Williamsburg

The 575-unit Edge condo will this weekend start hosting open houses in the sales office at 135 Kent Avenue, across the street from the development. In late October, the Edge's developer, Jeff Levine of Douglaston, told The Observer's Oliver Haydock that 110 of the units had already sold, including about 75 in the first three months of sales.

Between 8 a.m. and 11 a.m. in North Brooklyn on this Election Day, young artists and professionals managed to carry themselves out of bed a tad bit early, and hit the voting booths, in some cases for the first time.

"What do you think, man?" asked Matthew Achterberg, a 25-year-old video producer outside of P.S. 017 on North Fifth Street in Williamsburg. "It's all about fucking Barack Obama over here."

Mr. Achterberg wore a beanie and a hoodie. He was holding a cup from Oslo, the popular Williamsburg coffee shop, and a copy of Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead.

"I've been waiting for this ever since the Democratic primary ended," he said.  read more »

The gentrifying core of Bushwick occupies only a few blocks, and for Rabbi Menachem Heller, 29, herein lies the problem.

As an emissary of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, a branch of Hasidic Judaism that emphasizes outreach to less observant Jews, Rabbi Heller wants good access to the hipster arrivistes. Unfortunately, his current spot is too far away from the few hangouts – a health food store, a coffee shop, an artists’ studio space, a bar or two – to get noticed.

Mr. Heller moved to the neighborhood three years ago, after hearing from a couple of relatives, Chabad emissaries in burgeoning North Williamsburg, that people were leaving their neighborhood for Bushwick, seeking cheaper rents.  read more »

"I've often heard people say it doesn't matter who you vote for, they're all the same," said Jimmy Ellis, a 56-year-old MoveOn.Org member and host of a calling party Thursday night for Barack Obama in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. "But now, since the election in 2000, I think we can see really clearly, even if you don't have your perfect candidate, it makes a difference who gets into office."

Mr. Ellis, a self-professed "big Obama supporter," was seated amongst the nine like-minded volunteers who had arrived at his railroad apartment on North 8th Street to call fellow MoveOn.Org members in Ohio and North Carolina and urge them to help get out the vote in their communities.  read more »

Welcome to the buyer's market: Supply is up, demand is down, and prices are teetering. Brokers say buy now – after all, there are deals to be had! But what if you waited?

Here’s four areas (and one borough) where buyers would be fools to rush in now.

1. MANHATTAN
In Manhattan, prices are falling. But several gauges indicate that, in the months ahead, they'll fall even further.

For one, new development – which accounted for 30 percent of sales in the borough last quarter – continues to skew prices, according to the third-quarter market report from Miller Samuel and Prudential Douglas Elliman.  read more »

From the top of her building at 330 Wythe Avenue in Williamsburg, Stephanie Eisenberg can see nearly all of two boroughs: the Williamsburg bridge, the United Nations, One Hanson Place, Greenpoint's sewage treatment plant. But she prefers to look out over Brooklyn, with its church steeples and elevated subway tracks.

It's lucky, because her view over the East River is slated to change in 2009, when the approximately 2,400-unit New Domino condominium development breaks ground at what is now the Domino Sugar Refinery across the street. With at least four buildings rising to 30 stories or more, the 11.2-acre project will no doubt transform the waterfront. The question is, how?

With condo sales slowing across the borough – down 38.2 percent annually in the third quarter, according to appraisal firm Miller Samuel – Ms. Eisenberg is more convinced than ever: The New Domino plans must be scrapped. As head of Save Domino, a community group, she argues the site could be put to better use, namely as the Domino Center, a sprawling cultural institution modeled after London's contemporary art museum, the Tate Modern.

"It's time to rethink some of these gigantic projects and look at something in a more creative way," she said. "The last thing this city needs is another 1,800 market-rate condominiums."  read more »

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 receipts in there, and I go and I get them because I want to see how much money they got in their bank account.'

"He's like, 'Yo, these kids be lookin' bummy, I mean the bummiest, motherfucking, cheap looking kids and they got like $150,000 in their savings account, $280,000 in their savings account.  read more »

Williamsburg and Greenpoint residents may soon feel like they are living on the set of a reality TV show. The cast of the Apprentice-style MTV show starring 50 Cent is moving into a three-story, newly renovated loft building on the Greenpoint waterfront, a well-placed source has informed us.

