- In recent weeks, Bushwick residents have been reportedly attacked by knife and by tree branch, the latter used as a weapon by a suspect seen grabbing it from a garbage can near the Myrtle-Wyckoff train station.
- Next month, the Gowanus thrift store brand Big Reuse will open a 5,000 square foot thrift store on Troutman Street, the company’s head Justin Green tells Brownstoner. “There’s so much going in that neighborhood, and lots of thrift stores already,” Green says. “We think it’s a destination for thrift stores and we just wanted to be part of that.”
- A 71,000 square foot, “seven-lot assemblage” of buildings near the busy intersection of Myrtle and Wyckoff avenues, and which includes the Myrtle & Wyckoff Deli, a 24-hours McDonalds, and that colorful AutoZone, was all sold for $37 million to an anonymous buyer, per a report in Crain’s, which labels the sale a major development deal. “It’s unclear what will rise in their place,” says the real estate trade website.
- Pipeline Fever: Hell Gate reports that activists are now suing to stop the construction of a new fracked gas pipeline in New York Harbor. Though the plan was already rejected by regulators three times, it was finally approved earlier this month, shortly after the November election, in what some call a deal with President Trump, who wants the pipeline. This is a different fracked gas pipeline than the one that was halted after protests in Bushwick a few years ago.
- Incoming: Fresh off his White House Bro-down, Mayor-elect Mamdani announced his transition team, appointing over 400 New Yorkers to 17 different committees. Some notable names include former mayoral candidate Ruth Messinger, former gubernatorial candidate Zephyr Teachout and Vice founder Suroosh Alvi.
- One curious selection: Jed Walenas, the real estate scion whose company, Two Trees Management, is responsible for the Domino Sugar development and 325 Kent, aka The Williamsburg Donut Building.
- Ol’ Jed and Two Trees were in hot water back in 2017 when they were accused in a lawsuit of using ‘extortion’ to raise the rents of rent regulated tenants; generally both the company and the PR firm it used, BerlinRosen, were often criticized for buying an outsized influence in the DeBlasio administration.
- Back in January, Jed—who incidentally once worked a brief year-long stint for the Trump Organization after graduating college—was spotted attending a big fancy Real Estate Board dinner, while then-candidate Zohran was outside protesting. Well, well, well, how the turntables….
- ICE Watch: There’s no telling how Mamdani’s charm offensive will change actual White House policy, but just a few days before the pair’s meeting, Border Czar/Bald Asshole Tom Holman continued his threats to increase ICE activities in the city.
- Recent ICE activities in New York have included another raid on Canal Street and a raid in East Elmhurst, Queens, where agents pointed guns at a mother and four children while looking for “a cousin who hadn’t lived in the apartment for years,” the nonprofit local news site The City reports.
- More recently, Wired reports that ICE has been making plans to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to private contractors in a project to potentially create a private army of bounty hunters to stalk undocumented immigrants.
Brian Jones Kraft is a writer who has been living in Bushwick for over a decade and a half. He has previously written extensively about the legacy of Andrew Cuomo and, more recently, David Dinkins.
Top photo taken by Andrew Bauer.
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