Contextualism may be an opiate, but it feels so good.

As Vishaan Chakrabarti, a principal at SHoP Architects, was unveiling the Southside Williamsburg master plan they designed for Two Trees, he evoked the image of Manhattan's skyline. "Just like in the dead center of New York," he told the assembled group of reporters, "we have this parabolic moment—there's this moment of exuberance that happens" as the towers rise on the waterfront, culminating in the towers at the Domino site. The tallest will reach 598 feet, or about 60 stories, making it taller than any other building in the borough.

"And that," he continued, "that's the stuff of postcards all around the world."

But despite the best efforts of SHoP and Two Trees, the plan does not succeed in aping the natural parabolic shape of an organic thicket of towers found in midtown, downtown or even downtown Brooklyn. Nor could it—Williamsburg's new planning regime, instituted in the 2005 rezoning and reinforced in 2009, makes sure of that.

Traditional downtowns grow around transit hubs, and are built by myriad different developers and architects, all working in competition. Through thoughtful zoning and market forces, the tallest towers sprout at the center of the transit network, with heights tapering off as you travel farther away.

But the new Williamsburg and Greenpoint skylines are more Bal Harbour than Brooklyn.

The towers form a narrow stockade on the shores of northern Brooklyn, a sort of Potemkin village of development to be admired from Manhattan. But behind them—nothing.

Dramatic density differentials are par for the course on the waterfront.

A block or two away from the old Domino refinery, the skyline plummets to near zero—most sites across the street are zoned exclusively for industrial use, and cannot be developed beyond one and two stories. There is no gradual downward gradient. "There's no way to hide that," admitted Mr. Chakrabarti of the disparity in heights.

It's not hard to see how it ended up this way. The rezonings took the path of least resistance between the pro-development wishes of the Bloomberg administration on the one hand, and the anti-growth attitudes of vast inland neighborhoods of Williamsburg and Greenpoint on the other.

Manufacturing districts, where there weren't existing residents to bother, were upzoned. Development in established residential neighborhoods, on the other hand, was restricted.

The result is an awkward hybrid that pleases nobody. There isn't enough supply allowed to meet demand and temper the wave of gentrification shooting over northern Brooklyn, but what supply is allowed comes in the form of towers so out of place that they spark resentment throughout the community.

When the existing neighborhoods of New York were built before World War II, it was during a time when increases in demand were met by gradual but widespread redevelopment. Two- and three-story townhouses were replaced by six-story tenements, and when demand reached a fever pitch, as in Manhattan and a number of neighborhoods in brownstone Brooklyn, these were in turn redeveloped into grand apartment houses and skyscrapers. The redevelopment thinned as you got farther from the city center and subway stations, the result being the "parabolic moment" that Mr. Chakrabarti spoke of at the Domino unveiling—the true "stuff of postcards."

But today, the zoning code does not afford the opportunity for such organic development in the neighborhoods of northern Brooklyn.

Away from the glassy waterfront towers, much of northern Williamsburg is frozen in its vinyl-sided past.

With high-rises on the waterfront and row homes farther inland, the planning lacks provision for mid-rise buildings. Six stories or more, the traditional New York mid-rise smooths out the transitions between towers and townhouses, marrying the density needed to meet demand with a human scale that doesn't cast shadows for blocks.

But the standard new law tenement, a design that developers were eagerly building in the early 20th century in Southside Williamsburg, is now twice as dense as what's allowed in vast swaths of Northside, Greenpoint, East Williamsburg and Bushwick.

The word that leaps to mind is "capricious." Why are Manhattan-style high-rises acceptable west of Kent Avenue, while landowners across the street are not allowed to build so much as a single-family home, their land instead reserved for low-value industrial use?

And from a transit point of view, the planning makes little more sense. High-density building is allowed more than half a mile from the Bedford Avenue L, on the waterfront, but no housing is allowed at all on the blocks immediately adjacent to the Morgan Avenue stop. And it's the pre-war neighborhoods, which sprouted naturally closest to the L, where residential development was most restricted in the rezonings.

