IT’S 2 a.m. on Saturday, and there’s a line of idling taxis double-parked outside the Studio B nightclub on Banker Street. A few dozen clubgoers are mingling on the sidewalk. Across the street, several teenagers are yelling and drinking beers wrapped in paper bags. Around the corner, a scruffy, skinny-jeans sort is relieving himself against a warehouse wall.
Yes, it’s just another weekend night in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.
Five years ago, if you wanted to go out in Greenpoint, your options were pretty limited. There was Enid’s, of course – the neighborhood institution on Manhattan Avenue near the park, where local hipsters have been lining up for brunch and drinks for close to a decade (and where members of bands like Enon and Les Savy Fav have at times worked to make ends meet). And there was the Pencil Factory, a cozy, dimly lit locale at the intersection of Franklin Street and Greenpoint Avenue. Those spots aside, though, the bulk of the neighborhood’s nightlife consisted of down-at-the-heel dive bars.
That’s not the case anymore. In recent years, a number of new spots have popped up to serve the youthful hordes migrating north from Williamsburg. In particular, once sleepy Franklin Street has started to resemble a miniature Bedford Avenue.
Not that everyone is happy about this development. Longtime New Yorker Caryn Rose moved to Greenpoint four years ago. Before that she lived on the Lower East Side, watching as the area turned into an indie-kid playground. Today she’s afraid the same thing is happening to her new home.
“I moved to Greenpoint because it’s quiet,” she says. “We don’t need any more bars. I don’t want to see this neighborhood turn into the Lower East Side.”
Rose cites Studio B, in particular, as an area nuisance. Since opening in 2006, the club has drawn crowds from around the city for acts like LCD Soundsystem. At times, however, the club’s patrons haven’t been the most considerate of guests.
In April, neighborhood blogger Miss Heather reported a fight between several skinheads breaking out in the street before a hardcore show at the venue. And Rose says she and her neighbors are frequently bothered by the noise and trash created by the club’s customers (ironically, Rose herself was the manager of a hardcore band back in the 1980s).
Agnes Piekarska, Studio B’s general manager and a 16-year Greenpointer, says that the venue works to keep customers from disturbing the neighbors. She notes that bouncers shoo patrons off area stoops and steer departing clubgoers away from nearby residential streets. She also maintains that the club has received few complaints from Greenpoint residents.
Rose, however, has a different take on the matter – and, perhaps, a potential solution.
“I was once 20, and lived in New York and went to concerts every night of the week if I could,” Rose says. “If you went to the East Village and started yelling, you’d get a bucket of pee poured on your head.”