Tagged: Urban Manifest Destiny

Found Footage: Mike V & The Brooklyn Banks

By Nicole Brydson

Shot last month, this seven minute short features skateboarder Mike Vallely lamenting the soon to be shuttered Brooklyn Banks, a lengendery NYC spot for generations of skater kids at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge. The Downtown Express reported last October that “The city plans to use the internationally known Brooklyn Banks skate park as a staging area during the Brooklyn Bridge reconstruction, which is starting later this year and will last until 2014, said Ralph Musolino, a district manager for the city Parks Dept.” The city plans to shutter the area beginning this Friday, January 15, and it will remain closed until 2014.

A Vanderbilt Goes to The Vanderbilt

By Cait Weiss

Brooklyn The Borough felt it was about time to send a Vanderbilt to Vanderbilt Avenue. And what better place to kick-off this adventure in gentrification, family history, and neighborhood love than with dinner and drinks at The Vanderbilt in Prospect Heights.

Atlantic Yards Sugar Daddy Is Also A Russian Oligarch

By Nicole Brydson

Bruce Ratner, the mastermind behind the Atlantic Yards Project and part-owner of the New Jersey Nets signed a $200 million deal today to give Russion oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov an 80% stake in the basketball team. Mr. Prokhorov wrote on his LiveJournal blog (translated from Russian by Google) that “participation in [this deal] was made possible by the world crisis (never in the history of foreigners owned NBA).”

KRS-ONE to Launch New Imprint, Release Hip Hop Bible

By Nicole Brydson

Last Saturday afternoon, many Brooklynites happened upon Habana Outpost on Fulton Street in Fort Greene to find philosopher/rapper KRS-ONE preaching to his disciples.

Will Proximity To ‘Art’ Still Sell Condos?

By Nicole Brydson

Like the weather on a recent Thursday, the building at 542 St. Mark’s Avenue in Crown Heights couldn’t decide whether to be one thing or another.

Rosie Perez Not ‘Angry,’ Just ‘Bothered’ by Gentrification

By Nicole Brydson

At WNYC’s new Jerome L. Greene Performance Space today, on the ground level of their new headquarters on Varick Street, Rosie Perez moderated a panel called The Places that Bind: Examining Preservation and Culture in a Changing City.

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.

The Quietest Places To Pass a Sunday

By Nicole Brydson

“Do you hear the crickets?,” asked Ali Jafri, a broker for Prudential Douglas Elliman. We were standing on the ninth-floor balcony of a brand-new three-bedroom condominium for sale at 20 Bayard Street in Williamsburg. “That’s something you won’t get in Manhattan.”

These days, Mr. Jafri might hear crickets more often than he’d like. It was the Sunday before the European markets began to tumble, during peak open house hours, and the buyer traffic through Brooklyn’s newer towers was slow. Just a few days earlier, The New York Times had declared that “the credit crisis and the turmoil on Wall Street are bringing New York’s real estate boom to an end.”

Where Brooklyn At?

By Nicole Brydson

No longer are wayward gentrifiers staring longingly at the Williamsburg Bridge from their loft parties, hoping to someday find a good deal on rent in the East Village, Lower East Side or the like for the nightlife.

A Personal Wire

By Nicole Brydson

Apparently it’s quite controversial to discuss the experience of living in Brooklyn when it comes to the topic of race. A few weeks back, I dared to talk about it and received a lot of flack. But in my hood, Prospect Heights, and anywhere really, race, class and gentrification are heavy topics, and I’m not going to shy away from them.

Destined to Be Gentrified and Gentrifying

By Nicole Brydson

On a recent chilly night, I was bundled up and on my way to Boerum Hill to have dinner at a friend’s apartment. As I walked down Washington Avenue the B45 bus pulled up next to me, and I hesitated. “Which would be faster, the train or the bus?” I thought. Before I could make a decision, the bus doors had shuttered. Luckily, the light at Atlantic and Washington was still red and I approached the bus and knocked on the door. The driver, a middle-aged African-American man, refused to open the door, gesturing to the next stop, three street crossings away, even though his bus was still idling perfectly in front of a designated stop. It was 15 degrees outside and I’ll admit it, I felt like the driver was sticking it to me for being white.