Battle Over the Brooklyn Flea Goes to the Religion PlaceThe real nannies of Park Slope, Roosevelt Island’s Animal House potential, the great Fort Greene flea smackdown, and a few bits more in our (whew!) week’s-end hood-scanner.
neighborhood watch
Chelsea Hotel Bars Right to Peaceably AssembleIllegal and blatant fruit stands in Brooklyn Heights, Donatella in the Clock Tower building, and maybe even rats on a beach (awesome potential metal-band name, right?) in Staten Island: That wackness and more, in today’s neighborhood report.
neighborhood watch
Queens: Hollywood East?What has today’s boroughs report got for you? A rash of stabbings in Billyburg, expanding movie studios in Astoria and Long Island City, and much (well, a bit) more!
Scaffolding Already Up for Giant Waterfall SculpturesPesky squirrels in Astoria, a not-dead-yet beaver in the Bronx, and a baby born in the Port Authority. Furry little creatures abound in our daily boroughs report!
neighborhood watch
Queens Children Face Giant ‘Dagger’Bronx-ites don’t like their hoods, a councilman doesn’t like plans for a power plant in Astoria, and everyone, it seems, doesn’t like the Chelsea Hotel’s manager, so they’re glad he’s leaving. Even more acrimony in our full daily boroughs report!
neighborhood watch
Please Have Sex With My Dog in WilliamsburgAstoria: Voters here should be proud of Councilman Peter Vallone for protecting them against the hordes of parachute jumpers in the city. [NYS]
Carroll Gardens: The MTA was removing asbestos from the Carroll Street subway station all weekend but didn’t bother to notify the neighbors or even close the hazmat-filled dumpster. [Gowanus Lounge]
Clinton Hill: The health store at 478 Myrtle is perhaps overly ambitious: The grand opening sign is up, but the shelves are bare. [Clinton Hill Blog]
East Village: Does the MTA’s fare hike improve service? Let’s ask the eight buses lined up on First Avenue this morning, all trying to stop at 14th Street. [East Village Idiot]
Morningside Heights: The buds are just beginning on the cherry trees up here. We’re almost out of this wretched season. [Weblicist of Manhattan]
West Midwood: A new rendering for a Brooklyn College dorm is out, and it doesn’t look at all like the previous one.[Brooklyn Junction]
Williamsburg: Beneficent owner is posting flyers to get his Highland Western terrier laid. [New York Shitty]
neighborhood watch
Ivy League Grad Will Rub Your Shoulders, Write Your BiographyAstoria: Councilman Vallone, if you thought you could just put that preconstructed, toxin-belching smokestack there on 37th Street and nobody would notice, you were sadly mistaken. Oh, and “you’re slowly turning the area into a ghetto,” too, by the way. [Queens Crap]
Carroll Gardens: If you give this “Ivy-educated” author, psychologist, educator, and editor a free place to live, he (she?) will be your shrink and write your memoir. Yeah, we’ve heard that one before. [Pardon Me for Asking]
Harlem: They’re standing by original funk-soul brother Bill Clinton up here, especially with that Obama being “a nice white middle-class guy.” Ouch! [NYT]
neighborhood watch
10 Jay to Get Five More StoriesAstoria: If a park designated as a “sitting area” has nowhere to sit, is that kind of like if a tree fell in the forest in that park — if there were a forest there — and no one heard it? Is it really a sitting area at all? Or even a forest or a park? Think about it. [Queens Crap]
Bushwick: Get your knives out, the Argentines are coming! Uh, your steak knives, that is, because they make great steaks. Get it? [BushwickBK]
Dumbo: That landmark building at 10 Jay Street where the raves used to be held in the early aughts? Those aren’t cabanas going on the roof — it’s added five stories! Is it going residential? [DumboNYC]
neighborhood watch
Beware the Castle AstoriaAstoria: People who live in this building get their very own Rapunzel balcony in their very own profoundly ugly castle. Call this style Middle Ages middlebrow. [OuterB via Curbed]
Bushwick: This cancer survivor who runs the music joint Goodbye Blue Monday is a cool dude. But when he says you could toss a cat in any direction around here and hit a building owned by his landlord, we hope he doesn’t mean that cute kitty he’s holding in the photo. [amNY]
