Carroll Gardens
Bright Lights, Big Tizzy: American Apparel Goes Dark On Smith Street
The Afternoon Wrap: Thursday
- Some wonderful T-shirt company has provided a "perfect gift for your favorite real-estate pro!" Obviously, that gift is a bubble-mocking shirt, and that bubble-mocking shirt apparently helps "fight media sensationalism." What's more, the proceeds go to charity. [Matrix]
- The Third Annual Curbed Awards have dubbed the Urban Glass House as the "New Development Most Likely to Get You Laid," and have bestowed the "The Michael Shvo Gross Overexposure Award" to Andre Balazs. Plus, of course, "The Real Estate Development of the Year Chalice" goes to 15 CPW. [Curbed]
- Out in Brooklyn, the informal award for Neighborhood Most Likely To Become More Hip Than It Already Is, Thus Prompting Everyone Else To Say It Is 'Already Over' goes jointly to Prospect Heights and Carroll Gardens. [Brownstoner]
- Hudson Baby Bourbon, about $40 for a little bottle, is "the first legal pot-distilled whiskey to be made in New York since the start of Prohibition." More importantly, it is evidence #2871 that upstate New York is increasing exponentially in hipness. [Luxist]
- Resident Magazine sure likes Ryan Seacrest, but apparently Rez also likes venturing into local dive bars. And yet its article says dives are just "a fad"--at least according to a source who sits beneath "a painting of Jesus Christ" while watching "grainy, silent era porn." [Resident] - Max Abelson
Affordable Housing Vote Today
Quinn Leans Further Left on 421-a Bill
The compromise, reached on Tuesday morning, will expand the so-called exclusion zone for the 421-a multifamily housing tax incentive to more parts of East Harlem, Carroll Gardens, Sunset Park, and Bushwick, meaning that new buildings in those areas will only receive tax abatements if they include affordable housing, Jonathan Rosen, a spokesman for Housing Here & Now, a coalition of housing advocacy groups, told The Real Estate.
Quinn works the Council.
He said, in addition, the compromise bill requires developers who tap into the city's new $400 million affordable housing trust fund to keep their units affordable for 50 years or provide for them to be sold to tenants or to the city.
Quinn came Tuesday morning to the 20-odd members who had backed a stronger reform bill by David Yassky and Annabel Palma and asked for nine of their votes, according to an individual briefed on the conversation. Quinn already had a majority of Council members behind her bill, but needed more in order to prevent the appearance of a sharply divided Council. (Most Council votes pass unanimously or nearly so.)
It is unclear just how many of the 20 will support Quinn, but reportedly enough of them will. Another source said that some Council members are still trying to get further concessions, including a requirement that developers would need to make 30 percent of units in core Manhattan affordable to low- and middle-income folks, instead of the current 20 percent, in order to qualify for tax breaks. read more »
- Matthew SchuermanThis Just In: Billyburg is Hot
Join us at the National Realty Club Luncheon at Noon on Tuesday, January 23, 2007 at the Williams Club, 24 East 39th Street [between Park and Madison Avenues] to hear:If he's doing "other Emerging Neighborhoods," we hope Barak will include Exotic Wonders like Carroll Gardens or Chelsea. - John KoblinSpeaker: BARAK DUNAYER Founder/CEO Barak Realty Topic: "Where the Action Is: Inside Look at Williamsburg, Inwood, Clinton and other Emerging Neighborhoods".
Public Meeting for Piers
Critics of the plan point out that it doesn't provide any additional housing in Red Hook--instead it will generate more traffic, which is a bone of contention that Red Hookers have been pleading to the city about for months. (Readers of this blog will rememember our coverage of a Fairway-related traffic fatality earlier this year and the D.O.T.'s seeming complacency.)
It's a guaranteed packed house; emotions are sure to run high! Turn off that damn TV and show up. It's better than Lost! read more »
Maxwell Asher Isaacs
The Man Who Sold the Boro; A Broker of ‘Good People’
Hope for Gowanus Canal?
The canal, which connects the Red Hook waterfront to the Park Slope-Carroll Gardens nabe (a.k.a. Gowanus), is currently a pollution-saturated, industrial nightmare. It's got a certain beauty and charm, though, and once--if ever--it's cleaned up, real-estate values in that area are certain to soar.
The money is for a study only, but the city's D.E.P. says it'll upgrade the canal's flushing tunnel soon--beginning in 2008 and continuing for three to four years--which will hopefully get fresh water into the canal, making it more habitable for wildlife.
Kudos to Chuck. Sure wish he knew someone to tackle our traffic problems. read more »
Damn You, Spider-Man!!
Spidey, it's raining! How 'bout a kiss!
What The Real Estate wants to know is if Mary-Jane's going to stand around in the rain wearing that pink dress again this time (the forecast looks good!). For some reason, we always thought that one scene was just so compelling! read more »
See the Brooklyn Record's previous coverage here.
-Matthew GraceSuozzi Beats Spitzer. Seriously.
Suozzi won.
Mole 333, who wrote the item, attributes the result to a) Suozzi's opposition to the Atlantic Yards project and b) Suozzi's willingness, by contrast with Spitzer, to show up at the meeting.
Newcomer Pal Craves Semiotics of the Stoop; I Spill (Some) Secrets
Affordable, but Not Affordable Enough
B61 Productions, a great Red Hook/Carroll Gardens Web site, has a sobering look at the Fifth Avenue Committee's new affordable housing currently under construction in Red Hook. Twenty of the 60 new units will be alloted to current Red Hook residents, but some residents complain that they won't be affordable enough. While the units are pretty cheap, people in the historically economically depressed Red Hook Houses housing project won't be able to afford it. (B61 Productions)
-Matthew Grace
Correction: The 20 lower-income units will not be limited to Red Hook residents; Red Hook Houses residents, even if they can afford it, have an even slimmer chance of being selected for the new units. read more » Hazel Virginia Phipps-Miller
Louie G Endorses
One consequence of Anthony's discipline in endlessly repeating the words "middle class" and a handful of simple promises is that he doesn't inadvertantly make news. And certainly very little news was committed at Carroll Park in Carroll Gardens today, where Anthony packed just enough supporters into a small enough space to create a crowd that will appear respectable on television.
One newsbreak: Creamsicle milkshakes are back. That was the word from Rick Russo, the owner of the Uncle Louie G's ice cream chain, a Brooklyn favorite called Luigi's until another Luigi's threatened to sue. The creamsicle, a blend of orange ice and vanilla ice cream (I think) disappeared a while ago after the original Creamsicle people threatened another lawsuit. Russo, in a big blue shirt and looking much like an ice cream man, said the revival will be known as the Orange Cream.
Russo said he'd supplied ice cream for about 300 at the event because Weiner is the first pol he's seen in a while who is more than a lesser evil, although the Democrat is deficient from a business point of view.
"He doesn't eat much," Russo said. "Look how skinny he is."
Anthony, meanwhile, added a line to his stump to keep up with the "Weiner on a Roll" story:
"People say, 'Anthony, if you keep going like this, you're going to win,'" he said. "I don't know how to do it any other way." read more »