The development on the Brooklyn waterfront may look nice from Manhattan, but it's hard to see what it's given its home borough.

From a pro-development perspective, the amount of supply allowed is clearly insufficient to meet demand, evidenced by a near-tripling of housing costs in Williamsburg since 2004 and the wave of gentrification racing across Bushwick. Rents there recently jumped a stunning 17 percent in just 30 days, according to real estate brokerage MNS.

And far from allowing enough supply to bring down prices, the towers on the waterfront may have backfired. Despite being insufficient to bring down prices, the outsized heights on the river have helped foster the widespread impression of an overdeveloped Williamsburg. Anti-development sentiment has flared across northern Brooklyn, out of proportion to the relatively paltry number of new units.

Far from being a model for the rest of northern Brooklyn, the Williamsburg rezonings are seen as a cautionary tale.

Bushwick—soon served with the high prices of Williamsburg, but none of the new housing.

"We don't need the speculation that Bushwick is the next Williamsburg," Councilwoman Diana Reyna told The Wall Street Journal in October, angling for a rezoning that would limit development in Bushwick to low-rise structures. (Though given the pace of things, it might be more realistic to talk about preventing Broadway Junction and East New York from becoming the next Williamsburg.) Even Mayor Bloomberg doesn't dare rezone the manufacturing districts of East Williamsburg.

The location of the new development also raises concern. Newly built market-rate apartments in Brooklyn these days are almost never affordable, but some are less unaffordable than others. There is new construction in Bushwick, for example, that was overbuilt during the boom and is now within reach of upper-middle-class strivers. The waterfront, on the other hand, where most of the new housing is allowed, is reserved for the unabashedly wealthy.

None of this is the fault of SHoP or Two Trees, who, unlike some waterfront developers, had no role in the rezoning. But it's hard to see their piece of the waterfront as emerging any more organically. Even if Jed Walentas' waterfront towers are built to a higher quality than the Northside Piers—and there's every indication they will be—they are unlikely to be resented any less by the community.

The Greenpoint Reformed Church. (jessica.dailey, flickr)

They're not against housing the homeless per se, but Milton Street residents just feel that some other block or some other neighborhood would be a better choice, a more appropriate choice.

“I’m not against the homeless having someplace to go, but not like this," Don Stella told The Brooklyn Paper, differentiating himself from those who believe the homeless should not, in fact, have someplace to go.

The center of the controversy is a 10-bed shelter at the Greenpoint Reformed Church, the Paper reports, which opened in November. The Reformed Church was the only local church that stepped up to the task when the Department of Homeless Services called for organizations willing to host a respite shelter. The church will be paid $100,000 annually for housing the men, which the church says goes largely to the salaries of the staff running the shelter, the remainder to supplies and building upkeep.

Neighbors complain of vomit and urine-drenched sidewalks, catcalls, yelling and other intolerable changes to the street since the homeless shelter opened. The charges seem a little trumped up, given that the church only houses 10 men, unlike the 200-bed shelter that opened on McGuinness Boulevard in September. That shelter also faced strong neighborhood opposition, with locals objecting to the city busing in homeless from other parts of the city rather than serving the older Polish homeless men who populated the local streets as well as McGolrick and McCarren parks.

But unlike the McGuinness Boulevard shelter, which went through a tedious approval process,the church shelter opened quickly, to give the local population a place to go on cold nights after the Church of Ascension backed out of hosting the respite shelter in November.

Pastor Ann Kansfield has defended the 10-bed shelter, as well as the church's other charitable projects—a food bank and a soup kitchen because, well, isn't helping the less fortunate what churches are supposed to do?

But outraged neighbors say helping the homeless is the last straw.

“I’ve held my breath when walking by crates of produce that were delivered to the Church that sat out on the curb in the sun," resident Margaret McMahon wrote in a letter to her neighbors, according to The Greenpoint Gazette.  “[A friend once said to me], ‘What concerns me most is this is just the beginning, first a food bank – what’s next, a homeless shelter?’ I laughed and I said that would never happen. Well, here we are, Milton Street is now the proud owner of a food bank, a soup kitchen, and a homeless shelter.”