Harlem: Guess which Manhattan neighborhood didn’t make it onto this (clever but not quite accurate, given gentrification) “White Folks’ Map of the NYC Subway System”? [Gothamist]
neighborhood watch
A Chabad BlogsAstoria: Hm, if we get on the list now, can we make it into this de-gorgeous affordable housing complex for the elder set by the time we’re 65? If our income stays where it is now, we know we’ll qualify. [OuterB]
Crown Heights: The Chabad Orthodox sect here has a totally pimped-out ride memorializing the late, great Rebbe Schneerson. And did you know they also have their own blog? They’re so now! [Curbed]
Harlem: At P.S. 161 on Convent Ave., the teachers park on the sidewalks! Do they think they can get away with this just because they make subsistence wages? We think not. [Streetsblog]
neighborhood watch
A Cappella, Applebee’s Change the Face of AstoriaAstoria: This blogger doesn’t know which new arrival to the neighborhood is worse: the Broadway chorus-boy gays or the Applebee’s. [Manhattan Offender]
Bay Ridge: They’re gonna move the ugly-ass Gowanus Expressway onto a sleek cable suspension roadway and fill in the old area with emerald parkland! Well, wouldn’t it be pretty to think so. [NYDN
Cobble Hill: A developer wants to build townhouses on the empty land surrounding the pretty old Lamm Building on Amity Street, but locals object because the new houses wouldn’t face the street and leave room for backyards like all the other houses. Tense. [Brownstoner]
neighborhood watch
Coney Island: The New Blackpool, England?Astoria: Everyone’s all excited about this new apartment building, but doesn’t it kind of look like a seventies computer or TV set? [OuterB]
Brooklyn Heights: Now that Norman Mailer’s dead, the hood’s most famous resident could well be right-wing scribe Peggy Noonan. How depressing. [Brooklyn Heights Blog]
Coney Island: If new visions for the amusement zone ever take hold, it may end up looking something like … Blackpool, England! Check out that twister coaster beside the tram. [Kinetic Carnival]
neighborhood watch
Gentrifying Ditmas Park: The Move That Dare Not Speak Its NameAstoria: Graffiti gives this not-even-moved-into-yet new building “a cozy, ‘lived-in’ feel.” [Curbed]
Clinton Hill: Hipsters turned breeders will learn this weekend how to replace skateboards with infants as their top new accessory. [Still Hip Brooklyn via A Child Grows in Brooklyn]
Ditmas Park: The hood’s pioneering yups preen over their new cafés and shops but balk at charges of gentrification. You can’t have it both ways, people! [Ditmas Park Blog]
neighborhood watch
Astroland: Now in the City’s Own Flipper HandsAstoria: Miss Heather from Newyorkshitty gets back to what she does best: poop art. [Newyorkshitty]
The BQE: Tracks from Sufjan Stevens’s homage to the venerable expressway are online! [Vulture via Hypeful]
Coney Island The city will save Astroland’s land (as a park) by taking it away from Thor, thus saving the amusement park! Yay! Except, oh wait, what does the city know about running a freak show? Don’t answer that question. [Curbed]
neighborhood watch
Fishing in the Gowanus Canal: Yeah, They Do It. What?Astoria: Boy, Pete Hamill’s writer bro Dennis sure loves the park here. Perhaps just a few hundred words more than necessary? [NYDN via Queens Crap]
Bushwick: Horny gay gentrifiers, listen up. That hot local papi you just took home may agree to tie you up … but only to steal your Gucci watch. [NYP via BushwickBK]
Gowanus: They’re fishing bluefish out of the toxic Gowanus Canal … and eating them! Ew, that’s just naasty! [Gowanus Lounge]
neighborhood watch
Miranda, Steve, and Brady Live in Clinton Hill?Astoria: The Slurpee machine has already broken down at the new 7-Eleven. (Oops, was that supposed to be a Grub Street item?) [Joey in Astoria]
Clinton Hill: Is this really the brownstone they’re using as Miranda and Steve’s place for the Sex and the City movie? [Clinton Hill Blog]
Greenpoint: Once the hood was full of movie houses and low on banks. Now there are too many banks and no movie houses. [Newyorkshitty]
neighborhood watch
‘Post’ Suspiciously Favorable of AstoriaAstoria: Which major Astoria developer paid the Post for this long-form blow job extolling the virtues of the vibrant hood? [NYP via Queens Crap]
Bushwick: Anyone who shells out $668,000 for a unit in the hood’s first Scarano building will enjoy funky radiators, the rumble of the nearby M train and exactly zero amenities. [BushwickBK]
