The Eagle’s Dennis Holt has found and analyzed 2010 census data concerning Brooklyn’s community board districts 2 and 6 (the latter of which includes Cobble Hill, along with Carroll Gardens, the Columbia Street District, Gowanus, Park Slope, and Red Hook; this, along with District 2, which includes Boerum Hill, Brooklyn Heights, DUMBO, and Fort Greene, is taken as a proxy for “Brownstone Brooklyn”) in the draft report released by the Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation concerning alternatives to housing as sources of financing park maintenance. The conclusions drawn from this data remind your correspondent a bit of the headlines USA Today used to run concerning “us” and what “we’re” doing, satirized by Garry Trudeau in the Doonesbury collection We’re Eating More Beets. Details after the jump. Continue Reading →
Bull and Bear Market
Check out Recession Art’s Bull and Bear Market this weekend, featuring affordable arts and crafts from local artists at The Invisible Dog- great for holiday gifts! There will also be a bake sale, face painting, a rock band competition, gingerbread decorating, and holiday gifts for the adults. The event takes place this Sunday, December 13, from 11 am to 8 pm at The Invisible Dog (51 Bergen Street). Admission to the Bull and Bear Market is free and donations are suggested for the various activities. Proceeds support Recession Art, an organization devoted to helping emerging artists show and sell their work while giving art lovers the opportunity to buy original work at reasonable prices.
Jim Mamary’s empire shrinks
Following the news of Cafe Bueno’s closure, today’s Real Deal features an article on the decline of the Jim Mamary (best known for Patois) restaurant empire. Staffers from Cafe Bueno learned that the restaurant would be closing at their December 1 staff meeting. Since 1963, part of the complex at the intersection of Smith and Pacific Streets that also once included Trout, also closed last week.
“They said they needed to pull in $17,000 by week’s end and they were only pulling in $13,000,” said an employee at Bueno, who requested anonymity. “Now I’m back to square one, looking for a job on the holidays.”
Mamary has had a hand in creating at least 23 restaurants in the borough since his first Brooklyn venture, the Italian eatery Restaurant 101, opened in Bay Ridge two decades ago.
Sometimes he merely helped design and build the spaces; he sold his stake in others; and 11 of his restaurants have closed or were transformed into new ventures.
For now, he owns a stake in five restaurants: Gowanus Yacht Club, Zombie Hut and Black Mountain Wine House in Carroll Gardens, Café Enduro in Prospect-Lefferts Gardens and Pomme de Terre in Ditmas Park.
But his immediate future plans include moving his family from Ditmas Park to New Jersey, and pulling out of day-to-day operations in Brooklyn.
“I’m going to try, at this stage of my career, to just really build and design, and find the right person to run it and/or [take over],” Mamary said. “The days of me owning and operating are over.”
The rise of the local chain
CNN features a story on a “new” phenomenon: the local chain. And what better area to focus on than Smith Street, where Patrick Watson and his wife Michelle Pravda have a mini-empire with Smith & Vine, Stinky Bklyn, and the Jakewalk. Also mentioned in the story is Loretta Gendville, owner of the area chain of stores.
On a Thursday night at The Jakewalk, patrons say loyalty to Smith and Vine and Stinky Brooklyn was the main reason for them choosing The Jakewalk for a drink. “I know the quality of what we’re eating and drinking will be great here by buying their products at their stores,” say’s Sara, a 20-something living in the neighborhood.
Caroline, another local resident, told us that it’s the personal touches that attracted her. “When you get to know personalities and you know that somebody owns this shop and they’re doing one project here and one project there. It’s great! You want to check it out.”
Inflated rents lead to empty storefronts
The Daily News spoke to Brooklyn small business owners who were left with no choice but to vacate the their space due to inflated rents. Mentioned in the article are Kyung Dong Oh and his wife Kyung Ja Oh, who closed the doors to their Cobble Hill dry cleaners for good in March of last year.
“It was hard,” said Kyung Dong Oh, an immigrant from South Korea who opened the shop in 1984, and saw it become a beloved neighborhood fixture. “My store was not only a store, it was a meeting place.”
Twenty months later, the space on the corner of Court and Baltic Sts. still sits empty. [New landlord Salvatore Prestigiacomo- note NY Daily News printed the wrong name in its coverage] is still asking $6,500 for the space – and no one has bitten.
It’s one of several cases around the borough where landlords saw gold during boom times and shed longtime tenants by raising rents, only to see their storefronts sit empty as the economy turned sour.
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