Bad Advice

What the hell?!?

As I stepped out onto my fire escape to survey the destruction next door, something sitting in my very own backyard caught my eye.

My camera isn't great, but I hope you can see that what you're looking at is a homemade toilet. A standard toilet seat mounted on top of some sort of bucket. It even looks like there's a box of reading material sitting next to it. Cozy, no?

Who is pooping in this thing? This isn't situated in a private area of the yard. Something like 15 apartments look out into this courtyard, not to mention the construction guys on the roof.

More destructo-porn after the jump.

It Happened One Weekend. . . .

As Gowanus Lounge reported this morning, scaffolding has gone up around the building right next door to mine. As I was taking some scaffolding photos, the guy circled told me I should take his picture. So I did.

He asked me what I was doing and said I just wanted photos of the scaffolding and told him I lived next door and was worried my building was going to come down when they tore down this building. I implored him—very politely, I might add—to please be careful as that was my home.

He found this totally hilarious.

Maybe I'm just a paranoid freak.

But since all but two of the building/demo permits that the new owners of the cabbage factory have applied for have been turned down, the building has been left wide open. (As far as I can tell the other two permits are pending.)

I have to wonder if the new owners are looking for a Joshua Guttman solution to their DOB woes.

I am afraid

We've known for a while that the cabbage factory next door was going to get torn down and turned into shitty overpriced condos, so when I heard jackhammers out front this morning, I expected the worst.

I looked up the address on the DOB website, but couldn't decipher whether or not the demolition permits had been granted. I could tell they'd been applied for but they use all this weird coding that normal people without an extensive construction background can't understand. So I called 311 and attempted to talk to a human.

The operator connected me to the Department of Buildings, where a cheery young woman informed me that I'd have to look on the website to see if there were any permits.

Picnic With Your Broker!

I love walking by the sales trailer for 20 Bayard because they have all these funny little tables and chairs carefully set up around the trailer and nobody's ever sitting in them. I like to imagine someone pondering whether or not to empty their trust fund for a gazillion-dollar apartment whilst perched atop one of these fragile little chairs.

I wonder if the broker offers to sweeten the deal by running down to the 5-11 on the corner and picking up a couple bottles of Snapple and maybe a delicious cheese steak to share. And can there actually be any real contract signing on a slatted table? It seems unwieldy and impractical, but what do I know. . . I'm just a renter.

Sorry, Caravaggio . . .

. . . the Loom Building doesn't want your tired, Old-Master ass. This leaser of creative spaces is only interested in the modern artist.

No prices on the website and the building looks to be zoned strictly commercial, but by the looks of the shiny floors and fixtures, I doubt any displaced aspiring Pollacks will be able to afford it. I remember one day last Spring when I saw something so shocking it caused me to grab my boyfriend's arm and point. I was rendered momentarily speechless because there was a guy unloading a truck filled with canvases and other art crap into his new apartment. I gasped because it had been that long since I'd seen an actual artist moving in, rather than out, of this neighborhood.

Oh and one more dopey billboard like this and I'll need to add an entire category dedicated to so-stupid-it's-funny real estate ads.

Sign of the Times

Damn it. Looks like my favorite little hold-out building on Bayard Street is no more.

I'm Holding Out for the Finger-Bang Building

Oh Crap!

Maybe they're just fixing the roof. Could be they're just refurbishing an old building and making it into something useful, like a methadone clinic or halfway house for the tragically hip. But this morning as I left my house, I saw these guys on the roof of the chocolate factory (much sweeter smelling than the cabbage factory, FYI) and got the distinct feeling that I was staring at some demolition in preparation for some new construction. Can't wait. What Williamsburg definitely needs is more luxury housing. 

Oh, and that much-touted new park by the water?  Profoundly underwhelming. Would it kill them to give a girl some shade? Though I do like the fact that barbecuing is allowed. I'm gonna have to get me one of these.

When Entertaining Met Horrifying

The normally sarcastic Vice kids are in the midst of a riveting six-part video documentary on the toxic death dump that is Williamsburg. Enjoy!*

*Unless you just paid a million bucks to live here. Then you're probably not going to be so happy.