According to the weights and measures sticklers over at The New York Post, a number of city bars are shortchanging customers by serving pints in twelve to fourteen ounce glasses, instead of the standard sixteen ounce glasses.

The rigorous scientific study determined that 9 out of fifteen bars in the East Village, West Village and Williamsburg serve pints in glasses less than sixteen ounces. Some culprits include Three Sheets Saloon and Blind Tiger in the West Village, Vbar St. Marks and the Village Pourhouse in the East Village, and No Fun on the Lower East Side.

“If you order a pint, you expect to get a pint — not less. It’s not cool,” said Village Pourhouse customer Marcos Rodriguez. According to The Post, the Pourhouse’s pints measured a paltry twelve ounces. Not cool, guys.

Pourhouse co-owner Erika London claimed that while her beers were proper pints, “some of the signature glassware that the beer distributors provide us with look smaller than the average glass, but we are instructed to use them by the distributor.”

Personally, we blame the Imperial System. And Bloomberg, just cause.

Crossing Brooklyn Ferry. (Photo via NYC.gov).

"It costs a lot of money to look this cheap," Dolly Parton famously said. Well, nowhere is that more true than in Hipster Brooklyn, a magical land that The New York Times seemingly "discovers" once every five weeks. In today's Style section, the Times sent intrepid middle-aged Manhattanite reporter Henry Alford to Williamsburg to live like the locals do (which, coincidentally, is also the way one would live if one were living one's life according to trend stories in the Times Style section).

So how much did Mr. Alford's long weekend of living the artisanal life actually cost the newspaper, which confirmed that it covered Mr. Alford's expenses but, citing policy, declined to share costs?

According to our back-of-the-envelope arithmetic, it looks like the Times spent at least $1,600 to send Mr. Alford to Williamsburg--and that is not even counting paying the author for the story or the photographer for the accompanying slide show, or the likelihood that Mr. Alford got a Blue Bottle coffee or a rosemary-infused cocktail at the Wythe Hotel's rooftop bar.

Let's break it down:

• Three nights at the Wythe Hotel: $1,065 to $1,257 + tax (according to the desk clerk at the hotel. It depends on whether has a view of Brooklyn or Manhattan)
• Knife skills class at Third Ward: $69 (according to Mr. Alford's article)
• Short-sleeve paid shirt from H. W. Carter and Sons: $225 (according to Mr. Alford's article)
• Assorted vintage items to complete the look: $26 (according to Mr. Alford's article)
• Bike rental from Zukies bike shop: $25 per day + $10 for a helmet and lock. Assuming Mr. Alford rented the bike and accessories for three days, that brings the total to $105.
• Straight-razor shave at Barber & Supply: $40
• Dinner at Roberta's: Although Mr. Alford didn't specify what he ate, we can (modestly) assume he spent around $50
• Chocolate bar at Mast Brothers: $9

Well, nobody ever said that becoming the object of trend-piece ridicule was cheap. And the article formerly known as "Will.i.ams.burg" (the print headline was changed online to "How I Became a Hipster" sometime this morning) certainly accomplished that. All in the name of journalism, etc.

The New York Times wants you to look at the hipsters. (Joe Mande)

Ach, we really thought The New York Times was finally starting to get the picture with its April 28th piece, "Turning the Tables on the News Media Tease." In it, Noam Cohen finally acknowledged the Twitter feed @NYTOnIt as being "prompted when a trend article from The New York Times seems too obvious or too generic." Examples given in the article included "the arrival of fall, the use of staplers, and how night stands are becoming more crowded."

Point duly noted, the Times seemed to be saying in this piece, showing that it was not above poking fun of its history of non-trend trend stories. But it turns out that the Grey Lady was merely blowing her media audience a raspberry, as Thursday's Style section cover story is about...one man's observations about Williamsburg. No, no catch, no angle: Just one guy, checking out the 'burg to see what the big deal is and trying to blend in with the natives at Roberta's. (Which still counts as Williamsburg, you know, metaphysically.) And yes, it's supposed to be funny, which is probably the saddest part about this sad attempt that begins with--wait for it--the title:

Will.i.amsburg

Oh yes, there are slideshows on how to become--like embedded journo and famed investigative humorist Henry Alford did--a Williamsburg hipster. Tips like: go be condescending to employees at H.W. Carter & Sons by telling them, "I’m going for a Mumford & Sons look. I want to look like I play the banjo." And: Hang around the top of the Wythe Hotel (where all Williamsburg residents congregate to listen to Skrillex, remember? From last time?) and wait till somebody describes themselves as an "affinity consultant" so you can mock them in your led. Except it's never really explained what an affinity consultant does, though it turns out that the guy was from Manhattan and only staying at the Wythe in order to a similar anthropological study on the "cool kids" of Bedford Avenue.