The series will follow 16 aspiring rap moguls as they compete in a series of challenges to determine their "savvy, street smarts, manipulation, power and the art of winning"--"the skills that took 50 Cent from the streets to corporate America." At the end of each episode, 50 Cent will eliminate a contestant. The winner will get a full scholarship to an undergraduate or graduate business program.  read more »

It's more or less an open secret, but we've learned that the Top Chef cast has definitely been living for about two weeks now in a terraced duplex penthouse in Williamsburg overlooking McCarren Park.

So far, the chefs have pretty much kept to themselves, said an extremely well-placed source, leaving around 8 or 9 in the mornings for a soundstage in Greenpoint and coming straight back in the evenings.

“They’re not allowed to talk to anyone, really, or even do their own thing,” the source said. They’re trying to keep things under control before the paparazzi start camping out.”

Luckily, it sounds like they have the typical luxe reality show digs, complete with a private roof deck and a sweeping view of the city skyline, to occupy them when they are not shopping, cooking or shooting.  read more »

The southwest corner of McCarren Park has been a meeting place for breakdancers, or “B-Boys” as they call themselves, since long before the gleaming row of luxury condos rose on Bayard Street, and a doggie daycare and organic market followed.

Anywhere from a couple to a couple dozen breakdancers continue to roll out their tarp at least three nights a week on the edge of the track, alongside the postwork joggers, picnickers, and meandering hipsters—and under the gaze of the condo-dwellers above.

They’re a motley crew of 20-somethings from the Bronx and Brooklyn (some went to the same junior high together in Williamsburg); European and Asian exchange students who’ve ventured to the city for a dose of authentic street culture; modern dance instructors who “break” in their spare time or promote competitions, and a few old-timers there to coach the new generation.  read more »

We’ve been wondering what kind of building would rise from the vacant lot on North 3rd Street between Bedford and Berry since construction began four months ago.

Could it be another luxe-residential complex for priced-out Manhattanites in the heart of Williamsburg hipsterdom?

Apparently, yes.

Though the project has not yet been christened with an appropriately yuppie-kitsch name--like say “Aqua” or “The Edge”--Joe Nicholas, who brokered the $22 million sale through Kalmon Dolgin Realty, confirmed that developer Quadriad Realty LLC is building an 85-unit condo on the 42,000-square-foot lot, boasting the prime Williamsburg addresses of 201 Berry Street and 248 Bedford Avenue.  read more »

Home prices in Williamsburg and Greenpoint grew more in the last 12 months than prices in any other Brooklyn area, according to a new report.

The average sales price in the two neighborhoods increased 12.7 percent from the second quarter of 2007 through the second quarter of 2008 to $663,946; and the average sales price per foot increased 20.3 percent over the same period to $445.

These annual increases were greater than those in other Brooklyn neighborhoods. The Williamsburg-Greenpoint median price also increased annually, though by a relatively small 9 percent.  read more »

The report, an inaugural Brooklyn market report from brokerage

“The Brooklyn Brewery was a confirmation of the American Dream,” co-founder Steve Hindy wrote in a commentary released today by the Center for an Urban Future called "Trouble Brewing."

“But after a frustrating, futile four-year search for a new Brewery site to expand operations in the city, I am now asking myself a question our success should have definitively answered: Does New York City really have a place for light manufacturing businesses like ours,” Mr. Hindy writes.

He and his partner started brewing beer from a defunct, Prohibition-era facility in Bushwick in 1987, and in 1991 leased a new 75,000-square-foot plant in Williamsburg for $3.  read more »

Here she is -- the scaled-down, more contextually appropriate design for the New Domino residential development, which got the official stamp of approval from the Landmarks Preservation Commission this morning.

Unlike the former, more controversial plan, this one preserves the iconic Domino Sugar sign, better hides the mechanicals, and adds fewer floors on top of the landmarked old factory.

The New Domino is a mixed-use development, slated to have 2,200 residential units, 30 percent of which are supposed to be affordable, along with approximately 220,000 square feet of new retail, commercial and community cultural facility space.

