Bklink: Fort Greene Joe Guide

Check out one of the coolest neighborhood features we’ve seen in a long time for coffee drinkers: a guide to prices at Fort Greene cafes. “In what we hope will become a semi-regular feature here, we present our first Fort Greene Guide, a view of the cafes in the hood and their prices. We focused on the three items we figure most people are likely to get: a small coffee, a medium cappuccino or a baked good of some kind…When possible, though, we asked about that cafe staple, the muffin. Our results are below, but we’ve also made a handy Google Map if you’d prefer the geographic view.” How cool is that?–General Greene

"The Ugliest Building in Brooklyn"?

Photographer Nate Kensinger, whose work we love and whose forays into places that are hard to access have brought us great visual joy, sent us some photos of a condo in Fort Greene called the Verdi on Adelphi. It has been featured many times by our friends at Brownstoner, who have not minced words about its aesthetics. Phrases like “a mix of generic-looking brick and an over-the-top swaths of blue mosaic tile” and “an over-the-top eyesore” have been used. Mr. Kensinger wondered if it’s “the ugliest building in Brooklyn” in sending us photos. The “Ugliest in Brooklyn” competition is beyond our scope here and would have dozens of nasty contestants, so we’ll just share a bit of his love for the Verdi:

This is the Verdi on Adelphi St, near the Navy Yard… they have been working on it for a while… but you really have to get up close to see how horrendous the tiles on this thing are! Its would be like living inside of a disco ball, or a fragmented oil slick. Its being touted as “a modern compliment to the rich history and lush streetscapes of fort greene.” Haha. How does a mirrored tile jukebox complement a classic brownstone?

Mr. Kensinger also checked out the website of the architect Gene Kaufman, whose latest work will include a hotel and two residential buildings on N. 12 Street in Williamsburg, and writes:

He is working on some truly awful buildings, and has great descriptions of the neighborhoods he is trying so hard to gentrify. He calls Bushwick a “recently troubled neighborhood” and is helping a client in “re-homesteading a deteriorated area” on 11th and A in the East Village. He is also building on “a derelict contaminated site in the hip Williamsburg neighborhood” and is doing all sorts of waterfront glass boxes…

The tiles kind of remind of us the Gowanus Canal near the Union Street Bridge where oil bubbles to the surface and puts a nice sheen on the water.

Bklink: Cops Vs. Museum?

“A cop-bashing art exhibit at a taxpayer-funded museum in Brooklyn portrays the city’s Finest as trigger-happy racists who have put bull’s-eyes on the backs of black New Yorkers. Police abuse victims, including African immigrant Amadou Diallo, are depicted as shooting targets in the ‘The Blue Wall of Violence’ exhibit at The Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts.”–NYDN

Bklink: Masonic Temple Rocks Out

The newest venue for music in Brooklyn is…the Masonic Temple in Fort Greene. “This 99-year-old hall, a place known for secret society meetings and wedding receptions for Masons and friends of Masons only, is Brooklyn’s new alt music venue, and we have Brice Rosenbloom, of boomBOOMpresents, to thank. The Fort Greene music promoter, who’s booked shows at venues like Mo Pitkins, Jazz at Lincoln Center, The Knitting Factory and the new Drom, approached the temple’s staff about hosting concerts there last year, and so far they’ve been game.”–Brooklyn Based

Say What–I’ve Fallen and I Can’t Get Up

We don’t know how long this sign in Fort Greene that was felled by street work has been sitting there, but we suspect it has been down for a very long time, we also believe that an ongoing project at Rockwell Place near BAM rendered it irrelevant. It makes for a lovely photo, though.

New Brooklyn Blog: Brooklyn Flea

When our friends at Brownstoner launch an exciting flea market we would naturally expect a blog to come with it. And so it is with the Brooklyn Flea Blog that’s just been started by Brownstoner in advance of the April 6 opening of Brooklyn Flea. Brownstoner writes:

With the April 6 launch date of the Brooklyn Flea just over two months away, we’ve decided to launch a blog that will serve both as a way for you to stay up on news about the Flea and as a way for us to solicit feedback about the many decisions we still have to make. In case you’re just tuning in, for the past several months we’ve been planning to launch what we’re hoping will be the biggest and most interesting flea market in the city on the Bishop Loughlin schoolyard on Lafayette Avenue in Fort Greene (map). It’s a 40,000-square- foot space, so we’ve got a lot of room to work with. We use the term “flea market” with both affection and a wink and a nod because, as you’ll see from perusing the preliminary vendor list to the right, while the Brooklyn Flea will offer plenty of flea market meat-and-potatoes (vintage clothing, music and furniture), it will also have an exciting mix of local designers, artists and crafties.

We look forward to what could truly turn into one of the most interesting and fun weekly retail ventures in Brooklyn, if not all of New York City.

New Brooklyn Blog: General Greene

The first thing we’ll say about the brand new Fort Greene blog called General Greene is that we’re looking forward to big things from it. It’s the work of two Fort Greene residents, Jim Colgan and Scott Lamb, and features an excellent mix of neighborhood posts including some excellent items about the neighborhood’s long history. Check out yesterday’s post on a meeting about creating a new Fort Greene/Clinton Hill food coop and, then, check out an excellent post comparing prices of products ordered at Fresh Direct versus the same products purchased at the Park Slope Food Coop. For something completely different, there’s this post with some interesting history about Fort Greene Park. The blog bills itself as “Stories of, about and from Fort Greene” and it takes its name from General Nathanial Greene, for whom Fort Greene is named. We offer General Greene a warm and big welcome and look forward to reading it and learning from it every day.

Willie B. Clock Lit Up, Telling Time

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Something Has Been Returned To Me., originally uploaded by woodendesigner.

The clock in the old Williamsburgh Bank Tower, aka One Hanson, was turned on again yesterday at noon after a long absence. Presumably, it wasn’t an accident that it was returned to service on the same day that people started moving into one of the most prominent new developments in Brooklyn. The person who shot this photo wrote: “to see the tower working, lit up with the correct time on all sides was a thrill to me.” Welcome back.

Related Stories/Posts:
Williamsburgh clock tower ticks again [NYDN]
Clocks of Brooklyn Building are Ticking and in Sync [NYT]
Move-In Day at One Hanson [Brownstoner]

Brookyule #1: Myrtle Avenue Lights

Myrtle Avenue, Brooklyn
[Photo courtesy of Emily Geoff/flickr]

Brookyule #2: Fort Greene Edition

Fort Greene, Brooklyn[Image courtesy of gaby 72/flickr]