Three breweries in Long Island City: Big Alice, Rockaway, and Transmitter are all within a manageable walk from each other.
It still amazes me how a decade ago since I moved to New York, there were almost no noteworthy breweries in New York State, save for Brooklyn Brewery and one or two more. Today, however, there many more than I comfortably count, such as Sixpoint, Singlecut, Captain Lawrence, Keegan, and Greenport Harbor. In Long Island City, we appear to be following that trend. We now have three breweries whereas a couple of years ago we had none.
The other day, while hanging out at my favorite hostel/work-space/trivia-night, I saw a postcard showing the three Long Island City breweries: Big Alice, Rockaway, and Transmitter. Placing them on a map like that was an invitation, almost a challenge, to visit all three of them.
All three are within a long but manageable walk from each other. You could also visit all three by biking to each one, as I would almost invariably do.
Brewery
Location
Taproom Hours
Big Alice Brewing
8–08 43rd Rd
Friday, 5:00 – 8:00 PM. Their Facebook page lists their hours as 5:00 – 7:30 PM.
Rockaway Brewing
46–01 5th St
Thursday and Friday, 3:00 – 8:00 PM; Saturday and Sunday, 12:00 – 8:00 PM
Transmitter Brewing
53–02 11th St
Friday, 5:00 – 8:00 PM; Saturday and Sunday, 12:00 – 5:00 PM. Their website lists their Saturday and Sunday hours as 12:00 – 6:00 PM.
You can visit each brewery, one at a time, or take a Friday evening and hop to them all, as their taprooms are all open on Friday evenings. If I get around to visiting all three on a single day, I’ll post a report here.
Update, July 15, 2015: There’s a fourth brewery within striking distance. LIC Beer Project is located on 39-28 23rd Street, which is a few blocks north of Queens Plaza, and open on Fridays, 4:00 – 9:00 PM, and on Saturdays, 1:00 – 9:00 PM.
It’s when someone tries to hurry along the next season when we’re still in the midst of the current season. Some examples include Back-to-School sales in July, Christmas decorations in October, and Valentine’s Day swag right after New Year’s Day. I’ll even add registering for spring classes in the second week of the fall term.
I’ll admit that the weather this summer has been downright pleasant, temperatures in the low 80s with very low humidity, which hasn’t resembled the sultry summers of late. But yesterday, August 15, it was downright autumnal. Not only was it chilly enough for me to wear a sweatshirt when I saw the Boogaroos at the free outdoor show at the South Street Seaport last night, there were other signs of autumn:
There were NFL football games were playing on the big screens at bars across the city,
At one of those same bars, I saw a sandwich board easel advertising Oktoberfest beers,
Yesterday afternoon, I swore I saw NYU students beginning to move in to some of the dorms along Washington Square.
I really hate fall, despite the pleasant weather in September and early October. It signals the end of my lighter-than-normal workload, the end of softball season, long bike rides before more difficult to schedule, greenmarkets approach the end of their flavorful harvest, everyone is watching football, and I revert to wearing long pants. But before summer gives way to fall, here’s a few events still going on before it all ends in about two weeks.
Astoria Coffee Pre-Opening Tasting. Before they open on Monday, Astoria Coffee will be hosting a public tasting. 30-04 30th Avenue, Astoria. Free.
There’s been a lot of road milling and repaving going on lately in South Williamsburg, particularly on Driggs and Berry. Many bicyclists have noticed because we cross those streets along South 4th Street, a vital access route to the Williamsburg Bridge. As I biked to the bridge this morning, I rode over a small but thick pool of tar. Predictably, the sticky tar covered portions of both my tires.
Before I rode over the bridge, I tried to get as much of the tar off as I could. As anyone who rides regularly knows, the tar would pick up any bits of glass or sharp rocks and hold them there until one of them punctures my tube. But because I like to travel light, I didn’t have anything to remove the tar. I had to use my hands.
As a UCSB alumnus, I know full well that the best way to remove tar from your skin is to use a bit of baby oil. You don’t need much, just enough to dilute the tar. Since there’s a drug store on nearly every block of this city, I stopped in to a Duane Reade and picked up the smallest bottle I could find. For $1.09, plus tax, I had my solution at hand, so to speak. Rub a quarter-sized dollop of baby oil into your hands and the tar comes right off. Be sure to have a cloth or paper towel at hand to clean up the mess.
NYC DOT and the Rockaway Waterfront Alliance is organizing a free bike tour of public art in Rockaway. The ride takes place this Sunday, August 3, beginning at 9:30. Unlike yesterday’s forty-mile EPIC ride from Greenpoint to Rockaway along the Brooklyn waterfront, this ride is only six-miles long.
