Tuesday, May 13, 2008
New booze and food in Brooklyn
On Saturday, former Gage & Tollner, "New York's Oldest restaurant" - (but recently a TGIFridays) looked like this:
But by Tuesday night, the lights were on and new curtains were up. It looked like this:
And this:
(Harlem's Amy Ruth's was supposed to open its downtown Brooklyn outpost in February.)
In Red Hook on Saturday, former the Pioneer bar looked like this:
Last night, they served me a beer. It's now Brooklyn Ice House. It looks pretty much exactly the way it did when it was Pioneer. The kitchen opens next week. (And I assume the garden will reopen eventually, but it was closed clased night.)
Labels: brooklyn, nyc, pictures, restaurants
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Popemobile in Red Hook
OK, the pope helicopter and popemobile videos and commentary are posted at NewYorkology, but here are the other Popemobile pictures that aren't completely out of focus or obscured by the dirty windshield.
Labels: brooklyn, nyc, pictures, red hook
Papal flags flying at WTC site
On the way back from Jersey this evening, we passed by Ground Zero and noticed the pope's flags were still in place from his visit this morning. That's the Deutsche Bank building in the background.Red light in front of Ikea Red Hook
Apparently I'm going to have to post my exciting evening in backward order. So first I give you ... a functioning stop signal in front of Ikea.After we dropped off the steplad in N.J., we hit this light on the return trip.
Labels: brooklyn, pictures, red hook
Thursday, March 20, 2008
More L&O in Red Hook
I was a little too lazy to check the no-praking signs on the streets, but this past Friday afternoon the film folks were busy behind Fairway near the (currently unused) Water Taxi dock. One of the guys in the crew was wearing a "Criminal Intent" jacket, so I'm going with that.
No word yet on when that dock may again be used by the Water Taxi.
Labels: brooklyn, movies, pictures, red hook
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Monday, March 03, 2008
Q. Can I use my MetroCard on the Water Taxi?
So the Red Hook folk are excited about the plans to extend the B71 and B77 to Manhattan's South Ferry via the Battery Tunnel.Will make the trip in much faster -- especially since the Water Taxi hasn't been forthcoming for its plans to resume service in spring. However, two interesting things of note on that matter.
1. The updated FAQ on the Water Taxi site includes this:
Can I use my MetroCard?2. The latest Ikea press release contains this line near the end: "The project includes a 6.5-acre public waterfront esplanade and many transit options such as ferry service from lower Manhattan.
Not at this time.
Will be interesting to see what's in the five-borough ferry plan Council President Christine Quinn mentioned last month.
Labels: brooklyn, pictures, red hook, traffic
Law & Order checks into House of D neigborhood
So it looks like "Law & Order SVU" will be filming this week in the vicinity of one of the most interestingly located new hotels in the city. On this side of the street, the new condo/hotel. And on that side of the street, the Brooklyn House of Detention.Pink sheets say no parking around Smith and Atlantic on March 4 & 5.
(The condo office looked almost functional Sunday afternoon, with a guy at the desk. The hand-written sign said "87 Smith Street condos" -- but no hint of the hotel -- except that the permit still says condo/hotel/retail.)
Labels: brooklyn, filming, pictures
Friday, February 15, 2008
QM2 departs Brooklyn with extra security
I just watched the Queen Mary 2 depart Brooklyn, and with an unusual amount of security. It used to always get one, sometimes two helicopter escorts, even for its 5 a.m. arrivals. But lately, nothing, except for the 3 Queens thing.
Actually, come to thing of it, I watched it arrive around 7 a.m. today and didn't see of hear helicopters.
Anyhow, tonight's departure had police boats and two helicopters flying closer than I've ever seen. (Which kind of freaks me out ever since I read the pilot's and co-pilot's remarks from those East River helicopter crashes in 2005.)
My only guess is that they're worried about retalition after someone stuck a bomb under the car of Hezbollah's Imad Moughniyah in Syria.
Labels: brooklyn, nyc, pictures
Monday, February 04, 2008
Sign says: Say No to Drugs ...
There's a pair of signs painted on a building along the Gowanus Expressway I've always hoped to take a picture of but I never remember in time when I'm not driving. But on Sunday, Martin was behind the wheel as we traveled to and from Brighton Beach (which was where the steplad wanted to go to hear some real Russian.)
So my picture-taking skills, not so good on the way out.
But on the way back, you get the full message:
Sunday, January 20, 2008
The Germans haaate the Malice Box
Did I mention my husband has written a book?