The controversy is one of many happening in Brooklyn's gentrified and gentrifying neighborhoods. Carroll Gardens, for example, is battling the conversion of a defunct condo project into a 120-bed shelter.

In both cases, neighbors claim that the projects have been rushed through the approval process (respite bed programs, which are temporary in nature, do not require the same approvals as permanent programs). And while it may be true that residents should be informed of changes to their neighborhoods, and that the city's homelessness policies leave something (or a lot) to be desired, the arguments put forward by neighbors tend to be that they simply don't want to host poor people in their neighborhoods and that other streets, or other neighborhoods, are better suited to the task.

As one Carroll Gardens resident told The Times in October, “I didn’t spend my whole life helping make Carroll Gardens a decent place to let somebody do a dumb idea like this.”

The implication being that housing the poor would somehow make the neighborhood a bad place, that the homeless are somehow not decent, and that they are not our responsibility, even as their numbers swell—in 2012, the number spiked to more than 46,000 adults and children—in our rapidly gentrifying city.

kvelsey@observer.com

But here we are in October with nothing to show for it. Well, nothing but a blog post from Greenpointers hearing that work may just be beginning. The evidence? A message from the local councilman's office and the apparent departure of the boardwalk from Boardwalk Empire that has been on one of the lots since the show debuted. But it's true. While a year later than promised, The Observer has confirmed that the project is again underway.

"Park Tower Group intends to start with two rental towers, including affordable housing, towards the end of 2013," Alfred Bradshaw, executive vice president of the firm, said in a statement. "Details of the plans have not been finalized."

That includes renderings for the project, according to a Park Tower spokesperson, which Greenpointers uncovered on the site of Handel architects, a firm best known for designing the Trump Soho and the Dream Hotel. The renderings show a series of faceted spires rising  to between 20 and 40 stories, heights laid out in the 2005 rezoning of the neighborhood, of which Park Tower was a leading advocate for. In fitting with that plan, 20 percent of the roughly 4,000 units planned for the 20-acre plot will be set aside.

The two towers to be built first are the northern most ones, according to the spokesperson. This makes sense given Park Tower is currently vying for air rights being sold off from 65 Commercial Street, an MTA parking lot that is set to be turned into an athletic field with the money made from the air rights sale. Currently, Park Tower is competing with David Bistricer and Joseph Chetrit, who own a neighboring site for which they want to use the air rights.

So Greenpoint might not only be getting some long-stalled apartment development but also some long-stalled open space.

The patchy, ragged grass only adds to Fort Greene's trying but not trying to hard appeal.

Do you live in Fort Greene? Enjoy sipping seasonal cocktails outside of Roman's, playing fetch with your dog in Fort Greene park, bragging to all your friends about how low key and undiscovered and underrated Fort Greene is? Well, if you rent you should probably start skimming the real estate listings right now, as Fort Greene has been declared Brooklyn's most livable neighborhood by The L Magazine.

Of course, its hard to tell if readers of the hipster glossy will take the ranking to heart, following the prevailing counter cultural fashions of the day, or if they will display a contrarian streak, as they are sometimes wont to do, and seek out the next industrial wasteland to remake in their tattooed image.

The magazine rated the neighborhoods of Brooklyn based on 10 livability measures, among them affordability, culture, greenspace, food, nightlife and accessibility. They selected 13 to highlight; a list that, with the exception of Windsor Terrace and the omission of Crown Heights, should surprise no one.

Fort Greene snagged the top spot on account of its accessibility (two subway lines), abundant green space, stunning brownstones and proximity to cultural institutions like BAM and Greenlight Books. Although, in what may be a nod to the increasing costs of living in Brooklyn, The L Magazine suggests living over the border in Clinton Hill for cheaper rent (alas, even in the outerboroughs, New Yorkers are reduced to living on the proximity of the most desirable neighborhoods).

