lena dunham

Lena Dunham—2012 BHB Top 10 honoree and creator, star, writer, et al, of HBO’s “Girls”—may lead a quiet existence at her Mansion House digs in Brooklyn Heights, but apparently she’s having such an impact on pop culture that a boom is taking place in once-sleepy Greenpoint, Brooklyn, the setting of the hipster series.

Stories have appeared in both The Real Deal and Crain’s New York Business over the past few weeks about the impact of Dunham’s hit show on the nabe. The former notes, “Exposure has boosted the neighborhood’s rental market,” quoting David Behin of brokerage MNS: “We get more and more calls there for rentals every day,” while the residential sales market is also seeing an uptick.

It doesn’t hurt that the area is seeing “a slew of new residential buildings, including two massive rental projects,” with plans for two more large rez developments in the works.

Crain’s, meanwhile, documents the Dunham effect via an increase in foot traffic, focused around coffee joint Café Grumpy—where Dunham’s character Hannah Horvath works: “The hit HBO show is boosting foot traffic on Manhattan and Nassau avenues and Franklin Street, Greenpoint’s main drags, and pumping cash into the local economy. (In addition) some longtime residents fear it is also drawing more people into the neighborhood and emboldening more landlords to boost rents.”

Crain’s continues, “Like it or not, what’s undeniable is that images of Greenpoint’s shops, restaurants, streets and people beamed into millions of homes around the globe are having an impact on the area that was once primarily known for its large Polish population.”

In Brooklyn Heights, meanwhile, our slew of celeb residents—including Paul Giamati, Björk, Nate Silver and various writers and artists—perhaps offers the opposite effect, providing a quiet refuge for name brands, where they can blend in with the overall fabric of the nabe. Doesn’t that make Heightsters the true hipsters, eh?

Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/57110

Brooklyn Heights’ resident and actor, director, executive producer, writer and creator of HBO’s “Girls” Lena Dunham sold her narrative “Not That Kind Of Girl,” in October to Random House for $3.7 million based on the strength of an illustrated 66-page proposal.

The book, packed with “frank and funny advice on everything from sex to eating to traveling to work,” is previewed on Gawker, which notes that the proposal, by itself, is worth about $56,000 a page.

Dunham, 26, proposed to structure the book as an advice tome in the tradition of Helen Gurley Brown’s “Having It All.” When her proposal was first announced in October, “Not That Kind of Girl: Advice by Lena Dunham” had a starting auction price of $1 million. “Girls,” meanwhile, launches its second season on HBO in January. Check out details at L Magazine.

Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/52692

Brooklyn Heights’ rez and HBO’s “Girls” creator Lena Dunham is among more than a dozen celebs who took to their webcams and lip-synced Lesley Gore’s 1964 hit “You Don’t Own Me” in a pointed political anti-Mitt Romney PSA. Spinner.ca notes, “The lip-syncing is interspersed with messages about (Presidential hopeful) Romney and the Republican Party’s plans to defund Planned Parenthood and overturn Roe vs. Wade, among other threats to women’s rights.”

Others participating in the clip that’s housed at Vimeo and has become a webbie sensation include Carrie Brownstein, Miranda July, Karen Elson, Leah Siegel, Alia Shawkat, Zoe Kravitz—and Gore herself, who says in a narrative after the video, “I recorded ‘You Don’t Own Me’ in 1964 and it’s hard for me to believe we’re still fighting for the same things we were then. Yes, ladies, we’ve got to come together, get out there and vote, and protect our bodies. They’re ours. Please vote.”

Check out the full video below the jump.

Source: Brooklyn Heights Blog
http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/49872