‘Gossip Girl’ Goes Fancy in BrooklynA tipster spotted the cast of the Greatest Show of Our Time readying for the infamous Snowflake Ball, which will take place … in BK?
I.M. Pei to Appear in ChinatownThe reclusive architect will show up at the reopening of the Museum of Chinese in America, the ‘pop-up park’ gets another month in Brooklyn Heights, and a pretty new footpath uptown on the High Bridge doesn’t mean you still can’t find drugs in the park! All in today’s boroughs report.
ByTim Murphy
neighborhood watch
The Revenge of the Stoop PooperBehold the return of the Boerum Hill Stoop Pooper, the chilled-out raccoon of Brooklyn Heights, and the aggressive Kennedy Fried Chicken sign of Bedford Park. All in today’s boroughs report.
Joshua Kushner: Jared 2.0?Jared Kushner’s developer bro rocks the East Village shul crowd, the waterfalls installation is killing the trees at River Café, barges are rotting in Jamaica Bay, and scruffle venue Studio B in Greenpoint is shuttered. In today’s hood roundup!
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
Ikea Shuttle-Crisis Solved?Plus the sad old buildings of the Bowery and Gowanus, the ecoartist of Bushwick, and the developmentally disabled clown lovers of Staten Island, in our daily borough report.
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‘Ugly Betty’ Watch Begins!America and friends come to Dumbo, Betsey Johnson sells her Village penthouse and moves uptown, and the hipsters still haven’t taken over the Giglio Feast in W’burg. That and more in our daily boroughs report!
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John Varvatos Replaces Indies With UndiesUnbelievable trauma visited upon the children of the Slope, outer Queens folks take a protest of a “whore motel” out to Great Neck, and John Varvatos’s carrionlike radar takes him to the meatpacking district. And other stuff in our daily hood scoper.
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The G Train: Helping Greenpoint Keep It RealThey’re not too gentrified in Greenpoint to transcend the crummy G train, not too Ikea-fied in Red Hook to alienate Santogold, and not too cranky in Brooklyn Heights to bitch about smaller OJ cartons. So we’re not too proud to say this: that and more in today’s boroughs report!
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!
Brooklyn Heights Residents Are Always Bringing It Back to PoopBrooklyn Heights: This post is about the neighborhood’s best dog walker, and those who try to pull it off-message and make it about dog poop instead will be frowned upon, okay??? [Brooklyn Heights Blog]
Carroll Gardens: Robert Scarano’s 342 Bond Street building not only aesthetically attacks locals with its bunker-like façade, now it’s literally attacking them: Its guard dogs reportedly escaped and mauled one couple’s adorable little puppy (see pic). [Gowanus Lounge]
Clinton Hill:The Broken Angel building became the center of controversy when its quirky turret was torn down a few years ago, and then again when the owners decided to convert it into condos. Now, it’s the subject of a legal smackdown between its documentarian and her cinematographer. [NYDN]
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Alexander Hamilton Just Wouldn’t Have Approved of a Northeasterly ViewBroadway-Flushing: As landmarking honchos drag their feet on protecting this enclave of pretty early-1900s homes, locals wonder if it’s more evidence that city pooh-bahs care more about Manhattan and Brooklyn brownstones than they do historic Queens cribs. [NYDN]
Brooklyn Heights: How will the city get Brooklynites to the hard-to-get-to Brooklyn Bridge Park? It will bus them! [Brooklyn Paper]
Harlem: Some folks are protesting the move of Alexander Hamilton’s Colonial house from a cramped street to St. Nicholas Park because — get this — it won’t be facing the same way. [Curbed]
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That Amazing House From ‘Moonstruck’ Is Still Up for Grabs, Only Now It’s Cheaper!Brooklyn Heights: The sale price of the Cranberry Street house where they filmed Moonstruck has dropped from $5 million to $3.95 million since early 2006. That’s still très Cher! [Brooklyn Heights Blog]
Coney Island: Astroland opens Sunday … possibly, for the second year in a row now, for its last season before major Coney development begins. [amNY]
East New York: It’s “the new Harlem,” did you know that? So if you’re bitter you didn’t buy uptown twenty years ago, you’ll want to buy here, where cribs are going for up to $300,000. [NYDN]
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Brooklyn Bridge Park May Be Bad for the FishesBrooklyn Heights: In addition to being way over budget, long-planned Brooklyn Bridge Park may damage marine life with its expected rowing and kayaking facilities, says state enviro-honchos. [Brownstoner]
