Worked from home most of the week with the steady soundtrack of construction in every direction. Seems like every street has contractors trucks. Stopped into Mazzone's on Monday for basil and rosemary plants and found the racks picked clean-everyone was planting last weekend. Walked the doggo near the Carroll Street Bridge. It's getting close.

Now Open / Coming Soon — Bagels and pho on Smith, a worker-owned bakery on Atlantic, the 1930s diner returns to Clinton

The Big Story — Rooftop Films turns 30 at the Old American Can Factory

Things to Do — Comedy at Bell House, Powerhouse community day, Tower Show closing weekend

The Local — Halyards, 15 years on 3rd Avenue, built by hand by a London carpenter

Development Watch — Bergen Brooklyn nearing sellout, 325 Bond opens its lottery

Quick Hits — SweetTalk closes, tintype portraits, Other Half × Junior's

Bagels Land at 142 Smith
Grabstein's Bagels
142 Smith Street, Boerum Hill
Now Open
A new bagel shop has set up near Smith and Bergen, hand-rolling and kettle-boiling each morning. The vibe leans old-school deli, with house spreads, smoked fish, and a small breakfast menu. Worth the stop if you're in the area.

Pho Rainbow Soft Opens Across the Street
Pho Rainbow
145 Smith Street, Cobble Hill
Soft Opening This Week
A new Vietnamese spot is testing the waters at 145 Smith, with pho, banh mi, rice plates, and bubble tea. Soft opening means hours and menu may shift in the early days. We'll keep an eye on it.

A Worker-Owned Bakery Opens on Atlantic
Sea & Soil Co-op
388 Atlantic Avenue, Boerum Hill
Now Open
Sea & Soil is a worker-owned cooperative bakery that opened on Atlantic Ave in late April, serving naturally leavened breads, pastries, $3 cookies, and $5 brownies on a sliding-scale model. Espresso, beer, and wine are coming next. Two weeks in and they say the crowds have been good to them.

The Diner Returns to Clinton Street
Dinah
200 Clinton Street, Cobble Hill
Soft Opening Underway · Full Service Coming Soon
The space at 200 Clinton has spent years as Atlantic Bagel. Owner Ina is now reimagining it as Dinah, a modern take on a 1930s diner: hand-rolled bagels, coffee, guest chef pop-ups, and community events while the team finalizes regular service. Same address, new vision.

Rooftop Films
Old American Can Factory, 232 3rd Street

Rooftop Films turns 30 this summer. Three decades of bringing independent cinema outdoors across all five boroughs, onto rooftops, into parks, onto waterfronts, and yes, into cemeteries. The whole operation runs out of the Old American Can Factory on 3rd Street, where Rooftop has been headquartered since 2003.

That's 20+ years of running The Rooftop Films Summer Series, one of the country's largest outdoor independent film showcases, from a building a lot of us walk past every day.

"Rooftop's 30th season is truly a milestone achievement," says Madeline Chandler, the nonprofit's Volunteer and Local Partnerships Coordinator. She mentions a longtime patron who told her they know it's summer in the city when they see the Rooftop tents go up at Fort Greene. Thirty summers of figuring out what works.

Chandler says Gowanus has shaped Rooftop as much as Rooftop has shaped the neighborhood. "It feels like we're all in this together," she says, "invested together in making it a functional and creative community." This summer, the team will host at least three Summer Series screenings on the Can Factory roof itself, the program's home base.

For anyone who's never been, Chandler describes the experience as "community immersion. Waiting for the sun to go down while watching a band play in a cool location around the city." Hard to argue. The summer schedule does the rest.

The 30th season opens publicly Friday, May 15 at Green-Wood Cemetery. Before that, Rooftop is asking the city it grew up in to help fund what comes next. Their Kickstarter, titled 30 Years of Magic Under the Stars, runs through Monday. The framing on their about page is the best pitch we could write: "We don't screen in theaters – we screen in communities." Thirty years of that has kept 80% of their programming free, supported more than 2,750 filmmakers, and helped launch the careers of voices like Lee Isaac Chung (Minari), Taika Waititi (Jojo Rabbit), and Benh Zeitlin (Beasts of the Southern Wild). A $50 backing gets you in the door Tuesday at the Can Factory, where the 30th season officially kicks off. If you've been to a Rooftop screening, you already know what they've built. If you haven't, this is a good week to find out, and a good week to chip in.

Sorry! with Zach Schiffman & Rachel Coster at Bell House
149 7th Street, Gowanus
Sat May 9 · 7pm · from $27
A live taping of the apology-themed comedy podcast that Schiffman and Coster have been touring through the country. Sharp crowd work and a format loose enough to handle whatever happens in the room. Tickets still available as of press time.

Are You Single? Mingle at Littlefield
635 Sackett Street, Gowanus
Sat May 9
A singles mingle. Casual format, no icebreakers required, drinks at the bar. Work it baby.

Josh Sharp: An Hour of Crowd Work in the Round at Bell House
149 7th Street, Gowanus
Sun May 10 · 3:30pm · from $38
Sharp earned a writing room reputation before turning to live performance. An hour, no script, the audience on three sides. Crowd work in the round means there's no row to hide in. Its a matinee, which is its own kind of gamble.

The Nursery: HAAi All Day Long at Public Records
233 Butler Street, Gowanus
Sun May 10 · from $21.63
Australian-born, London-based producer HAAi takes the booth from open to close. Heavy on breakbeats and house, the kind of long-form set that earns the all-day billing. The Nursery is Public Records' open-air Sunday series, now in its fourth season.

