Neighborhood Threat

I will start by saying that one of my resolutions is to be better with updates, and if my update is less informational and more chatty, so be it.

Last night was a very Greenpoint night. I ran out of work to get back to Brooklyn for my shift at the soup kitchen at the Greenpoint Reformed Church. As I said at the volunteer party this week, getting to the soup kitchen to volunteer is neither easy nor convenient for me, but I always walk out feeling a million times better than when I walked in. Please, if you have the money, donate. Even $5 or $10 can help. Or drop off some food. Or things like sponges, ziplock bags, aluminum foil, dishtowels, cleaning products, paper products, plastic cutlery - those were just the things that I noticed last night that we needed.
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This title has always belonged to the Sally Army across from the L entrance at Bedford & N. 7th. It broke my heart every time I looked at it. Big footprint, good FAR, and the location of the gods.

But they wouldn’t sell. They wouldn’t even talk to people about selling. I know at least a dozen people who tried to open up that debate. Lots of creative suggestions as well.

It made no sense that they wouldn’t sell. One of the tactics someone I know took was that they were actually going against doing God’s work by not selling, because the money they could make could fund countless programs that were part of their mission. It didn’t matter. They just wouldn’t even consider selling.

The other thing that killed me about that location was that it was BUTT-UGLY. Someone gets off the train in much-vaunted Williamsburg and they see what looks like a burnt-out, abandoned building. Even the smelly bodegas on the corners renovated themselves with the profit gained from being on that corner.

And now, today, Gothamist tells us:

Did Apple Buy the Bedford Ave Salvation Army?

I bet there was one helluva price tag.

I’ve been meaning to write about my experiences at Worksong Acupuncture, the new-ish acupuncture clinic on Franklin Street between Oak and Calyer. I’m a big fan of acupuncture. I’ve been using it to treat various aliments for the past 10+ years. When the former car service location down the street from my apartment in Brooklyn hung out a shingle advertising Worksong Acupuncture, I decided to check it out, since my go-to resident at the Pacific College of Acupuncture had graduated and moved to North Carolina.
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My enduring mantra has been, “We don’t need another bar, we need something for the local community,” I don’t care if it’s a grocery, a shoe repair place, a coffee shop, a sandwich shop, a dry cleaner, a hardware store. There’s an awful lot of vacant real estate on Manhattan Ave. these days, and what’s coming in isn’t any of those things. We’re getting Duane Reade and Sleepy’s and another bank (WaMu in the old Xtra space).

This thread on Eater (of all places), combined with a CB1 report I read at the board meeting the other night, brought home a difficult truth: all of these little local enterprises can’t AFFORD the space on Manhattan Ave. any more. Landlords are jacking up the prices sky high, which is giving us multiple empty shop fronts. When they open, it’s not something local, it’s something national.

Walking up Norman today, I noticed that those lovely old weathered garage doors between Lorimer & Manhattan had a DOB permit on them: CONVERSION OF EXISTING GARAGE SPACES TO RETAIL. It’s a great location, but who’s going to rent them? I think we’re getting to the point that we need the parking spaces more than the retail spaces these days.

On the way to work this morning, we conceded to each other the sad likeliness that the 50% off sale at Harricco Pharmacy was a precursor to the place going out of business. Jokingly, we suggested to each other that a Duane Reade would surely move in - based on my theory that the only people who will be able to afford Manhattan Ave. will be the chains.

Tonight, getting off the G train, we ran into a local couple who were complaining about the same thing we were, and overheard them say, “And Duane Reade, here we come.” They confirmed that it was going to be a Duane Reade, taking over the candy store on the very corner, the upstairs and the downstairs of the building, and that the buildings between it and the corner of Milton (except for the bank-now-medical-clinic) were going to be torn down and a highrise was going in.

This explains the businesses moving around, and the continual empty storefronts - who wants to move in if you’re going to have to close up shop soon?

Confirmations and/or denials appreciated.

t.b.d., at 224 Franklin. As I comment on the post, just what the neighborhood needs, a reason for the hipster morons pouring out of Studio B yelling ‘WAKE UP! EVERYBODY WAKE UP! I’M HUNGRY!” can head this way.

I’m not sure that being stuck all the way up at Green St. is going to guarantee any flow of clientele. Although it would be fun to see the customers from Tommy’s and the Mark Bar head this way.

Death watch anyone?

We don’t need another bar. We need: restaurants, coffee shops, grocery stores.

Earlier this winter I joked to a friend that I was going to do a review of the 99 cent stores in Greenpoint. But then one closed, and then another closed, and I was STILL going to do it. But, time, and energy and all that. And I have been focused on finishing my second novel (hence the dearth of posts here.)

But tonight on the bus, I noticed that XTRA on Manhattan has big GOING OUT OF BUSINESS signs in the window and I got pissed. XTRA was a cut above the usual 99 cent crap on Manhattan Ave. The people who worked there didn’t treat everyone like a potential shoplifter, and you could find nicer things than the other stores had.

That’s a HUGE space. I guarantee that whatever goes in there will be 1) two stores, because it’s too big for one undertaking and 2) some kind of crappy-ass chain that we don’t need.

At least it can’t be another bank, because they’re already all here (Commerce is opening on Bedford this summer). I hope.

1) INDIAN FOOD COMES BACK TO GREENPOINT: From the CB1 agenda for next week, we see that a Zaika of India Inc. is applying for a restaurant beer/wine license. I could be dead wrong but it would seem that L and A Italian is being succeeded by an Indian restaurant. I will be VERY happy if this is true (although still sad to have lost L and A).

2) 155 Calyer: The former home of the hapless William Taft Vegetarian Diner is now some type of design studio. Which is a fine use of the space, but gosh we (selfishly) wish it was new commerce.

I was skimming the CB1 mailing list about tonight’s hearing, and as usual, paying close attention to the liquor license applicants. One entry caught my eye:

Sakura 6 - 837 Manhattan Avenue

837 Manhattan Ave. is on the corner of Noble, where the hardware store used to be. There’s still a FOR RENT sign on it, but there is also a handwritten sign (magic marker on bright green posterboard) advertising the coming of Sakura Japanese restaurant, that has a branch in Ridgewood.

:::and there was much rejoicing:::

Now, when I think “Ridgewood” I think that wonderful, cheap, clean yet impossible to get to neighborhood in Queens, just over the border from Bushwick, but in this case, I think it might be Ridgewood, NJ, which is apparently home to a very well regarded Japanese restaurant called Sakura.

In either event:
1) NOT another Thai restaurant!
2) NOT another bank!
3) NOT another check cashing place!
4) NOT another dollar store!

Now, if the Ramen shop would only open up, I’d be in heaven.

11222 reader Don writes in to report of the demise of this neighborhood institution:

Did you see that L and A Pizza on Manhattan Ave
closed. Very sad day in Greenpoint. They must have
been there for 30+ years. Can’t wait for another
dollar store.

My response was that I doubted we’d actually get something as useful as a dollar store.

L and A Pizza was great. We lived on their $10 pizza on Tuesdays when we were broke. It’s too bad that they couldn’t capitalize on the influx of people to the neighborhood.

So Miss Heather reports that Greenpoint is *not* getting a Ricky’s, which leaves that space on Manhattan (formerly a dollar store and a check cashing place) open, and the former hardware store across the street (in the same building as the former Noble Yoga [which, btw, is now a residential loft, whose legality I kinda question, but I could be wrong, haven't checked the zoning]) is still for rent.

And finally, I saw the locks being changed on the former William Taft Diner. Maybe another hapless tenant will be taking that space??