If a pair of strangers had not met on New Years Eve of 2009, Good Yoga would not exist in Greenpoint.

That night, Flannery Foster, 33, went to a party at the apartment of Ray Gonazales, 34. The apartment looked like a loft with white walls and a skylight illuminating the rooms. “ I joked with Ray that this place will make a good yoga center,” said Foster.

Earlier that evening the two had met at a concert. Foster liked that Gonzales is relaxed, tall and genuine. Gonzales liked the fact that Foster wasn’t shy and was wearing boots to her knees. After the concert, Foster went to the party at Gonzales place.

Three weeks later Foster moved in to Gonazales’s place with two goals: starting a yoga business and living together as a couple.

The decision to move in together was made on whim. Foster e-mailed Gonzales. Gonzales said that it made sense for him.

Now, some two and half years later after that meeting Good Yoga has become a hangout and yoga center on a quiet corner of Calyer Street.

Foster’s interest in having a yoga center as a business developed over several years. She had worked as a restaurant manager and actress. “I had been working 80 hours a week at times,” Foster said. “I didn’t want to wake up every morning and catch up the 7 a.m. train to Manhattan for work.” After 13 years of changing jobs and surviving in New York, she said she was worn out. On her 28th birthday, Foster asked herself: “ If I had never ending source of money, how will I spend my time?” She told herself, ‘I would be doing yoga, making art, and travelling.”

She had been introduced to yoga when she was 18 by a college professor at Boston University. She found it too slow, and did not like it. But, In her mid 20s, she realized that she was discontented with her life despite working as an actress and living in New York. During this time her father died. She started doing yoga again and read spiritual books to comfort herself. She hurt her back while working as a waitress. Yoga helped her decrease the pain, she said.
“I did further training in New York and then I went to Sri Lanka to teach yoga,” said Foster. She spent six months in Asia starting November of 2007. “I was learning about things that I could not find in pure form here,” she said. She spent time with gurus and Buddhist monks.

She returned to New York and started formulating plans to make money through yoga.

Meanwhile, Gonzales liked the idea of creating a yoga center as soon as Foster presented her plan to him.

Gonzales had come to New York in 2003 after graduating from Humboldt State University in California. As a student in college, he had tried different majors but ultimately graduated with a degree in studio art. He is laid back, confident and supportive of new ideas. He started a graphic design business with two of his cousins but the recession hit his business hard. In 2008 he shut it down.

On New Years Eve 2009, a mutual friend of the two texted them individually to come to a My Morning Jacket concert in Madison Square Garden. During the concert, Flannery and Gonzales were taking pictures of themselves together. “Your eye is dead,” Foster said to Gonzales after looking at a photo image. Gonzales confidently said that he has glaucoma in his left eye. “I was so embarrassed,” Foster said, “but he made me comfortable.”

They continued to see each other and decided quickly to launch a yoga business. Foster had been teaching yoga as a private tutor in New York City and was planning to start a yoga business. Gonzales liked the idea of a partnership because at a yoga center he would be able to use his graphic design skills developing and maintaining the website for their business.

It was challenging to start a business, said Foster. They had neither a business plan nor permission from their landlord to start a business at the apartment. Their landlord was in Barcelona. “It was horrible to feel that something might not go through,” said Foster. She had been asked by one of her students in France to come and teach yoga. From France the couple flew to Barcelona to get their landlord’s OK.

Upon their return to New York, they used their credit cards to invest in the business. Gonzales had to break his 401 K to get more money.

According to Gonzales, they spent approximately $3000 to fix the windows. Gonzales fixed the leaks, welded metal and put plastic bars into the windows to insulate the house. Foster started to invite people via word of mouth to teach yoga. Gonzales made the logo and the website to promote the business.

As number of students increased, Foster started to teach 25 classes per week because she could not afford to hire teacher. Foster said, “Overworking was a huge problem.” They started to delegate work to students who were not able to pay for yoga classes. Foster said, “We used yoga as a currency.” Also, according to Foster, there are a lot of yoga teachers in New York. Some yoga teachers start teaching for free until they started attracting more students. At Good Yoga, the teachers don’t get paid when they first start. “Our teachers who stay longer get $15 an hour and then $5 person up to $40 dollars,” said Foster. “ I look for quality, confidence in instructive styles and a strong technique assisting with their hands.”

When the students started to come in, Gonzales and Foster realized that there was no place for students to hang out. Gonzales rearranged part of the first floor into a lounge and created a sliding door so that students can enter the lounge area from the main door.

Now, Good Yoga has the feeling of a meditation center or ashram and is filled with the fragrance of incense. Yoga classes are conducted in various rooms and on the rooftop where you can view Manhattan’s skyline.

One of the yoga teachers is Leona Ross, 34. “Good Yoga has a sense of community that I haven’t really got at other centers,” she said. Leona teaches 3 yoga classes and one meditation class. She also takes training classes taught by other teachers.

The partners said they have struggled to pay bills until the last few months, subletting part of their apartment helped. Recently, the two were able to afford to donate 10 percent of their profits to Fistula Foundation, a non-profit committed to helping women who are injured during pregnancy, Foster said.

