Results tagged “project”

Leave it to starving artists to create a new kind of currency! The Brooklyn Torch Project consists of a group of creatives whose aim is to "create a local currency to benefit the local area businesses and artists" and "bring together both artist communities and immigrant communities in our area to improve integration of social groups and economies and boost our pride." The Daily News reports on the idea today, noting the Treasury Department is totally cool with people printing their own money in the U.S.; it will be subject to the same taxes as the dollar, and the exchange rate will be one to one (though "businesses might provide incentives for shoppers to spend money locally, ultimately raising the Torch's value"). The artists point out that there is a similar program in Ithaca, which began in 1991; “An Ithaca HOUR will generate 30 times more economic activity than [a dollar] will," meaning more money for the community. Expect to see Torch bucks being passed around Greenpoint, Williamsburg and Bushwick by the Fall; currently the group is looking for a design to grace the bills, and you can help!

As Whole Foods confirms there will be no ribbon cutting for a store on the Gowanus, this Sunday there will be a ribbon cutting for the Great Trans-Gowanus Cable (flyer here). The organizers explain:

"We will be building a telegraph along and across the Gowanus Canal, from the corner of Second St. and Second Ave. to the corner of Third St. and Third Ave. At either end of the telegraph wire will be stations outfitted with vintage telegraph keys and a guide to Morse Code. Posted will be Morse's famous transmission: 'What Hath God Wrought.' Passerby will be able transmit their answers to this question (with brevity), as well as receive responses. All sent messages will also be transmitted to us, off-site."

Just like Twitter! Sort of. You can learn more about the project, and the big day, here. Meanwhile, now that Whole Foods is officially gone, the Brooklyn Paper officially declares that, just like the octopus, they support Superfunding the Gowanus. They also note that "there will be plenty of other developers eager to get to work in a safe and clean Gowanus Canal zone" once the 10-year clean-up is complete.

This crafty plywood piece was spotted yesterday on Water Street in DUMBO, and it seems to have just been put up by the people at the De-Fence Project. It's on the west side of the street, placed on the scaffolding and going from Water and Main streets all the way to the Tobacco Warehouse (albeit not on every panel). Let's just hope it doesn't come loose and stab anyone!

It's been a while since there's been any movement on developer Michael Lappin's plans to turn the decaying old Domino factory in Williamsburg into a 2,200-unit residential and retail complex. Could it be the $1.3 billion project is being scaled back or abandoned, seeing as how the economy went down and hung itself in America's dank basement? The developer insists all systems are go, despite the fact that some of the banks underwriting the project have gone bust, and the real estate market is hobbled. Now some community groups and officials opposed to the plans are calling this an opportunity to reconsider the project, which some say will overwhelm the already stained public transportation system and parking situation. Assemblyman Joe Lentol tells the Observer, "We have now an opportunity to negotiate. They may be able to see the light and redesign the project so that it's more amenable to the community." Lappin says he expects to file the land use application with the city soon, and then the project will undergo the crucial public review phase.

The plan to turn the disused Domino Sugar Refinery site in South Williamsburg into a housing complex with nine residential towers, 2,200 apartments and 30,000 square feet of retail space is moving forward despite the economic downturn, optomistic developer Michael Lappin insists. You'll recall how back in June the Landmarks Preservation Commission approved revised plans for the $1.2 billion development, which promised to preserve the site's iconic sign. Of course, that was before everything went up in flames.

Reading minds just got a little easier with some thought bubbles that Color Me Katie put up around Brooklyn—you know, the kind of bubbles Garfield uses to share his world-weary witticisms. It's nice to imagine a New York City where people run around pondering cupcakes, love and ladies in bikinis—even though you know they were probably obsessing about unpaid bills, the Knicks, and the $3 MetroCard.

Late last month, architect Frank Gehry dismissed more than two dozen staffers working on designs for the embattled Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn, the Wall Street Journal reports. The terminations came despite the fact that most of the proposed $4.2 billion project—which would include a Nets basketball arena, office towers and thousands of apartments—has not been designed, as Develop Don't Destroy points out. Both Gehry Partners LLP and Forest City Ratner, the company behind the project, declined to comment. But earlier this month Forest City abruptly stopped work at the site, and they don't even have the $100 million to buy the Vanderbilt Rail Yard from the MTA. In a thorough article in this week's Observer, the venture is viewed as being on the verge of "collapse," and Bruce Ratner "seems to be rushing to patch a leaky dam." Ratner may clear the last of his legal hurdles next year, but it's unclear if he'll have the financing to move forward in this current economy.

In a striking reversal, developer Bruce Ratner has halted work at a location that is integral to his controversial $4.2 billion plan to build a Nets basketball arena, office towers and thousands of apartments in Brooklyn. Ratner has previously insisted that work would continue despite lawsuits attempting to stop the project, even vowing to break ground on the stadium this month. Now a spokesman for his comany, Forest City Ratner, tells the Daily News that "preliminary construction" at the MTA-owned Vanderbilt Rail Yards is being put on hold.

