Who Owns the Brooklyn Sidewalk? No Cameras on Willoughby Allowed

McBrooklyn was standing on the sidewalk on the north side of Willoughby Street (near the corner of Duffield/Oratory Place) in Downtown Brooklyn, taking a photo of the new Sheraton hotel going up on Duffield (see above). A uniformed guard told us to stop taking pictures of the hotel -- because photography was not allowed on the sidewalk in front of his Willoughby Street building.

We crossed the street, walked down Duffield and continued taking photographs, then turned around and took a few more.


We took a close-up photo of the building he was guarding, which we never would have even noticed had he not been so obnoxious about it. Here it is right below this paragraph. He yelled at us as we took the picture.

It turns out the building he was so fervently guarding from our photography was the Willoughby Street side of 4 MetroTech Center, housing JP Morgan Chase and the Metrotech BID office. How do we know? From this clearly labeled map, on the MetroTech BID's own Web site.

So our question is, who owns the public sidewalk and everything you can see from the sidewalk? Is Willoughby Street not public anymore because it is near a top-secret installation: JP Morgan Chase?

McBrooklyn is not the only photographer of this site, of course. Google Maps not only shows the building -- it shows the guard as well (Duffield is called Oratory Place on Google Maps).


Photos by MK Metz; bottom photo by Google.

Williamsburg Stand-Up Comedy Airs on BCAT

Jennifer Dziura is a comedian, writer and blogger who produces the stand-up comedy show at Pete's Candy Store and co-hosts (with singer bobbyblue) the Williamsburg Spelling Bee.

Can't get out? Now you have options.

BCAT (Brooklyn Community Access Television) sent us an email to let us know that the comedy show will now be airing on Mondays at midnight (actually Tuesday) on Time Warner Cable Channel 56 and Cablevision Channel 69.

BCAT says: "Dziura, who bills herself as a 'nerd queen' and a purveyor of 'grammatically correct comedy' runs a tight show featuring five comics per episode. While comedy clubs often cater to tourists and cater the humor towards macho, mainstream male consumers, Dziura's room has just as many female as male comedians, and is more likely to feature jokes about the Spanish Armada, participial phrases, and the idiocy of political conservatives."

See BCAT for more.

(BTW, there's a sample of Jennifer's work on Timothy McSweeny's blog that we think is hilarious -- especially, for some reason, since the securities market implosion. Entitled “A Memo to My New Boyfriend. Re: Clarification of Offer Pursuant to Exchange and Security Commission Regulations and Also My Trouble With Monogamy,” it starts:

“Dear New Boyfriend,

This memorandum is in reference to last night's meeting, during which I offered to "love you forever, no matter what." Hopefully, this memo will serve to clarify that statement, and to define its terms so as to make the offer specific and practicable...”)

Beyond Congestion Pricing, One Word: 'Mesh'

Robin Chase, founder of the car-sharing service Zipcar, has an idea for reducing CO2 emissions and getting traffic moving that goes way beyond congestion pricing in New York: road-pricing using a no-fee mesh network across the whole the United States Interstate highway system.

How could you build a free wireless system that vast? Chase has the answer:

"And this is a moment from The Graduate ...: I want to say one word to you, just one word. Yes sir? Are you listening? Yes I am. Ad Hoc Peer to Peer self-configuring wireless networks.”

Also known as "mesh."

More on TED.com or watch the video of Chase's speech, given at a March 2007 TED conference, below.



- Another Venue in Brooklyn: Zipcar Spreads Its Mighty Tentacles
- Twice As Many Zipcars Coming to Brooklyn

Nice Kids From S. Carolina Donate Fire Truck to Red Hook

This is a story about a great bunch of kids from Columbia, S. Carolina who raised enough money to buy a new ladder truck for a fire house in Red Hook, Brooklyn. The firehouse suffered an enormous loss on 9/11.

Earth to Brooklyn: Join Earth Hour 2008 Saturday

The Pardon Me For Asking Blog sends us this important announcement:

Earth Hour 2008 takes place Saturday, March 29, 8-9pm.

At this local time in each time zone, people and businesses around the world will be turning off their lights for one hour, to show support for reducing energy consumption. This event was started by the World Wildlife Fund.

This initiative started last year in Sydney , Australia , where 2.2 million people participated and reduced Sydney's energy consumption 10%, the equivalent of taking 48,000 cars off the road for a year.