This is a great way to see Rockaway!. It is a public arts festival that MoMA PS1 is staging at Fort Tilden, not a musical about the seaside peninsula. It is open now until September 1.
A novel but increasingly common sight in Long Island City is the presence of baggage-toting tourists descending to the subway station at 23rd Street-Court Square. Part of the reason is that the area has a healthy concentration of hotels, such as the Z Hotel and the Wyndham Garden, and our very own hostel, appropriately called The Local. I think a lot of travelers end up around here because the hotels must be cheaper than staying in Manhattan but are located one subway stop from Manhattan, although a hotel such as The Ravel is about a good ten-minute walk from Queensborough Plaza.
My travel experience wasn’t that of the typical youngster backpacking around Europe after college. Most of my travel consisted of many short trips, partly because I always had a steady job after college and, because my father worked for an airline, I could fly anywhere for practically nothing. Throughout my various travels, I only stayed in a hostel a handful of times: once in Italy with a bunch of college friends, once again in the Garden District of New Orleans, and most recently in London to attend an academic conference. As far as I remember, these hostels resembled university dormitories: they all had a shared bathroom, a communal kitchen and dining area, and a front desk with supportive staff to help you experience the city you were visiting. One thing that I don’t remember seeing at these hostels was a bar.
The Local has a bar, and in the spirit of promoting conviviality among its guests, the hostel features activities such as a Thursday trivia night. Some of my friends like The Local because it’s a nice space off the beaten track. There is no “bar drama” because there are no regulars among its transient clientele. And best of all, it features some very inexpensive craft beer and decent wine, or so I’m told.
Last week, Sarah and I went to the Thursday night trivia contest. Assuming we were the only locals who would regularly attend this trivia night, we named our team LIC You Next Thursday. The questions consisted of some common knowledge questions, such as whether alligators sweat. (They don’t.) Because the guests undoubtedly have New York on their minds, there were questions about the city, such as naming and ranking the five boroughs in order of physical size. The pop-culture round were mostly about movies from the 1990s, and our having come of age in that decade really helped us answer those questions.
The prize was a $50 bar tab, which I am happy to report we won.
http://instagram.com/p/qml4lVpzd_/
The prize was so big we had to call on friends to help us spend our winnings. However, we also could have saved for another day: the prize expires after seven days.
Aside from winning the trivia contest and spending the prize, I received no compensation. The opinions expressed here are my own.
Less than two weeks remain for the Brooklyn Greenway's annual Epic Ride. This year's route goes from Greenpoint, Brooklyn to Rockaway Beach. The forty-mile route is a preview of what could one day be a complete recreational route along the Brooklyn waterfront.
The Scenic Route: Greenpoint, Brooklyn to Rockaway Beach via the Brooklyn Greenway
A significant part of the route already hugs the coastline, especially the greenway runs along the Shore Parkway and another large section of greenway east of Sheepshead Bay towards Howard Beach. However, some part of the route runs along Third Avenue, a major artery with lots of high-speed automotive traffic, from Red Hook to Sunset Park.
Yesterday, the organizers distributed a ride guide and a route sheet to registered riders. For those who want to see the route, download a PDF turn-by-turn sheet, or download a GPX file, I drew the course on Ride with GPS. You're welcome to download the route, but don't be a douche and “pirate” the ride. Please register and support a good cause.
Lest I be accused promoting only men filmmakers at the expense of women, allow me to inform you that Millennium Film Workshop will be screening a collection of films by Tessa Hughes-Freeland, a filmmaker closely associated with the Cinema of Transgression.
The Cinema of Transgression was a 1980s film movement that documented the underground arts and culture scenes of New York City. The movement disavowed the production style and principles of the commercial cinema. Some of the films are not for the faint of heart.
The following Hughes-Freeland films are scheduled to screen:
Baby Doll, 1982, 3 mins
Hippie Home Movie, 2013 , 2 mins
Joker, 1983, 5 mins
Kind, 2013, 1 min
Rat Trap, 1986, 12 mins
Gift, 2010, 6 mins
Playboy Voodoo, 19991, 12 mins
Western Tests, 2011, 2 mins
Nymphomania, 1994, 9 mins
Instinct: Bitches Side, 2007, 13 mins
Of these, I’ve only seen Baby Doll and that was at least a decade ago. You can watch it as a low-quality video on YouTube, but it’s NSFW. However, as the video is about the working girls of the long-gone Baby Doll lounge in Tribeca, I guess it really depends on what you do for work, right?
