewer neighbors, yet the proximity seems closer.

Brooklynites exist closer to the urban frontier.  read more »

When trance-rock duo MGMT—pronounced management—make their last stops before their European tour promoting their debut full-length album, Oracular Spectacular, to play the Bowery Ballroom on Feb. 13th and the Music Hall of Williamsburg on Feb. 14th, it will put the finishing touch on an unlikely success story.

“It's kind of weird,” said Ben Goldwasser, 25, who met the other half of MGMT, Andrew Van Wyngarden, 24, during their Freshman year at Wesleyan. Almost straight out of college, they signed a deal with Columbia Records in late 2006 based on only the six-song EP, “Time to Pretend.” “We all felt guilty that there’s so many bands and so many friends of ours that are working so hard to get noticed by a label and make it, or whatever. We definitely were not trying at all. We were just kind of doing our own thing.”  read more »

"Actually sitting and watching—it's so exciting," said former model and Lipstick Jungle star Brooke Shields, 44, seated next to co-star Kim Raver in the front row of the J Mendel show at the Plaza Hotel on Tuesday.

"I never did runway," Ms. Shields continued.  "I would be the one waiting in the hotel, they would take the clothes off [the runway! Not her bod!] and I would take pictures for Vogue or whatever the magazine was.  So actually ... I never made this circuit before at all."  read more »

Becki Newton, the 29-year-old actress who stars as Amanda, the sharp-tongued receptionist in ABC's Ugly Betty, was poking around backstage after Monique Lhuillier showed her fall collection on Tuesday in Bryant Park.

"All of the girls sitting in the front row are going to have a fight over those dresses," she said, "because they are all amazing and flattering and beautiful."  read more »

Apparently it's quite controversial to discuss the experience of living in Brooklyn when it comes to the topic of race. A few weeks back, I dared to talk about it and received a lot of flack. But in my hood, Prospect Heights, and anywhere really, race, class and gentrification are heavy topics, and I'm not going to shy away from them.

After graduating college, I spent close to two years working in central Brooklyn politics, commuting south every morning from my apartment in Greenpoint to a state senator's office on Flatbush Avenue near Lincoln Place. I worked with families whose homes were in disrepair, mediating fights with landlords over HPD cases; and with community groups, landlords and community affairs police officers over drug-related crime. All the work merely put band-aids on a broken system. I often returned home in utter shock. Perhaps you've seen The Wire.  read more »

“I'm a very lucky man, I get to sit with Tyra quite regularly,” British photographer and America’s Next Top Model judge Nigel Barker told the Transom, referring to divalicious ANTM hostess Tyra Banks, after Betsey Johnson celebrated 30 years in fashion at Bryant Park on Monday. “That's another thing that puts a smile on my face.”

The first thing to put a smile on Mr. Barker's face was Ms. Johnson’s beat-chick-inspired presentation, followed by a retrospective of her years in the industry.  read more »

"I kind of don’t really like having fashion shows—they’re really complicated and time-consuming," said Wendy Mullin, designer of the line Built By Wendy, at the Werkette Gallery on Great Jones Street where she presented her Nordic-inspired fall line on Sunday, Feb. 3. Instead of the traditional runway, she opted to "do a photo shoot and project the images."  read more »

Though the L.A.-based designer of Rock & Republic, Michael Ball, has expressed disdain for the Bryant Park tents in the past, he had no problem showing there on Saturday, Feb. 2.  read more »

Lacoste’s famous crocodile logo was conspicuously absent from the label’s party at the Bowery Hotel on Saturday, Feb. 2, though the show that morning, held in the tents at Bryant Park, was full of preppy duds: brightly colored patterns and white V-neck sweaters. J’ai adoré the cute gray trench!

