Inside the 'New McKibben Lofts' : "My wife and I live in...

Curbed NY — Mon, 9 Feb 2009 08:20:00 PST

"My wife and I live in a former factory on Knickerbocker Avenue in Bushwick," blogs Joshua David Stein. "When we moved in two months ago, we were one of the first tenants in the building. Like pioneers, we had neither heat nor electricity. We built a sod hut and burned old copies of The Nation to stay warm. I read Willa Cather every night by candlelight. But now the apartments are filling up, warrens of cubbyhole-sized drywall rooms are being erected and last night, a truly horrendous loft party was thrown in one of the empty apartments. The techno lasted until 7:30 am. Fucking shit, I realized, we had moved in to the new McKibben Lofts." Click through for more. So much more. [My Memoirs]

—Lockhart

CurbedWire: Bushwick Condos Co-opt Street Art, Another Trump Soho Challenge

Curbed NY — Thu, 5 Feb 2009 14:32:00 PST

BUSHWICK

Notice the bit of vanishing art from the website of new 15-unit Bushwick development 38 Wilson? Nah, us neither, but a tipster alerts us to the situation. Unlike Banksy, street artist "Imminent Disaster" is apparently not cool with Brooklyn developers co-opting her work to market condos. The back-and-forth between the artist and the project's developer is up on Imminent Disaster's Flickr page. [CurbedWire Inbox]

SOHO

Speaking of imminent disasters, the Soho Alliance's most recent legal challenge to the Trump Soho may have been denied, but according to the group they're not giving up the fight: "We have recently filed a second Letter of Objection at the BSA which could precipitate another years-long legal battle, arguing that the building is overbuilt by thousands of square feet. The Alliance obtained the blue prints from DOB and sent them out to two independent professional plan examiners, telling them to scrutinize them and see what they could find. Independently of each other, they both reported back that it is overbuilt. So, we have applied to the BSA for a hearing to let their experts decide whether it is overbuilt. Now, here is the hook. Our attorney reported this new legal action to the NYS Attorney-General's Office, which has now incorporated it into the Condo Offering Plan. Score one for the NIMBYs!" [CurbedWire Inbox]

—Joey

Email Scan

Curbed NY — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 08:02:00 PST

We scan the inbox so you don't have to. Today, three items of note:

Best Bets Daily: Big cluster earrings from Winifred Grace
Brooklyn Based: A DIY-fest at Bushwick's Third Ward
DailyCandy: Cooking classes from The Social Table
DailyCandy Kids: Not updated
Gen Art Pulse: Not updated
I Heart Daily: Fair trade trinkets from Uganda, Vietnam, and Rwanda
MUG: Websites about NYC food, nightlife, history, more
Refinery29: Roundup of non-traditional wedding/engagement/promise rings (pictured)
Thrillist: Next week's Nolita streetwear expo Cargo Show
UrbanBaby Daily: Organic onesie at philanthropic UWS shop A Time for Children
VSL: Fatboy Slim's new project, the Brighton Port Authority
WWWD: Instructional video on menswear

—Izzy Grinspan

Park Slopers Drink Like Fish, Upper East Siders Work Out

Curbed NY — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 07:47:00 PST

Park Slopers are one big bunch of drinking mother people. Well, that's grossly oversimplifying the wealth of health and lifestyle date about New Yorkers that the city's Health Department has made available online, but the thing that jumped out at us--for chuckles and such--is that in the words of the Post, "Statistics show an alarming 20 percent of those living in the trendy Brooklyn neighborhood are prone to binge - higher than the citywide average of 14 percent." A female lawyer getting shitfaced drunk at O'Connors on Fifth Avenue in the Slope says: "Brooklyn has some of the coolest nightlife in the city, and it's affordable." We'll drink to that. (Click on the graphic to enlarge the binge drinking thing.)

On a more serious note, there's way more to the report than drunken Slopians. For instance, people living in 10021 on the Upper East Side "boast a staggering 31 percent who exercise five to seven times a week - far above the citywide average of 19 percent." Contrasted to our lawyer drinker friend, a UES workout freak says: "When your body is fit, you're mind is, too." Joking aside, there's some pretty crappy stuff in the numbers too. For some reason Soho has the highest level of child lead poisoning. The Morrisania section of the Bronx has double the citywide average of diabetes. Some of the highest rates of heart disease are in East New York. Bushwick and Williamsburg have much higher rates of depression than the city as a whole, and actually have a way lower binge drinking rate than the city as a whole and their Park Slope friends. One little problem though: the drug-related hospital admission rate is double the city average.
· The Hood Life [NYP]
· Community Health Profiles [nyc.gov]

—Robert