General

We haven’t had a real vacation since we started Brownstoner over four years ago and after the last five months of writing the site almost entirely by ourselves while juggling Flea-related responsibilities, we are beat. So tomorrow we’re heading out with Mrs. B and a few friends (sans kids) to the Amalfi Coast for a week. We may write a few posts on the local architecture while we’re there, but by and large we’ll be leaving the blog in the extremely capable hands of Gabby Warshawer who, many of you will remember, played an integral editorial role in the site in 2007 and 2008. We look forward to returning full of blogging vim and Flea vigor. Ciao!

After months of planning, we’re going to be launching the first significant upgrade of the site later this morning. While the overall look at feel won’t change too much, there will be a few noticeable differences: 1) readers will be able to create user profiles that track their comments, forum posts and responses to forum posts; 2) registered users will also be able to upload photos to the forum; 3) all the renovation blogs will stream into a centralized reno blog so you don’t have to (though you still can) check each one individually. In addition, we’ve tried to make searching the site’s archives by topic and neighborhood a little easier. Oh yeah, the site should load faster too.

While we encourage everyone to sign up for a profile and use it as the primary way to interact with the site, it will still be possible to make anonymous comments. That said, anonymous comments will appear in a lighter font than comments from logged-in users. The hope is that regular commenters can establish credibility (and not have their identities stolen) while purposefully disruptive anonymous comments can be easily spotted and discounted.

This first step into a web 2.0 world will lay the groundwork for a bunch of other new functionalities in the upcoming months, including the ability for anyone to start a renovation blog and the creation of a map-based archive of the 2,000 or so property-related posts we’ve written over the past two and a half years.

The site upgrade will start around 10:30 this morning. Access to the site should not be interupted, but any comments or forum posts made between that time and when we tell you it’s complete (hopefully only a couple of hours) will be lost.

Look forward to hearing everyone’s feedback.

Mr. B

FYI, we’re going to be on the Brian Lehrer Show this morning at 11:40am talking about the state of the NYC real estate market. You can catch it on WNYC 820 AM and 93.9 FM.
The Brian Lehrer Show [WNYC]

Where’s the Energy? Photo by Konrad Fiedler

When the power went out across two blocks (GMAP) on Union Ave, in Park Slope, the Food Coop was closed longer than it was during the 2003 blackout, the Sun reports today on their energy themed day. The outage was caused by undergroud fires, resulting from overheated equipment.There were sporadic blackouts accross the city yesterday as the state’s Independent System Operator reported a record peak demand for electricity on Monday.
In 2004, the mayor’s Energy Task Force called for an increase of energy production of 25% by 2008. But they now say current conservation measures are sufficient to meet rising demand until 2012. Con Ed said the past couple of days problems were the result of isolated equiment failures, and not an inability to meet demand. But the Sun still thinks the city dropped the ball. It doesn’t matter “whether the problem was a lack of electricity or an unreliable way to deliver it,” the opinion page posits, and they use yesterday’s subway signal failures as an example of why.
Power Outages [NY Sun]
“Stark Reminder” of Energy Woes [NY Sun]
Mayor Could do Better [NY Sun]
New York’s Energy Future [NY Times]
How to Reduce Your Energy Consumption [NRDC]

Thanks to Aaron Meshon of Carroll Gardens for sending in these photos of the Blue Angels yesterday over Brooklyn.

Here’s a fresh shot of the Blue Angels warming up for their Memorial Day acrobatics taken from a rooftop on Hicks Street. “They are flying just about 100-200 feet off the rooftops (or so it seems),” reports our man on the roof. “They are no noisier than the BQE for me, so heh, they can knock themselves out all day if they want.”

Looks like we’ll be chalking up this security experiment to experience and putting it in the junk heap. Thanks for all input. You’ll continue to see the the security code for a little while longer but you no longer need to enter anything, so please comment away.
Thanks,
B

First of all, a big thanks to the hundred or so people who made it out to Design Within Reach in Brooklyn Heights to hear us tell renovation war stories. We had fun meeting everyone and fielding questions afterwards. The topic that got the most air time? Clanging radiators.

Secondly, ever since we switched servers last fall, the log-in function on My Brownstone has been down. Well, we finally got it fixed so we hope to see a wave of pent-up demand unleashed on the DIY site. For the uninitiated, the My Brownstone feature (reachable on the nav bar at the top of the page) lets readers create home pages for their own houses. Whether your house is in pristine shape and you just want to show it off or you’re just getting started on a messy renovation, we encourage you to sign up and start uploading your photos and stories.