Greenpoint: The soon-to-open Gutter, the first bowling alley in Brooklyn in 50 years, looks right out of 1975. Cool! [Gothamist]
Park Slope: We don’t know what’s weirder: That this mom lets her son take a leak on the subway in this bright red potty or that she schleps all the way from the Upper West Side to hit the food co-op here. [Gowanus Lounge]
Roosevelt Island: Should locals be elated to finally have their very own Duane Reade or miffed that Jenny Holzer picked that other Roosevelt Island (in the Potomac) to do her latest installation? [Roosevelt Islander]
Upper West Side: With Spanish-designed newsstands now joining their bus-shelter cousins, the relentless Eurosleekification of the city proceeds apace. [Curbed]
neighborhood watch
Someone Is Already Stealing Christmas?Astoria: Someone has stepped up and claimed a family tie to that recently sold “mystery mansion” on 47th Street. Yeah, the one with all the sculptures. [OuterB]
Brooklyn Heights: Jeez, you’d think that after all it took to schlep that floating pool to Brooklyn Bridge Park they could leave it there at least a few weeks longer than this weekend. But no. And the pool goes to the Bronx next summer. [Brooklyn Heights Blog]
Chelsea: Residents in and near the London Terrace apartment block are dwelling on the bright side of long-term scaffolding: They can walk their dogs in the rain without their umbrella … ella … ella. [You Want a Piece of Me?]
Greenpoint: In the city’s Great Bedbug Scare of 2007, it’s come to this: free sidewalk sofas claiming they’re critter-free. Wow, free and uninfested. [Newyorkshitty]
Maspeth: Who hired some guy this past weekend to cut down what serves as the area’s beloved Christmas tree? And, as the mystery cutter said, is a replacement tree really en route? [Queens Crap]
Park Slope: You can almost forgive Slopesters for being so smugly bougie-boho when you see how they rally behind someone like Andy, the local fruit-truck guy who’s temporarily away after having a stroke. Get better, Andy! [OTBKB]
Williamsburg: An e-mail leaked out of a city-council member’s office complains of oil unearthed at a development site across the street from — you guessed it — the famous contaminated Roebling Oil Field! [Gowanus Lounge]
neighborhood watch
Rampant Fowl Misidentification in Park SlopeAstoria: Residents have begun leaving threatening signs around for people who don’t clean up their dog doo. What’s next? Threatening 311 calls? [Joey in Astoria]
Brooklyn: A hotel is set to go up in place of stores that are still there and have not yet been sold to developers. That’s always good. [Brownstoner]
Columbia Street Waterfront: Things aren’t picking up around here the way people anticipated, and they don’t even have streetlights! [NYT]
Harlem: The City Opera will play at the Apollo. They already have a stump for singers to lean on — smart move! [NYS]
Park Slope: Many have reported seeing feral chickens in the hood — but looking at a recent picture on Curbed, we have our own take: They’re pheasants. No joke. [Curbed]
Staten Island: A “tot” fell out of a second-story window on Tompkins Street. Since it was of the human, not tater, variety, there was much concern — but she’s okay! [Staten Island Advance]
neighborhood watch
Stay Off the Grass. No, Really.Astoria: How cool would it be to rent an apartment in a house with secret passageways? (Scooby snacks not included.) [OuterB]
Brooklyn Heights: You might want to stay off that swank new Astroturf in Cadman Plaza Park on hot sunny days, when the turf (allegedly) hits 125 degrees. Talk about smokin’ grass! [McBrooklyn]
Chelsea: Condo-in-progress the Caledonia will sport fancy glass sheathing to help distinguish it from the nearby projects. [Blog Chelsea]
Long Island City: The guy who’d hold parking-lot spaces for folks in exchange for a cup of coffee, profiled recently in the Times, is being wedged out of that ad hoc job by — you guessed it — a condo. [Long Island City]
Lower East Side: That mesh-y cladding for the new New Museum on the Bowery was supposed to be zinc-plated steel. But workmen are saying it’s aluminum. What kind of a, uh, shell game is this? [Curbed]
Rego Park: Devotees of the area’s last kosher deli don’t care that the Health Department just closed it. Seems that it beats a Russian pharmacy or a Bukharian plumbing-fixtures shop any day. [Queens Central]
