June 8, 2012
Greetings from Williamsburg
The view from inside the Wythe Hotel’s rooftop bar, and the scene on the street below.
I moved. Again. Crazy, right?
Early last year, I relocated from downtown Brooklyn to Soho, to live with my boyfriend. Then, two weeks ago, the BF, the dog, and I picked up and moved to Williamsburg. So I’m back in Brooklyn. But it’s a completely different part of the borough. W’burg has none of that dreary workaday quality that dominates Downtown with its government offices and courts. Williamsburg is built (or rebuilt) for pleasure. Good food. Good drink. Good hanging out. It’s all candy here. The place feels more like San Francisco than New York City.
Last night, after dinner in a Mexican restaurant down by the increasingly glamorous East River, the BF and I were strolling up Wythe and came upon the new Wythe Hotel. We noticed people on a rooftop terrace, so we went up and checked it out. It turns out that the Wythe, developed by Andrew Tarlow, the owner of Diner, one of W’burg’s original hipster destination restaurants, has a glorious rooftop bar with the most expansive north-to-south Manhattan skyline view I’ve ever seen. Best sunset ever. And, so far, it doesn’t bother me at all that Manhattan is over there and I’m over here.
A couple of links to recent Metropolis columns:
Dallas
http://www.metropolismag.com/story/20120608/instant-urbanism
MoMA’s Foreclosed exhibition
http://www.metropolismag.com/story/20120511/pretty-little-pictures
Atlantic City
http://www.metropolismag.com/story/20120413/repriming-the-pump