All stories about "Brooklyn"

Come summer in NYC, few things compare to being able to drinking outdoors (that is, unless you're lucky enough to have summer Fridays, but that's another story). Be it in a backyard or on a rooftop, pairing a cocktail with a cool summer breeze is pretty much the best it gets. And what better place to do so than the epicenter of all things hip? That's right folks, next stop: Williamsburg, where there are dozens of places to slap on a pair of wayfarers and down a few PBRs while basking in the sun. (photo)

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The original "Public Enemy Number One," mob kingpin Al Capone, may be the most famous criminal of all time. Capone is best known as a Chicago crime boss, but he spent his formative years in Brooklyn before moving on to terrorize the midwest. This map includes all of the most important locations from Capone's childhood and early years as a small time New York gangster. It's a great guide for anyone whose idea of a fun sightseeing trip involves remembering the days when the Brooklyn waterfront was filled with brothels, and complimenting the wrong woman's physical assets in Coney Island could get you slashed. (photo)

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The New York Times has a preview of the Takashi Murakami retrospective that opens this weekend at the Brooklyn Museum. The exhibit, titled "©Murakami," runs until July 5th and features over 90 works, along with a "fully operational Louis Vuitton shop selling some of Mr. Murakami's designs for that luxury brand." Gift-shop patrons will be able to purchase a variety of pricey art tchotchkes, including handbags, "other leather goods," and limited-edition $10,000 canvas wall-hangings. In related news, a massive herd of nesting couples escaped from their newly purchased luxury condos and was seen running down Eastern Parkway waving credit cards. [via]

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With the completion of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway in 1964, Robert Moses also created a massive wall of concrete and steel that forced the relocation of thousands of residents and split once cohesive neighborhoods in two. Nowhere is that division more clear than in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where the BQE now serves as a border between the "rediscovered" artsy community around the Bedford Avenue subway station and the "emerging" Williamsburg that extends east from the Lorimer Street station. It's hard to keep a good neighborhood down, though, and Williamsburg's grittier half is rapidly catching up to its tonier counterpart. Take Grand Street, for example. The four-block strip of Grand Street between Union Street and Graham Avenue is gaining on its better-known section west of the highway, with more than a dozen funky bars and restaurants that rival any in modern Manhattan but that still have a style that's reminiscent of the East Village circa 1991. There are plenty of authentic old school bodegas and 99-cent stores for your shopping and dining pleasure, but now you'll also find a French bistro, an Australian eatery, and even a country club, complete with golf course. Here's a primer on the new Grand Street, which offers all the fun of regular Williamsburg, but with cheaper prices and a breezier attitude. Have at it.

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The next installment in the popular Grand Theft Auto video game series comes out on April 29th, 2008. This fourth edition of the controversial crime game deals with a Russian mobster running amok in Liberty City, a fictional stand-in for New York. Photos of a Liberty City map were leaked on Kotaku this morning and to help whet your appetite for spreading murder and mayhem through this virtual cityscape, I've mapped some GTA IV locations onto their New York inspirations.

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Last week The Brooklyn Paper reported that Williamsburg and Greenpoint are by far the whiniest pockets of Brooklyn. With an estimated 8,900 complaints registered with 311 since July, they beat runner-up Canarsie by a full 500 reports. Even Park Slope, a neighborhood infamous for its chalk-loving inhabitants, and the people that hate them, fell significantly short on complaints. In this case, hipster beats yuppie by 3,000 registered grievances. But what's all the fuss about? While noise complaints by far took the cake, residents also complained about illegal parking, blocked driveways, graffiti, lost property and "damaged, dangling or missing street signs."

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From 5th Avenue to Grand Army Plaza, Flatbush Avenue is lined with plenty of great places to stuff your face. It's a bustling strip that is, like much of New York, rapidly gentrifying, but for now Flatbush Ave. is nowhere near as yuppified as other parts of this end of Brooklyn. The eateries represent a wide range of culinary styles and traditions, with an emphasis on Caribbean and Latin American cuisine. The ease with which you can get to these Brooklyn locales makes them attractive to folks from Manhattan and beyond. And with warm weather on the way, the north end of Flatbush Ave. is also an ideal locale -- there are many backyard and sidewalk patios in which to stuff your face with some of Brooklyn finest food. What follows is a list of some our favorite watering holes and eateries. And as always, we'd love to hear about yours.