According to Google Maps, there are 10 yoga centers within a 1mile radius of Good Yoga. She found out that the 10 a.m. classes attract a lot of students and she changed her class time accordingly. Good Yoga charges $15 for introductory sessions. “There is a standard pricing for Yoga—some studios in the neighborhood charge higher,” said Foster.

Over the next few years, she and Gonzales would like to purchase the building that hosts the yoga center.

Patrons prepare to enter the Polish and Slavic Center in Greenpoint. (Photo: Brian Eha / The Brooklyn Ink)

Ana Dricdzic doesn’t want her neighborhood to change. The owner of Staropolski Meat Market & Deli, located on Manhattan Avenue — Greenpoint’s main commercial strip — Dricdzic holds forth on the ethnic character of her neighborhood in between phone calls in Polish and warm transactions with customers.

Her small shop is stocked with Polish breads, teas and candies. In a glass display case are heaped links of kielbasa and other meats as well as platters of potato pancakes and cheese blintzes.

“This [is a] Polish area,” she said. And she wants it to stay that way. “American a little bit, Spanish a little bit is okay,” Dricdzic said, referring to the predominantly white twenty- and thirty-somethings who have moved into the neighborhood in recent years, and to the now-sizable Latino population in north Greenpoint, but she doesn’t cater to those demographics.

Dricdzic is a holdout in what was once called Little Poland. Not many years ago, residents say, anyone on the street in Greenpoint was assumed to speak Polish. But now, though many parts of the neighborhood still feel Polish, many of the markers of Polish culture — bakeries, meat markets and restaurants — are gradually disappearing.

The real estate market is seeing a similar demographic shift. Victor Wolski, a broker at Greenpoint Properties Inc., said few people buying homes in the neighborhood today are Polish. The new residents are of various ethnic backgrounds and nationalities and rents are going up because of the influx of what he describes as young urban professionals and creative types.

And the neighborhood has gotten more expensive. Wolski estimates that rents have increased 50 percent in some cases over the last five years. Although this is a boon for some Polish landlords — especially on trendy Franklin Street and the Lorimer Street corridor — other residents feel they are being priced out of the neighborhood. Some retirement-age Poles are selling their Greenpoint homes for a profit and moving on.

According to Wolski and other residents, many Poles have moved away in the last five years — and the exodus seems to be accelerating. Some former Greenpointers have formed new Polish enclaves in cheaper neighborhoods such as Ridgewood and Maspeth in Queens. Others have returned to Poland.

The eclectic tastes of their replacements, many of them young people, are evident in the new boutiques and bars that have sprung up. Among these is Kill Devil Hill, a modern take on the concept of a general store. Opened in 2008, it sells vintage workwear and specialty grooming products as well as 10-cent candy.

In 2008, Justyna Goworowska, a graduate student in geography at the University of Oregon, presented a master’s thesis detailing the “eradication of [Greenpoint’s] distinctive cultural landscape.” Her findings indicated that Poles are being displaced “through expensive housing units, disappearing manufacturing jobs [and] the changing commercial landscape.”

After Poland’s 2004 entrance into the European Union, she wrote, “migrating to the United States for economic reasons ceased to make sense.” With long-time Polish residents leaving for cheaper neighborhoods and few recent immigrants to replace them, Goworowska concluded that “Greenpoint is rapidly transitioning from a Polish ethnic enclave into a hip urban American neighborhood.”

Martin Cyran is well placed to observe the transition. He emigrated with his mother from Poland 10 years ago and works with her at the family restaurant, Happy End Polish Cuisine at 924 Manhattan Ave.

He and his mother lived in Greenpoint for the first five years, then Cyran bought a house in Maspeth, one of the Queens neighborhoods to which former Greenpointers are flocking. His mother stayed behind in Greenpoint. In the years since moving, Cyran says he has seen business at Happy End steadily decline. Their regulars are leaving and the new residents aren’t interested in Polish cuisine.

He regrets that there’s little future for the homemade Polish food he’s proud of, but is resigned to the change. “That’s the rules: if you cannot belong inside, then you got to move out.”

The changes in Greenpoint have been bad for his restaurant, but good for his lifestyle. At 30, Cyran says he spends a lot of time partying in nearby Williamsburg.

“If I had enough money,” he said, “I would buy [a] condo over here.” He dreams of opening a coffee shop with broad appeal when Happy End closes down.

The local restaurant landscape has already reacted to new palates. Across the street from Happy End is the popular Thai Café. A neighborhood institution for the last 15 years, it has since been joined on Manhattan Avenue by three other Thai restaurants, a number that would have been unthinkable five years ago. La Taverna — a nearby Italian restaurant operated by a Hungarian — used to be a Polish bookstore.

One of the three remaining Polish bookstores in Greenpoint is located at 161 Java Street, near the Polish & Slavic Center. On a Monday afternoon it was empty and quiet. Books by Czesław Miłosz, the Polish poet who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, were prominently displayed.

Owner Andrzej Szymanik, once a member of the anti-communist resistance in his homeland, emigrated to the United States in 1981, shortly before martial law was enacted in Poland. A brusque man with short gray hair, he says the Polish flight from Greenpoint is “across the board.” People of all ages are leaving.

In addition to the young workers leaving for Europe in search of better pay and benefits, many political refugees of Szymanik’s generation have chosen to return to the homeland they once fled. Little by little, the culture they brought to Brooklyn is leaving with them.

