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A Hipster Hotel for the Rockaways?
The Rockaways may technically be in Queens but, now that Williamsburg foodies are taking over the beach-side concessions and bearded surfers are everywhere, they have to be considered an honorary extension of Brooklyn. In case you needed further confirmation of the area’s hipification, the Wall Street Journal (via NY Mag) reports that Sean MacPherson (man-about-Montauk and developer of the Bowery and Jane hotels) is thinking about a project by the sea: “It’s the Lower East Side on the beach. It’s like, ‘Why are people not living out here?’” Obviously by “people” he means the cultured and moneyed classes. He does have a point though: Why spend your weekend in bumper-to-bumper traffic on Route 27 when you can just hop on the A train instead!
Photo by NonaBrooklyn
08/12/2011 11:45 AM
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Jack’s Coffee Open in Rockaways!
We just received this photo, and the two on the jump, from an exuberant surfer friend who was over the moon to see the signage for the new Jack’s Coffee in the Rockaways getting painted this morning. (Yeah, we know it’s not technically Brooklyn, but it’s pretty darn close.) The new shop, which opened at the end of May, is at the break at the corner of Rockaway Beach Blvd and 96th Street. right next to the Rockaway Taco stand that he describes as “the best ever.” Click through to see an action shot of the Jack’s sign getting painted and one of the taco stand. (more…)
06/03/2010 2:11 PM
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City For Superfunding Newtown But Not Gowanus
Here’s a tale of two polluted waterways. According to a Courier Life article, a few weeks ago the city officially threw its support behind a Superfund designation for Newtown Creek even though it is opposing the same designation for Gowanus. A rep for the mayor says that while the city has a “viable” cleanup plan for Gowanus, it doesn’t for Newtown. While critics say the city’s opposition to Gowanus being named a Superfund site has to do with there being development interests in the area, the city claims “the level of private investment near Newton is as significant as in the Gowanus.” Rep. Nydia Velázquez calls baloney on the city’s position: “Superfund has a proven track record of successfully cleaning up contaminated sites and making polluters pay the remediation costs. It is unclear why it would be permissible to utilize Superfund for one site yet oppose using it for the other, especially when the alternative, WRDA funding, isn’t a feasible option for either site.”
Gowanus and Newtown Not Created Equal [Courier Life]
Photo from Newtown Creek Alliance.
01/11/2010 9:00 AM
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Pols on Newtown: Superfund Us!
Yesterday Reps Anthony Weiner, Nydia Velázquez and residents held a press conference calling for the Environmental Protection Agency to be declare the Newtown Creek a Superfund site. New York Shitty was on the scene and took the video above. “We are standing amidst the largest environmental disaster in American history,” said Weiner, “We are standing above a subterranean oil and chemical spill that covers dozens of acres, up to 55 acres, in this area.” As the Times notes, between 17 to 30 million gallons of petroleum are estimated to have been spilled in the creek and its surrounding area over the course of more than a century, and a recent study found that vapors from the spill could affect nearby homes and businesses. According to the Daily News, Superfund designation would start a cleanup process that would take more than a decade and result in up to $15 million in federal cleanup funds.
Press Conference At Newtown Creek [NY Shitty]
Lawmakers Ask E.P.A. to Help with Creek Cleanup [NY Times]
Lawmakers Want Feds to Declare Newtown Creek a Superfund Site [Daily News]
Video by NY Shitty.
07/14/2008 9:00 AM
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Long Island City: Building Bonanza on Horizon
Regular readers may have noticed that our attention occasionally drifts to our neighbor to the North. We think this is justified by the fact that, of all the boroughs, Queens is probably the most comparable and viable alternative for most Brooklynites, both in terms of affordability and ambience. So we were interested to read in one of the many Metros that littered our subway station this morning that 25 new buildings are slated to rise in Long Island City over the next 5 years. Seems like a lot for the neighborhood whose ascent has been predicted for the last 25 years but has never quite materialized. Maybe it’s time has come.
Long Island City: Ready to Boom [Metro, page 19]
Queens: The New Brooklyn [The Real Deal]
06/09/2005 9:43 AM
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Feb 09, 2012 | 11:02 AM