Greenpoint
Lorven Pharmacy
Culture on the Cheap
Matty Franz: R.I.P.
Filed under: Greenpoint Magic
While running errands earlier today I made a most upsetting discovery: Greenpoint has lost one of its own.
It saddens me to report that Matty Franz (better known as the “You Will Rot in Hell guy” from Forgotten-NY Tour #30) has left us.
On the behalf of the attendees of the aforementioned tour and all of Greenpoint I would like to extend my deepest condolences to Mrs. Franz. Your husband was a very kind man (he always said “Hi” to me on the street after that tour) and gave many people a reason to smile.
You will be sorely missed, Matty. May you rest in peace.
Miss Heather
How to Spend a Monday Afternoon In Greenpoint
Filed under: Greenpoint Magic
I received an email this morning from a woman named Brittany who has an excellent suggestion as to how to while away the remains of this beautiful day: follow the blood spots! She writes:
I often read your blog and I thought this might interest you…
It’s not dog shit but it’s just as gross. At the corner of Meserole and McGuinness
thanks
Click on the above image and behold the original on Brix Picks for yourself. Be sure to read the accompanying text, as it is equally charming:
I still have no idea what went on at the corner of Meserole and McGuinness, but there appears to be puddles of blood and, reportedly (by friends who saw it), there used to be a plastic bag full of bloody stuff.
You can see little drops throughout the neighborhood, some right outside the police station–they don’t mind though, because when I told an officer about the possibly gruesome site he said, “What do you want me to do about it?* 
It should be noted that the Pit Stop Bar (home of the bouncing beer kegs) is located at the intersection where this blood was found. I walked by there around lunchtime and didn’t see anything amiss but I imagine the Mobile Wash unit probably makes it a point to clean up this kind of thing stat. but I have been told that as of 4:00 this afternoon it is still there. Check it out for yourself at the northeastern corner of McGuinness Boulevard and Meserole Avenue where it (per a tipster):
…trails all the way down meserole on the north side of the street, then crosses at manhattan goes right in front of Europa, the police station and all the way past the post office.
In closing, a number of you will be pleased as punch to know my trip was not entirely unfruitful: as it would happen, I found another yet to be documented bit of spatter on McGuinness Boulevard and Kent Street.
THIRTY INCHES WORTH of blood spatter, to be precise.
Even Hard Hat Hannah (who as a puppet possesses neither blood nor a central nervous system) noted that this must have hurt.
Miss Heather
*Perhaps he was too busy solving the double burglary that occurred two blocks away from the 94th Precinct’s Headquarters last month?
Photo Credit: Meserole Avenue spatter, Brix Picks
Greenpoint Photo du Jour: Mixed Signals on Freeman Street
Filed under: Greenpoint Magic
Lenin or LaRouche, that is indeed a difficult question!
Miss Heather
Bushwick Photo du Jour: Mum’s The Word
Filed under: Bushwick
My lips are sealed as to where this photograph was taken, but I’ll give you a hint: it’s located very close to the Myrtle Avenue Stop of the J/M/Z.
Anybody out there care to guess the street?
Miss Heather
You Pick The Movie at East Coast Aliens
Filed under: Greenpoint Magic
Tomorrow, January 27 at 9:00 p.m. East Coast Aliens will be hosting a rather novel evening of cinematic entertainment where we, the attendees, vote on which movie you want to see. Here’s the scoop, per their web site:
The Apartment or The Beat That My Heart Skipped
It’s pick-pick night!
Check your facts, defend your pick, we vote and watch the winner.
They could not have selected two seemingly more different movies. Here are brief plot synopses from IMDB.
Bud Baxter is a struggling clerk in a huge New York insurance company. He’s discovered a quick way to climb the corporate ladder – by lending out his apartment to the executives as a place to take their mistresses. He often has to deal with the aftermath of their visits and one night he’s left with a major problem to solve.