“They moved back because of the political changes,” Szymanik said, referring to the overthrow of Communism in Poland, “and because also they were involved in [the] opposition, and right now they have a lot of friends who are in government. So they have all those connections because those people who were in [the] opposition movement went to power.”

Szymanik, like Cyran, accepts the changing demographics as inevitable even as he pursues new strategies to stay in business. Because his bookstore is suffering, he now operates a Polish food business, buying from a local wholesaler and shipping all over the country.

“Without the food business, probably I would have to close the bookstore already,” he said. His next project is a gallery and online store of Polish contemporary art attached to the bookstore’s website.

Asked why he doesn’t return to Poland himself, Szymanik said he has put down roots in New York.

“I have family here,” he said. “I have four kids and a house. Everybody’s here. My sister also is here.”

When he visits the old country it is to see his mother, who still lives there.

“I know Poland well enough, so I don’t need to go back.”

More Stories on The Brooklyn Ink:

Brownsville Community Strives to Save Struggling Belmont Avenue With Merchants Association

Red Hook Food Vendors Adjust to New Rules and Changing Faces

Truths in Another Tongue: How Non-Native English Speakers Tackle Proverbs

The 29-year-old chain, based in St. Louis, will have 2,200 square feet on the ground floor and 2,300 square feet on the second floor of the 14-story building.

Panera Bread has 26 locations in Long Island, Queens and Staten Island, several through out New Jersey, but none in Manhattan.

3B entrepreneurs got creative by using little plastic dinosaurs to decorate one of the rooms in their recently opened B&B. (Caitlin Kasunich/The Brooklyn Ink)

By Caitlin Kasunich

Since July 2009, the second floor of 136 Lawrence St. in Downtown Brooklyn has served as a collective house for many young people who move in and out of New York City. They share all of their food and spend much of their time together. They work on various creative arts projects individually, such as singing and freelance writing. They even occasionally organize concerts and dinners in a common area in the house.

With its clean, spacious rooms and hardwood floors, the house resides in a prime location within Brooklyn that has easy access to many of the subway lines that run directly to Manhattan. So when the current group of eight residents, aged 23 to 29, was presented with the opportunity to take over the lease of the third floor in the building last May, they jumped at the chance to combine their talents to start a new business: the group decided to revamp the 1,000-square-foot space and open the 3B Bed-and-Breakfast.

Two of the house residents helped to jumpstart the enterprise. Catherine Lacey, 25, one of the residents and business entrepreneurs, knew the bed-and-breakfast business from working in one in New Zealand. Matthew Keesan, 29, also provided the early financing with some of his savings, which the other residents are helping to pay back, said Lacey.

After working all summer on the B&B, the residents decided to partially open their business on Oct. 1 as they finished up last-minute work on the floor. At that time, travelers could stay in two of its four rooms with a 30 percent discount. On Nov. 15, the B&B then opened all four of its bedrooms, and the residents are also putting final touches on the floor’s lounge and kitchen.

The rooms include two singles, one double and one bunk room. The single rooms cost $120 per night, the double costs $140 and the bunk costs $40. Guests also have Wi-Fi access throughout the B&B and receive a catered breakfast each morning.

The total cost to operate the B&B, including rent and electricity charges, is about $6,700 per month, Lacey added. This cost does not include start-up charges like buying room furnishings and renovating the kitchen.

“There’s really nothing like it in the area,” said Lacey, who first moved into the house six months ago on a sublet. “There are other hotels in the neighborhood. We have a Marriott and a Sheridan. But if you want something that’s a little more unique to the area, then this is where you want to stay.”

Each house resident contributes his or her personal talents to the operation. Karen Holmes, 27, designed and furnished the rooms. Petra Valdimarsdottir, 23, worked on the graphic design for the B&B’s menu. Dave Ferris, 27, made sure that the kitchen followed proper health code standards. Dexter Walcott, 24, is an architecture student who comes in handy when things need fixed.

Additionally, Stephanie Todd, 25, is the book keeper. Cora Courrier, 23, just graduated from Harvard University and helps out with whatever else the other residents need to get done. Lacey handles most of the public relations, and Keesan is in charge of the legal side of things and helps to keep the group organized with spreadsheets. Although the group has a lawyer for all legal matters outside of their understanding, Keesan has been part of a start-up before, so he understands some of these aspects a little better than the others, said Lacey.

But even with the cooperative efforts of the residents, the entire process of putting the B&B together was no easy task. The housemates had to clean up the rooms, wash the linens, paint the walls and re-finish the floors. To advertise the B&B, the group also spread the word through Facebook messages, blogs and e-mails to friends. And to many of the residents’ surprise, people started booking rooms on the first day that the system was launched online.

“I was there all day keeping an eye on it,” said Lacey. “Anytime we got a booking in, we would jump up and down in the living room.”

One of the people who came to stay at 3B was Ursula Weber, a doctoral student from Switzerland who stayed there from mid-October to early November.

“It’s just very relaxing,” said Weber. “People are very friendly, and they take great care of us. They answer every question that we have, and they let us do whatever we want. When you’re traveling in a big city, you want a place to come home to when you’ve been walking around for 20 hours or so.”

Now that the B&B is up-and-running, Lacey said that the group has become more at ease with operating the business.

