The eight-day festival is set to return to Kings County on Oct. 17 with a frightening slate of films and events, all hosted at Nitehawk Cinema’s theaters in Williamsburg and Prospect Park.
The festival is bookended with a pair of chilling new movies. Indie comedy-horror “Dead Mail” will make its New York debut on opening night, and “The Rule of Jenny Pen,” starring period drama favorites John Lithgow and Geoffrey Rush, will close the festival out.
But the thrills will continue all week long. The lineup is packed with new films like Tiago Teixeira’s “Custom,” Sasha Rainbow’s “Grafted,” and Phillip Escott and Sarah Appleton’s new documentary “Generation Terror,” all making their North American debuts.
Comedy-horror ‘Dead Mail’ makes its New York premiere on opening night. Photo courtesy of the Brooklyn Horror Film Festival
Another three horror flicks will make their world premieres at Brooklyn Horror Film Festival: “House of Ashes,” the first feature by director Izzy Lee; “Lilly Lives Alone,” an atmospheric ghost story; “Psychonaut,” a queer science fiction romp.
What’s old is new again as the festival celebrates an old scary movie favorite: vampires. The 1970s vampire classics “Vampyres” and “The Blood Spattered Bride” will be screened in 35mm, but perhaps the highlight of vampire programming is the Spanish version of “Dracula” with a live score by The Flushing Remonstrance. Stepping away from film, The Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies will present a lecture by Dr. Leah Richards titled “Queer Vampires, Queer Liberation, Queer Futurity.”
Other festival highlights include the Turkish revenge flick “Sayara,” a screening of several episodes from the new horror anthology series “Tales from the Void,” and and a special presentation of prolific horror director Larry Fessenden’s 1995 vampire film “Habit,” followed by the presentation of the festival’s Leviathan Award and a Q&A with Fessenden and Jenn Wexler.
The Brooklyn Horror Film Festival runs from Oct. 17-24 in Williamsburg and South Slope. The full lineup and schedule of events is available online.
A pair of Brooklyn businesses have come up with something even sweeter than free ice cream: free ice cream inspired by the delicious creations of a local bakery.
National Brioche Day is May 14 and to celebrate, Oddfellows Ice Cream has teamed up with St Pierre Bakery on a limited-edition Coffee & Brioche Waffles flavored ice cream.
The breakfast-inspired treat features chunks of St Pierre’s sweet brioche waffles swirled into OddFellows’ beloved coffee ice cream. Brioche is a hearty, sweet half-bread, half-pastry creation, and St Pierre’s Brioche Waffles — sprinkled with pearl sugar – take it to the next level.
Free brioche waffle ice cream sandwiches will be available at all OddFellows locations on May 14.Photo courtesy of OddFellows
On May 14, the first 50 customers at each of Oddfellows’ scoop shops — including three in Brooklyn – will receive a free ice cream sandwich made with the brioche waffles. The free sandwiches will be available all week long, as supplies last.
Ice cream lovers can stop in at either of Oddfellows’ three Brooklyn locations at 40 River St. in Domino Park, 44 Water St. in Dumbo, or 334 Furman St. on Pier 5 at Brooklyn Bridge Park for a Coffee & Brioche Waffles fix. For those further afield, the creations will also be available at their Manhattan shop at 141 8th Ave. in Chelsea.
OddFellows, a Brooklyn-based small-batch ice creamery, was founded in 2013, and has since churned out dozens of unusual flavors alongside the classics. Their offerings include everything from vanilla bean to Passionfruit Apricot Pistachio, a saffron-based concoction with candied apricots and pistachios.
The Brooklyn waterfront is the setting for the adaptive reuse project Refinery at Domino, in which a … [+] one-time sugar refinery has been converted into a 460,000, Class A, all-electric office building.
Max Touhey | www.metouhey.com
All over the U.S., developers, architects, environmentalists, history buffs, employers, renters, homeowners and countless others are coming to one realization. Adaptive reuse holds the power to transform urban environs like few other projects.
The benefits of converting age-old structures to new and different uses are compelling. Adaptive reuse represents a more sustainable means of creating new developments. It is also a method saving developers the cost of razing old buildings. It puts back into productive use older structures that may have stood empty for years or decades. Because structures built before 1950 were built for a much less automobile-dependent society, adaptive reuse projects tend to restore density and encourage walking within the districts where they’re located.
Adaptive reuse also allows urban areas to retain historic character and a sense of place. And for an office tenant or a home buyer, work or home life in a converted building confers a whole different and authentic kind of ambience.
Sweet project
For these reasons and still others, many eyes have been focused on Brooklyn’s Williamsburg waterfront, where a one-time Domino sugar factory has been transformed through adaptive reuse into a new property called The Refinery at Domino. The new, 460,000-square-foot all-electric Class A office building opens today, Sept. 27.
The Refinery at Domino blends the historical charm of the landmarked building with upsides of a new-construction development. Partnering with Practice for Architecture and Urbanism (PAU), Brooklyn-based Two Trees Management produced a glass building within the building’s historic brick façade. Within the building, a large-scale living landscape seamlessly links to the surrounding natural elements and greenery.
“Converting the old factory into an all-electric office building is a key part of Two Trees’ plan for Domino’s mixed-use community,” says Dave Lombino, Two Trees’ managing director, external affairs. “Our careful revitalization of the former Domino Sugar Factory into a Class A office space enabled us to create a sustainable workplace of the future, while paying homage to New York City’s rich history.”
Other examples
The Refinery at Domino takes its place alongside some of the nation’s highest-profile adaptive reuse projects. In Detroit, the old Michigan Central Station is primed to reopen its doors in 2024 for the first time in more than three decades.