Washington Heights: Tonight, Da Heights becomes the latest hood to be sprayed down to prevent West Nile virus. Locals are warned to stay indoors and to clean their swimming pools and hot tubs. Because you know how many of those there are in these parts. [Gothamist]
neighborhood watch
In a Bold Move, McCarren Pool to Replace Hipsters With WaterAstoria: If you really want to nab those graffiti thugs up on your roof, it’s better to call the cops before you tell the thugs you’re about to do so. Live and learn. [Astorians]
Brooklyn Heights: With Henry Street scoring a perfect 100 on this Website in terms of its walkability to various amenities, residents there must be feeling very smug today … as usual. [McBrooklyn]
Midwood: A new condo designed for Orthodox Jews will have units as large as 1,700 square feet. Is that really big enough for these families? [Living in Victorian Flatbush]
Roosevelt Island: A whole mess of nineteenth-century expedition tents will grace Southpoint Park this October. No, it’s not the mayor’s solution to affordable housing — it’s an art installation. [Roosevelt Islander via Curbed]
Upper East Side: What’ll replace the empty storefront at 76th and Second? A Pottery Barn kids’-clothing store! How perfectly edgy for the UES! [78thand2nd]
Williamsburg: Now that it’s a landmark, the McCarren Park Pool may not long remain the exclusive domain of indie-band-flocking hipsto-rexics. Like, wah. [NYPress via Brooklyn Enthusiast]
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You Can Choose Your Friends, But You Can’t Choose Your Friends’ CondosAstoria: Tonight at the Beer Garden, it’s Harry and the Potters. Get drunk with your fellow nerds! [Joey in Astoria]
Downtown Brooklyn: New buyers into 110 Livingston will be relieved of common charges for six months if they can convince a bud to buy in the building, too. [Curbed]
Harlem: Rumors are flying that rich, new white residents want the name of Marcus Garvey Park — longtime site of the Saturday-night African drumming circle — changed back to Mount Morris Park. [Amsterdam News via Harlem Fur]
Kensington: Local watchdogs regret to inform you that the hood ain’t got much crime, save the occasional Peeping Tom or delivery-boy mugging. [Kensington Blog]
Northwest Bronx: When Bronx councilmember Joel Rivera didn’t show up at a meeting to address restaurant workers’ rights, the workers flooded his office with “menus” demanding he hear them. [WestBronxNews]
Sunset Park: Construction is under way here on … no, not a new luxury condo, but an actual public high school, complete with bright yellow squares on it! [IMBY]
Upper East Side: Old-timers oppose a bike lane on a stretch of 91st Street that’s become an unofficial park over the years. Younger locals support it. [Streetsblog]
neighborhood watch
Pools, Parks, Protests!Astoria: The pool isn’t open yet, but at least there’s water in it now. [Joey in Astoria]
Carroll Gardens: Since that F-train petition is so popular, why not one against too tall buildings? [Carroll Gardens Petition via 423 Smith]
Dumbo: Work begins on the Pearl Street Triangle, but will the planned street furniture encourage the homeless to linger? [Dumbo NYC]
Morris Heights: Roberto Clemente State Park’s pools open today! [West Bronx News]
Willets Point: A contingent from this Queens industrial neighborhood protested eminent-domain abuse at City Hall yesterday. [Atlantic Yards Report]
Williamsburg: East River State Park will be open seven days a week beginning July 3. [I’m Not Sayin, I’m Just Sayin]
intel
Kevin Spacey Comes to Queens, Fails to Impress H.S. Kids
When we graduated from high school, our commencement speaker was the valedictorian, a science geek bound for Georgetown who quoted Hamlet’s “to thine own self be true.” At the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts in Astoria yesterday, departing seniors heard from Kevin Spacey — and got a visit from Tony Bennett, the native Astorian who co-founded the school through his nonprofit Exploring the Arts. (Clearly, the Sinatra students trump us, if simply on name-drop points alone.) So what did Spacey have to say? There were a few moments of what appeared to be true earnestness in his sonorously delivered speech; he told the kids to “take care of each other” and “recognize that none of us [attain success] alone.” But his shit-eating irony seemed to be intact. “I’m honored to be looking out at all of you fresh-faced graduates,” he intoned at one point. “You should all feel proud and elated, even if you squeaked by like me.” His tone wasn’t lost on the savvy grads. No sooner had Spacey said, “I want to focus today … on friends,” virtually the entire Frank Sinatra Class of 2007 chorused a big, sappy, sarcastic “Awwwwww!” Spacey was no doubt proud. —Tim Murphy