Young guests working the surfer-skater-thug look that has become standard in this part of the city bounced from open bar to open bar, playing pool and lounging on couches while D.J. Stretch Armstrong “spun” the new M.I.A. record.  read more »

At the Yigal Azrouel show at Eyebeam West 21st Street at noon on Friday, Feb. 1, pouty male models went down the runway wearing mustard-striped cotton sweats tucked into military-style boots, thermal shirts and cardigan sweaters; brown cords and K-Swiss sneakers; wrinkled blazers and loose-fitting jeans were paired with Paddington coats and oversized merino wool sweaters.

“This is what I wear,” Mr. Azrouel said. “I kind of like it, you aren't trying very hard and you're warm and cozy.”  read more »

THE PERFECT SCENT: A YEAR INSIDE THE PERFUME INDUSTRY IN PARIS AND NEW YORK
By Chandler Burr
Henry Holt, 306 pages, $25

“The idea that you like something can lead to the idea that you know something about it,” Sarah Jessica Parker told Chandler Burr, author of The Perfect Scent. “Which is, of course, not necessarily the case.” Luckily for Ms. Parker, a crack team at Coty, the $3 billion perfume conglomerate, helped her create Lovely, the Sex and the City star’s first signature fragrance.

Mr. Burr, the scent critic for T: The New York Times Style Magazine, juxtaposes the development and launch of Lovely with the restructuring and marketing efforts of the perfume division of the luxury brand Hermès. Written mostly for beauty industry insiders who’ll easily recognize the cast of characters, Mr. Burr’s book showcases his brilliance as a writer, though his voice is often buried by a too-generous supply of detail.  read more »

It's easy to feel helpless and vulnerable during your apartment search, tired of hoofing it from place to place, and being let down almost every time. On top of that, I was skeptical of my realtor, Angel, a 50-ish Asian woman who drives a Jaguar, when she first showed me the apartment I inevitably took.

Not unlike a character out of a real estate cartoon, Angel met me in front of a building she owns just down the street from the apartment she was renting me. She made it immediately clear how much of an over-sharer she is. “I rent my two-bedroom apartments for $2,000! You will get a good deal here!,” she squealed, before double-speaking. “I represent YOU! This is not my building, I work for the landlord!”

It was hard to know what was true and what was her poor attempt at salesmanship, or, even worse, if she was being dishonest. But, after seeing a few other places, I went ahead with it anyway. I needed a place, and my roommate, Will, had a strict deadline to get out of his place that was approaching in a matter of days. Angel was the only realtor showing us a decent amount of space at a reasonable price.  read more »

To the long list of oxymoronic garments produced by our novelty-desperate fashion complex—corduroy culottes! Uggs in Malibu!—now add sleeveless coats. “They look great!” enthused Kasia Steńczyk, 27, a special-events intern at the Brooklyn Academy of Music who owns a whopping ten of ’em. “I just make sure I have a long-sleeved shirt under, or very long gloves. You can have a lot of long cute and diverse gloves with that type of coat.”

What’s the latest thing in fashion these days? Buying stuff that requires you to buy … more stuff. Think iPod accessories, those little clip-on gew-gaws now available for Hermes Birkins, and these baffling arm-exposing coats that appeared on the Marc Jacobs fall ’06 runway and have been spotted everywhere from high-end stores like Opening Ceremony and Miss Sixty to Forever 21, H&M and Club Monaco. “This silhouette is extremely versatile,” said Wichy Hassan, co-founder and creative director of the Sixty Group. “Wear it open for a stylishly casual look on warmer days or zip it up when the temperature drops!”  read more »

On a recent chilly night, I was bundled up and on my way to Boerum Hill to have dinner at a friend's apartment. As I walked down Washington Avenue the B45 bus pulled up next to me, and I hesitated. “Which would be faster, the train or the bus?” I thought. Before I could make a decision, the bus doors had shuttered. Luckily, the light at Atlantic and Washington was still red and I approached the bus and knocked on the door. The driver, a middle-aged African-American man, refused to open the door, gesturing to the next stop, three street crossings away, even though his bus was still idling perfectly in front of a designated stop. It was 15 degrees outside and I'll admit it, I felt like the driver was sticking it to me for being white.  read more »

“Maybe you're born with it, maybe it's Maybelline; in my case, it's Maybelline!" fashion muse Andre J told the crowd at Ford Models’ “Supermodel of the World” contest, at Terminal 5 on Eleventh Avenue in midtown on Wed., Jan. 16.

