Take a Walk on the Smelly Side

The end of the Greenpoint frontier--the upper lobe of Brooklyn nesting beneath Long Island City--is unforgiving territory. The strong winds that blow through this oil-sluiced industrial wasteland often carry the stench of diesel, fish, and sewage courtesy of the area's largest landholder, the sewage treatment plant. But new life breathes in the edge of this desolation within the confines of the Newtown Creek Nature Walk. The improbability of the park is mirrored in its design: young trees and shrubbery that--perhaps once--were germane to the area take tenuous root next to Brutalist concrete walls undulating along the perimeter of the sewage plant. Slab-stairs engraved with geologic epochs descend to the primordial ooze of the Creek, reflecting the simultaneous life and death of our urban climes: the Citi building, the stalled and stunted condominiums, the crane shovels dispersing trash into river barges across from a plant processing our human waste. And still, flowers bloom even in the twilight of autumn as Manhattan etches a twinkling horizon. Such is the new face of New York's environmental efforts: self-aware, yet hopeful.

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Landmarks • Greenpoint

Escape the Bustle

While Manhattan loses all its great cafes and hemorrhages its literary talent, Brooklyn still maintains a few real coffee houses where you can nestle in, drink up, and work on whatever intellectual endeavor you think is so important. At Cafe Grumpy in Greenpoint, the coffee is lovely and dispensed into big mugs, lattes come with pretty foam designs, the seating is plentiful, there's free wireless, and it's quiet. Plus they have cookies from The Chocolate Room in Park Slope and excellent croissants. Those croissants could easily have been stale and terrible, so I tried them for you and they're good. Café Grumpy serves a real urban need, the need to sit down and chill out, free from being hustled out the door.

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Coffee • Greenpoint

A Furnishing Dilemma

If you live in Williamsburg/Greenpoint and you're looking for furniture, you have several options. You can pay $700 for a chair on Bedford Avenue inspired by the 1980s style of Ron Arad, schlep to IKEA and be miserable, hit up Craigslist and get killed, spend months scouring the streets for something you really want (sans termites, strange odors, dog piss, and water damage) while you eat every meal on the floor, visit the Polish guy on upper Manhattan Avenue who tells you to just look through their mail order catalog of plastic tables, OR you can visit Gothic Cabinet. Though Craigslist and dumpster diving will result in a lower price tag, you deserve real hand-built wood furniture made right here in good ol' New York City (Queens to be specific). This place has gorgeous pieces of all types. Most of their furniture can be painted and finished to your specifications, or you can choose something as-is from the floor. The prices are quite reasonable, the quality is high, and they deliver promptly (even after work on a weekday). Furniture problem solved.

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Shopping • Greenpoint

Bon Voyage to Stumblebum Brass Band

Here's a summer event for all you dancin' partyin' fools: a blow out concert with the always fun Stumblebum Brass Band. You may have seen them around town on the street corner, in a subway station, or jammin' on stage with the Roots. If you've never checked out these guys, this is your chance. They're heading out on an epic Alaskan tour that will bring this Palin-loving state to its knees. But before they take off for the wildnerness, they're putting on one last show. So go check them out. And if you see JonnyBallz, tell him to watch out for grizzly bears.

When: Wed, Aug 12 9 pm-1 am
Where: Coco 66
Cover: Free

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Nightlife • Greenpoint

Green in Greenpoint

The only thing green about Greenpoint is the oil pooling on top of Newtown Creek...until now. Rooftop Farm is just as cool as it sounds, and as the press it's gotten expounds. A warehouse roof has become a field of greens--chard, lettuce, kale--where tomato vines and bean shoots climb up stakes framing the skyscrapers across the river. This brilliant scheme is the brain-baby of Annie & Ben, a super-hip duo happy to engage in discussions on soil composition and small-space composting techniques. They want to educate you, dear New Yorker, about growing your own food and getting back to the garden in the concrete jungle. They have volunteer days, a green market to sell their produce, and supply a couple local restaurants (watch here for reviews of them). Wholesome fun growing wholesome food with the best damn view of a city that should've made it all impossible is worth boundless praise sung from the Rooftop.