They've sold the rights to more than a dozen languages - though so far it's only in print in Polish, Czech, Italian, Dutch, (British,) and German. And while sales are still doing well in the UK, and iffy in the U.S., it's apparently selling quite well in Germany. But the reviews on the German Amazon are hilarious. They hate hate hate it. Passionately. But they're buying it. Maybe they hate it so much they go buy extra copies to hate it some more?
So far there are 14 reviews of "The Malice Box" on Amazon.de. Martin translated a few choice bits for me:
"one star is too many"
"an entirely new dimension of awfulness"
"threw it into the trashcan"
The best review, three stars, says it's "not so bad."
I of course think it's great, and since it's meeting with some success elsewhere, it's easy to laugh at the crazy German thing. Especially since it's selling well there.
So a few other "Malice Box" things of note:
The husband just days ago hit the send key on the first complete draft of the sequel to the Malice Box. Very exciting. It's slated for Penguin distribution in the UK/Commonwealth-types in 2009.
The Malice Box in paperback should hit the shelves, at least in England, at the very end of February.
There is now an audio version of the book, read by a British actor named John Oliver, a guy who actually had a small part in "Star Wars," which Martin loves. Though I'd of course like to see an alternate reading by John Oliver of "The Daily Show" for fun. ... The audio version they sent us a copy of is only in cassette so far, and extremely expensive (like $150 I think) because they market them to libraries. Hoping it comes out in CD later, as the "Star Wars" John Oliver does an excellent job.
Robert's blog -- which oddly never got that much traffic -- is now available in Dutch. (In the book, one of the characters is told to create a blog to prove that he's actually going to certain places. Martin created a real Blogspot account for him, and posted all the pictures referenced in the book.)
MaliceBoxQuest, the online contest Penguin created to tout the book's UK launch, is still online (though the contest is long over) but I think it may go offline at some point. It's worth checking out if you like complicated little puzzles.
Back in October, Martin spoke at a lunchtime Cambridge in America event about his book and a bit about his journalism career. It's on video and they've posted it online.
Cambridge in America also invited him to speak In San Francisco. It was held in the rather posh yacht club in the Marina, the St. Francis. Here's my man:
When we were out for that trip, he also did a reading at Book Passage in Corte Madera, an excellent independent book store. After we got back to Brooklyn, they sent him a box of personalized stationery as a thank you. (You can buy your own from them at that link. It's good stuff.)
Though for that California trip, it was the appearance at the Barnes & Noble in Bakersfield that really moved some inventory. Many thanks to everyone who showed up for that reading, especially my mom, who rallied the troops.
And also thanks to Allison Collins, my sister-in-law, who is doing freelance book publicity. She helped set up the California book tour for us. She's got very reasonable rates -- even if she's not married to your brother.
Here's part of Bakersfield's SRO crowd:
A LiveJournaler gave the book a nice new review, ( "... turned out to be quite dope.")
And lastly, another plug for Good Reads, sort of a Facebook just about the books you've read. The site's founder is a 30-year-old guy named Otis Chandler in L.A., though best as I can tell, he's not related to the Otis Chandler, last, great hope for the L.A. Times before the Tribune Co. "synergized" it into goopiness.
Labels: bakersfield, books, malice box, pictures
Monday, December 31, 2007
End of year misc.: Gottino, Water Taxi, SB mafia
Had a fabulous dinner a couple days ago at Gottino, a new wine bar on Greenwich Ave. So new in fact, the baretender claimed they weren't even open yet. He claims they need more work on the menu, but what we had was just excellent. Five tasting plates for $25 (including divine cheeses, pates, marinated pears and olives) along with a sardine thing (which yeah, that one was a bit dry.) Great wine as well.
It's at 52 Greenwich Ave - practically across the street from the former Our Name is Mud make-your-own-pottery place (which by the way, is still a vacant storefront.)
The Water Taxi, as you may recall, recently said it would cancel service to Red Hook for the winter, which it calls its South Brooklyn service. A couple days later, it announced it would also cancel its East River service for the winter, due to economic reasons. A couple council members rallied Saturday to get city subsidies to reinstate East River service. Cough, Red Hook?
Seems the NYT also forgot Red Hook, as its Real Estate section commuting thumsucker on Sunday gave a juicy superfluous quote to Water Taxi owner Tom Fox:
Or look at the New York Water Taxi, which started a route from Red Hook to Wall Street last year. Five years ago that circuit wasn’t necessary. But the perpetual “next big neighborhood” has sprouted not only a gourmet grocery store but also a community that shops there.Maybe healso forgot he canceled all service to Red Hook.
“The stop has two things,” said Tom Fox, president of New York Water Taxi, who worked with Fairway and local developers to create the service. “It has a new population in Red Hook that is going to Wall Street, and second it’s got Fairway which draws people to Red Hook, so there’s a potential for travel to and from the location.”
