Greenpoint Photos Du Jour: Gearing Up For “The Bounty”

June 14, 2009 ·
Filed under: Greenpoint Magic 

Happy B DayNYS

Tomorrow they will commence filming The Bounty, an “action/comedy” featuring Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler right here in Greenpoint. Provided the weather holds. When I told one of the men charged with overseeing the last minute preparations that the weather is going to be iffy, he said:

We’ll work with it.

You gotta love an attitude like that. Here’s a slide show of how things were shaping up when I walked by today. Enjoy!

To close on a more local note Champion Coffee, arguably one of the best purveyors of java in north Greenpoint, will be closed until June 19th.

closed

Coffee lovers needing a Monday (Tuesday and Wednesday) morning commute caffeine fix should plan accordingly. My recommendation: Cafecito Bogota. Not only are the co-proprietors of this business incredibly nice chaps, but the cholados are amazing!

Miss Heather

Best Tree Pit In Brooklyn!

June 4, 2009 ·
Filed under: Greenpoint Magic 

oldsoulSo let’s recap. We have recently learned that Manhattan Avenue is now graced with a terrifyingly nice art gallery and in the previous post we checked out a wonderful garden on the Southside (where the sign to the left can be found). What do these previous two items have in common, you ask? Not very much I suppose— but they are both very germane to this post.

Inasmuch as I harbor a fascination for the abject the fact of the matter is I also take great pleasure in things that are visually pleasing. The furniture I saw at Gallery 1889 was aesthetically stunning but not the kind of thing I would want in my home. It was a little too sterile and user “unfriendly” for my taste. Simply put, I liked the form but there was a sore lack of attention to function.

Now that I have established my philosophy about items made for human use I would like to segue to the subject of trees. Or more specifically how people in Greenpoint tend to treat them. This is can be summarized in two words:

garbagebags

1: Like

trash-and-dogshit

2: SHIT

But Greenpoint’s trees (and tree pits) are not only used as ad hoc trash receptacles and public lavatories. Anyone who has the misfortune of living on Greenpoint Avenue between Manhattan Avenue and Franklin Street will tell you they are often employed as bike racks with appalling results. Yours truly has seen many a bike lock and/or chain digging into the trunk of some hapless tree all because some asshole is too damned lazy to keep his or her bicycle in his/her apartment (where, I will add, it belongs).

If one cannot bother to be friendly to our leafy companions he or she should simply leave them alone. I fail to understand why some harbor such antagonism towards our photosynthesizing friends. Especially when you can do something incredibly nifty that helps them and gives you a place relax and/or watch the world go by.

1071ma

Which is exactly what the folks at 1071 Manhattan Avenue have done.

seating

Someone put a lot of thought and effort into creating this premium example of street seating. I will highlight a few of my favorite features.

mesh

First up: wire mesh has been employed to discourage canines (and their human counterparts) from giving this tree a golden shower. Or using it as a waste basket.

tableandbag

Speaking of trash, note how a bag has been thoughtfully placed on the back of the bench to provide a receptacle your garbage. As for the table/newspaper rack that’s genius. Plain and simple.

garden

The garden (replete with tulips) is the icing on the cake!

In closing whoever designed and executed this, the best tree pit in Brooklyn, deserves some real and lasting recognition be it from our municipal government or the design community as a whole. It has an elegant simplicity and feel for human use one does not see much nowadays. In other words it is a perfect marriage of form and function. This is the Falling Water of tree pits.

Miss Heather

P.S.: Special thanks go out to Laura Hofmann for reminding me to write about this. Thanks!

New & Noteworthy: Gallery 1889

June 3, 2009 ·
Filed under: Greenpoint Magic 

Today as I was running errands I stumbled upon a most pleasant and unexpected surprise…

gallery-1889nys

…an art gallery has opened on Manhattan Avenue! Obviously I simply had to go inside and see what this Gallery 1889 was all about. Much to my surprise the work they had on display was actually good. Even more surprising the woman working there nice enough to tell me a little about the space (like when it officially opened which was May 15th, if you’re wondering) and gladly let me poke around and take a few photographs. Follows is a little taste of what I found. Enjoy!

These images hardly do this work (especially the really neat whirligig contraption in the window) justice. Go to Gallery 1889 and see this show, RE/BUILD, for yourself. It’s quite something.

Gallery 1889
1066 Manhattan Avenue
Brooklyn, New York 11222

Miss Heather

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