“I think the first couple of weeks that we were taking people, it just seemed so crazy,” she said. “It’s a lot simpler now. We’re more comfortable.”

And even though Keesan said that the group did not enlist the help of any business outreach organizations in New York to get the venture started, the residents did use the NYC Business Express and New York State’s Online Permit Assistance and Licensing websites throughout the process. Both resources help new business owners to apply for licenses, permits and certificates.

But despite having the aid of these sites, the major obstacle for any new business owner is having enough capital to survive long enough to become successful, said Nancy Carin, executive director of the Business Outreach Center Network in New York City.

“If you’re not able to survive without making a profit for six to 12 months, there’s a much greater chance that you just won’t make it,” she said.

Starting a business with personal funds, however, is actually less risky than taking out a loan for the enterprise, Carin added.

“If you have enough of your own funds, then it’s probably better than taking on debt when you have a monthly outflow of cash that you can use to start paying down on the debt,” she said. “If you have enough money on your own, you can use some additional funds as a kind of safety net. It’s smart to borrow while you still have funds, not when you’re in a pinch.”

While other, more traditional bed-and-breakfasts do exist throughout Brooklyn, including the Garden Green Bed-and-Breakfast on Carlton Avenue and the Saddle Down Bed-and-Breakfast on Washington Avenue, 3B is the first B&B in the borough to be started by a group of communal residents who are seeking to balance out their living expenses.

“Once it’s actually going, it’s not going to be a full-time job for anybody,” Lacey said. “The idea is just to let it subsidize our life down here. We really just want it to be a space where people who are interested in a cooperative way of life can come and learn about it and support it. That’s definitely our foundational principle behind anything we do – whether we are running a business or just here having concerts.”

The closed Alaskan Tanning salon in Bay Ridge (Manuel Rueda/The Brooklyn Ink)

by Manuel Rueda

This summer, the federal government imposed a 10 percent sales tax on indoor tanning that angered salon owners and faithful clients like Snooki from The Jersey Shore.

“I don’t go tanning anymore because Obama put a 10% tax on tanning.” She said on the TV show this summer “McCain would never put a tax on tanning because he’s pale and would probably want to be tan.”

Now as the winter approaches and the demand for tanning wanes –because people have to cover their skin- it is difficult to assess the impact of this peculiar sales tax in Brooklyn and throughout the city.

The Brooklyn Ink spoke to salon owners who said the so-called “tan tax” has scared loads of customers away, while others said it has made no difference whatsoever to their clientele.

But at least five salons have shut down in the city since the tax was first imposed in July.  And salon owners from parts of the city were rents are high have been particularly affected.

In Bay Ridge, businessman Mike Petriuszka recently closed a branch of Alaska Tanning.  Petriuszka owns two more Alaska salons in Brooklyn, but says he was particularly fond of the 86street outfit because in the 1980s he used to work there for minimum wage.

“It’s just not worked for us to keep it open” he said the night before a three man crew dismantled his tanning beds and packed them on the back of a Budget rental-truck.  “The economy hurt me enough over the past three years, but the tax was the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

James Oliver from Beach Bum Tanning says his sales have decreased by 30 percent since the government imposed the sales tax. He recently shut down two of his 13 New York salons, fired five employees and staged a small rally against the tax outside his Chelsea Beach Bum salon.

Surrounded by anti-tan tax placards with messages like “we have the right to tan” Oliver explained that the tax can ad up anywhere from $1 to $7 to the services he offers to each of his clients.

With an estimated 19,000 salons across the country, the tan tax is expected to raise 2.7 billion for public health initiatives over the next ten years.

But ever since the government first talked about taxing indoor tanning last year as part of its health care reform package, tanning representatives cried foul, claiming Congress unfairly singled out their industry.

City Sun Tanning’s Jan Meshon, who shut down one of his two Manhattan branches in September, complains that Congress approved the tax without performing any feasibility studies or without consulting industry representatives.

“The message that goes with this is that –tanning- is so dangerous that we have to have a special tax for this” he says in dismay.

Industry representatives point out that shortly before coming up with the tan tax, Congress had backed out of plans to impose a 5 percent sales tax on botox procedures – the “botax” – that would have raised an estimated $5.8 billion, but could have affected dermatologists who engage in these cosmetic practices.

But despite admitting he is disappointed with the way congress handled this issue, Indoor Tanning Association president John Overtreet, says “it is still too early” to say the tax is bad for business, arguing that a whole year has to pass before its effects can be accurately measured.

In Brooklyn some salons say the tax has made no difference so far.

Nicole Sturiale, a manager at Brooklyn Tan in Bensonhurst said that the tan tax had not affected her business, claiming that her prices are already so low that clients don’t mind paying an extra 10 percent.  “About a year ago, we lowered our prices due to the economy,” she said explaining that a monthly unlimited tanning package –on the most mild machine- that cost $29.99 in 2009, now costs $19.99, plus tax.

The Smart Tan Network, an association that runs a trade magazine and organizes conventions for the industry, recently conducted a poll amongst tanning facility owners, asking them how they expected their businesses to fare in 2011.

Surprisingly it found that in spite of the new tanning tax, 60 percent of respondents expected business to improve when compared to 2010, while 24 percent said it would remain the same.