Still more on Red Hook. ... I walked over in the scathing wind this morning to see what was up at the old sugar factory because I've been hearing a lot of construction noises in the past few days. I was afraid they were ripping down those old red brick buildings closest to the water. But they're mainly still there. The short one, attached to the old metal ruins in the water, are only two walls, the interior of the building has all been ripped out and neatly placed into duumpsters. Have no idea if that means they're going to try to preserve something from that site.
(Pictures TK)
At the right, you can see the outer walls of the brick building.
This is where the smokestack was - the one I took pictures of in November while it was smashed to pieces.:
Two of my college buddies are making media waves lately. Welch is taking over Reason magazine as EIC come April. The Washington Post discusses the swingin' pot-smokin' DC parties he'll be attending. ("We want to add a new bacteria to the culture.") Ironically, it's Tony Pierce now wearing the suit for The Man. But as it turns out, The Man now wants to drink beers with him. Read Tony's account of his first day at the LA Times as king of all blogs. He may yet be able to save newspapers.
Ken Layne, who isn't technically part of the SB Nexus Mafia, has a new politics column at AOL. This week I learned, via Ken, that Huckabee's kid was fired from a Boy Scouts camp for torturing a dog to death.
Oh and since I used to own the crazy animal beat at the LA Daily News, I should flag a line of interest from the SF Chronicle's reporting about the zoo mauling, in which the height of the wall turned out to be lower than necessary: "In the two days since a fatal tiger attack on Christmas Day, the zoo has given at least five different measurements for the outdoor exhibit."
Luckily when I was covering that stuff in LA, the only zoo animal that came after me was Gracie the chimp who slung her poo at me because I was talking to her keeper, who was late for feeding time. Luckily I moved quickly, so the large handful of flying poo -- powerfully lobbed, mind you, from the middle of the chimp enclosure about 40 feet to where we were standing -- instead landed on the expensive shoes of the zoo's PR woman.
Oh and I shouldn't end on a whine, but damn, what the hell happened to the Internet? In the past six months, it seems like there's so much more crap (Gracie's poo excepted) -- and from people who should know better. Is it just that search engines like quantity over quality? I know it's not that you have more time on your hands, so what gives?
I pretty much hate all this Web2.0 stuff, but in the past few weeks I've been wading in, trying to find out what's actually useful. I mean really, I want facts, quickly. Is that so wrong?
Labels: bakersfield, brooklyn, nexus, nyc, pictures, red hook, restaurants
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
London's fancy video cabs
Today's NYC taxicab strike offers up the perfect opportunity to post some pictures I took in a London taxi cab last month.
I was in several cabs during the trip, but only one had backseat video. At first I was ticked off because I thought it was just one long commercial for a poker website. Then I realized there were channel controls. There were several channel options, including CNBC Europe in realtime, as well as what I think were offerings from BBC comedy archives.You could also turn the sound off completely.
Sunday, September 02, 2007
The politics of mini storage
Manhattan Mini Storage goes in for some pretty edgy ads. Here's the one I saw today along the West Side Highway in Midtown:
Saturday, September 01, 2007
Back from Oregon
Well howdy. Got back from Oregon yesterday morning on a red eye that left me with a brutal case of jet lag. Dad rented a big old beach house for the lot of us at Cannon Beach, which had a stunning view, vintage '70s decor and a steep enough hill to the expansive beach that wasn't quiet brutal enough to offset the massive junk food intake for the week.
We played loads of Balderdash, as we did in England, a game that has left us with many memorable new words for our vocabularies, as well as many excellent fake definitions. The steplad kept all the fake and real answers in a plastic baggy, so maybe I can get him to help me write up a short little best-of list. (Oh oh, Wikipedia has just informed me that some of Balderdash's words may be fakes!)
Stayed one night at the Ace Hotel in Portland, which I highly recommend, and spent a few hours at Powell's books. Though no tours were available of the Shanghai Tunnels - hopefully next trip.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Pictures from the England trip
Before we head off to see my family in Oregon for a week, thought I'd share a few from the trip visiting the in-laws in England.
Platform 9 and three-quarters at King's Cross now has a baggage cart pushed half-way through to Harry Potter land.
Down in Churchill's WWII bunker, this is how you found out what the weather was like above ground.
This year we did a tour of the Peterborough Cathedral just before sunset, so the light was especially amazing. Also learned about the scandalous relic-stealing perpetrated by those crazy monks. In Peterborough, they built a watchtower inside the cathedral to prevent the Ely monks from again stealing the relics that Peterborough had in turned stolen from elsewhere.
And a little London bridge.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Red Hook: 360 on hiatus, life at Lillie's
So much going on out here ...