Park Slope nabbed second place in the rankings, followed by Prospect Heights, fourth place went to an amalgamation that the editors refer to as "South Brooklyn" and Greenpoint took fifth, although the description of Greenpoint was insult-laden, beginning thusly: "It would be disingenuous to continue describing Greenpoint as Williamsburg’s idyllic, under-the-radar northern neighbor."

The other most livable neighborhoods include Dumbo, Williamsburg (which they deem the go-to neighborhood for interesting people trying to do interesting things despite its ugly architecture and yuppification), Ditmas Park, Brooklyn Heights, Bushwick, Red Hook, Windsor Terrace and Gowanus "the nice thing about Gowanus is that it has remained zoned industrial."

As with any New York rankings, these will no doubt produce a mixture of joy, anxiety, bruised pride and bragging. We want our neighborhood to be the best! Our neighborhood is the best! But we don't want anyone to know it is the best! Or, alternately: Those list makers don't know what they're doing. How could they slight our neighborhood's subtle charms? Charms so subtle that they reflect our exquisite taste? We don't even want to be on their idiotic list. Let those other neighborhoods have all the tourists and the poseurs and the recent graduates of the nation's best liberal arts colleges. And so on.

kvelsey@observer.com

Elisa Albert reads.

Last night, Word Books in Greenpoint hosted the first anniversary party for Emily Books, the "online indie bookstore" that functions like a book of the month club, run by Emily Gould and Ruth Curry. As guests sipped boxed wine, Ms. Gould switched the official Emily Books mixtape (some choice selections: Dinosaur Jr.’s “Puke and Cry,” Tegan and Sara’s “Burn Your Life Down”) to a more upbeat playlist featuring L'Trimm and Peaches. At 7:30, Word events manager Jenn Northington took the stage to apologize for the delay, and to point out the free condoms whose wrappers bore the cover design of Emily Books' September pick, Maidenhead by Tamara Faith Berger.

Ms. Gould appeared onstage shortly afterward, thanking Word "even though we're their competitor" because "I don't often get to be in the same room as our customers." Still, she demonstrated a familiarity with the people who buy her books, quoting a reader of Maidenhead who had emailed her: "Dude, I'm not even a third of the way through this book and someone just pissed on a teenager." Ms. Berger proceeded to read this passage, narrated by a sixteen-year-old on a family vacation. Direct self-deprecation counterbalanced lyrical metaphors: the narrator imagines herself a bird, but one who smashes into a window.

Ariana Reines, whose Mercury had been last month's pick, read poems off sheets of letter paper in a breathless near-monotone so fast it was hard to tell when one ended. She paused partway through—"I'm gonna read two more jams," she promised—to promote her book, "which is available digitally and in solidity." She riffed on the physical book's reflective surface: "What could be better than your face on the cover? I guess it could be funny, depending." In what seemed to be a 2 Live Crew reference, she joked, "I'll try not to pop too many ps this time, if you know what I mean."

Emily Carter's planned appearance had been prevented by what Ms. Gould termed a "minor dental emergency," so instead novelist Elisa Albert read a passage from Ms. Carter's Glory Goes and Gets Some wherein the narrator accompanies an old flame, and his new one, to the movies.

Afterward, the Observer asked Ms. Gould what she learned in her first year. After a long pause, she replied, "That it takes more than one year to have a successful business? I think when you come to the Emily Books third anniversary party we'll really have our act together." (Though she wouldn't reveal the number of subscribers, Ms. Curry happily said that it's growing every month.) Ms. Gould explained that the company hadn't found its "raison d'être" until its third month, when Ms. Curry suggested a book by a male author "already getting a lot of attention" and Ms. Gould realized "that actually our mission was to promote the work of under-appreciated, especially women, authors whose voices were not being heard by mainstream publishing." (That same month, she published a blog post explaining her aesthetic in terms of "the power imbalance inherent in heterosexuality," an idea that was examined in all three of the night's readings.) As for next year, Ms. Gould told us that readers could expect a native Emily Books app, and promised, "We're gonna be here for you in your inbox every month. You never have to think about what you're gonna read next ever again."