But Michael Lappin, the CEO of CPC Resources, which is developing the project with the Katan group, warned that the 20,000-square-foot reduction in size may endanger some of those affordable units:

“The new design incorporates many of the suggestions of Landmarks commissioners, and we believe it reflects the highest quality of thoughtful, creative restoration as interpreted by our preservation architects, Beyer Blinder Belle," Mr.  read more »

The Landmarks Preservation Commission approved revised plans for a massive development at the Domino Sugar Refinery in Williamsburg, Brownstoner reported just before noon after blogging live from the hearing all morning. Most importantly "the sign will live," said an architect for the project.

The LPC has sent the developers back to the drawing board twice since February, after the first set of plans that would have added a five-floor glass addition to the recently landmarked factory without preserving the iconic Domino Sugar sign drew the ire of preservationists.

This time around, the LPC's reaction was verging on jubilant.

"LPC chairman Robert Tierney says he's really digging the new submission," Brownstoner's Gabby Warshawer wrote. "Tierny calls it a 'brilliant' adaptive plan, says the addition is now 'appropriate,' particularly since the Domino sign is being preserved. Calls the chutes 'dramatic and evocative.' Another commissioner says the design will 'rival the Tate'."

This Williamsburg rental listing on Craigslist would make even the bed-bug, hipster-infested hovel McKibben Lofts feel luxe.

For $550 a month, you can live in a 10x6 room that is "not an apartment," on North 7th and Bedford Avenue in the heart of Brooklyn hipsterdom, just a half-block from the L train.

"Location is what sells here," says the listing.

There certainly isn't much else to buy in this glorified closet. It has no kitchen, no windows, no roomates are allowed, and there is "no wall to separate the bathroom and room."

Though the listing boasts a "private bathroom," let's dispense with the euphemisms. It's a toilet, a mattress, and a mini-fridge. Home sweet home.

The Observer has a package this week (map included!) about Williamsburg College. Learn all you need to know about campus eats, dorm life and beer blasts. Plus, get advice from a Williamsburg alum.

With that in mind, we thought we’d present this modest introduction to the neighborhood. It’s not much, but it will encourage your natural curiosity and soften the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune by directing you to the elements of Williamsburg life that will be the most comfortable to you and that have been developed with you strictly in mind.  read more »

The intrepid condo buyers who took a gamble on a modestly priced spread in Brooklyn Heights in April 2007 probably had no idea that they would be living in the borough's most expensive neighborhood for condos a year later.

The average condo price increased 170 percent annually, from $613,750 to $1.65 million in April 2008, according to the report from the Real Estate Board of New York.

Other condo price results results by neighborhood:  read more »

North Williamsburg does not have any major grocery chains. What it does have, in increasing abundance, is health food stores and small, family-run markets that blend Whole Foods with your neighborhood deli. We’ll call them yuppie bodegas.

There are four such shops on Bedford Avenue between North Seventh and North Ninth streets, with another on the way, and they have much more in common then the organic, vegan fare and Ramen Noodles stocked on the shelves.

They are each owned by Palestinians, mainly from the town of al-Beireh in the West Bank region of Ramallah. Some of Williamsburg’s Palestinian grocers were strangers before they each opened shops on the same two-block stretch of Bedford Avenue. Others are related.  read more »

When the L train in Williamsburg stopped running mid-morning and the northern end of the neighborhood temporarily grinded to a halt, two things came to mind. First, Williamsburg residents are almost completely reliant on one subway line. Second, there really is a Williamsburg “type.”

At around 9:50--rush hour in the neighborhood populated by young professionals, artsy types, and those who appear to be perennially unemployed--an anonymous voice announced to passengers impatiently waiting inside a First Avenue-bound subway car parked at the Bedford Avenue stop that service to Manhattan would be suspended. Hapless, confused-looking 20- and 30-somethings spilled out onto Williamsburg’s main strip on their cell phones, trying to arrange transportation, myself included.  read more »

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What do Jasper Johns, Cindy Sherman, Annie Leibovitz and Keith Haring all have in common? Each artist has work up for sale at the 4th Annual Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM to us locals) Silent Auction.

