(Nothing But) Flowers...

This was a Pizza Hut
Now it's all covered with daises
-David Byrne:
(Nothing But) Flowers

An incredibly innocent young person asked a friend of mine recently if there were bands in Williamsburg when she moved here five years ago. Williamsburg famous for brunch and gay people, Dominicans, Hasidic Jews and Domino Sugar has something new to be proud of. Condos!

Bird dog and I walk to work everyday from Greenpoint to the corner of Broadway and Berry. It is about a mile and a half walk in a straight line down Berry, past the park and the Automotive Highschool, the Levee and the vet. The early morning hours offer a barrage of sounds. Dogs barking, cars whirring, beeping, Polish. But then behind the staccato is something else. Something more ominous. It is sometimes soft but harsh, erratic and omnipresent. The dull sound of metal pounding at the ground, the thud thud of the earth's growing wounds. People (developers) standing on corners trying to figure out just how much money they can eek out of the sky. Next to Marlow right now are two giant craters of broken dirt. Even these tiny swaths stolen through blue plywood walls prove startling apocalyptic. Here in Brooklyn, unless you are in a well manicured park or at the beach, this might be your only glimpse of real land.

What came as an equally jarring surprise is that we, unwittingly, are helping sell them. I mean it is obvious that Marlow and Diner play a role. We are in an SUV add, let's be real here. But it was a shock to see this in a recent issue of New York Magazine:



In the little box are Bonita matches and postcards! We never approved of these photos? No permission was asked. No money changed hands as they say in gangster movies. I went a little undercover to the tower's sales office, a tiny hut just feet from the East River. It reminded me of the tacked together little lean-tos that used to pockmark the waterfront's "unofficial" parks. Inside was a even more offensively appropriated picture of the interior of Bonita. Almost as creepy as the fake lady next to it...



In the mile and a half from my home to Marlow and Sons there are:
15 construction sites
4 new buildings and
one community garden.

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