Andre, playing emcee for the night, was just about to announce the winners of the year-long contest that brought young women from all over the world to New York to compete for contracts of up to $250,000 with the venerable 62-year-old agency.

Founders Jerry and Eileen Ford sat prominently in the first row, and at the other end of the runway, was All My Children star Level Rambin holding hands with former cast-mate Aiden Turner.  read more »

As I briefly mentioned last week, amenities and good location are hard to come by, especially at the same time and at a decent price. While looking at an apartment three (very long) blocks off the Dekalb L stop, I noticed little signs of revival in the outstretches of Bushwick—the facade of a tenement building repaired, construction workers milling about in paint-splattered overalls with ladders. A sign that the tidal wave of Williamsburgian revival will soon fall upon it. However, thus far, it hasn't.

The apartment cost $1,600 a month, though the realtor—a kind Hasidic man who immediately explained his inability to shake my hand before offering his to my boyfriend—offered it for $1,550 when I winced at the price. Workers were coming and going over paper that had been set down on the floor to protect newly stained wood floors. Though it was on the first floor, everything was brand-new: kitchen cabinets, walls, moldings, doors, bathroom fixtures. It was clear that the landlord had put money into the place, but I could not justify spending even the discounted $750 per month on a (beautiful) room in Bushwick that I did not feel safe in.  read more »

Editor's Note: The Real Estate presents Brooklyn, The Borough, a weekly column by Observer staffer and native Manhattanite Nicole Brydson about her return to Brooklyn after nearly a year in Hell's Kitchen.

For three years I lived in Greenpoint, the northern Polish colony of Brooklyn. Though I wasn't part of the first wave of gentrification, the wheels of which were long turning--fast--my indigenous neighbors didn't necessarily seem thrilled with the influx of youthful college graduates. But, over the time I spent living there, the process completed itself. Greenpoint, close to Williamsburg and now home to hip bars, natural markets, galleries, brunch spots, fashion-forward boutiques and even a book store, became the convenient and affordable choix de la jeunesse.  read more »

This newspaper has long chastised the consumers of these blocky and unattractive winter boots known as Uggs, especially egregious in the warmer season, but an even more appalling fashion violation has sufaced: the Ugg/moccasin mutation.

You've seen it before: thick, outrageously colored sheepskin boots, perhaps adorned with suede tassels, beads, and pinched stitching--topped off with pom-poms dangling from laces that serve little purpose. They'll keep you warm while simultaneously allowing fellow pedestrians to know you might be a bit trashy, foreign, or very clearly from out of town!

Doll them up with a frilly dress and instant hippy chic—all the rage in L.A. these past few years—is attained. Dress them down with a pair of stonewashed jeans and…you aren't from here. You can’t be.

The Observer sought answers to why women would adorn themselves with these clodhoppers, found most often in tourist clusters like Times Square, Canal Street and the de facto shoe mall that is West 8th Street.  read more »

I'm just going to come out and admit it: I usually go to Starbucks every day. In the wintertime, I enjoy a venti drip with soymilk and a shot of classic sweetener ($2.28), and my favorite barista, Shannon (though I frequent a few different locations) knows to get it ready when she sees me coming.

The current conventional wisdom is that Starbucks is homogenized, corporate and uninviting; people love to yap about their favorite boutique coffee place.  read more »

“I enjoy parties, as you might know,” photographer Patrick McMullan told the Transom on Monday, Dec. 3, at the Valentino boutique on Madison Avenue, where the socialite Muffie Potter Aston was hosting the third—yes, third—fete for his new book Glamour Girls (Harry N. Abrams, $75). “There’s hip-hop glamour girls, society glamour girls, the grand dames, there’s young girls,” he said.  read more »

Hey, fellas! Throw away those tattered messenger bags you bought during your college years, because briefcases are back in a big way.

