Greenpoint
Lorven Pharmacy
Culture on the Cheap
Williamsburg Video Du Jour: Sunday Afternoon On Manhattan Avenue
Today’s example of developer blight comes courtesy of a smallish lot on Manhattan Avenue just north of Grand Street. What initially caught my eye was the “gate” to this site gently listing back and forth in the breeze. Having had a considerable amount of experience with illegal weekend construction I figured there would be workers busy hammering, sawing and riveting. As you will see this ended up not being the case.
Public safety hazard or a new jungle gym for neighborhood youth? I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions.
Miss Heather
A Girl And Her Blog
It would appear that politicians (and the developers to whom they are beholden) have done a smashing job of removing “urban blight” (READ: the working class/poor) from north Brooklyn. Who needs nuclear bombs when re-zoning, complicity and bureaucratic incompetence/apathy will do the job? Nonetheless the end product is more or less the same: a community whose quality of life has been compromised.
Follows is a revue of developer-induced blight in north Brooklyn I captured yesterday, April 5. I have entitled it After The Gold Rush.
The sad reality is re-zoning, tax bennies, and easy credit have done little to benefit my neighborhood. There were once businesses that gave people decent, well paying jobs. Affordable rental property was once in abundance in Greenpoint as well. No more. Thanks to our city’s leadership much of my wonderful neighborhood has become a wasteland peppered by vacant lots, failed condominiums cum overpriced rental property, illegal hostels and super-sized tourist destinations operated by and for the affluent.
The time is long overdue for north Brooklyn to be developed in a manner sensitive to the needs of the people who constitute this community, not the ones Mayor Bloomberg’s rich cronies envision living here.
TO BE CONTINUED.
Miss Heather
P.S.: This one’s for you, Bob.
Greenwick Photos Du Jour: The Word On The Street
Lorimer Street
Norman Avenue
Jewel Street
Meeker Avenue
Vandervoort Avenue
Powers Street
Grand Street
Meserole Street
White Street
Cook Street
Miss Heather
Williamspoint Photos Du Jour: Juxtaposition
From Powers Street, Williamsburg.
From Green Street, Greenpoint.
Miss Heather
Williamspoint Photos Du Jour: Fire Hydrant Cavalcade
Evergreen Avenue, East Williamsburg/Bushwick.
Powers Street, Williamsburg.
Driggs Avenue, Williamsburg.
Java Street, Greenpoint.
India Street, Greenpoint.
Miss Heather
Williamspoint Photos Du Jour: Rides
“The Beast”, Powers Street, Williamsburg, 11211.
“Gonna Get Got”, Powers Street, Williamsburg, 11211.
“The Bed Bug King”, Manhattan Avenue, Greenpoint, 11222.
Ask not for whom the Bed Bug King comes, he comes for thee!
One would think given the nature of what they’re exterminating the Bed Bug King would be a little more low key. I guess not. Having the “Bed Bug Mobile” parked in front of one’s digs has got to be more than little embarrassing. Ouch.
Miss Heather
A Goat’s Story
Filed under: Williamsburg
The older readers among you might remember this little guy. I found him hanging out with a few friends knocking back a few brewskis in front of 1000 Manhattan Avenue (Greenpoint’s gift which has mercifully since quit giving) one Saturday afternoon back in 2007.
Well, this week I discovered (while researching this post) that this fella was not the first such animal to call north Brooklyn his home. Apparently his brethren were quite fancied by the local populace at the turn of the century. Enough so that even one of our fire houses had a goat as a pet. We can only hope the fate that awaited our little Greenpointer was better than what awaited his predecessor in this article from the April 15, 1895 edition of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. Enjoy!
He became very ill and hid himself in the darkest corner of the cellar.
This reminds me of how I felt after my high school English teacher made us read Sylvia Plath. Ugh.
Miss Heather
NYS Flickr Pool
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