BAM certainly plays an integral part in the Brooklyn art scene, and the auction, which raises money for BAM's various programs, raked in $237,500 last year. Artists from all over the borough have work for sale—which you can bid on on BAM's Web site—many from Williamsburg, Fort Greene and Prospect Heights. Bidding is open until April 13, when the closing reception will bring in the final bids.

Brooklyn has certainly always nurtured creative talent—nothing new there. The borough has increasingly become home to prominent names in the fine-arts community. While an afternoon spent in Manhattan's great museums or in Chelsea's galleries is certainly invigorating, poking around unconventional spaces that have sprung up all over Brooklyn can turn into quite the adventure. Brooklyn is an urban jungle peppered with art, inside and outside of the spaces that facilitate creativity.  read more »

The City Council approved the Grand Street downzoning yesterday, despite a last-minute opposition campaign mounted by a group of small-scale Williamsburg landowners.

The proposal to limit building heights to 4-6 stories was pushed through in less than a year to stop construction of two high-rise residential buildings designed by the neighborhood’s most ubiquitous architect, Karl Fischer.

While the downzoning will affect 250 properties in the neighborhood and cost $400 million, according to the new group calling themselves the Grand Home and Business Owners' Organization, not all Williamsburg developers are against the move.  read more »

As a teenager I spent a fair amount of time traversing New York City's urban terrain in search of live music. I was partial to punk. I spent a lot of time at Saturday punk matinees at ABC No Rio and the Dumbo art collective DUMBA. At 16, I marched down to the DMV to get a resident ID to prove to CBGB's Hilly Kristal that I was old enough to shove people to an orchestra of power chords.

I remember the devastation of Giuliani's ruling against dancing in bars and the death knell of advancing gentrification, the demise of the places I used to frequent (except for ABC No Rio, which managed to buy its squatted building from the city in the late 90's and is now planning a serious renovation). In a recent article for The Observer, Chris Shott described the debilitating regulatory environment that many music venues contend with now.  read more »

Though I spent three years living in Greenpoint, I often found myself shunning the local nightlife—aside from a few restaurants and my local watering hole the Pencil Factory—for cozy nights in on my quiet residential street. Especially during this time of year. But despite no longer residing there, I've recently found myself traveling north to Williamsburg and Greenpoint for a night out more often and apparently, I'm not alone!

On a recent Thursday, I headed to the Music Hall of Williamsburg to catch a few bands play. On my walk toward the venue, which stands just short of the East River, I bypassed the Thai restaurant Sea, now North 6th Street's bridge-and-tunnel capital. Patrons were falling out of the doors, the line for a table immense, while a DJ boomed hip hop to a crowd donning their Sunday (or Thursday) best. Similarly, up the street, Planet Thai was packed to the brim with people seeking a lounge, restaurant and bar feel all in one.  read more »

With a glut of condos on the market in Williamsburg and thousands more set to come online over the next few years, you would think the construction crews might have been given a day off for Monday's holiday, but alas work continued through the rain and into Monday evening on four of the latest residential projects overlooking McCarren Park.

The nine-story Ikon at 50 Bayard Street and Karl Fisher's condo tower at 20 Bayard (two of the three Fischer-designed condos on the block) looked almost ready for occupancy on Monday.  read more »

We reported in today's paper about the travails of the 200-plus tenants booted late last month from 475 Kent Avenue (and about how Williamsburg in general has become an inhospitable place for artists, so much so that many are migrating to Ridgewood, Queens).

Brownstoner reports today that the tenants--a collection of artists, some of whom had been living in the old commercial building for years--may not be able to return home for months.  read more »

A Williamsburg reader emails:

Voting this morning was a slightly more confusing and anticlimactic experience than I had expected. I stopped by the school on North 5th between Roebling and Driggs on my way into work, guided by a smattering of scotch-taped signs and several Obama canvassers (I didn't actually count 500 steps from them to the polling booth itself, but I was slightly suspicious).

 read more »

Once upon a time, before Williamsburg was a neighborhood of self-conscious hipsters and cookie-cutter condo conversions, it was a haven for the city’s artists.