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There are so many restaurants with questionable hygiene in New York. Many of them were shut down by the Health Department in the wake of the KFC rats scandal. One of these shuttered restaurants was my favorite Chinese food place in Park Slope, Uncle Liao's. When they originally closed I thought I saw a Department of Health warning taped to their window, but I was sure it had to be something else. After all, their chow fun and wonton soup were so freaking good. Still, I always said I'd look into Liao's closure to see what had gone wrong. Now that they're reopening, I finally checked in to see what their record is with the DOH. There's a great web site that lists restaurant inspection information for "each of New York City's more than 20,000 restaurants." It turns out, my favorite neighborhood Chinese spot had issues with roaches, mice, and sewage. I also found out lots of horrible stuff about some of the other restaurants in the area. Read this list at your own risk. You may never want to eat out in the Slope again.

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One recent subject on Vice TV's Art Talk! is Williamsburg's John Kessler -- one of the neighborhood's "earliest artists." The four part series looks at Kessler's old stomping grounds, in addition to addressing his thoughts on gentrification and living in post-9/11 NYC. All the while he continually reminds us young things of today that he used to pay $150 for an entire building off the Bedford stop,. Also, he lived without a toilet for 6 months and had a wood-burning stove. And he was almost stabbed by a guy who worked at Joe's Busy Corner Deli. Kessler is responsible for the enormous boat installation, The Drunken Boat (1999), which hangs from the ceiling at Planet Thailand in Williamsburg. More on both those stories, which includes finding a lot of rat taxidermy in the Bronx, in the video above.

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NYC's Fort Greene neighborhood may be dabbling in a bit of identity theft. The Brooklyn Paper, claims "the neighborhood long known as the artist's alternative to Park Slope has, of late, been taking tips from its stodgier, uptown neighbor." Case in point: in the past year Fort Greene has birthed countless boutiques and restaurants that "could have easily taken root on Fifth Avenue." There's also a Fort Greene food co-op in the works, as well as Park Slopers thinking about opening sister shops in Fort Greene. [via]

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Word on the street is that Tribeca's live music staple, Knitting Factory, may be on the move. According to Brooklyn Vegan, the building currently housing Knitting Factory has been sold, and the venue recently applied for a full liquor license for 508 East 14th Street (at Avenue A). However, according to one Gothamist commenter, the Knitting Factory may in fact be headed to Brooklyn. [via]

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The Brooklyn Paper printed two separate articles this week exposing closings due to rent raises in Park Slope. Nancy Nancy Is Gone, Gone reads one headline, focusing on the hood's beloved novelty shop. It's shutting its doors as a result of "over-the-top real estate prices." A few pages away is Stomach Pains for 7th Avenue Eateries, which notes that the strip once recognized for its bevy of restaurants (Park Slope's "heart of darkness") is now falling victim to the "hipper Fifth Avenue."

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There's a subway war brewing between Washington D.C. and NYC, and it ain't pretty. What started with a NY Times writer spotting an anti-NYC metro poster on the subway in D.C. (essentially, it claimed NYC subways are awash with "rats the size of house cats"), has now erupted into a full-fledged trash-talking affair. The following attack on D.C. (its subway map "has all the sophistication of Fisher Price") only perpetuated more attacks; specifically: "Welcome to Dumbassville (aka Park Slope). Population: you." Oh no you didn't! [Gothamist]

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Back when we posted about the return of the Miss Brooklyn pageant we never could have predicted the affair would be one wrought with so much scandal. This year's winner, 22-year-old Leigh-Taylor Smith, crowned Miss Brooklyn after an "off-key rendition of 'Nobody Does It Like Me,'" is in fact . . . wait for it. . . a Manhattanite! And, according to The Brooklyn Paper, the pageant's committee knew all along. Their excuse? "We couldn't have a contest with only three girls." [via]

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Brooklyn's own Refinery 29 rounds up some places to eat, shop and booze in Greenpoint. Using all kinds of delightful-sounding descriptors from "spill-over 'hood for displaced Williamsburg dwellers" to revitalized "neighborhood on the verge," the list covers staples for the rapidly developing area. As the site's picks for watering holes are limited, look here for more. [Refinery 29]

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Brooklyn has a lot of fabulous elements: restaurants, cheaper rents, interesting people who are only occasionally douchebags. But the borough does not have wine. Don't be fooled by labels; Brooklyn Wine is totes made with California grapes. [via]

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New York's bodegas have been selling dirty magazines and videos for a long time now, but they've only just caught up to the digital revolution. Earlier today, I spotted a major innovation in deli smut sales -- scratch-off cards good for purchasing On Demand porn online.

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