New to the neighborhood.

Welcome!

I like the laundry on St. Marks (between Franklin and Classon, closer to Classon). It's pretty new; the people are really sweet. I drop off my laundry, which is always done in a couple of hours and is cheaper than other services I've tried around here. Avoid Bubbleworks for laundry.

Search around this forum for other news and advice. There's a lot on here already.

That whole factory complex on the Franklin Avenue side of the shuttle tracks between Bergen and Dean started out as a brewery, which folded in 1913 or 1914. The buildings have been used for various other things since, with the one at 893 Bergen getting a nice little write up in the NYT two years ago: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/10/nyregion/10citywide.html?_r=1&n=Top/Reference/Times Topics/Subjects/B/Buildings (Structures).

On the Dean Street side, the old brewery ice house is now green condos (http://greenhomenyc.org/whatisgreenbuilding/bldgs?id=1). I'm going to go ahead admit that I'm a history dork and was interested enough in this sort of stuff to start blogging about it when I arrived last summer. Here's a post about the brewery complex (http://ilovefranklinave.blogspot.com/2008/11/can-we-bring-it-back-to-life-as-brewpub.html).

I too use the laundry on St. Marks--they've got clean new machines and it's never too packed. The only drawback is that they're not open that late (last wash is at 8:30). The one on Franklin and Park is open later (11:30, I think).

There was a good thread about local food pretty recently, if you scroll down. Also, since it's restaurant week, you can get a ton of food (two big meals) for 23 bucks at Bombay Masala and Bristen's, both on Franklin. I'm also partial to the pizza at A Slice of Brooklyn (Propsect and Franklin).