Clothing retailer Brooklyn Industries—where we recently bought a very nice pair of slacks with purple pockets for a not unreasonable price—is in big trouble, according to an anonymous tipster who emailed us this morning to say, "Their sales are horrible. They are months behind on paying their bills and rent. They just went through a round of layoffs last week and yesterday. Rumor has it more cuts to come. Even though they just moved their headquarters to a snazzy office in Dumbo, they now have the space up for rent on craigslist. They are also being sued by their former business partner for over a million dollars. The irony is that they just won the Ernst and Young entreprenuer of the year award!" more ›

With Brooklyn being stamped on everything these days, it makes sense that the owners of Brooklyn Brewery, Brooklyn Industries and Brooklyn Wine got together last week for a discussion on the branding of the borough. The NY Times reported back yesterday, declaring that Williamsburg is popular well outside its zip code, in Japan, and Chicago seems to be filled with fans as well. Brooklyn Brewery owner Steve Hindy stated: “We sell beer in Chicago, and Chicago people are not too enamored of New York. They really have, almost as bad as Boston, this inferiority complex about New York. But for some reason, they don’t blame Brooklyn.” Brooklyn Industries even opened a shop in the Windy City. more ›

PARTY: The L Magazine celebrates their fourth year and 100th issue tonight at their Fourth-Annual Centennial Party. There will be complimentary tequila and goodies from Brooklyn Industries and Crumpler. Come, drink, celebrate and don't think about the hangover you'll have tomorrow. more ›

Al's Grocery, by Dalton Rooney. more ›

Critical Mass was an odd one last night. the cops were in full form, helicopters, mad-dash pursuits, lying in wait, the usual shenanigans. except this time they weren't arresting people (although i did hear of a couple). this time they were handing out $200 summonses, plus 1 point against your license. mostly for running red lights, although apparently they would give you one even if you didn't, it just depended on whether or not they could catch you. it is definitely a sign of de-escalation, but perhaps a double-sided one. you no longer have to go spend your friday evening and saturday morning in the tombs. . . but now you're saddled with a $200 fine and marks against your driving record. and that's just on a first offense, next time you ride and get a ticket the fine is much larger. sort of making Critical Mass something only the very wealthy can afford. and i could be wrong, but that doesn't really seem to be the ecomonic bracket most riders are coming from.

Brooklyn Industries decided to decorate their shops with some tall bikes (those are specially-made bikes that are, well, taller than regular bikes)-- unfortunately, they did not get the approval of the anti-corporate bikerati gangs. Very quickly, all the windows of their Williamsburg store got defaced with etch. It's sad, because the company was donating $2 from the sale of every messenger bag to the Recycle-a-Bicycle charity. Sometimes you just want to tell people to chill the hell out! more ›

The Village Voice's Tom Robbins looked at the city's impending announcement of an outdoor agency to handle all the advertising that goes on "3,300 bus shelters, some 330 newsstands, and 20 public toilets" - a $1 billion deal. One article looks at the politics behind the bidding, with French firm Decaux the frontrunner (it donated money to the NYC 2012 bid!). The second article hit closer to home, because it bemoans the slow saturation of outdoor advertising all over. Think Houston Street and Broadway/Lafayette: Gothamist has to agree that it's slowly becoming a Times Square South, with many huge billboards...that big PSP model...the Adidas ads...all the alcoholic beverage we're supposed to like 'cause we're downtown. Once upon a time, we'd be able to concentrate on seeing the rooftop watertanks, but now we're distracted by David Beckham (perhaps not unhappily distracted, but still). more ›