“I wanted to look professional but not too professional, and hated the idea of carrying a briefcase around like my Dad's boxy, old-fashioned cordovan leather one he probably got before I was even born,” said my pal Dave, 25, a curator in Brooklyn.  read more »

“I love the idea of taking our old war relics here in America and turning them into something useful, like theaters and artistic environments,” said the actor Euan Morton, who most notably played the role of Boy George in the hit Broadway show Taboo.

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“I can eat a little bit more after this whole week!” said socialite Tinsley Mortimer at the Luca Luca show in Bryant Park on Monday, Sept. 10. A Japanese film crew was following her every move as she explained how designers send over outfits for her to wear, to “support” their lines.

Like many bright young things of the new millennium, Ms.  read more »

Designer Catherine Maladrino had a big week: she showed her spring collection at the Chelsea Art Museum and made her latest TV appearance on the premiere of Tim Gunn's new Bravo show, Tim Gunn's Guide to Style—think Queer Eye For the Straight Gal.

"It’s really about not changing anyone but really helping identify—finding their fashion soul," Mr. Gunn told the Transom at a huge Soho Grand bash thrown in his honor. "Because these women have self-declared, it’s not an intervention—we know that they know that there’s something in them that they want to grow and expand on."

Ms. Malandrino declared herself pleased with the transformation of initial guinea pig Rebecca. "She found a whole new personality through clothes, being herself and having more strength and more confidence,” she said in her sexy French accent.” I think it shows that clothes are important for a woman they can really help to express yourself."

Ms. Malandrino expressed herself on the runway on Saturday, Sept. 8, drawing singers Janet Jackson and Mary J. Blige, French First Lady Charlotte Sarkozy and actress Paz De La Huerta.  read more »

The Anna Wintour seal of approval is more elusive than catching a model feeding in her natural environment. At the BCBG Max Azria show in the main tent at Bryant Park on Friday, the Vogue editor-in-chief was seated quietly in the front row with a scrum of assistants towards the end of the first runway. (After all were seated, in came preggo Nicole Richie, surrounded by security wearing an oversized flowing sequined dress.)

Models emerged for their walk around the double U-shaped runway and Wintour’s head turned to glance at Max and wife Lubov’s designs. If she liked the oufit, her eyes—hidden behind dark black shades as always—followed the models as they made the bend around the center aisle. If she didn’t, the pout on her face intensified and she stared straight ahead, waiting for the next flowing gown to emerge. The ratio of pouts to pleasure was about equal.

“I was here a couple of days ago and they were all back there working like little elves,” former Observer columnist Candace Bushnell told the Transom on the runway at the Cynthia Rowley show at Gotham Hall. Seated nearby were All My Children’s Levin Rambin and eco-socialite Arden Wohl in an un-cinched flowing red dress and black flower headband--of course!

The crowd chomped away on Rowley-provided popcorn and water as the lights dimmed. Models sporting Hamptons-style flowing white and beige wide-leg tapered pants prowled down the runway against techno beats. The palette seemed very much inspired by the designer’s children’s toy room: pastel blue, pink and purple. After the final catwalk, models straddled vintage bikes and rode off the runway—this week’s Observer cover story come to life!

"They need to get women’s stuff, c’mon guys!” said a dejected Lauren Ezersky, host of the Style Network show Behind the Velvet Ropes and Fashion Week gadfly, as a crowd was seated in the Salon at Bryant Park to see menswear label Duckie Brown. “I don’t even have a boyfriend I can steal it from!”

Ms. Ezersky had officially been relegated to the fourth row for this particular show, but managed to slip into a front row seat next to devoted dandy Patrick McDonald, in head-to-toe navy Paul Smith topped with a navy velvet fedora.

