She Pays The Rent

There are two ways to respond to the news that “increasingly” parents are cutting off Williamsburg trustafarians. One, relief that the parental stimulus money that has disturbed and bubbled the economic ecosystem in the outer boroughs, driving up prices of crappy small rental apartments and other services (similar to the bubbling of the Manhattan real estate ecosystem by wealthy people who turn crappy small rental apartments into pied-a-terres and drive up the prices for people who actually live and work in the city), may be waning, bringing costs back down to reality for those who do not get stimulus checks. The other way to respond is something along the lines of “Hahahahahahahahaha!”:

For the past five years, Ernie DiGiacomo has been able to count on parents to guarantee the $1,500 to $2,500 rents he charges for the 15 apartments he owns in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. When he called renters who had missed payments, he often heard, “My parents will send you a check.”

But in the past six months, the parents are pulling back financial help, he said, and as a result, he has watched more renters move out.

“Most of them are moving back with parents,” Mr. DiGiacomo said.

Luis Illades, an owner of the Urban Rustic Market and Cafe on North 12th Street, said he had seen a steady number of applicants, in their late 20s, who had never held paid jobs: They were interns at a modeling agency, for example, or worked at a college radio station. In some cases, applicants have stormed out of the market after hearing the job requirements.

“They say, ‘You want me to work eight hours?’ ” Mr. Illades said. “There is a bubble bursting.”

Famed for its concentration of heavily subsidized 20-something residents — also nicknamed trust-funders or trustafarians — Williamsburg is showing signs of trouble. Parents whose money helped fuel one of the city’s most radical gentrifications in recent years have stopped buying their children new luxury condos, subsidizing rents and providing cash to spend at Bedford Avenue’s boutiques and coffee houses.

. . .

The cutbacks for the more privileged residents are a welcome change for locals who have struggled to support themselves without parental help.

Katie Deedy, 27, an artist, works two bartending jobs to shore up her designer wallpaper business. Gazing out from the bar at the patrons playing darts and sipping bloody marys during a Sunday shift at the Brooklyn Ale House, she described how refreshing it felt not being the only local resident trying to live on less.

“If I’m going to be completely honest, it does make me feel a little bit better,” she said. “It’s bringing a lot of Williamsburg back to reality.”

From Bilbao To Indianapolis For Just $200 Million

But we’ll always have Miss Brooklyn:

Citing financial concerns, the developer of the long-delayed Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn has scrapped plans for a Frank Gehry-designed $1 billion glass-walled basketball arena for the Nets in favor of a less expensive arena. The new design, which will cost about $200 million less, comes from Ellerbe Becket, an architectural firm based in Kansas City, Mo., that specializes in convention centers, stadiums and arenas and designed Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, where the Indiana Pacers play. Officials who have seen the design say that while it resembles Conseco Fieldhouse it also bears a likeness to an “airplane hangar.”

The new design, which will cost about $200 million less, comes from Ellerbe Becket, an architectural firm based in Kansas City, Mo., that specializes in convention centers, stadiums and arenas and designed Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, where the Indiana Pacers play. Officials who have seen the design say that while it resembles Conseco Fieldhouse it also bears a likeness to an “airplane hangar.”

. . .

“The current economic climate is not right for this design,” Mr. Ratner said of the Gehry design in a statement released Thursday afternoon, “and with Frank’s understanding, the arena is undergoing a redesign that will make it more limited in scope.”

Mr. Ratner has said he is eager to get started with what he says will be a world-class project.

Mr. Gehry, the award-winning architect behind the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, added that while he regretted the demise of his arena design, he remained “extremely proud of our work on the Atlantic Yards master plan and on the original arena.”

Location Scout: Atlantic Yards.

Leading Economic Indicators: Slacker Musicians On The Williamsburg-Greenpoint Border

Here’s your flagging real estate market and/or economy* — an industrial property nestled between the site of the yet-to-be-built Bushwick Inlet Park and McCarren Park along the Williamsburg-Greenpoint border is slated to become a band rehearsal space:

The property, at 180 N. 14th St., was leased to Band Spaces NYC, a provider of rehearsal studio space.

Band Spaces is expanding, and saw this site — in the heart of the burgeoning entertainment corridor in North Williamsburg — as the perfect complement to its existing location in Park Slope, which will remain open, Dolgin said.

*Since, after all, the parcel is zoned M1-2 (light manufacturing) and not residential or mixed use . . .

What Was Once Just Really Annoying Will Now Rob You, Too

It’s like The Warriors meets West Side Story:

A subway dance troupe turned militant on May 25 when the dancers viciously mugged a 22-year-old straphanger on the J train.

The violent attack began when the victim started conversing with the dancers after they finished an acrobatic performance near the Lorimer Street stop at around 3:40 am.

That’s when one of the perps asked the victim if he would like to “see something mesmerizing.”

The victim said yes, so the perp pulled himself into the air on the train’s metal bars and unleashed a powerful kick to the victim’s chest. Two other dancers then joined in the attack and started punching and kicking the victim in the head and body.

The victim called out to the other two dancers for help, but his pleas only convinced the other performers to join in the walloping.

Eventually, one of the perps demanded that the victim hand over his belongings.

It’s Like The Guy Who Insists That He’s Not So Much “Anti-Black” As He Is “Pro-White”

Because when you go down that debate-club road, you start wondering why we should bother with hate crime laws at all:

Police said that they are investigating the strange Nazi-runic graffiti in the hopes of tracking down who’s leaving the coded messages — most recently on the pedestrian foot bridge on East 14th Street and Shore Parkway back on May 13.

While many residents ignored the iron crosses, the number 88 — a code number among neo−Nazis for “Heil Hitler” — and the phrase “Triumph of Will” on the pedestrian bridge, a few concerned citizens in Sheepshead Bay called authorities — especially since the graffiti was found a short distance from Holocaust Memorial Park on Emmons and West End avenues, the only city park dedicated to victims of the Holocaust.

Members of the NYPD Hate Crimes Task Force are on the case, although sources said that the graffiti could not be considered “bias” because it wasn’t solely directed to any ethnic group.

The graffiti was more pro-Nazi than anti-Jew, officials said.