The Tower Show Closing Weekend at Union Channel
51 9th Street, Gowanus
Sat–Sun May 9-10 · 12–6pm · FREE
Just two weekends left to see Arts Gowanus' fifth annual Tower Show before it comes down. Three hundred-plus local artists filling the Union Channel space with paintings, sculpture, and installation work. Two weekends, then it's gone.

The Moth StorySLAM at Bell House
149 7th Street, Gowanus
Mon May 11 · 8pm · from $33
Five-minute true stories on a theme announced at the door. Audience volunteers do the judging. The Moth's been running this format at Bell House for years. Anyone brave enough can put their name in the hat.

Powerhouse Arts Community Day
322 3rd Avenue, Gowanus
Sat May 16 · 11am–5pm · FREE
Powerhouse Arts opens all three floors to the public. Hands-on workshops with PHA Print, Ceramics, and Public Arts shops, plus partner organizations including Arts Gowanus, Textile Arts Center, and Van Alen Institute. The new café is open. Free admission, please RSVP.

A Drinking Game NYC: Shrek at Bell House
149 7th Street, Gowanus
Fri May 15 · 7:30pm
The recurring Bell House series turns a movie into a drinking game with a live host calling shots from the stage. This installment is Shrek, which writes itself.

The Patterns Gala: Welcome to Venice at Union Channel
51 9th Street, Gowanus
Thu May 21 · 6–9:30pm · ticketed
Arts Gowanus' annual benefit gala goes Venetian this year. Patterned outfits encouraged, costumes welcome, art auction, food from neighborhood restaurants, music. The fundraiser that pays for the year of programming everything else they do depends on, including the Tower Show.

The Nursery Season 4 at Public Records
233 Butler Street, Gowanus
Sundays through Oct 11
The all-day Sunday party returns for a fourth season. Different DJs, different vibes, the back patio open when the weather cooperates.

Halyards
406 3rd Avenue, Gowanus
Mon–Fri 4pm–2am · Sat–Sun 2pm–close

Edward Colley is a London-born carpenter with two woodshops in the neighborhood. In late 2010 he wanted a place to unwind after a long day of work before heading home to his wife and three kids in Carroll Gardens. The problem was that no such place existed within walking distance, so he signed a lease and built one.

The space at 406 3rd Avenue had been Jake's Deli. Colley signed the lease October 1, 2010, gutted the place, and rebuilt it himself in three months. The walls got tweedish brown paper. The molding went navy blue. Artwork from South Africa, where most of his relatives live, went up around the room. He built the bar top with his own two hands and put a typewriter on a long table near the window so passersby could leave notes. He named it Halyards, after the ropes used to hoist sails and flags on sailboats.

The drinks ethos is built around what Colley actually wanted from a bar. A dozen or so carefully selected bottles under a big beat-up mirror. Good solid beers and good solid whiskeys. No appletinis, no overscripted cocktails, no menu the size of a paperback. The kind of bar where the bartender pours what's good and not what's trending.

Halyards became an early haven for Gowanus's artsy contingent. Colley's musician and artist friends already lived and worked in the neighborhood, and they needed a place like this. Programming filled in around the bar over time. Weekly comedy shows including Bitches Brew, which TimeOut once named one of the city's Top 5 Free Activities. Pool. Darts. A back room for private parties. Outdoor seating when the weather cooperates. The toasted cheese sandwiches make the whole place smell like comfort.

Fifteen years in, Halyards is exactly what Colley said he wanted from the start. An oasis among the gritty Gowanus industrial streets. A place for artists, musicians, and explorers to breathe. Built by a carpenter, run on his terms, and shaped by everyone who walked in and decided to stay.

Bergen Brooklyn Crosses 70% Sold
The Frida Escobedo-designed condo with Workstead interiors at 323 Bergen Street has now sold roughly 70% of its units. Developed by Avdoo & Partners, Bergen Brooklyn has been one of the higher-profile design-led projects on this side of the canal.

325 Bond Street Opens Its Affordable Lottery
A new nine-story, 179-unit mixed-use building at 325 Bond Street from Rabsky Group, designed by Hamish Whitefield Architects, has launched its housing lottery on NYC Housing Connect. 153 of the units are available at 130% of area median income, with eligible household incomes ranging from $34,766 to $192,500. Studios start at $903 a month. Applications are due June 8, 2026.

Tintype Portraits Pop Up at St. Lydia's This Saturday
A traveling tintype photography session lands at 304 Bond Street (St. Lydia's) on Saturday May 9. The setup uses 1800s-era process: real silver, hand-poured chemistry, a 4×5 metal plate you take home in 20 minutes. $125, advance booking required via @cafecito_social.

Other Half Pours Junior's Cheesecake Cans at the Centre Street Taproom
Other Half Brewing, has dropped four collab beers with Brooklyn cheesecake institution Junior's: an egg cream milk stout, a strawberry oat cream IPA, a black-and-white-cookie cream ale, and a key lime cheesecake sour. All four are pouring at the taproom and available in cans.

SweetTalk to Close on Third Ave by End of August
The third-wave coffee and natural wine spot at 457 Third Avenue (formerly Bar Tano) is closing this summer. The owners say they're hoping to relaunch elsewhere in Brooklyn. More on Instagram.

Spring is short, the patios are open, and a rooftop is about to start showing movies. Make a plan.
See you next Saturday.
The Gowanaut
[email protected]