Two years after the IRS proposed tightening rules governing the use of tax-exempt bonds, officials have finally issued a ruling that comes as a huge relief to developer and Nets' owner Bruce Ratner, who has been counting on raising up to $800 million in tax-exempt bonds to pay for a new Brooklyn arena. Though the IRS ruling limits the way tax-exempt bonds can be used in the future, the regulation doesn't apply to "certain projects substantially in progress." That includes not just the Nets arena, but also the new Yankees and Mets stadiums, which are being built with more than $1 billion in tax-exempt bonds and will now take advantage of the ruling to issue more bonds, according to the Times.

As part of a $300-million cleanup, for the next two years the city will shut down the flushing tunnel that pumps water from the Buttermilk Channel through a sewage-filled sluice into the Gowanus canal. The tunnel has to be deactivated so the underwater propeller, located at the head of the canal, can be replaced by three smaller pumps. Now there's concern the next couple years will be very noxious for Gowanus residents, as untreated waste that floods the canal during heavy storms lingers undiluted. The Brooklyn Paper, evoking that Reagen-era Massengill disposable douche commercial, worries "the dirty duct" won't have "that just flushed feeling." So in the meantime, locals may want to stick to mouth-breathing and focus on 2013, when the DEP promises a Gowanus utopia of kayaking, condos, and 34 percent less raw effluence poured into canal per year!

The Associated Press is responsible for the latest skeptical report on the future of developer Bruce Ratner's embattled $4 billion plan to build a Nets arena, office towers and thousands of apartments in Brooklyn. The article paints a bleak picture of the project, noting that in addition to the two ongoing lawsuits Ratner has been fighting off for years, the Wall Street bust has made investors just a wee bit apprehensive. The arena's groundbreaking was recently pushed back again, and the stadium—if it's ever built—will cost more than triple what Ratner paid for the entire franchise. "It's got more of an economic stall than a political or a legal stall," says Michael Rowe, former president of the Nets. "I think he missed the curve on when that project was financially viable and now he has to wait for it to come back." Longtime opponent Daniel Goldstein of Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn puts it more bluntly: "This is just merely a fantasy that they're going to build this project. Yet they're moving forward as if everything's fine."

Developer Bruce Ratner's plan to build an office tower, 15 apartment buildings and a basketball arena for the Nets in Brooklyn as suffered another setback after a state Appellate Court refused to dismiss a lawsuit filed by nine property owners in the footprint of the project who are challenging the use of eminent domain. Earlier this month, Ratner had vowed to finally break ground in December, despite formidable opposition from community groups and some elected officials.

Ah, the Second Avenue subway project—that mythical, subterranean Chimera that mayors and governors have spun tales about since time immemorial—is once again in danger of abandonment. With all the talk of service cutbacks as the MTA stares down the barrel of a $1 billion budged deficit, some are wondering if the transit authority should really be spending an estimated $3,000 every minute of every day to dig under Second Avenue at this particular juncture.

While the MTA starts taking seats out of the subway cars, the Take a Seat project is continuously building up their public furniture installation which brings in more seats to subway stations. "Perfectly functional chairs are rescued from trash piles and reassigned to stations where limited seating options leave subway patrons no choice but to stand for extended periods of time." Great idea as long as the rescued furniture isn't infested with bed bugs (like some street finds and subway benches can be)!

That plucky developer Bruce Ratner is still rallying for his $4 billion plan to turn the MTA rail yards in downtown Brooklyn into a sports arena, office and residential complex designed by Frank Gehry! Despite staunch opposition to the project's scale and use of eminent domain by the state, Ratner is promising to break ground on the project in December.

Today the Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal by 11 Brooklyn property owners and tenants whose homes and businesses would be razed to make way for the $4 billion Atlantic Yards project. Coincidentally, today marks the third anniversary of the Supreme Court’s narrow 5-4 ruling in the case of Kelo v. City of New London, which affirmed the government’s power to use eminent domain to accommodate private development.

A street artist named Ry (aka Olympia) emails in asking for a little help with his girlfriend's birthday present, seems he needs the community's participation to yield successful results.

Here's the story: My girlfriend moved to Connecticut from Greenpoint last year. She misses it terribly, and constantly pines for the days spent with friends in the neighborhood. So, for her birthday this weekend, on Sunday night I installed a life-sized cutout of her at the southeast corner of Franklin and Noble Streets in Greenpoint. I am asking anyone who can to go to Greenpoint and photograph themselves with the Birthday Girl, and then, email or pix message the photo to birthdaygirl08 (at) gmail (dot) com. Soon she will have an entire album of images of herself and many, many friends partying in Greenpoint!

A very...wishful idea, with good intentions, but we're guessing this piece is going to end up with some not-so-nice birthday messages on it by week's end. Will the effort get the girl back to Greenpoint, or will the street artist be left with nothing but a wood cutout? Either way, keep up with the progress as photos are posted at this Flickr account.