This year's effort is even bigger. To see a list of countries represented, visit www.earthhour.org. By turning off your lights for an hour, you will be part of a global effort to kick off Earth Day celebrations in April and help to spread the word about conservation.

Trader Joe's Work Begins! Brooklyn Saved!

The interior construction that all of Brooklyn has been waiting for has officially begun.

And begun by one guy.

It all rests in the hands of this lonely but determined worker stealth-photographed Thursday getting the job done inside Brooklyn's newest Trader Joe's at Court and Atlantic in Cobble Hill, and he's gonna finish it sometime this summer!

So far, he's cleaned up that little niche that you see to the left when you peek in the front window. Wait -- does it say something? There -- in red paint. (Click to enlarge.) It looks like: "Soy." Soy? Soy! That's where they're going to put the Soy!

Go, guy, go.


- Chunky Salsa Gets Closer: Landmarks Approves Brooklyn's Trader Joe's
- Trader Joe's: It's On the Map
- Trader Joe's to Open 'Late Spring?'
- The Future Trader Joe's
- Will Trader Joe's Be Haunted by the Spirits of Bankers Past?
- Everybody Gonna Hula to Brooklyn Trader Joe's
- Sovereign Bank Moving to Make Room for Trader Joe's
- All Trader Joe's comments on McBrooklyn

'Ethnographies of the Future' in Brooklyn Heights

One of two group shows at the Rotunda Gallery in Brooklyn Heights, Ethnographies of the Future "takes into account the vast geographies impacted by colonial rule."

The above life-sized work by Rajkamal Kahlon, Dummyboard, Untitled Painting no. 1 (2008, oil on wood), certainly grabs your eye when you walk into the gallery nestled behind the Business Library on Clinton Street.

BRIC's Rotunda Gallery is one of the great hidden-right-in-front-of-your-face finds of Brooklyn Heights. (You can have yourself an incredibly cultured day by hitting the Rotunda, the Brooklyn Historical Society, and then Barge Music at Fulton Ferry Landing.)

In show #2, Properly Past (also at the Rotunda), Brooklyn-based artists "examine obsolete phenomena, ideas and forms which contain signs of a modernist utopian promise for a future."

Photo by MK Metz

Coney Island Carousel Goes to Ohio. For Like, Four Years

Two years ago, the city purchased the 76-year-old "Coney Island Carousell" for $1.8 million and hired carousel restorer Todd W. Goings to refurbish the ride. Goings and his men shipped the 50 steeds back to Marion, Ohio.

Tuesday, they came back for the rest of the carousel.

New York Magazine reports that it will take two more years for the revamped carousel to come back to its new home, in Steeplechase Plaza, the “new iconic civic and entertainment destination” in Coney Island.

The Last of the Coney Island Carousels Leaves New York NY Magazine's Daily Intel

Total Re-Do at the Happy Days Diner in Brooklyn Heights

Everyone's been worried that this 24-hour diner on Montague Street is closing, but workers told McBrooklyn that the joint is just getting a really big re-do. They also said that the same owner will continue to run the not-fancy-but-dependable eatery.

Happy Days was certainly due for a major renovation. Nothing had been fixed up in there since The Fonze was in diapers.

Here you can see that the booths, the counter, yes, the juke box and everything else has been ripped out. What wonders are to come?

Photo by MK Metz

Oro Condo, Downtown Brooklyn, More Than 50 Percent (Sort of) Sold?

As seen from the west, the 40-story Oro Condo towers over much of Downtown Brooklyn. (That's part of Concord Village out in front.) The Oro stands at 306 Gold Street.

How are sales? Joe Chan, President of the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, in a letter to the Brooklyn Eagle on March 14, disputed that they were "lagging." He said that, as of March, the Oro Condominium was over 50 percent sold.

The Eagle responded: "According to StreetEasy, Oro Condominiums with 303 units has no recorded sales, 90 units 'in contract' and 72 'previous listings,' which are listings taken off the market for whatever reason, including if they are in contract, for example."

When McBrooklyn checked StreetEasy on Tuesday, 95 units were in contract, with 72 "previous listings." (The "no recorded sales" thing throws us.) If all of these numbers indicate units sort of sold (almost sold? probably sold?), then the Oro has (definitely, sort of) crossed the 50 percent mark, with 167 tied up one way or the other. Unless not.

The Prudential Douglas Elliman web site shows 19 available apartments, and a gazillion "in contract."

Brownstoner, meanwhile, speculates on the probability of Son of Oro ever being built -- and what it may turn out to be if it is.

Photo by MK Metz