neighborhood watch
Mind Your Bike Manners in WilliamsburgAstoria: They’re taking bets on which store will close next on the area’s Broadway strip. Will it be Broadway Bakery or Radio Shack? [Forest Hills 72]
Bedford-Stuyvesant: Obamaphiles will be gathering at two funky spots to cheer on their man during Thursday night’s Dem-hopeful debates. [Bed-Stuy Blog]
Chelsea: Chelsea Hotel devotees are already devising ways they can drive the new corporate management crazy — and, they hope, away. Sidewalk “greed kills” notes, anyone? [Living with Legends]
Clinton Hill: This creepy thing spotted on Hall Street last week couldn’t be a pile of dirty snow. So what is it? Also: Ew. [Clinton Hill Blog]
East Harlem: There will be a community meeting tonight to discuss the brutal murder in Mount Morris Park last weekend. [Uptown Flavor]
Maspeth: Did you know that Native Americans founded this Queens neighborhood in 1621? Oh, wait, that’s not true, according to a critic of a new guide to the hood. [Queens Crap]
Williamsburg: The many cyclists of Bedford Avenue found a little scolding from the NYPD attached to their bikes recently. [Streetsblog]
neighborhood watch
Can Ethan Hawke Save the Chelsea Hotel?Astoria: A month after its opening day, the Astoria Park Pool is still closed. [LICNYC]
Chelsea: Hood heartthrob Ethan Hawke stopped by the Chelsea Hotel to tell the new managers he’s watching them like a, well, hawk. [Living with Legends]
Dumbo: Filming on the latest mind-bending Charlie Kaufman flick is taking place here. [DumboNYC]
Flatbush: Finally see the faces behind all those snarky Brooklyn blogs … they were all here last night at café Vox Pop. [Flatbush Gardener]
Long Island City: Gentrification has brought a bevy of laundromats to the area. Now where are all the damn cobblers? [LICNYC]
Park Slope: Taggers don’t take kindly to a new Prudential Douglas Elliman office. [Gowanus Lounge]
Prospect Park: Cars aren’t supposed to be in the park after seven, but video surveillance by annoyed pedestrians catches violators. [StreetFilms via Gothamist]
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Cyclists Threaten Double-Parking RightsAstoria: Get your towels ready. Astoria Pool opens June 29. [LICNYC]
Clinton Hill: The fast-growing Brooklyn Waldorf School will move here from Fort Greene. [Brownstoner]
Park Slope: Not one but two chickens have been spotted running around Prospect Park like, uh, yuppies with their heads cut off. [Gowanus Lounge]
Prospect Lefferts Gardens: With the new bike lane on Lincoln Road, it will be that much harder to double-park. [Across the Park]
Upper East Side: A six-ton boring machine has been lowered into the 63rd Street tunnel to link Grand Central Station with the Long Island Railroad. [Gothamist]
West Village: Verizon confuses advertising with drug propaganda. [Copyranter]
neighborhood watch
Queens Means Never Having to Say You’re Sorry for Being a YuppieAstoria: Locals find it odd (and oddly brave) that Queens wannabes aren’t afraid to call themselves yuppies. [Astorians]
Brooklyn Heights: Look for a new floating swimming pool to show up between Piers 4 and 5 near Joralemon and Furman Streets over July 4 weekend. [NewYorkology]
Bushwick: The Bodega Wars: coming to a Brooklyn neighborhood near you. [BushwickBK]
Downtown Brooklyn: Plans to reopen, supersize, and add retail space to a shuttered detention house are getting slammed. [Brooklyn Eagle via McBrooklyn]
Forest Hills: Who’d have thought that this un-hip hood’s simply getting a Trader Joe’s would be enough to elicit sour grapes from Brooklynites? [Forest Hills 72]
Fort Greene: Thanks to pressure from a neighborhood Website, Zipcar is finally here! [Clinton Hill Blog ]
Harlem: Up here, you can buy the bootleg version of everything premium … including Magnum condoms. [Uptown Flavor]