"O, Bohemia!" indeed, Mr. Alford. No, we get this piece was written cheekily and wasn't meant to be taken all that seriously as the author turned his your nose at a non-locally sourced pair of socks "like an organic farmer who has learned that a friend has named her child Monsanto." (Which...huh? Would the analogy here be that you'd turn your nose up at a child for having a silly name?)

Or his pratfall excursions on a "fixie" fixed gear bike. Clearly, this was supposed to be The New York Times' attempt at recreating Brian Williams' epic artisinal cheeses rant.

The problem being that this is all old hat by now: Making fun of bearded hipsters on Bedford is a decade-old joke by this point, and it shows that The New York Times' must be scraping pretty low in its barrel-bottom in order to be mocking the trends and businesses that it once breathlessly agitated for. (That's Slate's job.)

Is "Will.i.amsburg" trying to say Williamsburg is over? Or that it's inherent value system of cynic aestheticism as exemplified by a Bushwick pizzeria are ridiculous? And if so, did we need this not-so-scathing satire to tell us?

After all, by nature of it being a New York Times Style story, the rest of the world was notified about this "trend" approximately 18-24 months ago.

via Wikimedia

Several Jewish homes in Williamsburg were targeted in an incident on Monday in which religious objects attached to residents' front doors were set on fire.

The burnings, which are being investigated by the NYPD’s Hate Crimes Department, took place on Holocaust Remembrance Day, or Yom Hashoah, though police remain unsure of whether the day of religious observance was a factor in the crime.

“The Hate Crimes Task Force has been assigned to it and is treating it as a bias crime,” Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman, told The New York Times. “The fact that they are all religious artifacts, we’re treating it as an anti-Semitic crime.”

The desecration took place at 85 Taylor Street, one of five buildings in the Taylor-Wythe Houses, a public housing community in Williamsburg. Police reported that 11 mezuzahs attached to apartment front doors were burned in the late afternoon on Monday.

According to the New York Daily News, the perpetrator began on the 13^th floor of the building and burned mezuzahs on several floors on his way downstairs. Authorities said the mezuzahs were likely burned with a lighter or a blowtorch.

Mezuzahs are important religious symbols of protection, especially for observant Jewish families, who attach them to the right side of front doorframes and in rooms throughout a home shortly after moving in. Mezuzahs are typically made of materials like ceramic or clay, and each contains a small scroll inscribed with Torah verses.

Residents of 85 Taylor Street and the surrounding buildings were deeply disturbed by the incident.

Miriam Schwartz, 75, a victim of the crime who lives on the third floor of the building, told the Daily News that this is the second time her mezuzah has been burned.

“This has to be stopped,” Ms. Schwartz said. “I’m always scared.”

Public advocate and New York mayoral hopeful Bill de Blasio spoke out publically about the incident.

"Nothing but hatred can explain why someone would burn mezuzahs on Yom Hashoah, the day we remember the six million Jews killed during the Holocaust," Mr. de Blasio said in a statement on Monday. "This is a sickening act of prejudice that strikes at the very core of who we are as a city. Make no mistake, we will find those responsible."

New condo towers mean construction racket.

Poor Williamsburg. It's now suffering a terrible fate known to but a handful of pert prom queens and high school football hunks—it is not only possible to be popular, but to be too popular.

While many of the newcomers who have recently washed up on Williamsburg's luxury condo-strewn shores are no doubt aware that the neighborhood is "changing" and that that change is part of what makes it attractive to so many new, well-heeled residents—would they have been able to buy artisanal chutney there back in 2005?—they're apparently more than a little uncomfortable with the fact that it continues to, well, change. At least, they hate the construction, according to DNAinfo.

"It's annoying to be outside with a baby, it's loud and dusty," Northside Piers resident Vanessa Vellucci told DNAinfo.

She's not the only one. Other mothers complain about having to take their children to local cafes far from the construction noise to get in a decent nap. Bars might also be a good option—day drinkers tend toward quiet melancholy—if you can get out before the baby curfew kicks in.

Even nannies are complaining about the construction dust blowing into baby's faces and making them cry.

But most admit that irksome though all the racket may be, it's just part of living in a neighborhood that's basically being built from scatch—one SoulCycle gym and condo tower at a time. (Well, sometimes several at one time).

