In case you can’t wait for McCarren Park Pool to open on Thursday. Via Daily News

For swimmers who don’t mind water with a lot of salt, a Williamsburg hotel has just opened the city’s only saltwater pool to its patrons. Brooklynites are flocking to King & Grove on N. 12th St., where admission to the 20-foot-wide, 40-foot-long, 4-foot-deep pool is ordering something off the hotel bar’s menu.

“I don’t know why people don’t know about this,” said sunbather Bridget Balliett, 24, as she sipped a $7 Blue Moon ale while lounging on one of the five poolside daybeds with three friends. All work at a nearby Bedford Ave. clothing store, and had come over on their lunch break to eat, drink, and tan.

“It’s better than a rinky-dink public pool,” said Balliett’s pal Katie McDermott, 19.

The King & Grove lodging chain acquired Hotel Williamsburg earlier this year. Shortly afterward, staffers found saline and chlorine filters attached to the outdoor first-floor swimming hole, which sits just a few feet from the lobby bar.

Management decided to open up the pool to the public during Memorial Day weekend, turning the deck into a full-blown serving area that can accommodate up to 149 visitors. Besides beds, patrons can book a seat at one of the 10 tables or on one of the 18 bleachers.

“We want to be part of the neighborhood,” said food and beverage director Christopher Dorsey. “We don’t want to be pretentious.”

Still, Dorsey said officials are debating whether to charge a $45 cover as the pool’s popularity grows.

Extra Fancy (c/o Grub Street)

via Paper:

Despite the name, the handsome boys behind new Williamsburg seafood and cocktails spot Extra Fancy aren’t wearing bow ties or suspenders or shiny shoes. They’re just kicking ass making good drinks, pouring rad beers and endearing themselves to the neighborhood. It’s a quiet spot now, but once people figure out it’s there, it’s sure to be overrun with pretty hipsters, cocktail fiends, and late night degenerates looking for something fried (fancily, of course).

For more information, visit our listings.

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Get some duds for McCarren Park Pool

East Williamsburg Loses Some of Its Grit

McCarren Park Pool Opens this Thursday!

Radish

If you love the store or have taken advantage of their catering, you already know that Radish is great. Now, they’re about to have an event space and supper club. Via Grub Street

Two-year-old Bedford Avenue picnic favorite Radish doesn’t currently have any seats to offer you, but when it launches its event space and supper club this fall, it’ll be able to host dinners for 75. Co-owner Amy Marks says the shop’s burgeoning catering business led her and partner Laura DeRemer to seek a larger kitchen space. The one they found on 190 North 14th Street (between Berry and Wythe) has a 1,500-square-food venue attached, so they snapped that up too. The pair will rent it for corporate meetings and events, weddings, and other parties, when it’s not in use by night they’ll host the occasional ticketed supper club, with a seasonal, global menu.

Marks said she’s looking forward to “having a way of hosting our customers in a seated environment, which we can’t do now.” A full liquor license means they can host wine- and cocktail-paired dinners in the space, which is decorated with dark bamboo floors, handpainted Mexican tiles, reflective copper light fixtures, and a white marble bar.

Via Eater:

After just six months in business, Basque newcomer Mercado on Kent has closed, with plans to reopen with a new concept later this fall. A tipster spotted this sign in the window of the restaurant over the weekend, which explains the move. Their OpenTable account has been deactivated, and no one’s picking up the phone.

It’s called Mermaid’s Garden Sustainable Foods and a membership will run you about 100 bucks:

Expect to see a variety of local Long Island and New England fishes, including:

Black Bass, Bluefish, Haddock, Hake, Monkfish, Pollock, Porgy, Skate, Striped Bass, Summer Flounder, Swordfish, Tilefish, Tuna (Yellowfin and Bigeye), Wreckfish and more. For our first season, the fish in the shares will most likely all be local. Nonetheless, Mermaid’s Garden is committed to supporting fishing communities across the United States, so there may be opportunities for us to offer items like wild Alaskan salmon or Florida stone crabs in their seasons. We guarantee that all of our fish is caught by small boat fishermen using sustainable fishing methods.

Pickups will be in Red Hook, Park Slope, and Clinton Hill but if it catches on maybe they’ll make it up to these parts.

via Animal

c/o NY Mag

It’s staggering it took so long since ridership has grown nearly 150 percent in the last decade! Now, let’s work on the G.

The chronically overcrowded L train, which connects Manhattan to Brooklyn’s fastest growing neighborhoods, is now running 98 more times a week. The NY Metropolitan Transportation Authority just finished installing a new radio-based signal system that allows trains on the line to travel closer together and, as a result, more frequently…

Ridership on the L train has grown 141 percent since 1998 because of a population boom in Williamsburg and Greenpoint, the chosen enclaves of NYC’s hipster set and more recently, a hub of new condo construction. It’s not unusual for riders during the morning rush to let a packed train pass because there’s no room to board it.

The NY MTA announced a plan to increase service on the line eight months ago, which led to a squabble with its largest union over why the new schedule would take so long to implement.

Riders will now see 16 more trains on weekdays and 18 more trains over the course of a weekend.

The MTA says, during the morning rush, customers can shave 30 seconds off their wait with trains now arriving every 3 minutes. Non-rush hour weekday riders, as well as Saturday night revelers, can expect a train every six minutes, down from 7 ½ minutes. And Sunday evening straphangers can expect a train every 6 minutes, down from 8 ½ minutes.

chicapoquita's flickr

The fight against the homeless shelter proposed for 400 McGuinness Boulevard gained momentum this week when local residents lawyered up and formed a corporation to strengthen their efforts against the shelter. According to DNAinfo, the Greenpoint Neighborhood Coalition, Inc. officially formed last month with the help of lawyer Andrew Stern.

The group believes that the shelter “threatens to ruin our current lifestyle and the safety and quality of the neighborhood.”

As we posted in February, Greenpoint’s homeless population is in a uniquely challenging position because the city has no Polish language programs available to help them. The problem is so bad that the city offered local churches $100,000 to provide shelter on cold winter nights, but no churches were interested. At the time, five homeless people had died in fifteen months.

inlowell's flickr

The North Brooklyn Boat Club has been vocal about the city’s failure to follow through on its promise for more green spaces, as outlined in the 2005 re-zoning that changed Williamsburg and the surrounding neighborhoods in a big way. This Thursday the group is taking its message to City Hall to rally before a hearing on the matter.

“It’s VERY important that we show the city that we are unified and LOUD in our demand for the parkspace we deserve,” event organizers posted on Google+.

Join the Boat Club on Thursday (6/14) at noon on the City Hall steps. The hearing is at 1pm at 250 Broadway, 16th Floor.

GoogleMaps

If you live in Greenpoint and commute to Manhattan or hang out in Williamsburg, you’re probably familiar with the dangers of crossing McGuinness Boulevard. Drivers race down it like it’s the Autobahn, while long traffic lights make pedestrians eager to cross whenever they get a chance.

Luckily for pedestrians, state assemblyman Joe Lentol is pushing for cameras that will catch speeding drivers. A recent survey reports that  two-thirds of drivers on McGuinness speed and between 2005 and 2009, vehicles hit thirteen cyclists and forty-four pedestrians. Lentol introduced a bill last week, The Brooklyn Paper reports.