Upper East Side: An elegant dinner party right in the cracker aisle in the city’s classiest Korean market. [Upper East Side Informer]
neighborhood watch
The Slope-ification of WilliamsburgAstoria: For those pained by poor punctuation, the owner of Lot’s of Bagels probably had to pay extra for the unnecessary apostrophe. [East Village Idiot]
Bedford-Stuyvesant: Residents and soon small businesses can get unlimited property maintenance and help teens use gang slang in a productive manner at the same time. [Bed-Stuy Blog]
Chelsea: The new development going up at 245 Tenth Avenue may not have caused the collapse of its neighbor building last week, but seeing its construction workers swigging what appears to be beer is alarming all the same. [Curbed]
Clinton Hill: Entourage star Adrian Grenier has added photovoltaic panels to his ecofriendly historic house, irking some local preservationist-aesthetes. [Brownstoner]
Park Slope: Not only do yuppie parents kill edginess here, but dogs kill trees, too. [Gothamist]
Williamsburg: Urban Green Condos is using Banksy and an imagined Bedford Street filled with young families to sell $900,000 condos on North 6th Street. [Gowanus Lounge]
neighborhood watch
Stuyvesant Town Gets UppityAstoria: After promising for eighteen months, Fresh Start is opening its back patio. [Joey in Astoria]
Clinton Hill: This weekend’s annual house tour was so popular that someone even stole tickets (for scalping?). [Brownstoner]
Greenwich Village: Ricky “Livin’ la Vida Loca” Martin just paid $7 mil for a three-bedroom at Ian Schrager’s new 40 Bond. [NYP]
Hell’s Kitchen: Vote now for your preferred redesign of traffic patterns on Ninth Avenue. [Streetsblog]
Park Slope: Look for eighteen new bike racks around the hood, including, of course, in front of Ozzie’s. [Gowanus Lounge]
Red Hook: Ikea denies that the extra square footage it acquired on the waterfront will become a Bed Bath & Beyond. [The Brooklyn Paper]
Stuyvesant Town: What does the complex’s new logo say about its occupants? And is that a putting green near the fountain? [Curbed]
Williamsburg: More crude bubbles up on the Roebling Oil Fields. [Gowanus Lounge]
neighborhood watch
The Coolification of GramercyAstoria: So are these springtime infestations silverfish or house centipedes? [Astorians]
Chelsea: A lost-dog notice brings out the area’s tough love. [Blog Chelsea]
Gramercy: Perhaps only the launching of a new Philippe Starck condo can bring hipster D.J.’s the Misshapes to a godforsakenly unhip stretch of East 23rd Street. [Curbed]
Greenpoint: People waiting for a condo at 110 Green Street are forced to sleep among the pile drivers. [Newyorkshitty]
Harlem: A new ecofriendly housing development will be not for rich yuppies but for ex-prisoners readjusting to life on the outside. How refreshing, frankly. [Multi-Housing News via Uptown Flavor]
Red Hook: That dangerous corner en route to the Fairway has finally got a much-demanded traffic light. [Brooklyn Record]
neighborhood watch
Will the Knitting Factory Unravel in Two Years?Astoria: So are anti-gay comments actually homophobic or just a Borat-like hoax? [Astorians]
Dumbo: The Beacon and J condo gets a resounding mediocre rating from architecturally demanding residents. [Brownstoner]
Greenpoint: A Huron Street property is no friend of Magic Johnson’s new Green Street development. Time to go to court. [Curbed]
Kips Bay: Strong anti-U.N. sentiment is fueling local pols’ opposition to a new office tower at Robert Moses Park on 42nd Street. [NYS]
Lower Manhattan: Governor’s Island expands its access to the public this summer … but do most NYCers even know where it is or what’s on it? [NewYorkology]
Tribeca: Now that its building has just been sold, will famed music venue the Knitting Factory meet a CBGB-like demise when its lease expires in two years? [The Real Deal]
neighborhood watch
Greenpoint DIY Just Got EasierAstoria: Some days, it just smells like crap around here. [Astorians]
Clinton Hill: Forgot your Seder supplies? Catholic St. Joseph’s College is offering $1 Seders-in-a-box, with the necessary prayers and ritual items. Also good for Holy Thursday celebrations. Coming soon: kosher communion wafers. [Clinton Hill Blog]
Coney Island: No matter how nice the design, Thor’s proposed 40-story towers will look ridiculous on Coney Island. [Gowanus Lounge]