"I do love the neighborhood, and once it's done it'll be amazing," one woman told DNAinfo. "But I guess if you move here first, you have to go through the changes."

For the time being, they'll just have to grit their teeth, focus on rising real estate values and dream of the day when the only thing there will be to complain about is the unimaginative architecture.

A 51-year old man with $55 worth of cheese hidden in his pants was arrested last week in a Brooklyn supermarket after a store clerk tried to stop him, according to the Brooklyn Paper.

The man was stopped in a market in the heart of Williamsburg (Broadway between Hooper and Keap) at 2 in the afternoon after an employee saw him stuff large blocks of cheese in his pants.

Cops reported that the cheese-napper pulled out a razor blade when approached by staff. The employees quickly called for reinforcements and the man was arrested. It is unclear if the cheese was returned.

While we encourage Williamsburg residents to remain on alert, it should be noted that queso-clepto is neither hip nor exclusive. According to a previously conducted study by the U.K.’s Centre for Retail Research, cheese has held the title of most stolen food in the world since like, 2011. Put that in your pants and steal it.

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 L is about to get some new, non-formstone-faced neighbors.

In the midst of yesterday's frenzy of Domino Sugar Refinery-themed press coverage, squished L train riders could be forgiven for asking: how much more development can Williamsburg handle? With only two tracks in a largely quad-tracked system, the L is not as well-endowed as some lines—so how much more Williamsburg can the L really take?

As it turns out, quite a bit.

The L recently underwent an upgrade to its signaling system, with the MTA installing something known as communications-based train control, or CBTC. The installation was riddled with issues, as any nighttime L rider can attest to, but now that it's done, the line's maximum rush hour capacity is up to 26 trains per hour. Not the highest-capacity tracks in the system—the express tracks on the Lexington Avenue line are capable of 27—but significantly more than the 19 trains per hour that currently run during the morning peak, or about one every three minutes. (And this is nowhere near the theoretical maximum capacity of a two-track system—some lines in the Moscow Metro do a whopping 40 trains per hour during rush hour.)

The maximum capacity of 26 trains per hour on the L, a 38 percent increase over current peak service, would require some upgrades, but nothing on the scale of the CBTC installation and debugging that drove L riders crazy for years.

For one, the MTA would need more rolling stock—that is, more trains. The MTA already has an order in for 300 brand new R179s, as the next model will be called, and the 2015-19 capital plan will include an order for an even newer model, the R211. (And while American subways have been reluctant to embrace them, there's always the possibility of buying new articulated train sets, which can hold more people without having to lengthen platforms.)

"And when we get up to a point where we run 22 trains per hour," MTA spokesman Kevin Ortiz told The Observer, "then there's the issue of traction power that we need to address." He couldn't cite a concrete cost, but said that it would be a "minor fix."

And that's just for peak periods, which have the highest ridership and tightest capacity constraints. But outside of rush hour, the subway has a virtually unlimited supply of excess track and train capacity. Aside from periods when the tracks need to be worked on, the MTA should have no problem keeping up with the L's much-touted night and weekend ridership.

Mr. Ortiz also emphasized that these capacity issues are much further down the line than Two Trees' Domino project. The L's excess capacity is measured in the tens of thousands of riders per day, while Jed Walentas is only looking to add 2,284 new apartments to the waterfront—apartments that will be as close to the Marcy Avenue stop on the J/M/Z as they are to the Bedford Avenue L.

As for Mr. Walentas's planned office space, it will be essentially "free" from a transit capacity point of view. Workers coming in via Manhattan will have roomy reverse-peak trains all to themselves, and workers arriving from farther out on the L will disembark at Bedford Avenue, before the most congested segment between there and Union Square.

Two Trees also plans to incorporate a new ferry landing at the southern end of their site. But the ferries, though pleasant, are little more than a rounding error compared to New York City's subways. Luckily for Williamsburg (and its developers), there's plenty of train capacity left before people have to take to the water.

A bird's eye view of the Domino Sugar site, as Two Trees would like to develop it.

When Two Trees Management bought the old Domino Sugar site from CPC Resources and a reluctant Katan Group, a local developer told The Observer that Jed Walentas would be "crazy to go back to ULURP" for a rezoning of the site, which had already been approved for thousands of high-rise apartments.

But going back to to everyone's favorite acronym (to pronounce, at least) is exactly what Mr. Walentas intends to do. He and SHoP, the New York-based architecture firm that Bruce Ratner tapped to design the Barclays Center and Atlantic Yards after Frank Gehry proved too expensive, called a group of reporters to SHoP's offices near City Hall on Friday to show off their plans for the site.

