Bowling For BARC Tonight
Bowling for BARC is tonight at The Gutter. See you there!
Category: Community, Events
Tags: BARC, Fundraising, Greenpoint, N 14th St, Northside, The Gutter, Williamsburg
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November 2007
Fortunato’s Not So Fortunate
The owner of Fortunato Bros is a mobster? No, really?!
November 14, 2007 — A Queens pizza man and a Brooklyn baker didn’t want to pay the piper – so they arranged to have him whacked instead, prosecutors charged yesterday in Brooklyn Supreme Court.
Carmine Polito, 49, a compulsive gambler and the owner of an Astoria pizzeria, and Mario Fortunato, 60, the owner of Greenpoint’s Fortunato Bros. bakery, allegedly plotted the murder of a Genovese loan shark and his cousin during a friendly card game, so that Polito wouldn’t have to cough up $60,000 he’d borrowed.
Early on Nov. 30, 1994, as the game inside a social club was winding down, two armed men burst in and opened fire, killing the loan shark, Sabotini Lombardi, and wounding his cousin Michael D’Urso.
It’s the second go-round for the defendants, who were convicted in Brooklyn federal court in 2003.
An appeals court scrapped the conviction, ruling that the feds could not prosecute because the hit was personal business, not an organized-crime conspiracy. A Brooklyn grand jury re-indicted the pair in 2005.
Fortunato’s is still a slammin’ bakery.
Bloody Merrys at Brooklyn Label
My earlier post seems to have been wrong. I got the information from official city websites so I can’t say that I’m surprised. Eh.
Chef Cody Utzmann of Brooklyn Label sent me the following email:
Thought you would like to know, we received our full liquor license approval letter one week ago from the state. We will be having the best bloody Mary’s ever real soon. We are currently in the process of obtaining inventory and build out required for the storage and preparation of cocktail, beer and wine. Should be no later than Dec 1st. PS thanks for the good comments!!!
Just in time for Christmas!
Questions: Booze at BL?
There’s an UPDATE to this post here.
Here’s a new question I received today. It’s one I was curious about myself!
“here i am, a newly-minted greenpointer asking an old school greenpointer this:will Brooklyn Label ever get a liquor license or do they choose not to have one, going the BYOB route? i did as one of the waitstaff once but she did not know.
love the place, excellent food and coffee, right around the corner from me in the infamous Astral and was curious.
cheers!
rowan”
I did a little digging and according to the New York State Liquor Authority, Brooklyn Label filed for a “Restaurant Wine” class license on 7/2/07 and it’s status is currently pending.
I thought that was a little odd since they were open for awhile, why so long before they applied?
So I checked into the mandatory Community Board thing applicants have to go through, which from what Ive heard can make or break you getting a license. From the NYSLA website:
“On-premises license applicants must notify the appropriate government entity (village, town or city clerk or the appropriate community board if in NYC) as well as the designated newspaper of a pending license application at a particular location.”
According to the CB #1 Brooklyn Label was first on the docket to be heard in October 2006 for a new Liquor License (The Gutter, which has it’s liquor license since it opened just a few months ago was on the same list that date). Then they’re shown on both the June 12th and June 28th 2007 meetings but this time designated for a Restaurant Wine License.
My assumption from this information is that they didn’t get the full bar liquor license and they refiled for just beer and wine and it’s currently pending.
So it doesn’t look like you’re going to be having a Bloody Mary any time soon at your Brooklyn Label brunch. But maybe a beer with your burger isn’t that far off.
Greenpoint Battlefield
Check out this Greenpoint video sent to me from Stephanie Fraiman from intothebox.tv
*And update:
Thanks to D. Billy for the screenshot below of the “hipsters”. More like hoodlums.
Crying Over G
I’m going to bitch right now about the G train.
So what’s new? Everyone bitches about the train. Everyone bitches that it never comes or that it’s too short or that it doesn’t go to Park Slope. My bitch is that it doesn’t go where it’s fucking supposed to go.
As a kid I took the G to Steinway Street to go to the movies or shopping. I also took it to the Queens Center Mall. One train. The G is supposed to go to Forest Hills. Except that it never fucking does. Sometime when I was a teenager it started the bullshit of ending at Court Square sometimes. But now it seems like that’s the end of the line for it all the time. According to the MTA the G is slated as going to Forest Hills part-time. Nights, 9pm – 5:30am, and weekends. But as we all know from the subway signs the G isn’t going to Forest Hills on the weekends “until further notice“. So now the only time you can take the G train past Court Square is weeknights past 9pm? When the mall is closed and if you catch a late movie on Steinway, you’ll have to take three fucking trains to get home. It would be quicker to walk to fucking Astoria.
What brought on this? The aggravating amount of time it took me to get to Target on Saturday. Why, oh why, do I have to to take three trains to go 6 miles? How absurd is that?
I just wish the G would go where it’s originally supposed to go. Is that so much to ask?!
Gold Star For Red Star
I went out Saturday night with an old friend who I grew up with and others. We hit up a couple of places first starting at Goodman’s, then heading onto the new place Red Star and finishing the night at Jack O’Neill’s. All in all a good drunken night.
I was really excited about Red Star. At first when I heard it was a dancing joint, I thought it was going to just be a club but it’s so much better than that. Everything in the joint was top notch. Flat screens everywhere, an upstairs and downstairs bar and an owner from the hood. Local peeps doing good makes me happy.
I’m psyched that there is a sports bar in the area now. It’s the sort of place where I can take my Dad and we can have some beers, burgers and bullshit. The sort of place that’s new but completely local friendly. It’s not a hipster haven. It’s got all the amenities without the pretentious bullshit. It’s perfect. Go hangout there now!
Red Star
37 Greenpoint Ave
(between Franklin St & West St)
Brooklyn, NY 11222
(718) 349-0149
Category: Uncategorized
Tags: Bars, Franklin Street, Goodmans, Greenpoint, Greenpoint Avenue, Jack O'Neill's, Nassau Avenue, Openings, Palace Cafe, Red Star
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Is The G an F?
On this morning’s commute I was greeted by two MTA workers hawking rider report cards for the G train. I usually don’t bother with things like this but lately, but I am going to fill out this Rider Report Card. And I’m not going to just be some stupid moron who checks the unsatisfactory “F” box for every item. I’m going to sit down, really think about it and grade appropriately.
Speaking of grades, the NYC School Progress Report came out this week and our Greenpoint elementary schools did pretty good with PS 34 and PS 31 each getting an A. PS 110 (my alma mater) got a B. Embarrassingly JHS 126 (also, my alma mater) got a D which explains why most of the people I know in Greenpoint with kids of middle school age have been finagling their kids into JHS 318 over in Williamsburg who scored a B.
I have a feeling the G train is going to score more along the lines of 126.
Still Bringing It On
A little over a month ago I half-jokingly reported on our newest reality show neighbor. Sadly, I have secretly been watching the show.
Our little Holly is still in the game, even though she’s been getting a little attitude from her fellow contestants for being a bit of a bitch. Can’t say I disagree, but I have a feeling this chick might win. Just think of the neighborhood pride if she does! I would think it only fair that Camille host her welcome home party at Paloma.
Those reality TV girls gots to stick together.
Alter Sale
Alter’s having a sale this week! Starting today and going on through Sunday.