New Yorker and Polaroid appreciator, Joe Howansky, has started a project to commemorate the soon-to-be-extinct Polaroid film, while simultaneously connecting with strangers through the medium. He explains:

I will send you a Polaroid of anything anywhere in New York City. I don’t already have these stocked up - each one will be taken just for you. You will have the only copy in the entire world of a picture that was taken by someone else for you and you alone. That means way more than any other medium or method of exchange - there is a solitary, tangible record of a single moment in time shared by two strangers.

Some of the options include: The house that served as George Costanza’s parent’s house on Seinfeld, A Yankees game from inside Yankee Staduim, The building on the cover of Led Zepplin’s Physical Graffiti, Someone holding a sign with your name on it in Times Square and an elusive "secret place" described as "a really cool place I haven’t met anyone else who knows about it, not even people who live in its vicinity." Prices vary depending on the location (money goes towards transportation, tickets, etc.), but for just 15 bucks you can find out about this secret spot! The below photos are from Howansky's personal collection, all taken in the city.

Unnamed sources are telling the Jersey Star-Ledger that Bruce Ratner, principal owner of the New Jersey Nets, has secretly met with the owners of the New Jersey Devils and Newark mayor Cory Booker to discuss selling the Nets and moving them to Newark. If true, it would signal the end of Ratner’s troubled bid to relocate the Nets to downtown Brooklyn, where he is trying to build a controversial $4 billion stadium, residential, office and retail complex on 22 acres of land.

Like No Impact Man before him, Brooklyn resident Scott Ballum embarked last month on a year long mission to radically examine his own patterns of consumption. He’s calling it the Consume®econnection Project, and his plan sounds simple yet exhausting:

The Mission: A year-long effort to meet the laborers and craftsmen who build what I buy – and put a human face on consumption. For every transaction, there must be a personal connection with someone along the production chain.

To that end, he road-tripped to the Maker’s Mark Distillery in Kentucky and sneaked away from the guided tour so he could personally shake hands with Jude, one of eighteen barrel-rollers at the distillery. Now Ballum can suck down unlimited Maker’s for the year with a clean conscience. He also toured the Brooklyn Brewery to meet the folks and learn more about their process – turns out only 1/3 of their beer is made in Williamsburg; the rest is brewed in Utica. (A Sixpoint tour is definitely in order.)

Two bombshell articles in the Times today may mark a turning point for Bruce Ratner’s plans to build a Nets arena at the Atlantic Yards. Now that Ratner is backpedaling from his initial plans to build 8 million square feet of office space and apartments – some of it for low-income residents – community activists are worried that Ratner will sell off the rest of the site to other developers, replacing Frank Gehry’s comprehensive design with a hodge-podge of expensive condos or barren land. Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn’s [DDDB] Daniel Goldstein says:

The [Times] article makes clear that Atlantic Yards cannot be built as planned, and was never financially feasible. The economic downturn has served to make that crystal clear. Our elected officials cannot allow our public resources, as well as eminent domain, to be used to construct an arena--which only benefits Bruce Ratner--surrounded by vacant lots.

Developer Bruce Ratner has turned gloomy about his $4 billion project to turn the MTA Atlantic rail yards in downtown Brooklyn into a sports arena, office and residential complex designed by Frank Gehry. In an exclusive interview with the Times, he expressed confidence that construction on the Barclays arena would start by the end of the year. But the "centerpiece" office tower called Miss Brooklyn and three residential buildings that were supposed to be built in the first phase of the project will be postponed for years. And the percentage of affordable housing originally planned has been dialed back.

More than just a funny comedian, Elon James White (myspace) is becoming a notable force for his efforts to introduce new audiences to the sometimes overlooked diversity of talent within the world of black comedians. In other words, there’s more to black comedy than you might think by watching Def Comedy Jam. By creating The Black Comedy Project with comedian Baron Vaughn, White has helped cultivate an expanding community of artists who might be classified as Black-Alt comedians, for lack of a better term. At the end of the month, White will gather some of most innovative performers in New York for the first ever Black Comedy Experiment festival, which runs from February 28th to March 1st. The three day marathon (it’s a leap year) features an intriguing lineup of stand up, sketch comedy and solo shows, all gathered under one roof at the The Tank (Collective: Unconscious) in Tribeca. Tickets.

Michael Lappin, CEO of the managing company for what is being called the "New Domino", responded yesterday to our questions about the proposed project via email.

The iconic Domino Sugar sign is not included in these renderings. [We photoshopped it back in, above.] Is there any plan to preserve that somewhere at the site? We are making every effort to save the sign. We are looking at different engineering solutions regarding the “where and how.” It’s a complex problem.

A state judge has shot down Mayor Bloomberg’s plan to rent sports fields on Randalls Island to private schools because the administration failed to follow the legally required land-use review process when it made the deal. The plan was for private schools to pay $2.6 million a year for the next two decades in exchange for use of the renovated fields during peak hours from 3pm to 6pm. The Parks Department had agreed to contribute $65 million to refurbishing 36 sports fields and building new fields on 12.5 acres of the island.