Williamsburg landlord Moishe Indig was reportedly questioned by the FBI yesterday regarding a fundraiser he co-hosted for future mayor Bill de Blasio in 2013. [NY Post]
Plans for a new Jewish heritage mural are underway after its 43-year-old predecessor was painted over last month outside of 232 E. Broadway. [DNA Info]
On E. 11th Street, Little Tong Noodle Shop will replace Schnitz, a sandwich spot that closed in August. [EV Grieve] More →
WEDNESDAY
(image via Future Forms / Facebook)
Future Forms
Wednesday, December 28 at Throne Watches, 8 pm: FREE
Mary Houlihan, Joe Rumrill, Sam Taggart, and Julio Torres’s recurring comedy show Future Forms is a tasty treat, and probably one of the only shows you can say you’ve seen in a watch showroom. I mean, with the impending closure of spaces like Cake Shop, and DIY spaces getting all hush-hush for fear of getting shut down, perhaps we’ll all soon be watching shows in the aisles of grocery stores or something like that. Which could be fun, but the lighting leaves something to be desired.
(Photo: Nicole Disser)
A 23-year-old Virginia man was arrested Monday afternoon after taking a walk along the beams above the Brooklyn Bridge to secure selfies. [NY Post]
Ten days ago, police say a burglar assaulted a man in a Williamsburg apartment building before stealing his iPhone, an incident captured on security footage. No arrested have been made. [DNA Info]
Elvis Guesthouse, Avenue A’s bar/music venue that shares owners with Baby’s All Right in Williamsburg, will also shutter at the end of the week after a 22-month run. [Mix Mag]
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This week, we present a series of longer pieces unraveling the histories of storied buildings.
The Williamsburg Trust Company building, 2016. Natasha Bluth
Buildings repurposed as churches always attracted the legendary writer Joseph Mitchell, including one particular Williamsburg building that never made it into his New Yorker columns. “I find myself standing in front of and looking up at [it] several times a year—I have never been able to figure out why,” he admitted in his unpublished memoirs. To Mitchell, the mystery of the old Williamsburg Trust Company on South Fifth Place between South Fifth Street and South Fourth Street was most alive in the summer dusk when it transformed into “the quarter of St. Petersburg in which Raskolnikov killed the old moneylender woman and her half sister.”
Three knife-wielding attackers assaulted a 50-year-old man on December 14 inside the Broadway G train station before helping themselves to his cash and cell phone, according to police. [DNA Info]
On Tuesday afternoon in Williamsburg, police say two teens threw blocks of ice at an Orthodox Jewish man, hitting his back and car while screaming, “South Side Jew.” [DNA Info]
Earlier this month, Jorge Velazquez, 39, was arrested while attempting to break into a safe at 10 Union Square East. [Town & Village] More →
Wilson Avenue gallery Outlet Fine Art has shuttered after five years in business. [Bushwick Daily]
Meanwhile, three-year-old, Michelin-starred Luksus—which offers up a Nordic tasting menu inside the Greenpoint beer bar Tørst—will fold at the end of the month. [Grub Street]
Wythe Hotel architect Morris Adjmi will next oversee a six-story hotel overlooking Rockaway Beach. [NY YIMBY] More →
(Flyer via office of CM Stephen Levin)
You might have noticed that since the election, stories of hate crimes and swastika sightings have been everywhere. But the increase isn’t simply due to a greater public interest in issues like police brutality and racially-motivated violence– hate crimes themselves have actually been on the rise. And quantifiably so: in the first 10 days after Trump’s victory, the Southern Poverty Law Center documented 867 “bias-related incidents” across the country. (And yet, the government itself has no reliable way of tracking hate crime. “That’s because reporting of hate crimes is voluntary, not mandatory,” CNN reported yesterday.)
As New Yorkers, we live in one of the most progressive and diverse cities in the nation, so we might think that hate crimes only happen in rural America, and are therefore not our problem. Unfortunately, that’s just patently false. Back in November, Governor Cuomo said that the “ugly political discourse” of the campaign trail has only gotten worse, having transformed into an all-out “social crisis” of hate crime and intolerance. “This fear and this anger, misdirected, seeks an enemy,” he said. “It seeks a target and that target has become people who we see as different than ourselves.” Recently, Cuomo launched a Statewide hotline for reporting “incidents of bias and discrimination.” According to the NYPD, hate crimes have been on the rise in the last year right here in New York City– as of November 13, 328 had been reported since the start of 2016. (As Gothamist noted, that’s a 31.5 percent increase since 2015.)
Ok, that’s a little overwhelming. So how can we even begin to respond to awful garbage like this?
In Williamsburg, Harry Van Arsdale High School was put on lockdown yesterday afternoon after a 17-year-old student showed a 15-year-old his gun, then stole the younger man’s cellphone. [Pix 11]
Meanwhile, students at another neighborhood high school filled the window of a local storefront with pro-immigrant and LGBTQ-friendly holiday decorations. [DNA Info]
Nine rent-stabilized tenants of 159 Stanton Street filed a lawsuit this week against their landlord, Steve Croman, for harassment and providing dangerous living conditions in the midst of ongoing construction. [DNA Info] More →
The Love Witch
Thursday December 15, 4:15 pm at Nitehawk: $12
If you can play hooky this afternoon, do. Your first hideout should be Nitehawk’s last screening of The Love Witch, which (witch?) I’m kicking myself for not getting to until now. I blame it all on Anna Biller– the filmmaker has done such a convincing job of making this throwback film look like an actual piece of vintage sexploitation that, for-realsies, even after several once-overs I failed to realize is actually a brand new movie that I should definitely be paying attention to. I mean, even the movie poster (see below) looks exactly like an airbrushed box-office placard advertising some cheap-o, long-forgotten ’70s erotic thriller.
(Photo: Linnea Covington for Nymag)
Just a few months after the closure of Black Bear Bar, its neighbor on North 6th Street, Cubana Social, is leaving Williamsburg after six years. No, it’s not the changes in Cuba that are to blame. According to the closing announcement by owner Christina Bouza, it’s changes in the neighborhood.
More →