Joseph Levy, the Vice President of Smart Tan, is optimistic about the future of the industry. “Humanity is turning back to regular, moderate sun exposure and we are a part of that equation” wrote Levy on his organization’s website. “With signs in place of an economic turnaround, the tanning community has excellent players in place to warrant a sunny outlook.”

However, it seems that real estate speculation and increasing rents pose a major challenge for tanning shops in Brooklyn and in New York, even in cases where the tanning tax has not altered demand.

Alaska Tanning’s Mark Petriuszka was paying $12,000 a month for rent at his now defunct 86^th street tanning salon in Bay Ridge.

He now offers free tanning sessions and discounts to his old customers in an attempt to convince them to stay with him at a smaller tanning salon he owns on 3^rd Avenue, a less busy thoroughfare in the same neighborhood were rent costs approximately 40 percent less.

“Of course I dealt with a higher rent,” he says, “That is why I decided I’m going to consolidate, I’m going to move my store to the location on 3^rd and just give a better product.”

Somewhere in the middle distance between the Gowanus Expressway and the polluted Gowanus Bay lies a small factory where a young man carefully tastes a batch of clear white liquid dripping from metal spouts. There is a strong smell of fermented oats in the air.

It’s gin, it’s all legal and it’s the new face of Brooklyn’s craft liquor industry.

Brad Estabrooke, a former financial industry professional, started his Breuckelen Distillery last August, taking advantage of the New York Assembly’s easing of regulations on the business of booze. The name comes from the original Dutch spelling for Brooklyn. Also, “gin has Dutch origins,” he says.

The March 2009 law, commonly referred to as the micro-distilleries act, allows anyone to purchase an A-1 distiller’s license to produce up to 10,000 gallons per year of spirits. The law requires the producers to use ingredients, which generally include corn, rye or wheat grown in New York State.

“The law was passed because there was a need the legislature saw for these micro-distilleries, on the heels of the microbreweries and wineries. They’re looking at it as economic development,” said William Crowley, the New York State Liquor Authority’s director of public and legislative affairs.

The end benefit goes beyond grain consumption and alcohol production especially if one considers the improvement a plant like Estabrooke’s can bring to the sterile warehouse and industrial zone that lies between the Gowanus Expressway and the mouth of the canal.

His spirits distillery is only the second to be licensed in Brooklyn. The first was South Williamsburg´s whisky producing Kings County Distillery. A third is on the way, in North Brooklyn, called New York Distilling Co.

“If there’s more than one it’s better,” said Easterbrook, who already sees tourism value in Brooklyn’s new distillery culture. He’s been approached by tour companies that make visits to local breweries. “It’s like Sonoma, or Napa. If Brooklyn had this great concentration of distilleries, it’s greater for all of us. “

The distillery holds tastings three days a week for $5 a person (bottles of his Breuckelen Gin cost $35). Most of his clientele are visitors from outside the area, undaunted by the expressway construction nearby. He’s even begun to experiment with whiskey tastings, though he doesn’t sell that liquor.

Brad Estabrooke, right, explains his gin ingredients to customer during a tasting last month at the The Green Grape liquor store in Ft. Greene. (Camilo Smith/The Brooklyn Ink)

Bob Lewis, chief marketing representative at the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets, said the increase in distilleries signal a greater move toward the “rebirth of food processing “ not only citywide, but especially in Brooklyn.  “ It’s good economically, it’s good between linkage between Upstate and Downstate,” he said.

“Look at this as an area of importance for the future of the city in terms of its jobs, its employment base, its tax base, and for the potential to source products locally, and process them locally.”

Estabrooke gets most of his raw material from a farmer in Newfield, who sends him huge bags of grains that require a forklift to move around.  With a new masher he recently bought, he can turn out 400 gallons of gin in every 24-hour period.

As he works on streamlining his production, he’s purchased new equipment and hired two Brooklynites to help him meet his increasing demand.

Local and national demand for this Sunset Park-based gin has been climbing. Orders come in from as far as Chicago, but the biggest customer is Dry Dock Wine & Spirits in Red Hook. This nine-month-old liquor shop specializes in carrying local brands.  Specialized liquor stores are another business outgrowth from the craft alcohol boon. Breuckelen Gin was the featured product during a tasting there last month.

“It feels like what the Brooklyn micro brewing trend was 15 years ago,” said store owner Ron Kyle.

This specialization of production using organic materials is the way to possibly build a new industry in the area, as the agriculture department’s Lewis said, “A product might have to be more specialized, more attuned to a particular demographic. But that doesn’t have to be an income demographic, it can be an ethnic demographic. More tailored niches than generalized system.”

Upstate New York has a longer recent history with distilleries. Ralph Erenzo is a cofounder of Tuthilltown Spirits, which produces several types of alcohol. He’s aware of the movement in Brooklyn and sees it as positive not just to his industry, but as part of economic the revitalization benefits.

“When I go to Washington, or I go to Albany, to lobby, I rarely talk about whisky. I talk about economic development, jobs in rural areas, entry level jobs where people can learn a craft, and about keeping small farms in operation. And that’s a different thing than liquor,” he said.

“In Brooklyn for instance, the location of a distillery in what would otherwise be viewed as a deteriorated warehouse neighborhood,” he said,  “could stimulate a great deal of tourism visitor traffic, which would then in turn bring with it other service businesses, like cafes, bars, shops.”

