Jerry Saltz gives Norman Jabaut’s wood constructions a “10.”
– Jerry Saltz photo from Art Review magazine, Norman Jabaut photo by Jason Andrew

This weekend’s BETA Spaces, put on by Arts in Bushwick, brought out the big shots — including, as Diego Cupolo mentioned earlier this week, a Washington Post reporter here to scope out the scene.

WaPo’s Andrea Sachs quotes Arts in Bushwick’s Laura Braslow: “There is a lot more experimental art here, partially because people don’t have the structural constraints where they are trying to keep up with the galleries… the Bushwick art scene is not about sipping wine and looking at white walls.”

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I got a letter from the New York Times legal department last night, ordering me to remove the photos I used from articles I posted about. One was the post about John Powis and 208 Evergreen — in hindsight, it was stupid to use a photo by a reporter whose work I was poking fun at (and then whose name I screwed up). I also am in the habit of providing a more even-handed point of view than the standard evil-landlord/angelic-tenant meme, and since that is beyond the pale for those who prefer to toe the line despite all evidence, an outraged David Gonzalez seems to have sent his big corporate mommy to stomp on BushwickBK.com’s frail, budgetless neck. In the course of investigation, the staff lawyer must have noticed the lolita post, and they also ordered that photo removed.

I don’t want to get into an intellectual property discussion, but what’s clear is that NYT can link to this site for their content, but I can’t use photos from their articles that I am linking to and discussing. Somehow, certain collections of pixels and code are off limits, but others are fine for all. Also, considering our relatively small audience, of what value was this to the Times to have their expensive lawyers compose a letter to me and send it through email and USPS?

Old media FAIL.

Posted all around Wyckoff Heights hospital today, this parking notice let’s the neighborhood know they’re cockroaches compared to some shitty TV show that sounds so vapid it will likely be dumped before they film the actual show. So Wyckoff Heights residents, get off the streets you pay to maintain — someone’s pointing cameras at it!

Big thanks to the Queens Crapper who caught this (I was AT the medical center today and didn’t notice!).

Roberta’s: Delicious gentrification. (flickr/Paulie Gee)

BusinessWeek has an article on up-and-coming (or if you’re an ignorant real estate agent, “upcoming”) neighborhoods around the country, and Bushwick is featured prominently. Pointedly bursting the bubble of those who gloat that gentrification is over due to the subprime mess, the magazine notes that on the contrary, fringe neighborhoods are even juicier for investors and “pioneers” now that it’s a buyer’s market.

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“Downtown” culture magazine Paper cautiously tip-toed into Bushwick this month and hosed the place down with their embarrassingly self-unaware trademark “edginess.” The article is by some dried-up Manhattan early-80s scenester pining for the days when Manhattan was a fucking shithole and you could get stabbed on every corner. When will it finally be considered hackneyed to whine about how cleanliness and safety and wealth — the things most sane people seek out — are eating our very souls?

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