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Farmers Markets • Greenpoint

EWIP Espresso

It ain't easy living in an industrial waste zone. 'It’s too far' for friends to visit, trucks shake your apartment building as they roll down the BQE, drunks and dog turds litter the sidewalk. And coffee? None. Til' now. My groaning, early-morning prayers have been answered as Lucky Shot moved into my desolate outer-Greenpoint neighborhood aka EWIP. The fine men of Variety on Graham Avenue have opened an even smaller shop kitty-corner from McGolrick Park. They serve Stumptown (natch, who isn't these days?) and they serve it right--double-shots, no skim, no syrup, no drip, no nonsense. Tasty pastries, friendly baristas, art, music (they'll have live shows on Saturdays, I'm told)--if this is the Gentrification Train rolling into the hood, I'll be the first to blow the whistle 'cause I'm sold. The yellow 'Lucky Shot' awning signals the dawning of a new era in which residents of the Greenpoint Oil Plume can proudly sip well-made lattes just like the rest of you.

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Coffee • Greenpoint

Storm of Taste

Paloma claims to serve 'Urban American Cuisine,' which, as far as I'm concerned, counts any food eaten in a city in this country--from cuttlefish guts to Cheetos. But if all food that met that broad definition tasted like this, I'd be a lot happier. The menu features seasonal produce simply prepared, like burrata with beet and carrot salad or a pumpkin and quinoa stuffed Poblano pepper. The mussels in white wine have a surprising spicy kick, and the burgers and fish have been perfect every time. The seasonal options extend to the drink menu--no one should have to choose between Homemade Ginger Beer and mulled wine, so get both. Though the focus tends toward food, late at night the servers oblige Greenpoint stragglers seeking drinks and desserts. Though 'urbane' in decor, the sophistication doesn't take itself too seriously--silent films and the occasional 'Instant Fireplace' are projected on the wall over diners' heads. Cool without attitude and sumptuous without fuss, Paloma isn't much like any 'Urban American' cuisine I've had in these parts.

Editor's Note: An Election Night electrical fire set Paloma aflame. Obama revelers are not to blame. Reopening date is TPD.

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Restaurants • Greenpoint

New Greenpoint

Amongst the bleak environs of laundromats and corner stores, another gentri-treasure has popped up on Meserole Avenue. Old Hollywood, a store on par with any glitzy Village-vintage, has recently opened its doors down the road from neighborhood goodie-gurus Grumpy and Eat Records, with an eye to attract similar young-n-artsy clientele. The closet-sized shop is glam-packed with near-perfectly preserved finds from the past 80 years or more, including women's clothing, shoes, and jewelry both old and faux-old. The store has the antique atmosphere of an old parlor, as if a benevolent great-grandmother had invited the neighborhood kids to play dress-up in yesteryear's glad-rags. Sweet and unassuming, Old Hollywood has managed to sneak sophistication into the Manhattan Avenue High-Street norm of knock-offs and dollar depots. So the neighborhood's changing and people like me will be priced out in a couple years. So what? When change is this adorable, it's hard not to welcome it with open wallets.

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Shopping • Greenpoint

A Thin Slice of Heaven

Unassumingly located on Guernsey Street between a boarded-up warehouse and a house with four (FOUR) American flags on its front lawn, Angel Street Thrift Shop is precisely what Williamsburg thrift stores are not. In other words, not seriously overpriced, not squeezing-too-many-clothes-into-too-tiny-a-space, and not hounded by a deluge of hipsters (I mean, I love those kinds of places too. But still). Instead, this thrift shop, which opened last July, covers a large area, has spare white walls unadorned with cutesy or nostalgic paraphernalia. The clothes are showcased simply: hung on racks so you can actually see pieces, and arranged according to color scheme. Additionally, there are books and the occasional piece of furniture. The profits from purchases go towards helping people battle illness and abuse problems. So you can walk away with a new blazer and a sense of pride that your consumerism is actually beneficial.

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Shopping • Greenpoint

Obamarama (or Obamania)

The McCarren Park playground became a bit more hopeful over the weekend after a clever unknown (to me) poster-artist bedecked the side of Matchless with a portrait of Senator Barak Obama in a Superman costume. But symbols of hope do not only grace the crumbling staircases of north Brooklyn. Wall-tags, graphic tees, vegan bake sales: enthusiasm for Illinois' beacon of light percolates among the young and hip. But in this city where what you see is often all you get, there is a different hope: that the poster on the wall will inspire more than camera-phone gawkers and drunken conversation. The landmarks of change are everywhere, professional and amateur and across the political spectrum. Look out for the change cropping up all around the city--or better yet, make some yourself.