The first thing Mr. Walentas spoke about was Two Trees' desire to expand the amount of parkland included in the project—adding two new acres—and to make it more accessible to the public.

He criticized the open space in the old site plan as something that "felt very much like a privatized front lawn for people who lived there," and spoke about his desire to pull the buildings back inland to make more space for the quarter-mile-long waterfront park, as well as add a new public street between his buildings and the waterfront.

The old sugar refinery will house office space.

But the extra park space comes at a price: the towers will have to rise higher to make up for the smaller footprints. The tallest tower on the site would rise to 598 feet, or about 60 stories—much taller than the 340-foot maximum height in the currently approved plan.

Of the project's height, Mr. Chakrabarti conceded that "there's no architectural way to hide that" on the edge of a neighborhood that otherwise tops out at around six stories.

"Contextualism is an opiate for the masses," said Mr. Chakrabarti at one point during the Q&A. Refreshing candor, but a line that he may want to work on before the community board meeting.

Overall built square footage would rise to about 3.4 million, with a full half a million extra square feet of office space, which the developer claims will triple Williamsburg's existing commercial space. As previously reported, the office space will rent for much less than the apartments—about $25 a square foot, half what Mr. Walentas says he can get for housing—though with so much of it, perhaps he's hoping he can make up for it on volume.

Jed Walentas says he'll accept lower rents to get independent retailers.

To accomodate all the extra office space, the site would lose 116 apartments (which should please the community), as well as some of its retail (no two-story big box stores in this plan) and about a third of its parking.

In lieu of the Rafael Viñoly masterplan that CPC-Katan wanted to build, Two Trees will be bringing in SHoP to design two of the buildings, with the other sites handed off to other architects.

Vishaan Chakrabarti, the SHoP principal who spoke for the the firm at the meeting, seemed eager to build the taller rectangular tower with the cut-out in the middle, whose rendering bears a faint resemblance to the towers SHoP has planned for Atlantic Yards. The differentiated window framing, featured somewhat haphazardly at Atlantic Yards, will be accentuated and formalized into a "game of squares," as Mr. Chakrabarti called it, though he downplayed the similarities to SHoP's work at Atlantic Yards.

The Observer spoke to local councilman Steve Levin, who represents the waterfront neighborhoods from Brooklyn Heights to Greenpoint, and his first observation about the plan was that "from a design and architectural perspective, it's certainly bold."

His number one concern, though, is affordable housing.

Two Trees, the councilman said, "had their lawyers look at it, and they said you're not bound by the commitments made by CPC" on affordable housing. "But from my perspective, I want to make sure that whatever commitments CPC made are realized."

"They've committed to 660" affordable units, he continued, "but they aren't going to say that's necessarily going to be 30 percent." (Two Trees wants to build 2,284 units in total under the new plan, and 30 percent would be 685.)

Juan Ayala, 35, was arrested in Williamsburg on Sunday afternoon after attempting to steal three 25 lb. boxes of almonds. (Photo by Getty Images.)

Things got a little nutty in Williamsburg last Sunday around 4 p.m., when Juan Ayala, 35, attempted to steal 75 lbs. worth of almonds from the back of a delivery truck on Bedford Avenue.

Unsurprisingly for a 5’8”, 180 lb. man trying to carry nearly half his weight in almonds, Mr. Ayala didn’t make it far with this stash; he reportedly dropped the three boxes of almonds—each weighing 25 lbs.— on South 8^th Street.

The driver of the truck called 9-1-1, but by that point, Mr. Ayala had already scurried off—not unlike a startled squirrel, we’d like to imagine.

But that wasn’t the end for our bizarre nut-napper. Two hours later, Mr. Ayala reportedly crashed his car, a 2010 silver Toyota Corolla, into a parked van on Wythe Avenue and South 8^th Street. Though he tried to evade capture again, a witness called the Williamsburg Shomrim Patrol, a patrol force comprised of local volunteer civilians. The Shomrim Patrol held Mr. Ayala until the NYPD arrived on the scene and arrested him.

“I really fucked up,” Mr. Ayala told the police, according to the New York Post. “I really fucked up my relationship. But I didn’t break into the car.”

Was he referring to his relationship with a human, or the almonds? For now, it’s unclear.

Mr. Ayala, who reportedly has a long history of drug-related arrests, was charged with third-degree burglary, attempted petit larceny, trespass, and leaving the scene of an accident. He is currently being held at Riker’s Island, with a $2,250 bail.

We hope they serve almond butter, for his sake.