3rd Avenue is Starting to Happen
If 4th Avenue is the next Park Ave. (a laughable notion at this point), does that make 3rd Avenue the next Madison? Silly comparisons aside, 3rd Avenue in Gowanus is quietly transforming into an exciting retail/restaurant corridor. New businesses are joining neighborhood mainstays like the Glory Social Club and more recent ventures such as Canal…
If 4th Avenue is the next Park Ave. (a laughable notion at this point), does that make 3rd Avenue the next Madison? Silly comparisons aside, 3rd Avenue in Gowanus is quietly transforming into an exciting retail/restaurant corridor. New businesses are joining neighborhood mainstays like the Glory Social Club and more recent ventures such as Canal Bar, Le Chandelier Salon, Tri-State Chess, Bella Maria Pizza, and the light manufacturing/artists’ hub at the Old American Can Factory. Here’s a roundup (from south to north) of what’s recently hit and forthcoming:
Bar Tano at 9th St.: Italian restaurant from Slope’s Bar Toto owners; opens this week.
Brick Oven Barbeque on 6th St.: BBQ joint opening in old warehouse.
Whole Foods on 3rd St.: Should come to fruition…eventually.
Home Ec betw. Carroll & 1st St.: Owners of the Flirt boutiques teach sewing lessons.
Hotel at President St.: Construction under way for 4-story hotel.
Crooked Tail Café at President St.: New coffee/sandwich shop; will open in about a month.
Drugstore or Supermarket on Degraw St.: New owner is looking to lease big warehouse.
Skate park at Douglass St.: Local group wants Thomas Greene park revamped with skateboarder friendly features.
Check out the photo montage of the new places and coming attractions on the jump.
Please…it is actually mostly the (older) rich generation who gentrified these formerly industrial neighborhoods.
Because its the rich people who have and (secretly) support the bulk of these not-very talented, disaffected, rebellious, pseudo-“artists” that move into “bad” areas, to prove their (fake) independence, and “artistic” sensibility. If their parents had just cut them off and told them to grow up and get a job, there would hardly be enough true artists to fill a couple of warehouses and there’d be even less money to support renovating any buildings.
“hipsters and yuppies just wear different clothes.”
Yes, but an artist is not necessarily a hipster.
some artists don’t even wear clothes.
Wow, you people are more ignorant than I ever imagined. You actually believe that violent areas far from Manhattan and served by one local train route would gentrify merely because artists live there? Geez, what a grandiose sense of self-importance.
All of the areas that you cite improved because of their location. Even if not one artist moved to Soho, Williamsburg, etc., those areas still would have wound up as exclusive as they are today.
And, yes, artists are stupid. They continue to get priced out of neighorhoods, yet never consider buying property, only investing $ in renovating spaces that they RENT. Clearly, displaying paintings or playing music for audiences comprised of family and friends doesn’t bring in much money. Get a real job and maybe you won’t have to leave so often.
“Who really cares?”
The artists that establish an area and then get priced out by people like the 11:24 and 11:43 posters above above who not only move in and prices out said artist, but then doesn’t even give said artist the credit he or she deserves for ultimately making the neighborhood safe and cool for this idiot to live in.
That’s who cares.
hipsters and yuppies just wear different clothes
white people ruin everything
“do not agree that this is developing because of artists. that’s crap.”
It is not developING anymore because of artsist, it had develOPED because of the artists that were there before. These artists have now been pushed out. And what you get is now an overdeveloped, over gentrifying area that is soon to be no longer artistic or interesting. Hello Starbucks, hello fifteen corner banks.
Enough with the artist v. Yuppy thing, please. Who really cares?
Its nice to see a few amenities coming into the neighborhood whether “Organic” or not. Lets just hope they thrive and more come in. Its good for the local economy and the area as a whole.
11:24: What makes you think that artists don’t have jobs or money and aren’t local entrepenuers?
Most of the early shops and cafes and galleries and coffee places and boutiques in Williamsburg were opened by local artists