Lastly, like many of you, we have Monday off and won’t be blogging.
My Brownstone [Brownstoner]

You might notice a few changes that happened around here over the weekend. The most obvious is our new header which was created by Monika Wuhrer, a wonderful Park Slope-based designer who has built the site with us over the past year and change. Also, a big shout out to one of our favorite photo bloggers, Youngna Park, whose Dumbo Series we lifted the header image from. You also might notice a fourth column has been added, atop which sits another new feature–the first of a series of two-minute neighborhood videos. In true blogger fashion, this is an off-the-cuff effort with admittedly low production value. We hope they’ll be a fun way for people to get a feel for the various neighborhoods we film over time. We’ve got a few other tricks up our sleeves in the coming weeks that should add a lot of functionality and utility to the site as well. As always, we welcome your suggestions and feedback.
Brownstoner

Since Lockhart was in the audience, he beat us to the punch on posting about our participation on the blogging panel (which also included Alexis from Curbed and Jake from Gothamist) at the Inman Real Estate conference yesterday. The message to the brokers in the audience: Get on the bus! As for the wig-and-mask get-up? Many of you know who we are but we couldn’t risk having our photo show up somewhere our boss would see it. Plus, when you’re the last presenter of the day, a little showmanship helps keep the audience from nodding off.
Brownstoner Revealed! (Sort Of) [Curbed]

So what are the big stories that happened while we were away?

Just emerged from the rainforest to find that comments and permalinks for all 2006 posts weren’t working. Not sure what happened but looks like most posts are fixed now. Please take the time to go back and comment on the nabe photoblogs that ran earlier this week–the authors put in a lot of work and would love to hear your feedback.
B

A three-story building at 152 Fourth Avenue between Douglass and Butler is drawing attention for the particularly negligence of its landlord, Gustav Rodriguez; another four buildings owned by Rodriguez have also drawn similar complaints. Among the complaints: Peeling paint, no heat and “an overwhelming stench of sewage in the halls.” The building had 40 tenants last year and now only 8 are left, prompting charges that the landlord is doing everything he can to rid the building of its rent-stabilized tenants so he can cash in on the Fourth Avenue boom that’s underway. A protest rally is scheduled for today outside the buildings.
Tenants Rally vs. Hell Buildinh [NY Daily News] GMAP

We know how much time we spend reading blogs at work–and we’d probably spend even more if our firewall didn’t block half of them. According to a recent study by Ad Age, we aren’t alone:

About 35 million workers — one in four people in the labor force — visit blogs and on average spend 3.5 hours, or 9%, of the work week engaged with them, according to Advertising Age’s analysis. Time spent in the office on non-work blogs this year will take up the equivalent of 2.3 million jobs. Forget lunch breaks — blog readers essentially take a daily 40-minute blog break.

How much time do you spend reading blogs every day?
What Blogs Cost American Business [Ad Age]

Corcoran is forging new paths in the area of self promotion. We noticed this car parked on Grand Avenue in Clinton Hill this weekend. Has anyone seen this elsewhere?

Somebody make it stop, please! It took the rain storm on Friday night to bring to light the fact that our waste line had collapsed out under the street. We suspect that the 150-year-old clay pipe was strangled to death by predatorial tree roots. We learned of the collapse only after the rainwater from our roof had no place to go but back up out of the toilet and tub in the ground floor rental. We finally identified the problem (but not before three flooding incidents) and now we have the plumber ready to go–but he can’t dig up the street until the rain stops. Talk about a Catch 22. Or more like a Catch 10,000, which is how many dollars it’s gonna cost to fix it. Our first brush with the joys of home ownership.
A Trickle Downer! [NY Daily News]

For a non-technologist, migrating servers is about as fun as a root canal. After a stressful night, we appear to be back on our feet, thanks in large part to the valiant efforts this morning of the man behind Slower.net. Now that we’re up and running on our first grown-up server (after outgrowing our first two mom-and-pop shops), we’re keeping our fingers crossed that it’ll be smooth sailing from here. Knock on wood (preferably vintage mahogany). Thanks for your patience.

We missed this in last Sunday’s Times. John Tierney and Christopher Buckley polled 1,000 New Yorkers on a variety of subjects. Counter to our own experience, real estate was not the most-discussed topic at dinner parties. The results:
1. Politics (32%)
2. Work (29%)
3. Real Estate (17%)
Does anyone else think this seems a little off?
NY States of Mind [NY Times]

Just a quick note of thanks to all those who made it out to anniversary party on Saturday. We had a great time putting faces with names and swapping renovation war stories–and hope you did too. Also, a special thanks to Alan at the Pioneer Bar for turning over his back yard to us and for making sure none of the Brownstoners suffered for lack of food or drink.
See you next year!