[Photo courtesy of the New York Public Library] Building the Williamsburg Bridge around 1903, give or take.

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Countless words have been written about the gentrification of Williamsburg. We found this Bye Bye Buggy, the kind of thing one normally sees in Park Slope, parked on N. 6 Street. Just saying.

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This is 441 Grand Street in Wiliamsburg, east of the BQE, just off the hoping Union Avenue Triangle. While we’re tempted to blame Robert Scarano for this one–as it has many of the King’s flourishes like lots of walls and lack of windows–the blame can not go to him. It’s actually the work of Kutnicki-Bernstein, […]

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The Parks Dept. and architects Rogers & Marvel are going to be providing an update on everyone’s favorite spot in Wiliamsburg, McCarren Pool. It will be in the form of a presentation to the Community Board’s Parks Committee on February 10th and will happen at 6:30pm at Our Lady of Snow (410 Graham Ave.  between […]

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There’s an important meeting coming up in Williamsburg about what used to be called “The People’s Firehouse.” Here is something from the email we got: On Thanksgiving Day 1975, the City told the firefighters of Engine 212 in Williamsburg it was going to close because of the city’s dire fiscal crisis. Within hours, a crowd […]

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This is the foul scene that greets those walking down Withers Street in Williamsburg to dine at Bamonte’s, an icy sidewalk and crap-ass fence that surrounds the construction site at 544 Union Avenue, which would have been a hideous building designed by Gene Kaufman. We put the Kaufman Building in our Dead Pool of likely […]

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Here’s a photo we shot on Monday of a bike chained to what used to be the entrance of now crispy critters Miss Williamsburg Diner. We thought it was a cool shot. Now, it’s also ironic. Speaking of which, local blogger INSIJS, who shot all the photos of the fire, notes that Rescue Me has […]

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Tracy Feith, whose dress shop closed up on Mulberry Street in Nolita, is getting ready to open a new dress emporium in Williamsburg. The surfer who became a designer is opening at 64 Grand Street and this was the scene a couple of days ago as Team Feith worked to get the store ready. It […]

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As noted, the once popular Miss Williamsburg Diner on Kent Avenue burned last night. The FDNY will figure out why, but for a couple of months there was free access to the lot next store between Miss Williamsburg and Duff’s. We had the pleasure of wandering around and shooting some pics a while back. When […]

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[All photos by I’m Just Sayin’/flickr] The old Miss Williamsburg Diner on Kent Avenue went up in flames last night. These photos were shot by INSIJS who is all over the Avenue when he’s available. He’s got a post up about the fire on his blog. The fire gutted the diner and damaged the adjacent […]

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We’ve followed the Giant Fart Cloud Building in Williamsburg every step of the way. It earned that name because it occupies the site of a former cabbage processing factory. Well, the Fart Cloud Buiding has been topped off and Phase II is underway and we’ll be damned if it really doesn’t look like it’s going […]

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The Wolverine Chair of Keap Street survives. It is deteriorating from weather. The stuff sitting atop it changes from time to time. In early January, it was metal and cups. Back in early December, it was a plastic bag. The other day it was a bottle of Corona and some juice type liquid. Also, someone […]

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This is Berry St. at N. 9 in Williamsburg. An industrial building stood here until virtually the entire block was leveled for a development more than a year ago that we’ll be adding to our Dead Pool. Developer blight is what happens when developers mess up a neighborhood worse than the normal process of urban […]

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We love new buildings going up right on top of the BQE. There’s just a certain something about the idea of buying or renting an apartment with tractor trailers going by about 100 feet away. (In this case in a particularly nasty spot near the McGuinness Boulevard exit.) But this one–240 Meeker Avenue–is just extra-special […]

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There’s a ULURP and Waterfront Committee Meeting meet together tonight at 6:30PM at The Lady of the Snow Society facility, 410 Graham Avenue (between Withers Street and Jackson Street). On the agenda: 1.) Item heard at the Public Hearing – CITY PLANNING – WATERFRONT TEXT AMENDMENT (N090239 ZRY) – The Department of City Planning (DCP) […]

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For some reason some “service change” (which is an MTA euphemism for “you’re fucked”) notices are more complicted than others. We found this at the Metropolitan Avenue/Lorimer St. Station in Williamsburg. We had a hard enough time with it at 2PM totally sober. What we’re wondering is how this looks at 2AM after a ton […]

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Despite all the abandoned construction sites around Williamsburg, there are still plenty of projects under construction from huge ones like the Edge on Kent Avenue, to small ones, like the one above, which is 196 N. 9 Street. It will be a four-story building with six units from Frank S. Smith Architects.

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[Photo courtesy mikkime/GL Flickr Pool] We’ve been following the long running saga of Urban Green in Williamsburg since it was a gaping pit threatening to undermine its neighbors and since the fence was open so people could play on the construction equipment we called it Urban Death. But, we haven’t dealt with its urination and […]

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This overgrown field was the site of a bakery before it was demolished. Then foundation work was so frantic that it was going on until 4AM some nights and neighbors were calling the Department of Buildings. Now, nothing’s happened on the site for close to a year. It was being developed as a rental building […]

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We’re reluctant to buy a plot for it yet in Green-Wood Cemetery, but if we were to put a wager on 544 Union Avenue, which was supposed to be a huge Gene Kaufman building at 544 Union Avenue in Williamsburg on the site of a former factory, we’d say it was looking a little corpse-like. […]

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This is Williamsburg’s 44 Berry Street in the booming Berry Street corridor where buidings are going up (or stalling) right and left. This one is particularly interesting because the renovation started upsetting some residents when the developer started cutting holes in the buildings for air conditioners, leading to Fear of Fedders. Be not afraid, as […]

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The former Roebling Oil Building, which is what we named it because of the Roebling Oil Field that needed to be cleaned up before it could be built, is looking like one of the Burg’s less nauseating Hot Karl Fischer’s these days. Trees have been planted outside (will they survive?). A parking garage is under […]

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[Click on image to enlarge] We posted this on Curbed yesterday and weren’t sure whether to laugh or cry when we saw the language in this ad that is appearing in New York Magazine for 80 Metropolitan, a development in Williamsburg we’ve covered to death. What’s the problem, you ask? Well, it says the developer […]

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[Photo courtesy of the New York Public Library] This is the view of the Williamsburg Bridge from S. 8 and Berry Streets in 1937. It is not dissimilar from what one would see today.

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The building at the corner of Wythe and Metropolitan Avenue, across from the utterly pedestrian 80 Metropolitan is coming along. 268 Wythe is one of the more creative and interesting buildings going up in Williamburg. We won’t be sure until the scaffolding comes down, but it’s one of the rare new buildings that we actually […]

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