From today’s Featured Rental Steals: a 4BR apartment in Prospect Heights for $2,450. There was some commenter debate on a previous cheap apartments post on what actually is affordable in BK these days, but at just over $600 a bedroom, there’s not much to argue about here. Especially when you get:  (more…)

Oh crap, you guys: blog commenters have taken to the streets! Our friend Hannah Maxfield spotted this around N. 7th and Berry in Williamsburg yesterday.

The tiny text on the bottle says “Triple Gentrified,” in case you can’t read it. Which is of course a spoof on these Bushmills ads. Up next we expect to see a spoof ad of this movie poster, with the words “THE TRANSPLANTER,” in which some clever photoshop person tells people to GO BACK TO OHIO because, obviously, only people born in Brooklyn have a right to live here, even if the transplants are Statham cool. (more…)

Photo from February's Bed-Stuy bar crawl by Clay Williams.

When our friend Clay Williams announced he was putting together a bar crawl around Bed-Stuy in February, one of the predictable comments took issue with us labeling it a “locals crawl,” saying “maybe it should be called ‘crawl like a gentrifying white person.’ ” To which Clay smartly responded “As a 25+ year Bed-Stuy resident, I’m as concerned about gentrification as anyone. That said, I love that I don’t have to commute to have a good time. There are now places where we can eat and drink and hang out in our own neighborhood. The idea behind this crawl is to highlight that these places are here and to give us all a chance to support them.”

Suffice it to say, the crawl was a hit; now the organizer are back with another wallet-friendly crawl on April 14. (more…)

Don't you wish this was your living room?

If your last six apartment moves have depleted the goodwill of friends and family, here’s a novel way to haul your crap that doesn’t involve Moishe: let a theater troupe do it for you. The Brooklyn-based actors of Rudy’s Meritocracy came up with this tasty little media biscuit of an idea when they realized they couldn’t afford to rent an actual stage somewhere.

So they thought, what clever gimmick will get us coverage in blogs and newspapers as well as a place to put on our play? Or maybe they had the idea to do a show in empty living rooms first and then wrote the play.

THISISMYREALLIFE  is a very meta 40-minute show about “the agony and ecstacy of moving.” According to a NYTimes stat we didn’t doublecheck, a third of 20somethings move once a year. (Granny moment: what is with you kids?) (more…)

Chris Gethard eats his words.

The first time I attended the Bushwick Book Club, I had just moved to Brooklyn and was on the only-spend-$6-a-day plan. Prowling for free events, I read a vague post for what sounded a lot like a monthly lit-kid singalong. I hate singalongs (sorry, Bell House), but my curiosity got the best of me.

Stationed at Goodbye Blue Monday in — you guessed it — Bushwick, Susan Hwang and Sweet Soubrette host one of the wackiest and most inspired open mics I’ve seen. The concept is simple: each month, a book or author gets picked, then participants write a song about the subject and perform it at the event. What results is an “hour-long orgy of book-related songs,” as the website calls it, that satisfies the snobbiest affectations of music and prose lovers alike. From accordion odes for Frankenstein to piano diatribes on Nabokov, emotions run high in the dimly lit speakeasy, and performers often leave the stage to both raised eyebrows and thunderous applause.  (more…)

Gentrified'd! Photo via NY Magazine.

Now here’s an interesting discussion going on over at My Bed-Stuy, where blogger Melissa Danielle is making the case that the urban boogeyman known as gentrification is actually helping the long-struggling neighborhood evolve and improve [via brownstoner]:

“The folks that are opening businesses like cafes, restaurants, wine shops, and bakeries, black and white owners, are vested. They could have opened anywhere else, but chose Bed-Stuy because they were tired of having to leave their neighborhood when they wanted a good cup of coffee, a good meal, or a good bottle of wine. They live in the neighborhood, hire locally, and participate socially, civically and politically.

And they need and deserve our support.”

She also says that raising rents are not the fault of new folks moving to the nabe: “if you’re going to be mad at anyone, be mad at the lenders charging ridiculous interest rates on mortgages, be mad at brokers looking for a higher commission, be mad at adults who’ve been handed down property and will sell to the highest bidder because they don’t want the responsibility and then take the money and move down South.” And her commenters weigh in with their own thoughts, of course.

What say you? Is gentrification friend or foe in the Stuy? Did this 2007 prediction come true?

McKibbin lofts. Photo by Emily Paup.

I don’t want to come off like an egoist, but the place I live is kind of famous: the McKibbin Lofts. Located on the very western edge of Bushwick, these otherwise unimpressive buildings (one on each side of the street) have been the subject of their very own New York Times profile and have a hilariously unnecessary Wikipedia page. They’re known more for their parties and permissive attitudes of the residents than interesting architecture, and they’re wrongly maligned as a bedbug haven. But there’s a good trade-off for the grief. For a place with 12-foot ceilings, modern-ish kitchens and laundry rooms, a 10-minute walk to Williamsburg, a 10-minute bike ride to the waterfront and a two-minute walk to Roberta’s, the rent is stupid cheap. How cheap? I share a four-bedroom apartment for $2,500 a month. Want in? There are some things you should know first.  (more…)

News you can use!

Living in Bushwick means a few things: cursing the garbage and chicken bones lining your street, disbelieving that your neighbor pays that much/little in rent, and having a transit route that extends like tentacles through Williamsburg and into the Village and the L.E.S. The Verde vs Roberta’s debate is never-ending but you still flock to Roberta’s because it’s closer to Wreck Room and the Narrows and everywhere you’d ever want to be on a weeknight. Just face it: whether you’re a transient visitor or you keep signing that lease year after year, you might be in love with Bushwick, which means you probably read BushwickBK. And you goddamn miss it. Before it shuttered in the fall, the site was a rarity in the local blog scene because it hired real reporters to hunt down serious issues and stories that were often ignored by big media outlets. Fear not, neighbors, because the site recently launched a Kickstarter campaign to resurrect itself. And the perks are jaw-droppingly-brokelyn-style-generous. (more…)

Karina dreams of the published author lifestyle.

You should exorcise your Valentine’s Day angst now so when Tuesday arrives, you won’t notice all the hearts and chocolates and flowers and PDAs. An easy way to do this is to attend the kick-off of a new free reading series tonight at Goodbye Blue Monday in Bushwick: Silence the Silence highlights unpublished authors, so you won’t have to contend with any intolerable egos (we hope). Here’s the gimmick: one published piece will be read aloud, and if you can guess which one it is, you win a prize! If you want to really go for it, you can attempt to out-drink the “most nervous writer” for a “special secret surprise” (whatever that means). Plus, one of the readers is Team Brokelyn’s own Karina Briski, who has promised to read a piece about Tom Hanks. By the end of the night, you’ll be feeling so good about yourself, you just might get a date with one of the young literati. And voila, Goodbye Blue Valentine’s Day!

Silence the Silence, first night of new reading series, Goodbye Blue, 1087 Broadway, Bushwick. 13, 8-11pm tonight. 

When it comes to Valentine’s Day, I’m firmly in Tim’s camp: it’s for suckers. Of course, I have a lot more to cry about than he does. Instead of doing that, I went to Fat Albert’s, the most wonderful department store in all of Bushwick, and shopped for all of you people. If you’re not familiar, Fat Albert’s is a giant, anything goes discount warehouse right by the Flushing Ave. J and M stop, described by a Yelp reviewer (the only Yelp reviewer, actually) as a  place that “looks pretty beat up and does need an extreme makeover, but you can’t beat the prices.” Sounds like the perfect place to find a Valentine’s Day present! (more…)