Dumbo: It’s up to you to decide what will happen to the Pearl Street Triangle. Or you can at least take a survey about it. [Dumbo Improvement District via Dumbo NYC]
Greenpoint: It’ll be easier than ever to make your own merch with the new Staples on Morgan and Meeker. [Racked]
Prospect Heights: There are naked men jogging or roller-skating through the hood, apparently. Very seventies. [Daily Heights]
Washington Heights: Drug agents bust an apartment cultivating 700 marijuana plants with stolen electricity. [WNBC via Gothamist]
neighborhood watch
At William Beaver House, Brand Early, Brand OftenAstoria: Did a Bauhaus-era South Beach hotel fly through the air, Oz-like, and land on 21st Street? How else to explain the new Astoria Windsor apartment building? [Curbed via Queens Crap]
Boerum Hill: Perhaps where an air conditioner used to cool is now a shrine to the Virgin Mary and, uh, Barbie. Is the Bethlehem Barbie Dreamstable somewhere nearby? [Lost City]
Governor’s Island: So NASCAR didn’t work on Staten Island. What about Indy racing here? [NYS]
Kensington: The jilted neighborhood is conspicuously absent from Brooklyn Record’s breakdown. What gives? (Blog fight!) [Kensington Blog]
Lower Manhattan: At the construction site for André Balazs’s super-hyped Beaver House condos (studio: $870,000), even the construction crane is part of the branding. [Curbed]
Soho: Madonna and her cleavage will be overlooking Houston & Crosby on behalf of H&M for a while. [Copyranter]
neighborhood watch
What This Town Needs Is a George Plimpton StatueAstoria: RightRides, which offers free late-night rides home to female, transgendered, and gay people, has extended its services to the area. [Joey in Astoria]
Brooklyn Heights: What is that piercing alarm coming from Montague Street late at night? [Something Loud and Annoying This Way Comes]
Chelsea: One day after a story is published about David Peckham’s lawsuit against his landlord, much of his apartment goes dark. [Blog Chelsea]
East Village: Porny billboards aren’t just for the Lower East Side anymore. [Gothamist]
Greenwich Village: No wonder every unit at the new 25 Bond condo is pre-sold. Now that the wrapping’s off, we can see how gorgeous it is. [Curbed]
Upper East Side: You know what would really class up the joint? A statue of George Plimpton. [Radar]
neighborhood watch
Coney Island Demolition Destroys Family Fun
Astoria: Use Astoria Park? Help take care of it. Start by attending a community meeting tomorrow night. [Joey in Astoria]
Chelsea: The Bourne Ultimatum was shooting on Seventh Avenue yesterday morning. Expect lots of dead CIA agents strewn around 25th to 27th Streets. [Blog Chelsea]
Cobble Hill: The Lamm Institute on Amity and Henry is for sale. What will the 13,750-square-foot building go for? [Brownstoner]
Coney Island: Good-bye, go karts. So long, mini-golf. Demolition (right) takes out some old favorites. [Gowanus Lounge]
Fort Greene: Outside, a shady-looking storage area. Inside, it looks like an antique post office. [Clinton Hill Blog]
Harlem: If you’ve been meaning to take yoga classes with your dog, then it’s time to move uptown. [Harlem Fur]
Red Hook: Gowanus Nursery will open in its new Summit Street location on March 31. [Brooklyn Record]
Williamsburg: While not yet open to humans, East River State Park is a prime resting area for migrating (and crapping) Canada Geese. [i’m not sayin, i’m just sayin]
neighborhood watch
Manhattan Too Inexpensive for ParkingAstoria: The 121-year-old waterfront Sohmer Piano factory has been landmarked (despite the unlikely opposition of the community board) and will soon house 70 apartments. [Times Ledger via Queens Crap]
Dumbo: Residents sickened by the area’s rampant condo-ization can now seek palliatives at a pharmacy coming to the first floor of the massive new J Condo. [DumboNYC]
Harlem: Call it luxury lockdown. Jail turned condo 10 Mount Morris Park West is near-ready for its inmates — uh, residents. [City Specific]
Manhattan: Blame the traffic congestion on free or cheap parking in the city. [Streetsblog]
Tribeca: Jewish alterna-singles to descend on the land of JFK Jr. and Bubby’s when Makor moves to Hudson and Canal this fall. [92Yblog via Curbed]
Upper West Side: The revolution will come with a schmear of cream cheese — when the area secedes from the city, that is. [Upper West Side Liberation Front via Curbed]
