March 22
MTA Fare Hike Takes Effect
Honestly, it’s not like you want to have disposable income, right? Who needs extra money at the end of the month anyway? Not us. Take it all, MTA. It’s yours!
April 3
Hillary Clinton Formally Announces Her Campaign Headquarters Will Be in Brooklyn
And, oh, yeah: She’s officially running for president. Shocking. Let’s not forget, though, Brooklyn has another horse in the race: Progressive Democratic candidate from Vermont, Bernie Sanders, was actually born in Brooklyn.
April 22
Bed-Stuy Resident Gregory Pardlo Wins the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
Pardlo’s winning poetry book, Digest, had only sold about 1,500 copies at the time of the award. His small publishing house immediately ordered another printing of 5,000 copies.
May
BAM and the Brooklyn Museum Have New Directors
These stalwart Brooklyn cultural institutions have innovative new leaders—Anne Pasternak, formerly of Creative Time, for the Brooklyn Museum, and Katy Clark, formerly of the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, for BAM—to lead them into the future.
May 8
New York Times Can Now Shut Down Its Real Estate Section
Why? Well, because it ran the headline “Priced Out of Brooklyn? Try Manhattan.” And then the rapture happened. It’s all over.
June 19
No, but Really: Has the Brooklyn Real Estate Rapture Happened Yet?
A Cobble Hill home sold for $15.5 million, setting a new record for the borough. The Times describes the bathrooms as “modern, yet tasteful.” Sold!
June 26
SCOTUS Decision Legalizes Gay Marriage in All 50 States
And just in time for Pride Week! The highest court in the land ruled on the case Obergefell vs Hodges on this date, and despite the presence of notorious dick-justices Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, and Samuel Alito, the court ruled that, you know, love wins.
July 15
Goodbye
We don’t really know what the rest of the year holds for Brooklyn, and we’d say that we’re sad not to be around for it except, well, we will be around for it. Oh, maybe not in a print version that you can put in your pocket, but we’ll still be online, and Brooklyn Magazine (a much, much easier name to remember and understand than The L) will now be available monthly starting in September. See you there.
Openings
• East Wind Snack Shop, Windsor Terrace
• L’Antagoniste, Bed-Stuy
• Bar Bolinas, Clinton Hill
• Eugene and Co., Bed-Stuy
• Leyenda, Cobble Hill
• King Tai Bar, Crown Heights
Albums
• Vulnicura by Bjork
• Carrie & Lowell by Sufjan Stevens
Books
• The Beautiful Bureaucrat by Helen Phillips
• Infinite Home by Kathleen Alcott
• Binary Star by Sarah Gerard
• City by City: Dispatches from the American Metropolis edited by Keith Gessen and Stephen Squibb
Real Estate Notes
Average sale price for a home/condo
• We don’t know what this year’s final real estate prices will look like, but we can guess: HIGH!