The 360 restaurant has had its shutter down. If you call, the message says they're closed as of May 23, "for repair and maintenance until further notice." I walked by the Saturday prior and they were completely packed.
And on the other end of the spectrum (a 180?,) I was by Lillie's this past weekend and the shutter was up for the first time in more than a year. I poked my head inside and two guys were cleaning up. They said they hope to reopen the place this summer as a bar - but not as Lillie's - and with a restaurant next door. No name yet.
What else? There are no-parking signs all over Van Brunt and along the side streets to Conover for two different films shotting in the neighborhood this Wednesday and Thursday: "Diminished Capacity," (a film with with Matthew Broderick and Alan Alda, according to IMDB,) and Charlie Kaufman's "Synecdoche," (with Philip Seymour Hoffman and Catherine Keener, says IMDB.)
Oh, and last week when I was walking by the site just between the demolition of the sugar refinery and the Ikea site (where it looks like they're building a whole bunch of berths/docks for boats)I got into an argument with a guy who might have been a security guard who asserted I had no right to take pictures eventhough I was standing on a public sidewalk. He said the owners of the property intended to put up a sign blocking the demolition, but since they hadn't yet, it was his job to tell people they're not allowed to take pictuers. So in his honor, here's what it looks like:
Oh and heck I forgot all about the destruction of the Red Hook Flea Market:
Labels: brooklyn, pictures, red hook
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
New Blood for the Brits
The husband will be in Cambridge on Thursday night to take part in "New Blood: Debut Author Evening" at Heffers Books.
I'm not tagging along for this trip, but when I was there before, we had a nice chat with the gentleman who takes care of their crime/thriller books section. He gave me a copy of great little pamphlet they publish -- "The Crime Reader's Map of Cambridge."
It lists novels set in the area, complete with a body map and markings for real, fictional and historical places. It was great fun looking up "kills" for the street our hotel was on, where we had dinner, and so on.
And while I'm at it, let me share a few more pictures from that trip.
This one is inside the university, actually the rooms where the fire takes place near the beginning of "The Malice Box." When Martin took me there a couple summers ago, this section of the college was closed, so we could only look from the steps at the edge of the courtyard.
Since it was open this time, I headed straight for the far stairwell to take a picture since that's how you'd get to Adam's room. And at that point, Martin said he never said which upstairs room belonged to Adam. Apparently it doesn't say in the book. Hmmmm, who does he think he is?? The author? Because I'm entirely certain that Adam's room is on the second floor, the last windows on the right side of courtyard.The book's sales ranking has been all over the place on Amazon's UK site in the past month. If you read the book (especially if you liked it,) please feel free to sign on to their site and let your thoughts be known. It's popped up on a few bestseller charts here and there and has gotten a few nice remarks from the bloggers -- including (gasp) a spoiler.
He's working on the sequel now, and plans are still a go to get "Malice Box" published in the US come fall.
Labels: books, cambridge, malice box, pictures
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Shoring up Red Hook
I was out in Red Hook today and was surprised to see the construction across from Valentino Pier.
Langfield fans may recall this was the site of the steplad and dad construction project in January -- you know, when it was T-shirt weather.
Today, not so much.
Labels: brooklyn, pictures, red hook
Friday, March 23, 2007
Running and drinking - college edition
So what was life like in the UCSB freshman dorms in 1986, you ask? Barney abuses his scanner to offer evidence.
Monday, February 26, 2007
Beware the bowlers
Still sorting through the pictures from the trip to the UK. Here's some street art in Cambridge:
Monday, January 08, 2007
Survival in Red Hook
So before we returned the steplad to Jersey on Sunday evening, he wanted to head back out to Red Hook to see if his structure survived overnight.
It did somewhat well. They happened to build at what turned out to be the high-tide line and the water actually washed under the patio. Fancy, huh?
Labels: brooklyn, pictures, red hook, steplad
Saturday, January 06, 2007
70 Degrees is Beach Weather
When it's 70 degrees in January, it seems logical to head to the beach.
The tide was so low, we could see lots of barnacles.
But since it's the Red Hook beach, it means we'll be building stuff from whatever's washed up on shore.
Lots of good driftwood today.
Of course you'll want a patio.
And equally fancy inside.
Several ferries passed across the harbor while we were there.
The builders pose.
Did I mention the weather?
Eventually we had to remove the big rocks and take off the twine we brought. But to the designer's surprise, it stands.
And to this very day, that's where it remains. At least until high tide or a strong wind.
When the day is done, it's time to pose for another picture. When you're 10, this is how it's done.
Labels: brooklyn, pictures, red hook, steplad
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