Having vacated their old theater on East 4th Street in Manhattan, Millennium Film Workshop now holds their screenings in Bushwick, at the Brooklyn Fireproof, at 119 Ingraham Street.
Everyone was excited about the fireworks coming to the East River after many years of being staged on the Hudson River. The streets of Long Island City were full of people heading towards Gantry State Park and LIC Landing to see the fireworks.
We didn’t stick around the neighborhood and headed to Greenpoint for a rooftop party. Many of the attendees were excited to finally see the fireworks from Brooklyn, which haven’t been able to do for several years. When the show started, a bit after 9:00 PM, the crowd reacted in disbelief to the show.
“That’s it?”
We could barely see the fireworks because all the barges were south of the Brooklyn Bridge. It even appeared that we were watching the Jersey City’s fireworks, but we were in fact watching New York City’s epic firework show. What a disappointment!
At least we didn’t pay as much as $125 to hardly see any fireworks.
Today, marks the one-year anniversary of my joining New York City’s bike-share program, better known as Citi Bike. Because I signed up for the $95 annual membership, I am supposed to renew today. But I am not going to renew. At least not yet.
Citi Bikes need rides, too.
Last year, I was really excited about the program. I recommended it as a good alternative to buying a bike if you just wanted something to get around town. You could save yourself hundreds of dollars in buying a bike and ride it only when you needed it. You also never had to worry about it getting stolen because you never parked it for an extended period because it started to rain or you had too many adult beverages. You just found another way to get home.
With a Citi Bike, I can transport a “silk” screen.
Some people who signed up for the program saw it as a great utility. Dan Frommer emphatically wrote that Citi Bike was as useful as an iPhone, and that it changed how he moved around the city. Citi Bike for me was a great alternative to taking the subway. For days when I needed to make a series of short trips around the city, Citi Bike moved me from place-to-place, with unmatched economy, that hasn’t been possible since the days of the unlimited one-day Metrocard, affectionately known as the “Fun Pass.”
After my Citi Bike fob broke, I now have a wallet-sized card, which has the same dimension as a Metrocard.
With Citi Bike, I’m a stereotype on wheels. I can transport my $11 salad on a Citi Bike.
Ideally, for someone who already owns two bikes, the bike-share program would fill in for those days when I can’t ride my own bike. Today, for example, it rained in the morning so I couldn’t ride to NYU. Instead, I rode the subway into Manhattan. In the afternoon, the rain had stopped, and I could have biked somewhere else, if not home then to meet a friend or whatever. But at the end of the day, I have to either ride the subway or take a bus to get home. In this scenario, which is pretty common because it rains about once every three days in New York City, I may was well not even have a Citi Bike membership.
Because it can’t supplement my own bike or our city’s developed mass transit, I am not renewing my membership. There are however a couple of factors that might change my mind:
I open a bank deposit account at a credit union. Credit union members get a discounted, annual membership for $60 plus tax. If I pay with a Citibank-branded card, I also get a $15 statement credit. A yearly membership, with these discounts, would cost a little more than $50. That’s a bargain.
They expand to Williamsburg, Greenpoint, and Long Island City. It’s still incredible to me that Citi Bike is not available in Williamsburg north of Metropolitan Avenue and nowhere in Greenpoint where residents rely on G train or a few bus lines. Expanding to Long Island City and these parts of Brooklyn would mean I could take Citi Bike to where I normally live, work, and play. In this case, Citi Bike could actually be as useful as an iPhone.
In the meantime, however, I’m sticking to pedalling my own bike and, on occasion, swiping a Metrocard.
Nick Zedd ends up on my radar again. Writing for Vice, Avi Davis profiles Cinema of Transgression icon Nick Zedd and traces Zedd’s career from New York underground celebrity to someone who found that the underground movement in New York was over and done. Determined to forge on, he moved to Mexico:
Zedd has deliberately spent his career on the fringe, creating films that few people can tolerate. So his bitterness about not making money was hard to understand. Was his move to Mexico the ultimate rejection of New York’s yuppification, or was it just a concession to poverty and middle age? Did he truly scorn friends who’d profited in the internet age, or was he jealous of them? Was he well preserved or childish? Deep down, Zedd seemed to think that history had cheated him, and he wanted me to think so too.
In the article, Zedd appears to be making a personal comeback. He is getting by in Mexico, he has a family, he’s painting, and he’s planning to make films again.
I do have one issue with the article. The teaser headline on the Vice website bears the title, “A New Breed of Asshole.” It’s an unnecessarily mean-spirited bit of click bait.