“I’m cluckin’ for the duckin’,” Mr. McDonald said.

The seats filled, the lights dimmed, and pasty male models strutted down the runway wearing preppy duds: wide leg khaki shorts with cropped khaki blazer, long tunic-style white collar shirts, gold lame t-shirts, sweatshirts and tanks. Less eccentric than expected.

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The spring 2008 Rock & Republic collection was presented Wednesday night at Eyebeam, a warehouse space in Chelsea, in full salute to Studio 54. “Even though that was disco—it's still rock,” said the company’s CEO, Michael Ball, explaining the theme. “It was irreverent, anything went—they took it to the limit and that's what rock is about."

Images of the collection, which is designed in Los Angeles, hung from the ceiling; models in metallic jersey dresses mingled on white modern vinyl couches.

"Look at how much more of a statement this is as a brand, then taking IMG's block, putting a monogram on the back, change the lighting, maybe the backdrop and the music,” Mr. Ball said. "What Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager did back in the 70’s—all they really wanted to do was throw a party and it turned into a complete lifestyle.”

The joint was jam-packed and a black-clad army of publicists stood outside, channeling the late Mr. Rubell by yelling at party crashers: "If you are not on this list—and it's a short list—you are not getting in."

Later, the hip-hop band Gym Class Heros took the stage while Pete Wentz and Ashlee Simpson made out on the VIP couches. At almost midnight, partygoers poured into the streets and onto the next chapter at Hiro Ballroom, where LCD Soundsystem took the stage and kept the party going until dawn.

Fight for your right … to wear Prada? “We’re trying to break into a new kind of scene, actually,” said Adam Horovitz, the Beastie better known as Ad-Rock, with a wink.  read more »

“When the dress arrived, I said, ‘I’m going to have to name her,’” Oprah Winfrey told the crowd at the Council of Fashion Designers of America’s annual awards at the New York Public Library on Monday, June 4, speaking of the ankle-length pink wrap ball gown that designer Ralph Lauren had created specifically for Ms. Winfrey to present him with the American Fashion Legend Award.  read more »

Here’s what the world needs: one more mass-market celebrity clothing line!  read more »

40-year-old designer Patrick Robinson, who is most recently famous for having been the latest high-end designer to sell a budget line of his wares at Target, has been snatched away by the Gap.

He leaves his full time gig at Paco Rabanne, where he was artistic director, to oversee design for Gap’s women’s and men’s apparel, accessories and intimates lines in North America.  The press release can be read here.

“I’m really so happy to be here tonight, celebrating Narciso,” said the actress Claire Danes, just before presenting Narciso Rodriguez with the 2007 Pratt Institute Fashion Icon Award at Manhattan’s Gotham Hall on Wednesday, May 9. “I had the very good fortune of meeting Narciso 12 years ago, as an unpolished 16-year-old. He’s been a mentor and a friend ever since.”

Ms.  read more »

It’s gotten so that there’s something almost quaint about the old McDonald’s around town, with their little Styrofoam cups of underroasted coffee and cheeseburgers with that flaccid pickle—so 1978.

European fast-food chains are gobbling Manhattan, bringing meals that are not only delicious but in many cases—big gulp here—nutritious.  read more »

“I just want to see it all on you!” the designer Stella McCartney said excitedly as she picked through a rack of her wares, finding a delicate, sheer pink cardigan sweater ($935) for a client at her trunk show, which was co-hosted by the actress Liv Tyler, the model Helena Christensen and Jerry Seinfeld’s wife Jessica at Bergdorf Goodman on Thursday, May 3.  read more »

Sixty years after his death, the ‘king of fashion’ gets his due.  read more »

And her clothes are going to be sold at … Barneys. Meanwhile, Anna Wintour is classing up the Gap. It’s the logical apotheosis of our cheap-chic era.  read more »

Suffering for fashion is now as obsolete as some of New York City’s corporate fashion houses.  read more »