Bushwick Avenue, by miggyboybitoy

Get on Early: The Straphangers Campaign has rated the L line #1 in the city. That does not speak well for the other lines. But maybe it’s all in how you ride it.

Click, Click, Click (and Cricket): Double dutch will soon become a varsity sport in New York high schools; Bushwick girls squeal with glee. I wonder: will they be scored on the rhymes, too?

Oh You Didn’t Mean Random Random…: Metro NY “randomly” picks an NYC block to review — and wow! They got the block that’s home to St. Barbara’s Roman Catholic Church! What luck! Two millimeters to the left or right would have gotten them in the middle of a Hope Gardens complex. God must really be watching over them. Anyway, the reporter pats the cute Hispanicals on their adorable little heads and then notes a few laundromats as “amenities” before presumably burning rubber back to the city.

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Good Wood opening (Village Voice)

Quite a pool party, but…NYT reports today that as plans for McCarren Pool to convert back to its original purpose, the Open Space Alliance has its sights set on the Bushwick Inlet Park.  It’s pretty much North Williamsburg, but close people.

“Bands like these deserve a crowd like that.” Gothamist reviews a Todd P. hot and sweaty show at Market Hotel, after also linking to our very own concerns of an MTV “invasion.”

Bushwick and Chelsea go head to head. Wow. The Village Voice is really promoting our apparent “gallery district” on Flushing.  This is the second article in two weeks on the subject.

Fun was had by all. For those of you who could not make it to the album release party of Welcome to Bushwick, a compilation of fourteen local bands, here are some pictures from the event at Northeast Kingdom.

Grove Street block party, by pixelateit

The Trials and Tribulations of Pig-Stuy: Remember that cute blog war we had last year that made all the dimwit-seriosos out there crap their pants in rage? Well, as evidence mounts that Bed-Stuy is indeed just too damn nasty to keep any of the fancy new businesses they have open, and some people are moving out of the neighborhood in the face of race-hate and well, utter boredom, one has to wonder if RE-AL-I-TY hasn’t just decided the winner of last year’s faux tiff (check out the lovely photo of Petra in her local cute-but-empty-ass café).

Bum Deal: The owner of a Bushwick Associated (I wonder if it’s the awesome one on Broadway) gets signed up by two “competing” electric companies — and has to pay both for a month. This is the exact way the government gets you hooked on their “services”: create a clashing oligarchy of utility companies that all have to buy power from the still-legally dominant monopoly and when it creates even more disasters, they get to say “deregulation” didn’t work, though no such thing was ever tried.

They Trap Rats, Don’t They?: A Bushwick pigeon supplier apparently has been selling the birds to Pennsylvania gun clubs to be used as targets. I like the use in the article of “squabs” — is that what you call pigeons when you want people to care about them?

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Brooklyn’s upstart galleries create a new art district. The Village Voice looks at Flushing area galleries Factory Fresh, Ad Hoc Art, Pocket Utopia, and English Kills.  Ad-Hoc owner coined the term for the group of nearby galleries the “gang of four.”  Four being enough to label the area a gallery district? I’m sure realtors with half a brain who aren’t in a “hep of poop” will think so.

Dancers are warriors with the most punishing artistic discipline there is. Jonah Bokaer, one of the founders of Chez Bushwick, is profiled on New York Social Diary.

“This has no connection at all with rapper Bushwick Bill from the Geto Boys.“  A New Band A New Day reviews Padre Pio, a glammy pop Bushwick-based band.  The reviewers only reference for our neighborhood is, of course, Bushwick Bill.

Holla if you Swolla. This gem of a blog is “A recorded archive of various cat calls served up to us on the streets of New York.” The Bushwick entry from last Tuesday is surprisingly romantic.

Summer in the city, by Carlito_Brigante_

Old Economy: A shop in Park Slope run by an old Bushwicker will clean your clock. And fix it for you. Fun fact: before the hideous WTC was built, destroying homes, offices, and shops through eminent domain, Cortlandt Street was Radio Row.

Why the surprise, HUH?: What’s the big deal about a Bebe ad in Bushwick? Isn’t it a slightly upper-mid-range mall store? Not every Bushwicker shops for clothing on Knickerbocker. The surprise is almost…racist. Hey, that IS fun to fling around!

Bratty Brewers: The Brooklyn Brewery is having a hard time finding a big space into which to expand in Brooklyn, so now they regret supporting the rezoning of Williamsburg they championed, and they’re upset that the City wouldn’t evict the fully viable and operating Red Hook container port for them. They want property owners to be forced to set aside industrial land just in case they want to expand, but if they want to move, other businesses better stfu and gtfo: we want to make beer. (Also: an appearance by our buddies at EWVIDCO).

