Before you hop on, you might want to study up

More and more, people are reporting seeing bike share stations on the street. Great, awesome, we are fans of this news. Of course, just because one has the ability to ride a bike doesn’t mean they have the skill to navigate New York’s roads. It’s a jungle out there, in the sense that cars move as if someone gave a giraffe the keys to an Escalade after it’s had a few dozen beers. If you want to avoid resorting to an angry, desperate plea with New York’s drivers, Brooklyn Skillshare will teach you how to deal with the madness out there for free, this weekend. (more…)

It’s never too early for bourbon

A couple years ago, back when Kings County Distillery was a small operation in a Bushwick loft, a couple of us took a tour of the location. The whole thing only took up a couple of rooms and didn’t have any complicated equipment, everything seemed kind of charmingly jury-rigged. The whiskey was delicious though. Plenty of other people agreed apparently, and the company made enough money to move into new digs in the Navy Yard and get some love from the New York Times. (more…)

We can always use another Spike Lee.

Brooklyn is stocking up on movie theaters, but what if you don’t just want to watch the movie, you want to make those ghostly haunting images yourself? Tired of those hotshot jerks from Hollywood grabbing all the celluloid glory, the city is supporting the opening of the Brooklyn College Graduate School of Cinema at Steiner Studios, in the Navy Yard.  (more…)

Hip and arty, but more importantly cheap as hell. via 40 Vanderbilt

New York’s push for affordable housing has resulted in another opportunity for sweet living in a hot neighborhood. 40 Vanderbilt, a supportive housing residence near the Navy Yard and just a hop, skip and a jump away from dive bar favorite Alibi, is now taking applicants for its fully-furnished apartments that range in cost from $492 to $664 a month. And even better than previous below-market rate apartments we’ve highlighted, this one has already gone through its housing lottery phase and is now open to members of the general public. (more…)

O'Neal with some of the actual bees in question.

Do beekeeping and sustainability hold a special place in your heart? Did you think Macaulay Culkin got what was coming to him at the end of My Girl? Do you look up to this guy? Big Apple Apiary is looking for 12 volunteer apprentices to tend brand new hives on a Brooklyn Navy Yard roof during the 2012 bee season, April through October or November. Applications are due March 21. “This apprenticeship isn’t for the faint of heart,” Borough Bee’s Timothy O’Neal told us. “The time commitment is a serious one, and it takes some real passion to be willing to stick your hands in a box of 80,000 stinging bugs.”

The apiary is a joint project of Brooklyn Grange Farm and O’Neal. Their goal? To become the city’s largest treatment-free apiary.  (more…)

The USS Arizona was the original East River Ferry.

In 1801, George Clinton was again elected governor, the city’s population was a mere 60,000 and the Brooklyn Navy Yard was about to start killing it, churning out devastating battleships like modern Williamsburg turns out Tumblr memes. That was also the last time the yard’s museum was open to the public. Until, that is, this weekend when the museum containing relics from the history as the Navy’s top shipbuilding hub opens to the public for the first time in 200 years. And it’s free! (more…)