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August, 2007

  1. Midnight Riders

    August 29, 2007 by Justine


    Weigh in on Save The G’s post about when you need the G.

    Seems like the consensus is on late nights. Hmmm, seems us Pointers and our neighbors are dirty late stay outs.

    I’m so proud.

    G train sucks from bifteck

    Category News, Services | Tags: , | No Comments

  2. The Good Times Are Killing Me

    August 28, 2007 by Justine

    Yeahhhhhhhhhhhhh! Totally psyched! I bought tickets to see Modest Mouse at McCarren Pool on September 8th.

    I already had a chance to check out the venue when I saw Erasure earlier this month and I really liked it. So for my baby sisters 14th birthday I sprung for the show. Now at 14 I have to admit the kid has a more advanced musical taste than most people twice her age. I used to consider myself on top of the new music scene but she blows me away. And we have virtually the same tastes.

    Plus, I’ve been a fan of Modest Mouse since my days living on Staten Island. A good guy friends girlfriend loved them and turned me on to them, Built to Spill and Pavement. And this was back in like 98. So I am in no way some “Float On” discoverer of their music. I’m a real fan.

    I’m still kicking myself over missing the Beastie Boys play a few weeks ago and there was no way I was going to miss Modest Mouse. And albeit I might have preferred to spend the concert chugging Brooklyn Summer Ale with a friend as I originally planned, in the end the sheer delight and squeals of my baby sister when I told her I got tickets for her birthday was a very close runner up.

    Category Events | Tags: ,,, | No Comments

  3. Dr. Perv

    August 27, 2007 by Justine

    Ew. Double ew.

    I mean really. Like going to the dentist isn’t bad enough you have to get molested and held captive by one?

    Dr. Neil Mate, 54, of Dental Excellence at 947 Manhattan Avenue in Greenpoint was arraigned Saturday on charges that he masturbated on the 34-year-old female patient after gyrating against her while she was seated in a dental chair.


    And it wasn’t even the first time the creep did it!

    State records show that Mate was suspended from practicing dentistry for two years and fined $2,500 in 1997 for touching the breast and thigh of a female patient.


    Triple ew.

    Category Community, News | Tags: , | No Comments

  4. Sunday Snaps: Greenpoint

    August 26, 2007 by Justine

    I’ve always loved photography. I even dabble in it myself. Mostly I’m the one who takes all the candid pics of my friends that occasionally wind up being really cool looking. Occasionally.

    I’d like to show off others who are way more talented than I and plus, I figure posting nice pictures of Greenpoint every Sunday will be an easy way to make a post on a usually very hungover day of the week.

    Welcome to Sunday Snaps.



    Eagle St by bigbabymiguel



    building, greenpoint by gkjarvis


    Strange Greenpoint sighting by 536

    Category Sunday Snaps | Tags: | 2 Comments

  5. Dreamland?

    August 24, 2007 by Justine


    I read the latest Time Out this morning during my commute and spied an article on the “bloggiest” (their word, not mine) nabe in Brooklyn. Turns out it’s Clinton Hill with CHB being at the head of the class. Hey, I read it and I don’t even really know exactly where Clinton Hill is.

    But what I have to mention the super weird article that was underneath that one just because it was the most bizarro thing I’d heard in awhile (of course until I checked out the next page with the Public Eye feature of Lloyd Koulen the Nazi-supporting black man, but I digress).

    The little “It happened here” blurb talks about Lilliputia in Coney Island which apparently was “an experimental community of little people” that was part of Dreamland in the early 1900′s. And at first it sounded quite darling.


    Their city, in a area 80 x 175 feet, was built at half scale as a replica 15th century Nuremburg, Germany. Everything was built in proportional scale of the inhabitants, from the theater to the beach lifeguard towers and toilets in their homes. The midgets had their own parliament, their own Midget City Fire Department that responded hourly to a false alarm, and their own beach complete with midget lifeguards. There was also a “Midget Theater”, circus arena, miniature livery stable with diminutive horses, bantam chickens, and midget Chinese laundrymen. To accentuate the “little people’s size, a giant or two sometimes walked the area. During the park’s off hours, the “little people” lead a typical mundane family life. From Jeffrey Stanton

    You can even read about Queen Mab & Caspar Weis known as “the most famous midget couple in the world” and one time residents of the Coney Island Midget Village.

    Charming, no? Until of course reading it was turned into a “hotbed of sexual anarchy” and “all kinds of promiscuity, homosexuality and nymphomania was encouraged”. Um, do you think Thor would be interested in recreating that with their new vision of Coney Island?

    Human beings from every part of the globe were brought to Dreamland and put on display. The park manager, Sam Gumpertz, acquired a dozen Somali warriors from French Equatorial Africa and an entire village of Eskimos. In 1905, he hustled 51 tribesmen from the Philippines past startled immigration officials. Gumpertz himself recruited all the citizens of Lilliputia, a half-scale European village which served as year-round home to 300 midgets. At Creation, visitors journeyed backward through 60 centuries of biblical history to the Divine Origin of all things. Next door, vast panoramic exhibits foreshadowed the End of the World and Hell. From Scenes of My Hometown


    Hellgate, a boat ride through the caverns of hell, was the start of the Dreamland fire

    How freaking cool was this place? With “vast panoramic exhibits foreshadowed the End of the World and Hell”, an “entire village of Eskimos” and even “a display of baby incubators, where premature babies were cared for and exhibited“? Sigmund Freud, supposedly declared Coney Island the only part of America that interested him – and we know what a sick freak he was.