Mayor Bloomberg and his Parks Commissioner Veronica White had crossed the river not only to take in the scene but also cut the ribbon on the 1.6-acre, $12 million project. It was Ms. White‘s first official public appearance after replacing Adrian Benepe, who had been in the job since 2001. It was her coming out, if a quiet one, with limited fanfare and few workers. Just another day on the job.

“Our administration has been revitalizing old infrastructure and recasting it in new ways that makes sense for New Yorkers today,” the mayor said proudly, pointing to the success of other projects like the High Line and Brooklyn Bridge Park as well.

But unlike those open space developments, heralded the world over, the waterfront of Williamsburg and Greenpoint has long languished. Not only was it cut off from the surrounding community for decades, but, despite the best efforts of the administration, little progress has been made on creating an emerald chain of parks and promenades following a major rezoning of the waterfront in 2004.

“WNYC Transmitter Park is also part of an ongoing effort to convert much of North Brooklyn’s waterfront shoreline into a network of interconnected open spaces,” the mayor said. “And that’s a big part of why we worked so hard with City Planning to rezone much of the area.”

After eight years, this is the first and only new park to fully open, though even it is not finished. A recreational pier is still under construction. The old WNYC transmitter station will eventually be turned into a café. There is a lovely green lawn in place and a nautical-themed playground, of which the mayor joked “I know where Marty is going to be later,” referring to the over-the-top Brooklyn borough president, Marty Markowitz.

Even more a Monday afternoon, the park was busy, and on weekends, it is packed. The esplanade at Northside Piers and the Edge, which was built with private funds by the developers of the adjacent Miami-esque condo towers, are equally busy throughout the year, suggesting a hunger for access to the waterfront, one that remains unmet. “I think it’s the most important unresolved issue from the rezoning,” local Councilman Steve Levin told The Observer following the ceremony.

Every park has its own unique problems, he said. At 65 Commercial Street, the city spent years negotiating with the MTA on where it ought to move its vehicles parked there, taking up valuable waterfront real estate. Neighboring Barge Park was held up for capital construction delays and complications surrounding the construction of a new $100 million Department of Environmental Protection barge, whose predecessor docks on the site (hence the planned park's name).

Even Transmitter Park took longer to build than expected, as there were struggles with neighbors to gain access to the site, and then a lengthy construction process. The park was supposed to have opened at the beginning of summer, not the end of it.

Bushwick Inlet Park, running from North 11th to North 15th Street in a crescent along Kent Avenue and West Streets, is the biggest and most challenging of all the open spaces. As with so many waterfront parks, costs have ballooned--you think building on land is hard, try doing it riverside, with the tides and the toxic post-industrial conditions--and that is before the matter of buying out local landlords is even broached. Not only do they know the city wants their land, but it is also located in one of the hottest real estate markets in the five boroughs, meaning the acquisition costs have been grossly underestimated. (Funny the city will use eminent domain to build a new arena or office tower, but not a truly public amenity like a park.)

Ms. White had witnessed the open space excitement herself, as she explained in her brief remarks prior to cutting the ribbon. “This is a great example of Mayor Bloomberg’s commitment of opening up these waters to all New Yorkers,” she said. “This park is such a great example, I was out here last week, out here enjoying the view out there, the water and the green space, people playing with their children, their dogs, etcetera. It’s a beautiful, beautiful day here.”

After the event, The Observer wanted to meet the new Parks Commissioner and ask her about the status of the other parks. Ms. White’s press secretary warned, “only on-topic questions.” In non-press speak, that means ask about the ribbon cutting, this park, that’s it. So we did.

“It’s great to have my first ribbon cutting in Brooklyn, because as the borough president mentioned, I am from Bay Ridge,” she said. “It’s great to be out here and open up another of these gorgeous waterfront parks. It‘s a beautiful park.”

So, with a little less than a year-and-a-half left, what’s next? “We have lots of parks in the works, parks take a lot of time, as described here in detail, sometimes in terms of acquisition, sometimes in terms of remediation, and in building and opening the parks up

And there was the opening. Commissioner White had mentioned lots of parks in the works, so how about the ones just to our north and south? “That’s all, we have to go,” the press secretary cut in. As she was pulled away, Ms. White mumbled, “We’re working on it. Each piece is going forward.”