Twenty-eight-year-old Tom leads a life that might be termed as criminal. In doing so, he follows in the footsteps of his father, who made his money from dirty, and sometimes brutal, real estate deals. Tom is a pretty hard-boiled guy but also strangely considerate as far as his father is concerned. Somehow he appears to have arrived at a critical juncture in his life when a chance encounter prompts him to take up the piano and become a concert pianist, like his mother…
Although the latter film sounds rather interesting, I have a confession to make: I am a Billy Wilder fan. Since The Apartment was directed by him I am more than a little biased. In addition, I have seen this film. It is quite good.
Those of you who disagree with my cinematic taste should be advised that doors open at 8:30 p.m. and the recommended donation is $6.00 per person.
East Coast Aliens
216 Franklin Street
Brooklyn, New York 11222
(718) 514-7625
Don’t forget what a very wise man once said and:
Vote early— and vote often.
Miss Heather
Bushwick Pay Phone du Jour: Irving Avenue
Filed under: Bushwick
I am going to go out on a limb here and state that someone who resides on or near the intersection of Irving Avenue and Stanhope Street harbors a great deal of contempt towards public pay phones. Or someone’s receiver collection just got two new additions.
Damn.
Miss Heather
Greenpoint Photo Du Jour: Greenpoint Coffee House
Filed under: Greenpoint Magic
As the weekend approaches I imagine a number of you are making plans. Among these plans is probably a loathsome avocation called “brunch”. Speaking as someone who does NOT want to eat waffles at 4:00 in the afternoon, I wish I could find the person who came up with this concept so I can take a brickbat to the side of his (or her) head. Thankfully I recently learned I am not the only Greenpointer who harbors this sentiment.
The chap sporting this shirt was at the Greenpoint Coffeehouse last Sunday afternoon. It should be noted that a number of his fellow patrons were partaking of “brunch”. When I asked him if I could take a picture of his shirt he gladly obliged, adding:
Spread the word.
Consider it done.
Miss Heather
MMG Design Leaves Her Calling Card Once Again
Filed under: Williamsburg
I have received numerous inquiries about the welfare of Hard Hat Hannah. From as far as Philadelphia:
…If I was there in Greenpoint, and if there was a city provided white board and marker, I would write “Free Hard Hat Hanna(h)!†on one repeatedly. Oh where has she gone? have the forces of Permit Violating Evil Doers kidnapped her and bricked (with mis-matching colors of course) her into a basement under one their fedderboxes? Did she naively hitch a ride with a DOB inspector… and end up in the East River? Inquring minds want to know.
To Long Island City:
We need to see Hard Hat Hannah in front of these grotesqueries, with one or both of her wittle thumbs resoundingly DOWN. When is Hannah gonna make her 2008 debut, BTW? Now’s the perfect time.
It has been a rough patch for Hard Hat Hannah. That first sojourn into the seemingly unregulated no man’s land that is “McCarren Park Heights South” really did a job on her. Being the dutiful, dedicated and incorruptible little building inspector she is, she got depressed. Really depressed.
When Mr. Heather and I found her watching television at 3:00 a.m. with danish filling on her lips and booze on her breath last month, we knew an intervention had to be made. And it was. We decided that it was in her best interest to take a vacation.
That said, Hannah is back and I recently took her with me on my rounds. Aware of her delicate condition, I was gentle with her.
We first went by the “Finger Building”.
While we were there I noticed a young man wearing an ill-fitting suit wielding a clipboard with a map on it.
Miss Heather: This dude is totally a real estate agent learning his “territory”.
Hannah: What makes you think so?
Miss Heather: No one wears a suit in north Brooklyn unless he (or she) intends to profit from the local population’s misery. I once had such a person (wearing a skirt) point to my person and refer to me as being the “new artistic influx” while a bunch of middle-aged men took copious notes on their clipboards.
Hannah: She didn’t acknowledge you as a person?
Miss Heather: No, I was a selling tool.
Next, we checked out 5 Roebling.
Hannah was dismayed to find the fence in a state of disrepair and the gate left wide open.
Later, at 184 Scholes Street, Hannah learned that this is MMG Construction’s modus operandi: wreck ’em and leave ’em wide open.
Notices of violation were served as well.