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Nightlife • Greenpoint

Seasonal and Reasonable

Thai and Nicole knew what they were doing when they created the Habitat. Just like mindful zoologists, the former social workers included all elements of human creature comforts in one enclosure: a pseudo-backyard, good food, copious booze, zero attitude. The result: the people keep coming back. As the least pretentious bar owners in Greenpoint, they welcome all with a smile and a wooden coaster ready for the first drink. The rotating beer menu of microbrews and local favorites is seasonal and reasonable. Nicole's sangria is a fruity kick: perfect when paired with two hot and crispy empanadas, the $9 happy-hour special daily 4-7 p.m. Taking bar food to new heights, pressed sandwiches, salads, and snacks (WAFFLE FRIES!) are fresh and tasty. Not far from Hipsterville drag, the crowd is refreshingly diverse and everyone mingles because everyone belongs. No scene, no expectations. Kinda nice to feel at home.

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Nightlife • Greenpoint

Insane In The Membrane!

Bang your head. Mental health will drive you mad. So will the Palace Café if you're not careful. The cheap drinks are a nice draw, the people watching is stellar (think old dudes in leather vests versus hipsters in leather vests), but your cranium may be ringing after 17 Ozzie songs in a row blare from the juke. Maybe I'm just getting old and cranky, but I've recently limited my intake to 13 Ozzie songs per day (the recommended dosage prescribed by my otolaryngologist). If you can stand the noize, get ready for some free finger food every Monday as we draw closer to MNF season (translation: autumn). The Palace sure knows how to entice its target audience. Just give them some football. And greasy, artery-clogging food. And heavy metal. So please go to the Palace Café on Mondays this fall and revel in the glory of our great nation. But don't look for me. I'll be at home sipping a white wine spritzer listening to Obama's latest book on tape...

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Nightlife • Greenpoint

Woop Dee Goddamn Doo

Yeah whatever. Once I heard a sad story from a bald, black-sheep Polish man who didn't speak Polish about a bald, black-sheep Polish man who tried to hang out at Coco 66 because he didn't fit in at the Polish clubs but was ignored and maligned by the barmaid because he wasn't "cool" enough. But of course he wasn't cool enough! Coco 66 is one of those bars on (or off) Franklin that clearly caters to the hipster influx, not the native Polacks, no matter how sad it is that they don't fit in with their own demographic. Coco 66 is a former wood shop with a service entry entryway, a bar in front, an eclectic dance space in back. Everyone dancing at Coco 66 looks like they're having a pretty good, unself-conscious time and I've always wanted to join in the merrymaking, but neither I nor anyone else I know is cool enough.

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Nightlife • Greenpoint

A Jocund Past

This Greenpoint Rite-Aid used to be a roller rink, as told by the circular store layout, the carpeted descending slopes and barely discernible atavistic air of adolescent merriment coursing through the Rite Aid staff. There's still a disco ball hanging from the vaulted center and I appreciate this, more than I appreciate the other Rite Aid on Manhattan Avenue or the newly opened Duane Reade or the sinister Polish pharmacies or the drugstore product-selling bodegas. This Rite Aid has a merry, juvenile past full of laughter and physical exercise. Now all it does is sell toilet paper and medicine but I still feel the magic. What's the name of that X-Files movie? I Want To Believe!

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Pharmacies • Greenpoint

Provisions Polska

Hear, hear Maria! Maker of the crab salad, slicer of the industrial deli meats, eyer of the non-Polish customers. I see you, Maria and I like what you doing. Maria’s has a fine selection of Polish chocolate bars and very old Polish doughnuts. Homemade soups and dumplings and meat wrapped in cabbage (and then wrapped in plastic) grace the countertops. Cardboard boxes of lemons and (very good and very giant) oranges cordon off the entryway. Polish teenagers buy wine coolers and I buy jam, detergent and container upon container of crab salad, egg-and-mushroom salad, vegetable salad and egg salad. Maria thinks I’m a weirdo non-Pole and I’m cool with that ‘cause she makes a damn fine mayonnaise-laden salad and gives me free bread rolls. Three cheers for Maria! And all hail inter-ethnic unity.

