I am definitely a creature of habit, some good, some bad, and some worse. This is one of my better ones. Pretty much stop here every day on my way to the studio for caffeine. They brew up stumptown and always see someone I know from the neighborhood. When I get to the front of the line there is already a large coffee ready for me.

In 1994 Megan Kinney opened her first MEG shop in NYC’s East Village. Her locally manufactured, independently-owned fashion label is designed and operated exclusively by women, and sales often go to support causes that affect the lives of women and girls here at home and also abroad. The shop on N 6th Street in Williamsburg, also serves as Meg’s design studio, so patterns for future garments hang along side current collections—giving the space the warmth and appeal of an artists’ workshop. And it’s not uncommon to discover Meg, a ray of Brooklyn-sunshine, herself working away or chatting with her adoring customers. MEG’s enthusiastic staff will always go to great lengths to make you feel like you’re buying a custom garment. Their trained eyes make certain that every seam sits in just the right place or off to their tailor it goes—and POOF! suddenly you have a little taste of local couture in your closet.

XXXI (‘Thirty-One’) is ❶ a mixed-use community space for designers (and others) to exhibit, teach, and discuss self-initiated work; ❷ a shared studio space; ❸ a residency for designers; and ❹ an online (and sometimes physical) store. It purposefully lives outside (or against) the constraints of the city it exists in and traditional commercial practice to ask what design can do when its goal is not money.

The Brooklyn Museum is a great place to visit for contemporary and historical exhibitions, showcasing a range of international and local artists as well as its socially engaging and creative program it also hosts a party on the first Friday of every month. Its a great place to see performances (like these two cool cats) and mingle with the locals in the neighbourhood as well as art enthusiasts who come from afar to get down together and party in between the Rodin sculptures.

I took this image looking straight up at the barrel-vaulted ceiling which is decorated with constellations. The more prominent stars are lit up by LEDs. This space is one of the most magical in the city. According to legend, the sky was intentionally inverted to show how it would appear from God’s point of view from beyond the celestial sphere.