Neighborhood Threat

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.

Earnest young wanna-be-yuppie type with phone glued to ear:
“Yeah, so I think I’m going to go in on this real estate thing…well, I know I’ve never done it before, but I think it’s a really good idea…I just didn’t see anything I liked in Williamsburg…well, this Greenpoint, it’s definitely up-and-coming…of course, there are no *guarantees*, but, this place, there’s like absolutely nowhere to go out, something has to change…it’s got this really weird neighborhood-y vibe to it, you should see some of the people who live there…”

He then continued walking north on Nassau and I turned left onto Banker. Were I not carrying groceries I would have followed him to get the end of the saga, or to yell GO AWAY! NO, BAD INVESTMENT! GO AWAY

…But the DOT doesn’t believe in adequate notice, either.

These went up late on Wednesday, on BOTH sides of Franklin St. Accordingly, we moved the car as soon as we got home from work. But if we had come home late, we would never have seen the signs in the dark, and certainly wouldn’t have been up early enough to have seen them.

No notice of remedy. Nothing official on the sign to designate that it was an official DOT sign.

They didn’t start at 7am, either.

As I alluded to in an earlier post, one of the few benefits we received from the chaos brought on by the Franklin St. destructo-orgy was the fact that, once the road was finished, there were no parking signs. Anywhere.

For the first week or two that we were allowed back on Franklin St., I still insisted on moving the car from side to side, because I was certain that - consistent with earlier behaviors - they would put up the signs one day and then start towing and ticketing. For example, I wouldn’t have put it past the DOT to put up the signs at 8am on a Tuesday morning, and then promptly start ticketing all the cars parked on the No Parking Tuesday 8-930 side (they did similar before). But after a while I realized they weren’t in a hurry to put the signs back up, and no one was getting ticketed. And the luxury of not having to move the car felt like a million bucks.

I don’t know when they put the signs up, all I know is that we came back from the baseball game on Friday night and the signs were in place. There was no notice from the DOT saying, “Hey! We put the signs back up, so all of you who have been parking your car and leaving it, better get with the program again.” Just new signs.

I do recall having read somewhere that once the signs are taken down, there is a two-week grace period after they are restored to give residents time to get used to the regulations again. But I’m not taking any chances.

It was nice, six months of no alternate side. But we took it as reparations for the almost two years of hell brought on by the street reconstruction. Honestly, compared to living on the Lower East Side, parking here is a cakewalk.

Just don’t tell anybody.

For those of us that endured The Great Franklin Street Devastation of 2005 (and 2006), we watched as they turned Franklin St. one way, turned Banker St. two-way, reversed the direction of Calyer St. between West and Franklin, etc.

Franklin between Calyer and Greenpoint went two-way not long after paving was finished in December or January, but the rest of Franklin was still a DMZ. Then, that was paved, and earlier this week, while having dinner at Brooklyn Label, we realized that section of Franklin was now two-way. This was coupled with pink signs all over the other end of Franklin advertising that Calyer between West & Franklin would soon be reversed (and it is now, as of this writing).

Two elements remain to be seen: one is whether Banker St. goes one-way again (I hope not), and the other I don’t want to happen just yet so I’ll wait to see what happens on that front (and no I’m not going to blog about it). In terms of quality of life for Greenpoint residents, I’m in favor of Banker St. staying two-way; it certainly eliminated needless block-circling, which decreases traffic and noise. The Calyer St. reversal is also positive, because it, combined with Franklin St. being two-way for its entire length, will decrease traffic and noise on the block. I don’t know if Franklin St.’s gotten quieter since I moved in (for a while, trucks were certainly avoiding the mogul field that was Kent Ave.), or if I’m just used to the truck noise by now. I’m just glad there are no more jackhammers outside my window, digging giant holes:

greenpoint terminal market ruins, 9pm, thursday 5-11

Former Bushwick Savings Bank, now WaMu, corner of Graham and Grand, Williamsburg