The 30-acre site will offer stores, cultural programming and a public space where locals and international visitors can congregate for special events. Already reopened on the campus is a 1936 Albert Kahn-designed Art Deco landmark that served in different eras as a post office and later a book depository, and now has been repurposed as a 270,000-square-foot workspace and innovation center.
In Los Angeles, a revitalization of the 60-year-old California Mart — once the center for the city’s fashion business – has yielded California Market Center (CMC). Spanning a full city block in L.A.’s fashion district, the 1.8 million-square-foot CMC is a new kind of office center, designed to be a place where the city’s emerging technology, media, entertainment and fashion industries intersect.
Iconic landmark
The Refinery’s transition was built upon a trio of design thrusts, Vishaan Chakrabarti, founder and creative director for PAU, says.
The first was inserting a contemporary building in the sleeve of the historic structure. The second involved creating a glass barrel vault form paying homage to the American Round Arch style of the original. A third required opening the ground floor to the park and the surrounding neighborhood of Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
“This approach has created an iconic landmark for the 21st Century, offering users natural light, luscious greenery, waterfront views and a contemporary dialogue with history that most new commercial projects lack,” he says. “Although conceived before the pandemic, the Refinery represents a future of work that offers a unique rootedness in place, and community that is invaluable going forward.”
The historic Domino Sugar Refinery on the Brooklyn waterfront is officially opening Wednesday, following more than a decade of renovation to convert it to a high-end office building complete with plans for a bar, indoor pool and fitness center.
The 15-story, all-electric structure now dubbed the “Refinery at Domino” is just north of the Williamsburg Bridge. Developers Two Trees Management described it as “the crown jewel” of its larger 11-acre Domino Sugar Factory site — once home to a booming sugar refinery — that also includes the popular Domino Park.
Max Touhey
12-foot opening between all-electric Refinery building and landmark masonry facade.
The factory was once the tallest building on the waterfront, with the original structure dating to the 1880s. The famous brick facade and arched windows were retained and act as a shell for the new building within, topped by a domed glass penthouse with 360-degree views.
A 12-foot gap between the new building and the old is filled with a vertical garden of trees and plants open to the elements.
David Lombino, managing director of Two Trees, described it as a “living landmark.”
“You look around the city, I’m not sure there’s another more ambitious landmarked project than this one,” he told the Daily News during a recent tour of the site. “I think for a lot of folks who looked at this project, the landmarked status of the refinery building was a big turnoff. We looked at it as an opportunity to do something really unique, really iconic, and hopefully really successful.”
To pay homage to the building’s history, a replica of the iconic “Domino Sugar” sign has been added on the top of the building, and the original will be redone and installed in the lobby. The refinery’s ground floor will be open to the public, with retail and permanent rest rooms for Domino Park.
Todd Maisel/New York Daily News
The old Domino Sugar factory in Williamsburg Brooklyn is being partially torn down, with parts of it to make up new housing along the East River. Many of the historical features will also be preserved.October 30, 2013.
The penthouse will have amenities for workers, including a bar, and half will be used as an events space. Office workers will also have access to an indoor pool and fitness center.
Sugar production was one of Brooklyn’s most important industries in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and the refinery didn’t cease operations until 2004; it was landmarked three years later.
When finished in 2027, the larger site will also include three residential buildings and another office tower, plus Domino Square, an extension to the park that will include amphitheater seating and ice-skating in the winter. The 1-acre plaza is expected to open next summer.
Max Touhey
The Refinery at Domino and activated Domino Park – photo by Max Touhey
Work on the building is ongoing but Lombino said it could have tenants by the end of the year. He said about 4,500 employees could be based out of the Refinery, roughly the same number that worked in the sugar factory in its heyday.
Two Trees acquired the site for $185 million in 2012 and has spent about $150 million renovating the Refinery. Early iterations of the Refinery redesign included more than 2,000 residential units, though that plan was scrapped.
Two Trees is one of the borough’s biggest developers, perhaps best known for its role in transforming DUMBO, another waterfront Brooklyn neighborhood.
Max Touhey
Refinery Penthouse
“It aligns with where we’re seeing demand in the office sector,” Lombino said of the decision to build offices despite the broader industry limbo. “People are less eager to work in central business districts in Midtown and lower Manhattan. There’s a desire to have work closer to home. Williamsburg, north Brooklyn as a whole has seen an incredible influx of talent in the past 10-plus years. The idea is folks would rather work in a highly amenitized space closer to their home, with a surrounding park and exciting neighborhood than schlep into some of the central business districts.”
But the 13-year renovation journey was not always a sweet one: There were protests from locals early on expressing fears about gentrification, and a construction worker on a residential building site part of the bigger Domino Sugar campus fell to his death in 2016.
Two Trees is putting down roots elsewhere on the Williamsburg waterfront: Its ambitious “River Ring” development nearby could bring two massive towers, a park, public beaches and breakwaters. But Lombino says the state would need to introduce a new tax abatement program “in order for the math to work” on the project, after the lucrative 421-a property tax exemption expired last year.
YORKTOWN, Va., March 31, 2021 (Newswire.com)
– Come ready to experience an Easter like never before. Join Waters Edge Church for Easter services. WEC will kick off Easter weekend with an on-demand Good Friday experience online at watersedgechurch.net. Then, on April 3 and 4, Waters Edge Church will host 16 identical, hope-filled Easter services across four campuses in Newport News, Williamsburg, Yorktown and online. Guests visiting in person will experience a safe, socially distanced service, while kids, ages 6 weeks to fifth grade, enjoy WEC’s newly redesigned kids’ environments. Kids will play games and receive an age-appropriate Easter message.
Save a seat! Guests will be required to register for free tickets to attend. Visit watersedgechurch.net/easter for a list of service times and locations.
