One trip home from work on the G train, THREE PEOPLE thinking it was okay to put their feet up on the seats. One woman even refused to move her feet from the edge of the seat once someone sat there (I would have sat on her feet, personally). I blatantly took photos of two and they still didn’t stop.
Where is this lack of manners coming from?
I have been on the West Coast and completely out of the Brooklyn loop. I settled down tonight to catch up on some reading, only to hear of Robert Guskind’s passing.
I’ve been in Seattle visiting friends for the past few days. I lived here for close to 10 years, starting in 1995. I came in at a turning point in the city’s history, when things were still quirky and the city still had a ton of character. Gradually, like any city, I watched the culture become less unique and more smoothed out and cleaned up and, by design, less Seattle.
I mention this because Robert was an unique voice, a voice truly Brooklynian, stubborn, opinionated, passionate, committed. Even if I didn’t agree with him often I was glad that he was there. I was glad that he was writing. I was glad, always, that his blog existed. It was a very New York voice in a city that is losing the things that make it great every single minute of every single day.
And now another voice in this wilderness is gone. My heartfelt, deepest condolences to his friends and family and colleagues.
To appease neighbors, the club has installed double doors to prevent noise from reaching the street. They have also tapped employees to sweep the sidewalk in front of the venue and answer the phone during the day to take complaints from neighbors.
…say the new owners of Studio B to the Brooklyn Paper.
I’ll be giving this a try soon.
I stole the title of this post from an anonymous commenter from this Gothamist post on the Production Lounge. Now it’s going to be demonizing the neighborhood as some kind of racist cesspool, instead of stepping up and saying, “We want to be good neighbors. We are as horrified at the shooting as you are. We want to work with you and we want to stay in Greenpoint. We will make changes and you will see that we can be good neighbors and that nothing like this will ever happen again.”
Why can’t he just say that? Just say that. That isn’t admitting to anything. It’s just saying what needs to be said.
Studio B pulled the same crap on us when we were fighting them. A neighbor came up with a list of demands, all of which were standard items that any club should be doing (double doors, smoking pen, etc.) and they acted like the neighbor had invented these things on the spot and that they would certainly do them and oh thank you for telling us. Why didn’t they just DO THEM, say they were done, and then get on with it?
Now he has assured that he will have no sympathy from the neighborhood, and the goodwill of some Park Slope hipsters who believe everything they read on Gothamist is not going to help him stay open.
And yes, apparently Studio B has been able to rise from the dead. They will be good neighbors, they will follow rules and policies, or we will call 311 and the 94th six times a night with every complaint we see.
I had a class this evening so I didn’t arrive until close to 8pm, but any worries that I might have missed the festivities were assuaged immediately. It was standing room only, OG residents and hipster newcomers, everyone concerned about one thing: the 2/14 shooting incident at the Production Lounge, and the bar in general, as it’s been widely regarded in the neighborhood as troublesome from day 1.
I felt sorry for the Detective Inspector, as he patiently attempted to give calm answers to what was, essentially, the same question asked in 60 different ways. I don’t blame anyone - I know what it was like when we were fighting Studio B and no one cared except the handful of us right in the area - but at some point you have to realize that the police are not going to tell you exactly what they are going to do to deal with the bar because then the troublemakers are just going to do the opposite.
Read the rest of this entry »
I have sympathy for residents unhappy about filming (especially when Fringe AND Life On Mars are back at Franklin & Greenpoint one day after the other - Life On Mars needs A LOT of space for all its vintage cars, but I don’t have sympathy for one group of people in Greenpoint:
Construction companies.
No, Hunter Roberts Construction Group, you don’t get to stop filming in Greenpoint because it gets in the way of whatever crappy building you are working on.
Now, that reminds me, I need to go look up some DOB permits.
I am the biggest fan of having a bookstore down the street from me…but the chances of me ever getting home in time to pick up a book by 7pm during the week is slim and none. So I was delighted to get a note from the store’s mailing list today advising me of their new hours:
Monday-Thursday: 11am-8pm
Friday-Saturday: 11am-9pm
Sunday: 12noon-8pm
I’m going to take the decision to extend hours (and operate 7 days a week) as a sign that the store is doing a healthy business, another great thing.
There’s nothing cooler than emailing the store and having them hold books for you (which they love doing) - support your local bookseller!
They were still filming at 2am.
They were still filming at 3am.
Around 3:30am, they decided to film the screeching car getaway scene, where the wheels squeal and then the vehicle hits a barrier.
I don’t think they finished until well after 4:30am, but not before PUTTING THE STREET SIGNS BACK THE WRONG WAY, which is going to cause an accident (yes, we’ve called everyone relevant about this already).
They did not start filming in the residential area until 11am, but they were filming down in the building supply place near the MTA mobile wash unit on Calyer & West St. NO ONE LIVES THERE. Why on earth did they not film in the residential area early in the evening, and THEN go film from midnight onward in the location where NO ONE LIVES (Sorry, folks on Oak St., I know you’re there, but you would have been far enough away to not have been impacted).
Calls are being made, letters are being written.
It’s 2am. This is a view out my window.
For the first couple of hours it was kinda neat. Now it’s like going to sleep in the middle of the day.
To their credit, they posted the NO PARKING signs a week in advance. However, they took a tremendous amount of parking for THE ENTIRE DAY but didn’t start filming until well after dark. Ann Kansfield at the Greenpoint Memorial Church had a similar problem on Milton St., where they were yesterday.
I hope someone in the neighborhood profited from this production.
Now, I have officially seen everything:
Smiths Speed Dating at our own Black Rabbit Bar. Friends in SEATTLE are enviously emailing me about this.
(That’s Smiths as in Johnny Marr and Morrissey.)
