Brooklyn The Borough | The New York Observer

Brooklyn, The Borough: Landlord As a Second Language

Thu, 18 Dec 2008 17:12:18 -0500

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 it cost so little.

This is the landlord-tenant language divide. Tenants often...

Brooklyn, The Borough: Sartorial Swingers!

Thu, 11 Dec 2008 18:06:41 -0500

"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 holiday presents and the cost of living these days, she pondered, "When do we New York...

Brooklyn, The Borough: Lights, Camera, BK!

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 08:34:56 -0500

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 Gene Hunt on the ABC show Life On Mars.

Plenty of Brooklynites have humorous anecdotes...

Brooklyn, The Borough: The Great Shop Chop of '08

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 08:54:31 -0500

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 blonde, tweed-laden shopgirl, as she mimicked the reaction by covering her face with both hands. Though,...

Brooklyn, The Borough: Library (Not) Fine

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 08:04:58 -0500

"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 children's section of the central branch in Grand Army Plaza in advance of her hosting...

Brooklyn, The Borough: Brooklyn Holds Its Breath

Mon, 03 Nov 2008 08:39:02 -0500

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, is bound to vote overwhelmingly for Senator Obama, but with the race tightening in...

Brooklyn, The Borough: ACORN in BK

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 22:26:22 -0400

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, in the Uniondale section of Hempstead Iona Emsley cringed. For the last 19 years, Ms. Emsley has...

Brooklyn, The Borough: A One-Man Gentrification Slam

Tue, 14 Oct 2008 13:47:30 -0400

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, man, they go to the ATM machine and they forget and they just leave their...

Brooklyn, The Borough: The Quietest Places To Pass a Sunday

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 18:16:36 -0400

"Do you hear the crickets?," asked Ali Jafri, a broker for Prudential Douglas Elliman. We were standing on the ninth-floor balcony of a brand-new three-bedroom condominium for sale at 20 Bayard Street in Williamsburg. "That's something you won't get in Manhattan."

These days, Mr. Jafri might hear crickets more often than he'd like. It was the Sunday before the European markets began to tumble, during peak open house hours,...

Brooklyn, The Borough: Artists Assume Their Position Amid Crisis

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 23:19:49 -0400

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 just a drag," said Karen Brooks Hopkins, the president of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, whose...

Assuming A Lot About Brokers

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 13:50:40 -0400

"If anything the media has downplayed the effect this crash will have on RE, in other words TS, methinks you're a broker. God, RE people are the biggest, most vile liars in NYC, do you really think anyone believes the pro RE quotes that we read in the Times or the Observer and especially NY Rag? When I have to interview a broker I just assume 90% of what he/she is telling me is...

Prescription for the Wall Street Crisis

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 11:18:54 -0400

"Why do people think all this financial sector woe is going to have that big an impact? Other people have money, not just people on Wall Street. Prices in Manhattan probably won't come down, that will send buyers to Brooklyn. The financial sector only accounts for about fifteen to twenty percent of the real estate market in Manhattan, and thats including the bonuses. Brooklyn will probably have declines and that will make it more...

Brooklyn, The Borough: Wall Street Views From Another Bank

Mon, 22 Sep 2008 17:30:03 -0400

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 veins as the music at Sea shook passersby with stentorian beats.

But the next...

Brooklyn, The Borough: Our Town

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 21:36:47 -0400

"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 Brooklyn.

"There's no question that those in their twenties and early thirties--I think, just...

Brooklyn, The Borough: Can the Q Be the Next L?

Mon, 08 Sep 2008 18:28:15 -0400

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 the G train for three years). It's just far enough into Brooklyn that I am in...