As loft space in Manhattan became increasingly scarce and inexpensive throughout the 1990’s, artists flocked to commercial buildings in Williamsburg and DUMBO that were not certified for occupancy, but nonetheless provided ample space to live and work in.

One of the few de-facto artists’ colonies that had been able to resist the wave of condo conversion sweeping the neighborhood over the past few years was 475 Kent Avenue.  read more »

The Corcoran Group's Brooklyn regional vice president, Frank Percesepe, talked to The Observer about some of the trends that pushed the average price of an apartment up 8 percent in the borough in 2007, according to the firm's year-end market report.

"If you look at the numbers, there is nice, mature growth in all neighborhoods," he said.

The report covered the neighborhoods of Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens, Boerum Hill, Fort Greene and Clinton Hill, Park Slope, Williamsburg, and Bedford-Stuyvesant.

"If the price of a two-bedroom in Park Slope dropped a little," Mr. Percesepe said, "it's because inventory went down not because the market was performing badly."  read more »

The owner of one of Williamsburg's biggest brokerage firms, Aptsandlofts.com, said that the Corcoran Group's 2007 market report was "wrong" in estimating that the average price of a condo in the neighborhood had increased 8 percent since 2006.

David Maundrell told The Observer on Friday afternoon that "there was no way" that the average price of a condo in the Williamsburg market had risen from $817,000 in 2006 to $880,000 in 2007, as the Corcoran report concludes.

"Their data is wrong. We've seen the market come down 10 to 12 percent across the board since it peaked in the beggining of 2006," he said.  read more »

I didn't want to write this about the CW show Gossip Girl, but I feel I have to before it's too late.

As it stands now, Gossip Girl; is spreading throughout the United States a disjunctive, distorted, ultimately dangerous, view of what buys what in New York City right now, and the show's doing so mostly through its depiction of real estate. Like Friends in the 1990's and Sex and the City earlier this decade, Gossip Girl is giving the impression to Suzy in Nebraska and Mandy in Alabama (and Clay from Texas) that real estate in New York is as affordable as anywhere and that poor in New York means living in a $2 million Williamsburg loft.  read more »

In July of 2006, The Transom featured the story of a battle being waged in the halls of a luxurious Williamsburg condominium. Residing in the former Esquire Shoe Polish Factory, the building’s residents, most of whom occupy pricey large lofts and sprawling duplexes, were fighting over paint colors—the paint color to be applied on each apartment’s door and frame, to be exact. “I don’t like these New York stories,” resident Monroe Denton told The Transom at the time. “But they’re very New York.”

On one side were the color divide were proponents of painting the entrances dark charcoal. And on the other: something more colorful, a bit cheerier. “It’s like the Bloods and the Crips—except it’s the Teals and the Dark Charcoals,” resident Nancy Rielle is quoted as saying at the time.

Ms. Rielle, a member of the building’s Teal gang, e-mailed us today to herald a bit of good news. Last week, just shy of the dispute’s third anniversary, the building’s residents finally came to a chromatic consensus—and it’s called “Raisin Torte.” At least that’s what it’s called on Ms. Rielle’s floor, the Esquire’s third.

“We tried some other earth tones, because that seemed to be the compromise—that the Dark Charcoal people were opposed to color period. And the color people wanted color,” she told The Daily Transom today. “We tried some russet colors, but they were too orange; that was the feedback from the Dark Charcoal people.” So Ms. Rielle and her neighbor continued to visit the paint store, using their own doorframes as color labs. She went on, “Our friend Brian, down the hall, who was really a Dark Charcoal, would come over and look at the new colors and say, ‘nah.’”