There are benefits to local tax coffers as well, Erenzo says a distillery working at capacity can generate over $1 million in taxes every year.

At The Greene Grape Wine and Spirits liquor shop in Ft. Greene, Estabrooke holds one of his local tastings. A neighborhood shopper Josh Renson, 34, takes a sip from a sample cup. “It has a little more going on than your mass produced gin. A little more flavorful,” he says. He walks out with a bottle.

Still, for Estabrooke and his Sunset Park small gin factory it’s not only about the money and his sales. For now he just wants his small business to survive, and thrive. His goal is to up his output to 100 cases of gin a month, and at some point offer different types of whisky. He dips another finger under the spout of his test batch. “The part I like the most is making the stuff.”

Employment grew 1.4 percent in the first quarter of 2010.  A lot of the 8,6000 new jobs in Brooklyn can be attributed to a hiring spree in the home health care industry, reported CrainsNewYork.com.

“It’s nice that there’s job growth, but most of the growth is concentrated in an industry that is not particularly high paying,” said Martin Kohli, a regional economist.

The Bronx also experienced a job growth in the first quarter, gaining a marginal job increase of 0.7 percent. Manhattan, Staten Island and Queens all experienced a decrease during the same period.

Children were among protesters outside a controversial pawn shop in Crown Heights that is set to open on November 1. (Alexandra Alper/The Brooklyn Ink)

The hit reality TV series, “Pawn Stars,” opens with images of an antique watch, a sword, and a dramatic shot of three men in black.

The show, which premiered last year on the History Channel, has done much to legitimize and even glamorize a business once seen as a front for robbers unloading their goods.

In a newly gentrifying area of Brooklyn, however, a controversy is simmering over the opening of a pawn shop shows that old perceptions die hard. “The Community Pawn Shop” is scheduled to open next week in Crown Heights, in the face of significant opposition from residents.

“It’s really embarrassing for a neighborhood to have something like this, especially one that is working this hard to revitalize itself and support small businesses,” said Dori Kornfeld, Crown Heights resident and member of the Crow Hill Association, a civic action group that is trying to stop the opening of the pawn shop on Park Place and Franklin Avenue.

Echoing the views of the handful of residents who protested in front of the shop two weeks ago, Kornfeld said that pawn shops increase property crime by giving thieves a nearby venue to exchange goods for cash. She also said that high interest rates exploit low-income borrowers.

Eugene Josovits, 40, owner of the new pawn shop, rejects the criticisms as old stereotypes. He says that pawn shops provide loans to the “unbanked”—people with poor credit history or no bank account—and that he helps the police solve crimes through a nationwide database to identify stolen pawned items.

“These people have the wrong idea [about pawn shops],” said Josovits, who came by Saturday to watch 30 or so protesters chant “no pawn shop” across from his store. “They think it is a fence where everyone goes to rob and bring things there,” he said. “Maybe in the 70’s and 80’s, but today it’s a legitimate business, a financial center.”

When someone needs cash, they bring jewelry or electronics to one of Josovits’s three area stores, where he gives them a four-month cash loan at about 20% interest, in keeping with state law. The vast majority of customers pay the interest and collect the pawned item, he says. Only about one in five customers forfeit the item, making it available for retail sale by the pawn shop.

Josovits says he has no incentive to sell to thieves. “There is plenty of legit business out there,” he said. “Why would you want to buy something stolen and then give it back to the cops?”

Officer Lighton Myrie, of the 77^th Precinct, agreed. Pawn shops, he said, “survive off the interest from repeat customers.” Still, he says, “I look at where pawn shops are located, and a lot of high crime places have a pawn shop across the street.”

Police visit all twelve Crown Heights-based pawn shops monthly to check recent transactions with reported thefts. A pawnbroker is penalized if he operates without a license, or is caught with a series of stolen goods.

There are 304 pawn shops in New York City, 54 in Brooklyn, and 13,500 nationwide. The number of New York City pawn shop licenses granted last year was more than twice the number for 2005, according to the City Department of Customer Affairs (DCA).

According to the National Pawn Brokers Association, less than one tenth of 1 percent of pawns involve stolen goods.

Josovits, who has been in the business since 2001, has stores in Bed-Stuy, Canarsie, and East New York. He signed up voluntarily for Leads Online, an Internet database that allows detectives to check barcodes and descriptions of stolen goods with pawned merchandise nationwide. According to DCA, Josovits has only two violations, for not providing a pawn stub and for failing to include a store’s license number in an ad.

Erica McCue, an employee at his Bed-Stuy Community Pawnbroker store, bought gold jewelry from an undercover policeman who claims he told her it was stolen, the New York Post reports. Josovits denies the officer said it was stolen. The police’s internal affairs board is investigating, according to the Post.

Josovits found the Crown Heights location for $1,500 a month. He has made $100,000 in improvements, since signing the 25-year lease, so he will not easily be persuaded to leave.

“I’m hoping these people accept it in the next couple of months,” Josovits said. “Everything will vent out and then they’ll see that the business is run legit and they’ll just come and use it.”

