Ownership Projects?
Anything is better than rental housing projects, so I guess I should be thankful that that isn’t what’s going in at 99-105 Central Avenue — across the street from my house. According to online info, the buildings are owned by Ridgewood Bushwick Homesteading Assistance Housing and a developer that used HUD’s 203K program, of which I am only vaguely familiar (I have heard of it). I think they’re likely to be low-income coops…something I’m not thrilled about but like I said, it could be worse.
I much prefer the Habitat for Humanity model: the homeowners get a loan for a cheap house, and then they have to help build that house and promise to help build a house for others in the future. If they sell their house at a profit, they have to share the profits with Habitat. It’s a win-win-win for the homeowner, the organization, and the taxpayers/neighbors, who aren’t forced to pay for neighbors who attack them and ruin their property. In fact, people who live in Habitat homes are more likely to be the most self-driven and hard-working among the poor.
Let’s end public housing, once and for all. We have seen the ills it causes and harbors. It’s a poor alternative to private efforts. Besides, the City bulldozed tens of thousands of housing units to build…tens of thousands of housing units. It’s a bit ironic, though not unexpected, that in an effort to clear slums they have created pretty much the only slums left in New York.
Anyway, anybody know what the deal is here? And what’s going in the commercial spaces on the corner? Please be a good restaurant or coffee shop!
May 1st, 2007 at 2:22 pm
i wouldn’t count on a coffee shop. i have been wondering what the deal is with this reno - but really - you should’ve seen this corner before. not good. the latin kings were busted on this spot for dealing a couple of years ago. these buildings were left fallow one by one - people were squatting in there i’m pretty sure. hookers and stuff. I was thrilled to see it being redeveloped.
May 1st, 2007 at 2:25 pm
the industrial, one-story on troutman used to be a bar/restaruant that then closed and sat empty for a year or more. when it was open it seemed kind of scary.
May 1st, 2007 at 2:29 pm
Yeah my next-door neighbor says they were really bad last year when he moved in. When they gutted the place he swiped the floor boards to use in his basement.
I’m really not at all sure what to expect in the storefronts. Please not another frickin bodega. Whom can we petition to open a cafe near us? I’d be willing to even help pay the rent for the first few months. Seriously, it could be a collaborative project. Find an entrepreneur and entice him or her to open a cafe — it makes me laugh but it could work!
May 1st, 2007 at 3:18 pm
Jeremy, you must be pretty close to Wykoff Starr Cafe right? And The Archive isn’t too far away either. And Potion Cafe on Mckibbon.
May 1st, 2007 at 3:23 pm
They’re all a good 7-10 minute walk. That sounds lazy, I know, but mainly, I want people who aren’t blaring reggaeton from their souped-up Civics (?) hanging out on/near my block. Unless it’s Calle 13, but they’re not really reggaeton…digress.
May 1st, 2007 at 3:31 pm
I would say that you will be hearing that in your hood for many, many years. Just my opinion of course but despite all of the changes in Bushwick there are certain things that will be there for a long time in not indefinitely.
May 1st, 2007 at 3:36 pm
I suppose I’m likely to witness the end of the reggaeton fad before those who blast it move on. haha
May 1st, 2007 at 3:38 pm
Another thing to consider regarding cafes,restaurants….those are HUGE investments to make. I’m not sure that folks with money to spend on that type of project are lining up to open businesses in Bushwick. Even all the stuff that has been opening in my neck of the woods (closer to Montrose I suppose) is often done in a very half-assed, lacking money, DIY kind of way. Which can be nice and charming..but can also be frustrating and lame. I am in your shoes also..whenever I see development around my place I get all psyched with the possibilities..only to see that it is yet another bodega or car-fix up place…..It will happen in Bushwick for sure….but as Morrissey said…these things take time.
May 1st, 2007 at 3:42 pm
Yeah I’m not at all naive as to the huge expense of opening an establishment — especially food! It’s just that the places here are so often crammed to the gills with patrons…and frankly, we’d eat out more if there were more variety. How many times a week can you go to the two cool places in Bushwick?
May 1st, 2007 at 3:45 pm
I assume you mean NE Kingdom and Life? I have both menus memorized.
Luckily I have a Loco Burrito near me…….so that makes three.
May 1st, 2007 at 3:51 pm
Bingo. I’m sick to death of Life and its crappy service and mediocre food. I’d rather go to the cuchifrito place on Graham or the pizza place on Knickerbocker. Though you can’t get the atmosphere at those places.
May 1st, 2007 at 9:47 pm
Has anyone explored the puerto rican restaurants in the neighborhood? I love puerto rican food but don’t want to be treated like an ass-hole just for walking in the door.
May 1st, 2007 at 9:49 pm
http://bushwickbk.com/archives/12
There actually aren’t that many Rican places around. Mostly Mexican. Blagh.
May 9th, 2007 at 2:51 pm
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May 10th, 2007 at 1:11 am
Hi, this is a pretty interesting site. (sounds appreciative yet not brown nosing, good). You got some (interesting, nah that’s repetetive)cool (aah, much better)discusions and soundbites (ugh, did i just write that?).
This whole paragraph should be erased and eradicated for all eternity, it’s soo pathetically corny, that it deserves a place of honor in the annals of blah blah blah. (ha ha, an oxymoronic sentence, thanks for noting)
Why am i writing the above drivel, you may ask in a recurring attack of selfrighousness.
It’s simply FLOw, the Bushwick Flow or in verb form the bushwick flowers which when the right of amound of kinetic energy is concretized will then be defined thorough its noun element. Please God, not defined, never limited just experienced.
The Bushwick Flower just flows along with the cosmos, not fighting not struggling, without any ambition and without any mind. She is in a deep let-go, a Mahapurus.
I am strongly and couragously living the moment hence my bravery in writing such nonsense, (anonymosly of course)
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and a Flower in Bushwick.
I have such a cute paragraph about flowing into a flower and flowering thru flow, with a sprinkling of ‘no pun intended’ here and there (in the right places of course) but my time is limited and valuable (your time, my patient reader, is obviously not)
Please don’t erase me from your book of love.
Thus writed the free spirit of the Bushwick Flower.
wy th cmpltl mskstc sbmshn to vwls lt frdm in al dmnshns rain sprm (that’s supreme not what came into your mind first). Hebrew lettering had none of those shit.
Reality is starting to come to terms with itself Ugh. In another minute this whole Meshugaas is gone and Genius will take an irreperable damage.
Fuc do i realy not know how to spell anonymously? well as long as the word is anonymos. Look, am i that bad?
OUt
Give me direction