Greenpoint
Lorven Pharmacy
Culture on the Cheap
Reader Contribution Du Jour: Sunnyside Shines!
This magic moment has been brought to you courtesy of Rose Sol. Love it!!!
Miss Heather
From The New York Shitty Inbox, Part II: Chez Toshi
Anonymous writes:
Hi Heather,
I hope it’s okay that I come to you when I have random questions about the neighborhood! On my way home today I noticed that the building at 808 Driggs Ave., which earlier this year was advertised as a rental (I know, because I looked at the apartments. Decent, but way overpriced), now seems to house another branch of Hotel Toshi. It says “hotel toshi” on one of the buzzers, and there was a very makeshift-looking flier taped to the outside of the door with the Toshi “logo” on it. How exactly does this guy run all of these “hotels” out of rental buildings? I’m mostly curious because I live near this building, and when I googled Toshi it seems like everyone on the Internet is equally mystified by his real estate dealings.
Just curious if you had any thoughts on the guy 🙂
Well, for starters 808 Driggs Avenue has (ostensibly) been canvassed by the Department of Buildings. At least that is what this post over at Curbed would lead one to believe. Apparently they found nothing amiss.
Despite the fact that the buzzer, as you piquantly noted anonymous, clearly states a hotel is on the premises.
A litany of complaints that this building is being employed as a hotel. Follows is my personal favorite.
I want to personally commend the aforementioned complainant’s civility. Had someone entered my apartment I’d probably take our household Louisville slugger and discharge my own “Special Enforcement”.* The call to 311 (or 911 for that matter) would follow. But I digress.
808 Driggs Avenue’s Certificate of Occupancy makes it pretty clear that while it is technically a “mixed use” building it is, in fact, residential.
This begs many questions. Among them:
- How do the folks who are outlaying $2,500+ a month in rent at this “hotal” feel about this?
- Who would want to rent a room at a “hotel” whose “Welcome” sign is an inkjet print on a piece of office paper affixed with tape? To stucco?
- How can the Department of Buildings overlook his web site— which features one “vacation rental” which seems to be located in a rent-stabilized building?
The “Swiss Chalet on South 4 Street” is (in my humble opinion) a real pisser. As is this** which can be found on Toshi’s Flickr page.
Check it out!
Miss Heather
*Not that I advise this. I am for all intents and purposes a law abiding individual. I abhor violence. I do not, however, take kindly to people trying to gain entrance to my apartment for nefarious reasons. I write this as someone who once had a dude walk into our foyer at midnight – 1:00 in the morning one weekend while the Mister and I were watching movies in our living room. We forgot to lock the front door to our apartment. The chap in question was not a resident of our building. My shouting at the top of my lungs:
HELLO! HOW CAN I HELP YOU?
was a sufficient deterrent. He scrammed and we have been damned vigilant about locking down our apartment ever since. Had this chap persisted, well…
**For some serious Toshi partying down click here. CAVEAT: NSFW.
Happy Cinco De Mayo From New York Shitty!
Quite honestly I was hoping to honor Cinco de Mayo with an announcement that Vamos Al Tequila is open for business. But alas we will have to wait a little longer. This great ride (which I spied at last weekend’s 5 Boro Bike Tour) will have to suffice. Not that it is nothing to sniff at, mind you. It’s awesome!
Happy Cinco De Mayo!
Miss Heather
From The New York Shitty Inbox, Part I: Ticket Blitz In Greenpoint?
Anonymous writes:
The local traffic police are out to raise revenue with a vengeance. We have seen them patrolling the streets, car by car, on a SUNDAY, in places like banker & franklin where there are no restrictions on that day, looking for something, anything they can write a ticket against. The kicker was last week, where we parked on West St. because we got back late one night, only to find our car TOWED the next day. Towed, for a place we have parked before dozens of times and have never received a ticket, for allegedly “blocking a crosswalk” where there is no crosswalk. We have good grounds to fight the ticket in court but people should be warned about what’s going on and not take any chances – tickets are one thing, but them TOWING is ridiculous. It’s so obvious that it’s a revenue generator, because in all my years here, I’ve never seen anyone towed, the traffic enforcement ignores the people who do a u turn in the middle of manhattan avenue (or who drive on the wrong side so they can park next to the bank), the people who park in the bus stop – thousands of ticketable offenses that get ignored, and now they’re going to start towing.
The only positive is at least the tow pound is on the B62 route so you don’t have to waste money on car service to get there.
This might sound spurious but— and this is a BIG BUT— as my buddy over at Queens Crap points out in this post it seems to be the current modus operandi nowadays. One would think if our city’s finest wanted to make easy money— and perhaps even protect and serve our community in the process— they’d set up speed traps along McGuinness Boulevard because those new speed limit signs are not doing the job.
Hmm…
Miss Heather
Quicklink: More Ado About Nick’s Garden
Filed under: 11211, 11222, Greenpoint, Greenpoint Brooklyn, Greenpoint Magic, Williamsburg, Williamsburg Brooklyn
Remember the brouhaha about the Red Gate (AKA: Nick’s) Garden’s fence being torn down April 24th so as to provide access to the Boy Scouts? Well, here is the next chapter. New York Shitty analysis:
- The “reasoning” employed by our parks person is downright Orwellian. Methinks the appropriate term is “doublespeak”.
- A New York City parks employee (one who is reputedly very eager to generate more income by expanding the existing tennis courts at McCarren Park at the expense of kickball courts and basketball hoops, I’ll add) tossing around the word “privatization” is akin to the proverbial pot calling the kettle black.
- One party insists she sent emails and made phone calls. The other is claiming nothing of the sort happened. Someone is not telling the truth.
Read it and weep. Pay attention to the comments. They’re rather illuminating.
Miss Heather
P.S.: Here’s the “leaked” email. And my rebuttal.
NYS Flickr Pool
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