The protesters were not assuaged. “Having lived through the ‘80’s and the crack epidemic and the proliferation of pawn shops that would spring up in communities that were struggling, mostly as a way for people who are doing criminal activities to fence the good that they stole,” said Patrice Elliot, a finance manager at the protest, “There is nothing [the owner] could do to change my mind.”

The opposition began to form in August.

The Crow Hill Association organized a spontaneous protest in September, calling attention to the large, brightly colored sign, which read “Pawn Shop, Cash Loans, We Buy Electronics.”

Josovits took it down.

“They said it was a big eye sore,” said Josovits. “I was trying to work with them. I met with them and they said, “welcome to the community. I thought it was over.” But the protests continued.

Signs at the recent protest read, “the Pawn shop is illegal,” in reference to the Association’s recent discovery that the mixed business-residential zoning prohibits pawn shops. Josovits says he will talk to his lawyer.

While the signs reflect the zoning issue, many of the arguments are ideological. “[Pawns] are really predatory loans which do nothing to create wealth or help people get anywhere,” said Kornfeld.

Josovits claims he helps the community. “If you walk into a bank today and tell a teller you need 1,000 dollars…and you have no credit, no bank account, no nothing,” said Josovits. “Where are you going to go?”

But the protesters—50 percent of whom were white, in a neighborhood that is almost 75 percent black–aren’t Josovits’s most likely customers. Franklin Avenue borders the more upscale Prospect Heights neighborhood, and is slowly gentrifying. While crime is still high—at least one murder on or adjacent to Franklin Avenue in Crown Heights has occurred each year since 2003—gourmet coffee shops and organic food markets are cropping up. Eight-unit brownstones wedged between African Hair braiding shops and liquor stores are selling for a million dollars, and educated, white 20-somethings in skinny jeans and plaid shirts are almost as numerous as blacks.

“They are trying to make this [street] yuppy, but there are still shootings here, there is still crime, and there is a police tower over at Lincoln Place,” said Josovits.

Officer Myrie agreed, arguing the community is more concerned with the pawn shop image than with the increase in crime it might provoke. “A lot of these people are opposed to it because they have seen the community at its worst,” he said. “It is up and coming, with new stores, and new businesses. I’m partial to their sentiments.”

Read more about Brooklyn businesses:

Brooklyn gets a Barney’s

Letter From Williamsburg: Winemaking 101

Bay Ridge Hookah Trend Catches Fire

Long before turning her eye toward fashion, Karen Patwa became well acquainted with lines, curves and bodies in motion as a physics major at Bryn Mawr University. She discovered her love for clothing design, through a course she took in costume design; there, her professor suggested she try her hand at fashion. Upon graduating, she returned to New York, took her professor’s advice and signed up for a design class at the Fashion Institute of Technology.

Karen Patwa, Dangerous Mathematicians

Though she fell in love with the art, she became disenchanted with the industry. Its preoccupation with trends, as opposed to a focus on timeless and classic designs, led her to forsake the world of haute couture. Instead, she followed the other half of her heart, teaching math and physics. Years later, she began styling clothes for herself. Her unique sense of style caught the eyes of her friends and acquaintances, who began taking notice of what she was wearing. As she filled the requests that came in, her reputation grew. Eventually, demand for her services reached a tipping point and Patwa was forced to choose whether to continue teaching or begin a full-time career in fashion. Thus, Dangerous Mathematicians, her custom-design clothing store, was born – on Manhattan’s Lower East Side for the past four years, but now in Boerum Hill. Two weeks ago, Patwa opened her doors at 394 Atlantic Avenue.

Something of an anti-fashionista, Patwa is looking to revolutionize the perception of the industry. “Fashion is a myth; what I’m trying to do is democratize fashion,” Patwa says. A Brooklyn native, Patwa says the increased floor space in Boerum Hill gives her more room to custom fit clients while still being able to make off-the-rack sales.

“Women are dangerous in whatever way they choose to be and they are mathematicians because they’re calculated,” said Patwa, describing the meaning behind her company’s enigmatic name. She also feels her fashion sense brings an element of danger by defying the exclusivity normally reserved for A-listers and glammed-out runway models. “So if you’re not in those proportions, you don’t look good in that clothing,” she said. “You just have to have somebody employing those lines and curves in a way that works with your body.”

Dangerous Mathematicians, located on 394 Atlantic Avenue (Photo by Jehangir Irani/The Brooklyn Ink)

Patwa’s style can only be described as a unique type of ballroom fetish. The dresses are long, chic, and sophisticated. But the back and shoulder lacing, along with her corset belts, give them an erotic touch, without being sensationalistic. Though most of her clothing is geared toward women, men are starting to notice her talents, too. According to Patwa, sales of men’s suits, once negligible, have skyrocketed in the past six months and now comprise 50 percent of her total suit sales. She attributes the rise to her competitive prices (custom-designed two-piece suits start at $700) and distinctive style. “Come directly to me and I will design exactly what you want,” she said. “If you want a suit in silk paisley, that’s styled for men, you can get one. If you want (a suit in) matte PVC, you can get it.”

Noah Landow owns the aforementioned matte PVC suit. Already the owner of two bespoken suits, Landow wanted his third suit to be a lot less practical. “I expect to wear the suit to a wide range of fun parties, gatherings and events,” he said.