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Shopping • Greenpoint

Magic Woman

Black Rabbit is dark as the nighttime sky, soft as a warm, downy blanket, tasty as a fresh mountain cottontail, smothered in mustard sauce... Never mind. Black Rabbit serves no rabbits, only rarebit. Fitting, I say, for a pub-affecting establishment that likes its Guinness, cheese plates and house drinks with rye. Its English proprietor bolsters that old-timey country inn feel with low lights, dark wooden tables and an all-over red-and-black color theme. And not to be pigeonholed as unnecessarily refined, Black Rabbit also serves Miller Lite. And I can deal with it: Tasteful, comfortable, generous with the peanut bowls and occasional free drinks. And despite the fact that it's so elegant, it humbly makes an effort to blend it with its sometimes terribly ugly surroundings. Meaning that, from a distance, it doesn't stand out so much from the nearby apartment blocks, onetime factories and horrible Polish restaurant across the street.

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Nightlife • Greenpoint

Slanislaus O’Auslander

Funny thing, this. An Irish bar in a Polish hood, replete with a small sum of outcast Pollacks, a larger stock of artiste groups and a few solitary drinking readers—both bearded and Slav. The décor is plain, elegant and wooden; the back garden is open and full of plastic chairs. The drinks are regularly (over) priced. But the one markedly non-Irish bartender gives a whole lot of free. Apparently they let in children and animals, but I have not witnessed such a thing. Sports on the TV, je ne said quoi of Williamsburg-Greenpoint young people in the air. I don't mind it.

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Nightlife • Greenpoint

Praise and Plenitude

Ain’t nothing wrong with a $2 ham-and-cheese in the sole open food shop in the deserted Greenpoint wee hours. God Bless Deli has all your favorite, unremarkable deli standards—but at deeply lovable prices ($3 for a burger and fries, $4 for a hero with Boar’s Head deli meats) available 24 hours a day! Apparently they’ve got the cheapest beer around the Greenpoint G stop, but I wouldn’t know such things. I go for the ham. So go! Get thyself to God Bless Deli and sink your saintly teeth into the cheapest sandwiches this side of McCarren Park and the eyes of the Lord! And don’t forget to thank the three kindly Yemeni/Saudi men behind the counter as you walk out past the gigantic American flag.

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Restaurants • Greenpoint

A Culture in a Coffee Shop

Good Lord! Is that the sound of pumping Polish dance hits or the beating of my own heart? Oh, it's just Eat Records. A niche-specific hangout (not Polish...I'll get to that) with nominal food-preparing abilities, Eat rings its walls with a few dozen overflowing crates of vintage records, sets up a few tables, prepares a measly selection of sandwiches and other such uninspired cafe staples and leaves the young people to fend for themselves. Annoyingly, it works. Eat positions itself as a cozy den of relaxation for obscure music lovers free from the ear-shattering Polish electronica that seems to constantly waft over the rest of Polish Greenpoint (very loudly, for some reason, right outside Eat Records--Surely it's the Poles' way of reasserting their authority). Something about modernity, shifting demographics, Brooklyn niches, identity confusion, and NYU grad guilt bids me go inside from time to time and purchase a mini bottle of Orangina, if only for the thrill of watching a select group of constantly typing, music-listening, sandwich-chomping young people who all seem to be in on some secret I don't know about.

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Coffee , Shopping • Greenpoint

Doggone It

Dear Lost and Found, you gave me a free hot dog with my drink. Thanks. But you also failed to give me a job. Shame. Your bartenders were less than friendly. Your music was too loud. You had some cool arcade games on the second floor, but I was too disheartened by your gelid demeanor to play them. You used to be called Lulu’s, which is funny because there’s a bar a block over called Coco. Even funnier is that (I have been told) the building you’re housed in is the old Greenpoint pencil factory, not to be mistaken with The Pencil Factory, the bar kitty-cornered. How do you deal with all that? I give you a 3 out of 5, Lost and Found. A generous 3. And I don't intend on coming ‘round more.

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Nightlife • Greenpoint