So Raisin Torte was the consensus. And it left everyone feeling fairly content, Ms. Rielle said—if a bit silly, too. After all, Raisin Torte was the color of the doors and frames when the battle began almost three years ago.  read more »

“She’s paying her respect, which I think is a very good characteristic.”  read more »

“You used to have career video-store clerks,” said Leah Giblin, a diminutive 29-year-old  read more »

“I just threw my whole spring line in a bag, and I can mix anything with whatever—it&rsq  read more »

• The boringly-named U.S. General Services Administration gives out annual prizes for public projects, and this year there was only one winner in New York among the 18 prizes. Jacob K. Javits Federal Building Entry Pavilion, rejoice! Also: We need cooler public architecture. [Arch. Record News]
• At long last, Williamsburg finally becomes cool, getting a new "Asian-fusion" restaurant (appropriately named Scene). Tellingly, it's close to American Apparel. [Brooklyn Record]
• Bad-haired Bon Jovi is a good guy. He's helping finish renovations on "an energy-efficient, three-story condo complex on Halsey Street" in Bedford-Stuy, where apartments will be rented to low-income locals. Viva Brooklyn-based 80's hair metal philanthropy. [Page Six]
• Co-ops are so cruel these days, and doormen are so victimized: No more dog food treats; no more food-delivery work; no more watching rich people's babies! [NY Mag, D.I.] - Max Abelson
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Bill Scott is a radical artist, but not in the sense to which we’ve become accustomed.  read more »

Xeniz Viray, 23, lives near Jackson Street and Graham Avenue in Williamsburg. Ms.  read more »

Brownstoner Revealed! "Jonathan Butler, a 37-year-old Upper East Side native and Princeton graduate, has been blogging about Brooklyn real estate under the moniker Brownstoner for more than two years. He has, until now, kept his identity a secret, except to a tiny handful, including his wife Kira." Go to story by Tom Acitelli. Mayor Has 1,000 Days and So Much To Do "Mayor Michael Bloomberg's aides these days start their spiel about the long-range plan for the city by talking about the electronic clock in the corner of the City Hall bullpen counting down the days until the Mayor's term ends." Go to story by Matthew Schuerman. The Great Downshift Shtick "Xeniz Viray, 23, lives near Jackson Street and Graham Avenue in Williamsburg. Ms. Viray, smoking a cigarette outside of Phoebe's Cafe on Graham Street, where she waits tables, said that her Williamsburg friends will sometimes tell people they live in Bushwick." Go to story by Gillian Reagan and David Foxley. Commercial Market Spawns Crazy Soho Building Sale "A building at the corner of Broadway and Houston, 600 Broadway, is in contract for more than $1,000 per foot at $71 million, a source said." Michael Shvo teams with Joseph Moinian "The mad marketing genius Michael Shvo is partnering with developer Joseph Moinian to market a planned W Hotel at 123 Washington Street, a source said." Go to Commercial Breaks by John Koblin. Will Stripper-Plex Take It All Off? "The government may have stripped him of his title as CEO of Manhattan's most protuberant topless-bar franchise, but recently demoted Scores boss Richard Goldring isn't giving up his main money-maker so easily." Go to Counter Espionage by Chris Shott. 'It's Inspectors Gone Wild' "Chuck Hunt, the New York State Restaurant Association's man in the city, talks rats and Frank Bruni." Go to The Sit-Down by Chris Shott. Jazz Sanctuary Sells for $4.7 M. "The octogenarian jazz impresario George Wein, who founded the indispensable Newport Jazz and Folk Festivals, has sold the five-floor townhouse that served as his offices for over three decades." Buyer Spies K.T. McFarland's 770 Park Duplex "Recent U.S. Senate candidate KT McFarland's 13-room duplex at 770 Park Avenue, a source of droll tabloid scandal during her campaign, has gone to contract. The apartment was listed by Brown Harris Stevens in January for $20 million, and cut to $18,400,000 earlier this month." Go to Manhattan Transfers by Max Abelson. Foreclosure Doomsday? Not in Manhattan "If you've been reading the real-estate pages in the newspapers lately, you could be forgiven for drawing the conclusion that a national wave of foreclosures looms as the bills come due on subprime mortgages inked during the housing boom. But things aren't that grim, especially in Manhattan, where a subprime borrower's about as common as sobriety on St. Patrick's Day." Go to The Lab by Tom Acitelli. Have a Seat, Morticia! "The hard-core collectors of American Gothic are a closed and inbred society. David Scott Parker, an architect, estimated that there are perhaps 10, including him." Go to Interiors by Toni Schlesinger. Deeds and Deals A Week in New York Real Estate