Courtney Vowels, a Seattle resident originally from Brooklyn, reached out to Patwa to design her wedding dress; her theme was authenticity and simplicity. “I didn’t want a wedding dress,” said Vowels. What she wanted was an elegant dress for all occasions that she could wear to her wedding. One face-to-face consultation was all Patwa needed to help her walk down the aisle in a hand-tailored silk dress. From there, she mailed Vowels fabric samples and even a demo-dress crafted to her measurements. Patwa walked her through the whole pinning process and helped her make all the size adjustments over the phone, after the dress arrived. When the dress came back, it fit perfectly, needing no additional alteration. “And, come on, the cute little label in my wedding dress says ‘Dangerous Mathematicians,’” said Vowels. “What more could you want?”

Courtney Vowels (center) on her wedding day (Photo by Star Davis)

A Ukulele for sale at Main Drag, a music store in Williamsburg. (Amanda Julius/The Brooklyn Ink)

By Amanda Julius

In all corners of the borough ukuleles are flying off music store shelves faster than you can say Tiny Tim, leaving bemused salesmen wondering why.

Explanations for this wave of increasing sales are manifold, ranging from recession-chic to the death of rock n’ roll. The spike in ukulele popularity comes after a steady incline that has snowballed in recent months, sending sales in some stores to 4 or 5 times where they stood this time last year. At Williamsburg’s Main Drag, on Wythe Avenue, ukulele sales leapt from $519.21 per month to $1960.45 from October 2008 to October 2009, with growth also recorded in later months. Sam Ash in Flatbush estimates they have sold 80 percent more ukuleles in the past few months than in recent years, although exact sales figures are not available. Stores in Mill Basin, Midwood, and Boerum Hill report similar statistics.

Brooklyn is part of a global trend, according to Mike Upton, the owner of Kala ukulele company in California. Sales at Kala, one of the ukulele world’s biggest brands, were up 70% in 2009, and look set to rise again in 2010. “I’ve had this company for 5 years and been playing for over 10 years,” Upton said. “Now it’s become more on the radar for a general audience, its come out of the underground. New York is experiencing its own kind of little movement.”

In early December, an 11-hour performance of The Beatles’ entire back catalogue at Williamsburg’s Brooklyn Bowl attracted close to 3,000 fans who descended on the neighborhood en masse, leaving cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon and discarded grass skirts in their wake. In true Williamsburg style, the performance was billed as a benefit for Warren Buffet, the richest man in the world.

Not all interest has been ironic, however, and for the small ukulele economy it has meant big business. In Manhattan, the last week of January was the busiest and most profitable in the history of the New York Ukulele School in Midtown, and last month’s lessons were up 15 percent on January 2009. After beginning uke lessons in January to accommodate growing demand, Shane Chapman of the Brooklyn Guitar School, on 4th Avenue, has only one complaint: his students can’t get their hands on enough ukuleles. They are often sold out at the nearby Brooklyn Guitar Center.

Experts point to three possibilities for this sudden wave of interest. Ken Bari Murray, who will curate New York City’s Uke Fest in May, and Mark Michaels, owner of the New York Ukulele School, believe Japanese guitarist Jake Shimabukuro set the trend in motion 3 years ago. “You don’t know anything about ukulele popularity unless you know about Shimabukuro,” said Murray.

When Shimabukuro took his ukulele to Central Park to pay tribute to fallen Beatle George Harrison in the summer of 2006, the recording he later posted online went viral, pushing up ukulele sales for the first time in 70 years. Shimabukuro’s influence goes some way to explaining the distant roots of the recent boom, but as the sales figures show, it is the past four or five months that have seen the most rapid growth even within that 3-year period. The google trend map for the search term ‘ukulele’ shows that there has been a steady increase in search volume since Shimabukuro’s uke debut, but significant jumps in 2009 suggest other influences at work.

The economy is also a convincing explanation, as the uke’s popularity coincides with the recession, and the 1930s show a precedent for this trend. Ukulele prices start at just under $50, making the instrument very affordable for those looking to save a buck, and its reputation as a less serious alternative to the guitar make it a popular pick-me-up. Recession scrimping helped raise the ukulele to its peak popularity in the 1930s, when bluegrass took off, and for many the instrument is still associated with that period. At the same time, the profile of folk music has grown rapidly in the past few years, edging the traditional rock n’ roll instruments out of the limelight for new players.

According to Upton, the ukulele fits the recession perfectly. “It’s just very inexpensive,” he said. “You can spend under $100 and have a quality instrument.” Kala has changed its marketing strategy to capitalize on the spurt in sales in tandem with the recession. “We’re trying to get the ukulele taught in schools, we’re doing a big push,” he said. “Schools have had budget cuts and they’re looking to cut costs, the ukulele is a perfect instrument for that.”

The ukulele is “depression-friendly,” agreed Park Slope musician Ellia Bisker, who runs a burlesque-themed ukulele night in Brooklyn’s Jalopy Theater. “There’s even a joke from that era about being so poor you’re paying for your ukulele on the installment plan.”

Even Warren Buffet bears out this explanation. In an interview he gave to the organizers of his Brooklyn benefit, he offered his take on the uke’s connection to the recession.

“As soon as the stimulus fails and the tax cuts fail,” he said, “the ukulele will make an appearance.” It already has.