Locals are desperate to have these parks sown up before the mayor leaves office, because once the Bloomberg administration is gone, there is no promise the next mayor will take the same interest in these open spaces. That said, Mr. Levin remains genuinely hopeful.

“Over the last few months, especially since we had the hearing on what was going on with these parks, there’s definitely been an uptick in interest at City Hall, from the mayor’s office,” Mr. Levin said. “I think there’s a real desire to get the rest of this commitment fulfilled.”

It is an important piece of the mayor’s legacy, after all, this return to the water. “I can honestly say, all these parks are the best thing the mayor did,” Emily Nicolson said. She moved down the block eight years ago and used to sneak onto the site when it was just an empty lot. Now she brings her two young children here often, four times she said since the park opened a week earlier.

“Everything else he’s done is up for debate,” Ms. Nicolson continued. “But the parks, and the bike lanes, are pretty great.”

The real victim: 87A Guernsey Street

After a lifetime of compliments, the four-letter "u" word hit male model Josh Wald particularly hard when he encountered it, quite possibly for the first time, after listing his freshly-renovated house at 87A Guernsey Street in Greenpoint.

The New York Times reports that Mr. Wald, who has appeared in everything from Dolce and Gabbana to Dockers ads, was shocked, shocked, to be on the receiving end of an insult.

“For the record,” he told The Times, “my mom probably doesn’t quite understand what a blog is!”

Oh, to be young, beautiful, and so unaccustomed to criticism that having one's house called "uglayyyy as sin!” by a commenter on a blog sets off a family conference. But Mr. Wald designed the renovation himself, The Times notes, so comments such as “It all feels very college student with a chunk of cash,” really, really hit home.

“If someone seemed like they knew what they were talking about, then O.K., they can have a difference of opinion. But if it’s just ignorant blabber, then it just seems like Web chat out of control," Mr. Wald told The Times.

But slightly nasty comments aside (one questioned the use of shingles in Greenpoint—a fair aesthetic criticism, at least from a historical perspective), neither the Curbed nor Brownstoner posts were mean at all. When and how they did mention the home's new look, it was strictly factual, quoting directly from the Prudential Douglas Elliman listing, or complimentary. "Not that we have anything against the house itself (how could we?)," wrote Curbed.

Indeed, the home is, if anything, in such bland good taste that it makes for an incredibly disappointing piñata and generated fairly tame barbs (the harshest criticism seems to be that the renovation would have been more successful had Mr. Wald hired a professional architect to oversee the conversion from a three-family to a single-family property).

It seems that what really set the commentators off in the first place was the audacity of the home's asking price—$2.5 million, which is more than twice the price Mr. Wald paid for the home three years ago. Not only that, but if the home sells at ask, it would set a neighborhood record, both for single family home and price per square foot. So it would seem that the renovation might be a legitimate thing to scrutinize? Especially given that Mr. Wald said that he expects to buy, renovate and flip more houses in the future? If you expect to flip a house based on the beauty of a renovation, isn't the renovation's beauty fair game?

kvelsey@observer.com

The object of affection (brownstoner)

McCarren Pool may be located at the epicenter of hipsterdom on the border between Williamsburg an Greenpoint, but its reopening has brought on a strange, unfamiliar feeling in such environs: an earnest, completely unironic, swooning kind of love.

“The tide of consensus has turned,” Charles Graeber, a 42-year-old freelance writer who attended the pool's opening yesterday told The New York Times. “People are really rather proud. This is a very hopeful, grand, Great Society gesture. Williamsburg is famously hipsterish, sneering and ironic, but there’s nothing ironic about this.”

Could McCarren Pool finally usher in the era of earnestness—heralded by Miranda July and Lena Dunham and all the other painfully genuine, genuinely in pain young artists—that has been burbling below the surface of hipsterdom for so long?