Ridgewood a Scamster Haven?: In March it was the tax preparer who stole millions, now it’s a guy posing as an immigration lawyer who bilked $7000 out of a lady to keep her son from being deported. (He was deported.)

(Today is my birthday, and I am going to the demolition derby on Sunday to celebrate.  Ha ha, yes.)

More ethereal realms from the Menahan Street Band. Another awesome Daptone Records Project:  this band is a collaboration of musicians from Sharon Jones and The Dap Kings, Budos Band, El Michels Affair, and Antibalas.  Producer Thomas Brenneck brought the groups together and they record in his Menahan Street apartment.  Download the track Make the Road by Walking here.

Usurping our western neighbors crown. Hrag Vartanian’s recent piece for the Brooklyn Rail explores Bushwick as “breakaway republic”, “brave new world”, and this moment as “a form of prescience.”

But we were just gettin’ to know ya! After a (very) short-lived stint in Bushwick, for undisclosed reasons the boys from Bushwick Social Club are outta here.  They had a weekly party at the Kingdom for a little while, and a well-designed blog that linked to our culture calendar and other such goodies.  Bye guys, thanks for the memories.

Drawing on the Utopic. Austin Thomas, artist and director of Pocket Utopia, a nice little gallery on Flushing, started a new blog with colorful observations of the utopic world around her.

Flushing Farm… and still not much more, from the Bushwick Culture photostream.

No Standards: Cops ticket bikers and arrest people drinking on their own roofs by the Morgan stop, but driving on the sidewalk? No problem.

Weed Chic: Bushwick local wants you to wear plants on your pants.

Blaze of Rage: A 5-year-old boy angry at his grandmother for punishing him set their house on fire — and now he’s in critical condition. Thanks to verbatim reporting, we know of the firefighters that “they did they job.” More info here, check the reams of weird comments.

Musical Mansion: A nice little bit on the history of the Opera House Lofts on Arion Place.

Can we talk about Bushwick Bill for a moment? Long before many of you readers (not the born and raised ones) had the neighborhood of Bushwick near the tip of your tongue, there was perhaps, as there was for me, Bushwick Bill and the Ghetto Boys.  Who can forget chart topping albums (#43) Phantom of the Rapra? Or of course, Universal Small Souljah? All I’m saying is that his legacy lives on, because each week, as I troll google for the most recent mentions of Bushwick, I’d say about half the entries are about good ole Bill.

I’m Peru.  I’m not from Peru. Short piece on Peru Ana Ana Peru filmed in Bushwick.  Focus is on their thoughts on gentrification.  Then I think Ana drops a bottle, and the sound cuts out for the rest of the “documentary.”

A God Was My Copilot and Then The Bottom Fell Out. A well-shot slideshow of Ad Hoc’s exhibition Poets of the Paste.

“It’s also great because this way when Manhattan gets nuked, which with any luck should be any day now, we’ll still have a label!” Bushwick based metal label The End Records is a no bullshit operation according to the band they just signed.

In Deep Pin Dents. A pretty cool flickr stream of Fourth of July in Bushwick.  If you find better/more, post in comments below.

Get your thong on.  If you love Bushwick, wear it on your…

Creativity flourishes in this treeless, concrete bastion. Creative selections from Bushwick Open Studios on the Tokion blog. “Use your own art barometer.”

Women in White/Bushwick Walls. Exhibition in Canada explores the symbolism of the color of white across contexts and creates a connection to the street art of Bushwick.

Vivian Girls on heavy rotation. Scot’s post really makes me want to see/hear more of these girls. Cool video from Market Hotel show.

Tacos on Starr, from the Bushwick Culture photostream

Mission to Michoacán: Bushwick’s (née East Village) own kooky Catholic mini-order is packing up to work among the rural poor in Mexico. I guess the comparative poverty of First World Bushwick doesn’t light their wick as much as the true grinding poverty of Mexico. Buen Viaje!

If You Have to Ask, Go Away: Worried white girl asks Brownstoners: Is Bushwick safe? Highlights: Bushwick is full of rats and roaches (as opposed to the rest of New York), and Bushwick is 40 minutes from Manhattan. Did they add continental drift to the list of global warming evidence? Here’s our take on this ridiculous question.

Bushwick Basic Instinct: Be careful who you have a falling out with — you might get an ice pick in the back, like the dude who pissed off ex-friend Nestor Nieves at Willoughby and Evergreen last week. (The victim was treated for non-life-threatening injuries.)