    I have now spent pretty much my entire work day reading about Lilliputia and I am officially adding Dreamland (P.S.)to my reading list.

    Category News | Tags: , | 2 Comments

  6. Puffin’ Point

    by Justine


    Bloody bliss
    Originally uploaded by Dmitry Gudkov

    Smokers unite! Greenpoint is the smokiest nabe in Brooklyn!

    According to the Health Department, those crazy hipsters and the local Poles puff away like chimneys. But if you take a look at the second and third highest communities it’s East New York and Coney Island. Hmmmmm, me thinks the Gpoint locals are what put us over the top, not the cigarette rolling hipsters.

    However I do like the handful of hipster bars that allow us to smoke after a certain hour… shhhh, you know who you are and we love you for it.

    All of the friends I grew up with from Greenpoint still smoke. We started at puberty and didn’t stop. I bet if they did an alcoholics survey, we’d do pretty good in that one too. I don’t want to get cocky and say first place… but one can dream.

    Greenpoint – Where you and all your vices can live.

    Category News | Tags: | No Comments

  7. Another One Bites the Dust

    August 22, 2007 by Justine


    Bee’s, Greenpoint BK
    Originally uploaded by denisemapleho

    I cannot believe Socrates is closed! Fine, it wasn’t the classiest joint in the world but it was there forever. What’s next? Three Decker?? For the record, I will personally flip the fuck out if that happens.

    I ate at Socrates as a kid. I ate at Socrates as a teenager. I ate at Socrates not even a month ago! My parents and I used to do breakfast there every Saturday. I remember when they just opened that garden of theirs. I thought it was the most gorgeous alfresco dining experience of my life. Granted I was like 9, but still.

    Two months ago it was Bee’s, now Socrates. Seeing all my childhood places disappear is making me so sad. So now what’s gonna go there? Another “too expensive for me to afford” place? I mean, will I have to start cooking?

    Gasp!

    Category Community, Eat & Drink, News | Tags: ,,,,,, | 3 Comments

  8. Creek Reek

    August 21, 2007 by Justine

    It was quite the stench in the ‘hood when I got off that train yesterday. In fact I smelled it in the train station which made me think maybe there was some bum shit around.

    I’m not going to really complain because the stench hasn’t been that bad in awhile. I mean what right do I have to bitch and moan when there’s a sewage plant a few blocks away?

    I’m just sayin’ it stunk pretty bad yesterday. For the record, ya know.

    Category Community | Tags: | 2 Comments

  9. Bikers Go Boom

    August 20, 2007 by Justine

    The Daily News reports on the rise in bicycle related accidents in Greenpoint and Williamsburg this morning. And I’m actually happy to see that the stance is on the side of the motorist.

    I see these people on bicycles all over the place and the fact is they don’t watch where the fuck they’re going. This ain’t the wide open spaces of Kansas where you, Toto and your vintage Schwinn can pick daisies and put them in your basket. This is a city for God’s sake. And you riding halfway in the street up Manhattan Ave on Saturday afternoon like your riding through the meadow is fucking absurd.

    And I really don’t appreciate you chaining your shit to the poor skinny ass trees that have a hard enough time growing among the pollution and toxic oil spill soil. Half of you wouldn’t even eat an egg that wasn’t free range and delivered via a midwife yet you’ll strap your bike to living thing with a chain that weighs more than you.

    Get a brain people.

    Category Community, News | Tags: | 2 Comments

  10. East Meets West

    August 17, 2007 by Justine

    Furnishing the new apartment has been a challenge. My current Ikea crap does not work with the whole feeling of my new place. Plus with the addition of my boyfriend SS’s stuff, my apartment looks like West Elm & Ikea’s love child and I’ll tell you – she ain’t pretty.

    In an effort to spruce it up I visited Jay East on Greenpoint Avenue.

    I had to drag SS there, but don’t you know then he didn’t want to leave. They have a beautiful selection of furniture, the hand painting and especially the wood carved screens made me swoon. SS talked me out of 950 dollar screen, but I failed in talking him out of the 195 dollar antique drum tables.

    We decided on a hand painted cabinet (can’t wait to fill it with liquor), 2 antique drum tables and a red carved bench. Real useful stuff.

    They also have an outpost in DUMBO, but it’s smaller and does not have the selection of the large Greenpoint location.

    SS haggled his way to a delightful 10% discount and free curbside delivery. All packed up into the stock guy’s mini van, SS ask if he can make a quick stop at the beer distributor next door.

    “We are right here GG, might as well pick up a couple of cases to go with our furniture”

    After breaking into those, I realized I now have a comfy opium den vibe going on.

    253 Greenpoint Avenue
    Brooklyn, NY 11222
    (718) 349-6782

    Category Style | Tags: ,, | No Comments

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