Neighborhood Threat

Did they even last three months? Everything in that space seems to be doomed. And it’s a GREAT space! Just off Manhattan Ave., near the school, a laundromat, the gym - there is so much potential. And the landlord allows food - not all landlords do!

Oh, wait - maybe it wouldn’t be doomed if the people running the businesses knew what they were doing.

I feel bad for the kids who were running that place, but I’m not surprised that the place has been shuttered for weeks now.

What next?

I found this tree lying on the sidewalk on Banker St. last week:

It wasn’t an ancient or special tree, but it did provide some greenery in an area sadly devoid of it. I like trees. Trees are important to the city. Trees shouldn’t just be destroyed for the hell of it. When they were doing construction on Franklin St., and I saw a backhoe SHREDDING a tree across the street from my house, I found a phone number listed on one of the construction sidings and called it.
“They’re destroying the trees.”
“Isn’t there a fence around them?”
“NO.”
Shortly thereafter, large wooden fences were installed. I was happy.

What happened to the tree? Well, if you look at this picture of where the tree USED to live (now the central trash area for Studio B):

See the tree there in the background?

It ended up down the street, unceremoniously dumped. I don’t know why it wasn’t left where it was, except that the person or persons responsible for its untimely demise probably wanted to move it away from their immediate locale, as though no one would notice this large tree lying on the sidewalk.

Here are two additional views of the former location of the tree (RIP) to place things in context. (Just look for the large group of garbage bags to identify the former location of the tree.)

This is the loading dock of a tomato warehouse and trucks are backing in and out of the garage late at night/early in the morning, hence the reason there’s a no parking from 1-7am limitation on the opposite side of the street (where the tree was), so the trucks have room. This is of course eminently reasonable; this is an industrial zone after all. A truck could have hit the tree while backing up, and looking at where the tree broke, it could be about the edge of the bottom of a tractor trailer.

Here’s another angle:

This, of course, is the entrance to Studio B. Again, the cut on the tree makes it unlikely it was some drunk hipster banging into the tree with their car that caused the damage, but given the behavior of some of the people who come to this club, I wouldn’t put it past a bunch of morons to decide to try to climb on or hang off of the tree, which also could have caused it to break.

All I know is that a tree in my neighborhood is missing and probably won’t ever be replaced, and no one will ever be responsible for it. And I hate to blame Studio B for yet one more quality of life issue, but I thank goodness that there are sturdy iron fences around the rest of the trees on that block (which are on the property of an attentive landlord). Even though the tree pits get filled with empty beer bottles and cigarette boxes, the trees are still there.

Here’s an episode that demonstrates why I think the current influx of bars and nightclubs is a problem in Greenpoint.

Last weekend, on Sunday night, some morons were having a VERY loud conversation at 1:30 in the morning, after having left the Diamond bar and probably heading to Studio B. They were standing on a street corner, with residential buildings all around them. The loudest mouth was talking loudly about how “You just HAVE to go to Union Pool, it’s the hippest place in town”.

When we leaned out our window (along with someone else in our building) and told them to shut up, it was after 1 in the morning, what was their response? Not sorry, not oops, it was - “You don’t have to go to work tomorrow.”

Excuse me? How did they know that? And how would that be relevant anyway? It wasn’t 9pm, it was 1:30 in the morning.

Someone in our building eventually walked outside and told them that they had to move, and they did.

Of course, the worst episode was earlier this summer when a group of five people stood right outside the ground floor of our building WITH A GUITAR and started singing and playing at 1 in the morning. When we yelled at them to move, they moved across the street, somehow thinking that that short distance would make it okay. Someone went outside and informed them of our proximity to the local police precinct.

But, who does that? Seriously. I mean, who does that and thinks that’s okay to do? Who stands outside in a residential area and starts singing and playing guitar on the street after midnight?

Never mind, don’t answer that.