Although some locals bristled at the announcement of the restoration—the empty, WPA-era pool had, after all, become a popular concert venue in the last few years—it seems that no one can resist the feelings of affection for the expanse of sparkling blue, awakening long-dormant emotions among many perpetual naysayers. The strange sensation has caused more than a little discomfort in some.

On Curbed, a commentator who was clearly unaccustomed to saying something nice, managed to twist his joy into a familiar diatribe:

"It's a shame it took so long to re-open MC Carren pool. I left Greenpoint in 1977. Though I went back to visit many times. I always stopped at Mc Carren park to reminisce on my childhood summer days in that pool. I miss the Pool and the old neighborhood. I do not like all the building of huge apartment building and coop's. It's ruining that great neighborhood."

On Brownstoner, the commentators embraced the opening with more ease.

"All 11 WPA pools are back in service. That's astonishing. This project is so symbolic of the improved fortunes of the Borough. Only a great city could build something like this and then refurbish it beautifully seventy years later," wrote one.

"Bloomberg will be recorded as the greatest Mayor this city has ever had," gushed another in what we honestly think was a genuine tone.

In fact, the only really nasty thing anyone could think of to say about the pool was this: "no baby pools here though it seems :("

But people will complain about anything. And guess what? The Parks Department also offers swimming lessons.

kvelsey@observer.com

The hated house feature

Remember when people once liked practical things on their houses? Porches and overhangs and aluminum awnings and such?

Well Greenpoint, for one, has had it with aluminum awnings, reports The New York Times.

Those humble providers of shelter are so mid-century, and not Eames chairs/ skinny ties/ birth of the cool kind of mid-century, but smoking around children and eating TV dinners kind of mid-century.

It's almost like they're deliberately trying to be unattractive, a la that golden girl of Greenpoint Lena Dunham, who films herself doing things like awkwardly hitching up a pair of flesh-colored panty-hose.

“You’re never going to go on Craigslist and find someone who’s looking for a vintage 1950s fiberglass or aluminum awning,” architect and Greenpoint-dweller Jonathan B. Held told The Times. “They are despised.”

Even the general manager of a scrapyard takes calls them an "eyesore." Ouch!

However, apparently some practical-minded people still want these functional coverings to block the rain and the snow and to keep their newspapers (we hope they don't read The Times) dry. In fact, in an indication of just how much attention they pay to such passing fancies, Brooklyn-based Aluminum Awnings informed us that they hadn't even heard about The Times article when we called their office.

Indeed, we found several other purveyors of awnings, including General Awnings and Home Depot, who are still  selling the product, focusing, we suppose, on the small segment of the population who are not part of the ever-fickle tastemakers. Why just last year The Times was singing the virtues of vinyl siding in nearby Williamsburg:

"To Mr. Canfield, replacing vinyl siding that is in good shape, as some homebuyers do as soon as they have the deed, is like carelessly restoring antiques that came over on the Mayflower. He views vinyl siding facades as the key to preserving Williamsburg’s working-class traditions, which arguably has become its own facade."

Trends... they are so hard to predict! What's next? Gutters? A resurgence of faux-wood paneling?

kvelsey@observer.com

Are you ready for the second season of HBO's 'Girls,' Bob Ross-lookalikes, "Muffle Car"-owners, and unicycling hipsters?

Then, wow, do we have a job for you:

Why hire a hipster when they can just get this kid? (Don't answer that, Leslie Arfin.) Surely, however, this one is more specific:

Note "Bob Ross Types," which ideally isn't exclusive to just "People Who Look Like Bob Ross." Helpful hint: We're pretty sure these guys frequent the bar pickup scene at Andrew Tarlow restaurants on late weekday afternoons. Finally:

We have no idea what a "Muffle Car" is, but we're obviously not spending enough time amongst Greenpoint's flourishing steampunk scene. All of you beautiful, freaky people, go with god, and answer your call. The second season of Girls is the closest you're ever going to get to a third season of Carnivale. Now's your chance.

[PREVIOUSLY: The Real TV Stars of Greenpoint: HBO’s Girls Seeking Real-Life ‘Hipster Types’ for Casting]

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek