The Department of Homeland Security raided an East Williamsburg apartment building this weekend

March 11, 2014 By Comments
credit: Gothamist

credit: Gothamist

Early Sunday morning, agents of the NYPD and the Department of Homeland Security conducted a raid on the apartment building located at 221 Devoe Street in East Williamsburg, Gothamist reports.

The DHS arrived in a heavily-armored MRAP (“mine-resistant/ambush-protected“) vehicle emblazoned with “HSI SPECIAL RESPONSE TEAM.” HSI stands for Homeland Security Investigations, which is a subdivision of DHS’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division. According to its website, “HSI investigates immigration crime, human rights violations and human smuggling, smuggling of narcotics, weapons and other types of contraband, financial crimes, cybercrime and export enforcement issues.”

Serious shit!

According to one resident of the block, an NYPD officer claimed that the raid turned up “kilos heroin.” The DHS told Gothamist that the raid was part of “an ongoing investigation.”

Moral: don’t run a heroin smuggling operation out of your Williamsburg apartment, because the DHS will come wake up your whole block on Sunday night and your neighbors will not like you very much.

[via Gothamist]

Filed Under: Bushwick, News, Williamsburg Tagged With: , , , , , By

CHVRCHES covered Lorde’s ‘Team’

March 11, 2014 By Comments

chvrchesAfter their recent take on Arctic Monkey’s Do I Wanna Know?, CHVRCHES appeared on BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge to perform Lorde’s hit Team. Watch [Read more...]

Filed Under: Videos By

Rough Trade is hosting the world’s largest Moog installation

March 11, 2014 By Comments

moogWhile Rough Trade is working out their concert situation, they are celebrating all things Moog with an installation that runs to the end of March. From MoogMusic:

For 25 days in March, Rough Trade NY is housing the world’s largest modern Moog installation as a mile-marker on the road to Moogfest, and Moog invites all artists in the area to stop by and utilize the space for experimentation and discovery. The residency serves as a physical manifestation of the intersection of music, art and technology,and it is meant to be used as an artist’s resource. Although it is free to the public, this is no museum exhibit- visitors are encouraged to interact, engage and experiment with the analog electronics. All are welcome to craft sound as well as bring a recording device to sample the instruments.

The installation is the world’s largest Moog installation and leads up to Moogfest in Asheville, NC (April 23-27). They will also be giving away a free Moogfest ticket on each day of the installation.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: , By

HBO Go crashed during the season finale of True Detective

March 10, 2014 By Comments

 

Credit: dorkshelf

Credit: dorkshelf

At 10:50 on Sunday night, so many viewers tuned in to watch the season finale of True Detective that HBO Go, HBO’s direct-streaming service, crashed. Typically, episodes are only available on HBO Go after they have aired on TV. Last night, however, HBO let subscribers stream the episode through HBO Go as it was being broadcast live.

The Internet Phenomena Blog posted a graph that depicts HBO’s massive traffic spike:

As you can see, the spike occurred at 9:00 p.m. Eastern, the exact time True Detective started. Despite a flurry of furious tweets, the service remained offline until approximately 12:30 a.m., at which point viewership spiked for another hour and everyone went to bed angry. We were all in Carcosa, then.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , By

A baby seal washed up in Greenpoint on Sunday (don’t worry, it’s fine).

March 10, 2014 By 3 Comments
credit: NY Daily News

credit: NY Daily News

A baby seal was spotted sunning itself beside the Newtown Creek at around 2 p.m. on Sunday, the Daily News reports. Unlike the dolphin that got stuck in the Gowanus Canal last year, the seal was totally fine. It was just chilling and catching some rays.

The seal was discovered by “a group of teens skating nearby.” According to one of the teens, the seal was “the size of a dog, a fat dog.” Despite fatshaming the seal, the teens did the responsible thing and called the NYPD, who called the Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research and Preservation in Long Island, who sent an expert, who said the seal looked OK.

The seal swam away when the tide came back in at around 4 o’clock.

[via NY Daily News]

Filed Under: Greenpoint, News Tagged With: , , , , , By

Vampillia played The Silent Barn

March 9, 2014 By Comments

Boredoms and Ruins related Japanese Art-Rockers Vampillia are in town for a series of shows. Last night they annihilated The Silent Barn in Bushwick. Full video is below. They will do it again tonight at Pianos in Manhattan and tomorrow at Death by Audio in Williamsburg.

 

 

Filed Under: Bushwick, Events, Music, News, Videos, Williamsburg Tagged With: , , By

“Pee all you can pee with Airpnp”

March 9, 2014 By Comments

When you gotta go, you gotta go- and now there is an app for that. Airpnp to the rescue! Similar to the travel rental website, residents and businesses can rent out bathrooms for public use, and patrons can then rate their commode experience.
The founders started the app as a way to prevent “rogue pee” during Mardi Gras this year, but it quickly caught on all over the world, with 208 toilet hosts in Europe. There are only four locations currently in NYC, one right here in Williamsburg. For a mere $5, you can visit a stranger’s W.C. at 167 N 6th Street!

 

Here’s the ad:

toilet2

Drop a load in our humble abode

We’ve got an excellent throne for your tush and its ready for use! You can rest assured it will be a holy matrimony because our apartment is in a reclaimed rectory in Williamsburg. Only three floors to walk up to take your caca. So park your fixie and rock your brightest flannel as you drop the kids off in our communal pool. We’ve even got free nail clippers!

Filed Under: News, Williamsburg Tagged With: By

Urban sweat lodge and spa offering $150 toxic garbage facials from Newtown Creek

March 7, 2014 By 1 Comment

Have you ever wanted to slather poisonous, chemical-laced sludge all over your face and body? How does running an obstacle course made of jagged, sharp old car parts (“curated by some of Brooklyn’s best makers”) sound to you? Maybe you’d like to sit in a teepee made of old garbage and inhale the noxious fumes generated by burning whatever shit we’ve been dumping in one of America’s worst superfund sites for the previous century. Well, now you can! [Read more...]

Filed Under: Events, Greenpoint, News Tagged With: , , , , , By