Category: Night/Life

PHOTOS: Street Arts with taeOne and THANEONE

By Nicole Brydson

These are the real local natives.

Turn Cecil Grey’s Williamsburg Bar Party into Your Next House Party

By Nicole Brydson

MOVEMENT is a brand new monthly party at Loreley in Williamsburg. Veteran DJs Ayesha Adamo and Cecil Grey are on the decks all night on third Wednesdays. Here’s a soundcloud of his inaugural set.

Full Moon Brightens Bushwick’s Beat Nite

By Angela Basile

A certain magic whirled around a particularly windy night in Bushwick recently as winter pushed its way into spring, if only briefly. Along with a mix of sidewalk debris, groups of people hovered near featured galleries, marking their otherwise undetectable entrance ways. The light of the full moon was a nice extra as I made my way to view the participating galleries in Bushwick’s Beat Nite.

Tracy Westmoreland’s ‘Manhattans’ Alive – For Now

By Nicole Brydson

Tracy Westmoreland called us with an update on his the ongoing saga of his bar, the Manhattans, in Prospect Heights.

Under Threat of Closing, Manhattans Bar Seeks New Investor

By Nicole Brydson

Must all good things come to an end? The English proverb, it seems, should not apply to dive bar aficionado Tracy Westmoreland yet again. With the economy in shambles, the main investor in Mr. Westmoreland’s Prospect Heights bar, the Manhattans, has started to get cold feet.

Police Commissioner Answers Questions at Medal Day Ceremony

By Nicole Brydson

The morning after residents of Crown Heights took the Police Commissioner to task for drug dealing, prostitution and quality of life issues in the neighborhood, Ray Kelly was awarding the Deputy Inspector of their local 77th precinct a unit citation at Medal Day ceremonies.

The same precinct where, according to department statistics, crime has plummeted 18%.

“If you look at statistics at this precinct, they are very, very impressive,” Commissioner Kelly had told the crowded basement of Berean Baptist Church. “If you’re the victim of a crime, you don’t want to hear about statistics, I understand that, one crime is one crime too many – but the numbers here are really an indication of the work that’s being done.”

With all the talk about statistics, it sounded like the crowd was watching The Wire.

Urban Daddy Winks at White Guys

By Nicole Brydson

At some point, my email address (which is publicly available) was added to receive daily missives from Urban Daddy, a restaurant and nightclub advertorial list that operates in a few cities, including New York. I often delete them without reading, but today I opened their message to find something truly abhorrent, besides their claims of editorial integrity.

For Some, Merchant of Venice Still About Stereotypes

By Nicole Brydson

“The frank depiction of anti-Semitism on the part of ostensibly sympathetic characters can make watching it an unsettling experience for modern audiences. Here the play’s religious overtones are almost entirely obliterated,” New York Times Theater critic Charles Isherwood wrote of Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, which runs at the Brooklyn Academy of Music through Sunday.

Drink, Soterios Johnson, Drink

By Nicole Brydson

The Brooklyn Brewery in Williamsburg hosted a meet and greet with WNYC’s Soterios Johnson. The popular local Morning Edition host evidently sports a cult following, notably inspiring a musical score entitled Dance, Soterios Johnson, Dance. Brooklyn The Borough asked Mr. Johnson about his Brooklyn listenership.

New Bar, Manhattans, To Open on Washington Avenue

By Nicole Brydson

Lovable, bearded bar czar Tracy Westmoreland has landed in Brooklyn. His new watering hole, Manhattans— at 769 Washington Ave. in Prospect Heights— will open on Friday, reclaiming the legacy of his former Hell’s Kitchen dive Siberia.

A Brooklyn Bridge Across the Pond

By Nicole Brydson

“I love Brooklyn, and I love this part of Brooklyn, I don’t know if you know – it’s now called the BAM cultural district, it’s got a whole new name – but I love this district. I mean It’s just fantastic. It’s kind of like coming across the river to work in another…” said Bridge Project director Sam Mendes before pausing to find the right words. “It’s so quiet out here – it’s so calm. It’s away from all the craziness of Broadway, it’s been a really pleasurable experience.”

Navy Yard Dive Not Dead Yet, Building For Sale

By Nicole Brydson

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About 1,140 feet inland from the banks of the East River sits the Navy Yard Cocktail lounge, also known as J.J.’s, a watering hole with no telephone and an unseemly reputation dating back to Brooklyn’s waterfront days of yore. A sign on the door screams PRIVATE.

Get past that sign and you’ll find a shabby bar with a few video poker screens and a sassy broad behind the counter. No big deal. However, this one’s a doozy.

Dubbed everything from secret stripper bar to the scariest bar in Brooklyn, neighbors often wear a visit to this dive, on the corner of Washington and Flushing Avenues, like a badge of honor; the bar as portal to a forgotten yesteryear.

Overheard in Park Slope

By Nicole Brydson

“If I had a nickel for every smores party I’ve been to…” said one guest at a Park Slope soiree on Saturday night.

“You’d have a nickel,” responded a new acquaintance from across the fire pit, which was perfectly centered in the frosty backyard of a brownstone on 5th Street.

Brooklynite Punched by Cabbie Lives to Tell Great Story Someday

By Nicole Brydson

Anyone who has ever tried to take a taxi from Manhattan to Brooklyn is familiar with the hostile tone of a cab driver that generally refrains a Brooklyn address.

But rarely does it come to blows as it did on Washington Avenue and Prospect Place on January 13. Around 10pm, one male and one female passenger in an SUV cab began arguing with the driver, who demanded payment after hitting the male passenger in the face. Shortly after, another car pulled up, the driver hopped out, ran up to the scene and hit the male passenger twice in the face.

So much for a hassle free ride.

Is Atlantic City the New Williamsburg?

By Nicole Brydson

While Williamsburg has spent the last decade getting a face lift, Atlantic City did the same, with developers putting up towers on the waterfront. While Brooklyn got luxurious condos, Atlantic City got luxurious hotels: the Chelsea, the Borgata, the Water Club and, tallest of them all, Harrah’s. Crime and drugs are still busy in both, but hidden a few blocks in from the unsuspecting eye, and developers are falling over themselves to draw the young and the hip to the waterfront in both locations.

In Defense of Parenthood

By Nicole Brydson

There he was standing in front of me giggling, arms outstretched, and totally naked. He was bald and wrinkled, like the dancing old man from those Six Flags commercials, but he was just over a foot tall and, from his mostly toothless smile, drooled a bit. His mom scooped him up and got him dressed.

A Tree Salad Grows in Brooklyn

By Nicole Brydson

A new generation of entrepreneurs are opening up restaurants all over the borough.

Avenue A Crosses the River

By Nicole Brydson

I’ve recently found myself traveling north to Williamsburg and Greenpoint for a night out more often and apparently, I’m not alone.