The Williamsburg Nerd

Above: The old movie theater that was at Rodney and Broadway in 2006 — sadly this palace was torn down during the real estate boom that followed, however in the immediate recession that followed no new building went up and is now an empty lot.

This was the first blog that I ever started — and in 2006 both blogging and Williamsburg were new to me. After living in Manhattan for ten years I moved to the Burg in November of 2004 into a new world. Knowing that you should write about your passion I picked my new hood and combined it with my old interests. Some 200+ entries however this trip has come to an end.

In my hearts-of-hearts I'll always be The Williamsburg Nerd, but for now I want to refocus my creative efforts. At some point in the future I'll reinvent this website — but for now if you want to find me the best places to look are:

Fanboy.com: Where I do most of my nerd blogging.

twitter.com/michaelpinto: My Twitter account where I often mention what I'm doing in Williamsburg.

I'd like to thank all of the folks who supported me over the years: My friends on Flickr who encouraged me to document what I saw, the gallery owners who didn't mind me taking photos of their exhibits and the podcast Live from the WB which is now faded into history (but inspired me a great a deal).

For ages on my block here's been an old school barbershop next to my building on Keap Street. The clientele is mostly hispanic males from the local hood, I could tell this because once when I poked my head inside they didn't speak a word of English. Since Keap Street is off of Broadway your business has to be a bit of an institution to survive over time and the barbershop was a good example of this — every time I looked there was always someone getting their hair cut in the shop. And then the recession struck and that everything changed.

Continue reading "An Illustration of the Recession in Williamsburg" »

Recentluy I had a chance to stop inside of Greendepot which is located at 222 Bowery in Manhattan and had a great time looking around the shop:

Continue reading "Green Depot: A Bit of Green on the Bowery" »

Believe it or not this photo was taken in Williamsburg, not it's not a local park — but in fact is an empty yard on Broadway. For the most part they have it fenced off, but one day it was open so I took some shots:

Continue reading "Yes This is Williamsburg!" »

Sadly during the Summer I had to pull an all nighter or two, but getting to see the sunrise can be a nice end to a day. This shot was taken at dawn at the Marcy subway stop looking east on Broadway.

One thing that you find in Brooklyn but really don't see in Manhattan are folks selling shaved ices during the summer. I took this shot around August on Keap Street. Below is a fax Polaroid camera version of the same shot for the retro look:

Continue reading "Summer Ices on Keap Street" »

This election day was very different than the last time I voted for the Presidential race in 2008. Up for grabs is the local city seat and while voting was light the get out of the vote effort from the candidates was huge (much more intense than the Democratic primaries for President by the way). Seen here is a campaign worker for Diana Reyna who holds the seat, Maritza Davila who is a challenger.

Continue reading "NYC Primaries in Williamsburg" »

I took this photo during the summer on one of those rare days where I made it home before sunset. This shot shows the sun setting from the Marcy train station, in the distance you can see the Williamsburg bridge. Below is a faux polaroid version of the same shot:

Continue reading "Sunset on Marcy" »

I've always walked by Mizo on Bedford Avenue, but never quite gave it a try — so recently after seeing Planet Thailand become totally packed I knew it was time to try something new. The first thing that will hit you is that the place looks great, which really ads to your dining experience if you're hanging out with friends. When I went there they had the front windows open to the street which gave the place a nice hang out feeling:

Continue reading "Mizu" »

I always tend to think of Spoonbill & Sugartown as more of an arts bookstore, but as small as it is there's a section in the back (near the inside mall entrance) which has nothing but children's books. It's a small selection, but all the classics are there. If you had a kid I wouldn't say that it was "destination worthy" because of it, but on the other hand it makes the place a bit more friendly than most places on the Bedford strip which are aimed more at twentysomething hipsters.

Continue reading "Spoonbill & Sugartown is Kid Friendly" »