Click on the above image and check out ECB violations 34611654n and 34611655p yourself. You will go on an Orwellian trip of a distinctly Kafka-esque character.
ECB Violation 34611645n: Violation number not found.
ECB Violation 34611655p: Violation number not found.
DOB Violation VP 011808CO1RG03: Refer to violation #34611655p.
DOB Violation VPW 01180CO1RG02: Refer to violation #34611655p.
George Orwell once wrote:
Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.
The Department of Buildings has an online database anyone can access. The purpose of doing so is to (ostensibly) provide the public information. How valuable is this information when one finds himself (or in my case, HERself) hitting a brickwall of “non-existent” violations?
Miss Heather
P.S.: Oh yeah, anyone interested in contacting Hannah can do so via email at:
hardhathannah (at) newyorkshitty (dot) com!
Bushwick Photo du Jour: Medici Meets Knickerbocker
Filed under: Bushwick
I recently found this wonderful remnant of a bygone era at the corner of Knickerbocker Avenue and Stockholm Street. As I took the above photograph a pair of women stopped and asked me what I found so interesting. I pointed out the symbol gracing the top of this building and told them a pawnbroker once operated a business here.
When I got home later I realized that although I recognized the pawnbroker symbol instantly, I did not know (or more likely— forgot) its origins. Being a fan of this kind of worthless knowledge I thought it would be fun to find out. Most of what I found online was more or less the same. Here is Wikipedia’s take:
The pawnbroker’s symbol is three spheres suspended from a bar. The three sphere symbol is attributed to the Medici Family of Florence, Italy, owing to its symbolic meaning of Lombard. This refers to the Italian province of Lombardy, where pawn shop banking originated under the name of Lombard banking. The three golden spheres were originally the symbol which medieval Lombard merchants hung in front of their houses, and not the arms of the Medici family. It has been conjectured that the golden spheres were originally three flat yellow effigies of byzants, or gold coins, laid heraldically upon a sable field, but that they were converted into spheres to better attract attention.
Most European towns called the pawn shop the “Lombard”. The House of Lombard was a banking family in medieval London, England. According to legend, a Medici employed by Charles the Great slew a giant using three bags of rocks. The three ball symbol became the family crest. Since the Medicis were so successful in the financial, banking, and money lending industries, other families also adopted the symbol. Throughout the Middle Ages, coats of arms bore three balls, orbs, plates, discs, coins and more as symbols of monetary success. Pawnbrokers (and their detractors) joke that the three balls mean “Two to one, you won’t get your stuff back”.
Saint Nicholas is the patron saint of pawnbrokers. The symbol has also been attributed to the story of Nicholas and the three bags of gold.
I for one find the location of this building rather serendipitous. As it would happen, an avenue bearing the name “St. Nicholas” is only three blocks away.
Miss Heather
This Friday at Word Books
Filed under: Greenpoint Magic
Tomorrow, January 25th, Word Books will conduct its first “Book-to-Movie Night” with the feature Everything is Illuminated. For those of you who are not familiar with this film (or the novel it is based upon) here is a plot synopsis from IMDB:
A young Jewish American flies to the Ukraine in search of his grandfather’s past. He has a photograph and the name of a village. He hires the Odessa Heritage Tours, made up of a gruff old man and his English-speaking grandson. The three, plus grandfather’s deranged dog, travel in an old car from Odessa into Ukraine’s heart. Jonathan, the American, is a collector, putting things he finds into small plastic bags, so he will remember. Alex, the interpreter, is an archetypal wild and crazy guy. Alex asks the old man, “Was there anti-Semitism in the Ukraine before the war?” Will they find the village? The past illuminates everything.
The movie will begin at 8:00 p.m. sharp so be sure to get there early!
Word Books
126 Franklin Street
Brooklyn, New York 11222
(718) 383-0096
For more information about this or any forthcoming “Book-to-Movie Night” (they are slated for the last Friday of every month) contact Word’s owner at the above-listed phone number or via email at:
info (at) wordbrooklyn (dot) com
Best yet, do what I do and check out their blog.
Miss Heather
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