Chelsea: Work has been stopped on “car-chitect” (he-he) Annabelle Selldorf’s much-hyped condo tower that allows folks to take their car right up to their own sky-high garages. “The pillars forming the exterior walls are misaligned,” says a city buildings-department flack. “This could be characterized as a structural deficiency.” Gee, you really think so? [Curbed]
Coney Island: In the era of whole hoods going bank branch and condo, don’t you just want to smack someone for grumping that the historic Child’s Restaurant building will become a roller rink this summer? Come on, Grumpums, that’s cool! [NYDN]
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They Should Call It ‘Burrow Hall’!Bronx: Okay, okay, so this isn’t hood-specific … but how cool is it that there’s gonna be an online mag, called Cross Bronx (get it?), featuring writers and artists in the Boogie Down? [Talk Bronx]
Brooklyn Heights: The rats around Cadman Plaza are so out of control it seems the city’s called in a private exterminator, which may be wise judging from the massive size of those rat burrows. Burrow Hall? Ha-ha! [Pardon Me for Asking]
East Village: The old lady who sits next to Gino the tailor all day in his 14th Street shop is quiet when people come in, but when they leave, she yells at him about all the things he does wrong. Reportedly. [Vanishing New York]
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Brooklyn Heights Is Fighting the War on RatsBrooklyn Heights: The rats here are getting bigger and bolder, and the normally peaceful residents have taken to fighting back with machetes and water hoses. [Brooklyn Paper]
Chelsea: From 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. through Sunday, you can shop for cool old magazines and comics at Time Machine and simultaneously get drunk at their holiday open bar. [Vanishing New York]
Red Hook: A sliver-thin waterfront greenway is going up that will run all the way to Greenpoint. Rad! [OnNYTurf]
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Art Deco Icon to Be DemolishedBrooklyn Heights: They’ll tear down the landmarked 1936 Purchase Building — a classic, WPA-style structure — as part of the construction of Brooklyn Bridge Park, which may begin next month. [NYDN via Gowanus Lounge]
Fort Greene: All the shabby-chic vendors of choice are lining up for the Brooklyn Flea Market, coming here Sundays starting in April. [Brownstoner]
Governors Island: Plans released today for the isle’s redo into a pomo eco-asis reveal that multiethnic children will frolic while seabirds fly overhead at dangerously low altitudes. [Queens Crap]
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Goldman Invading the Heights, Making It Bank-yBrooklyn Heights: With Goldman Sachs unscathed by the subprime mess, its execs are buying property in the pricey hood. Let’s hope Goldman hater Ben Stein isn’t brunching anywhere nearby. [Brownstoner]
Clinton Hill: Wow, Paul Giamatti and “the black model from all the Maybelline commercials” spotted in one day! Clinton Hill is HOT HOT HOT! Or something. [Clinton Hill]
Greenpoint: The lemur in the Franklin Street store window that was mounting E.T. from behind is now in isolation, with E.T. in the custody of Mickey Mouse, Santa, and the Hulk. OMG, did we just write that trippy sentence? [Newyorkshitty]
in other news
Brooklyn Chabads Battle Over Marty, Mr. MetWe love the Brooklyn Paper. It’s like the blog of our local print media. Their staff writes funny stories, they have good takes, and they tell us about very special things that we wouldn’t otherwise know about. Like, for example, the competing menorah-lighting ceremonies in Brooklyn earlier this week. The Chabad of Brownstone Brooklyn and the Chabad of Brooklyn Heights both hosted events on Tuesday night to celebrate the first night of Hanukkah. The gatherings, run by rabbis (who are in the same family) both claim to be the biggest in the borough and compete for the best guests (like Marty Markowitz and Mr. Met. No question who wins there). After the jump, the Paper’s genius tale of the tape comparing the contentious Chabad events.
neighborhood watch
Renzo Piano Forgot the Bike RacksTimes Square: If the New York Times building is so green, how come there’s nowhere to park a bike? [Streetsblog]
Atlantic Yards: Will the Yards eventually feel more like Madison Square Garden, or Newark? This blog captures the debate from the Brian Lehrer Show. [Atlantic Yards Report]
Brooklyn Heights: The Wandering Stranger of Schermerhorn Street has disappeared! And has earned himself a poetic blog elegy. [Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn via Brooklyn Heights Blog]
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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]
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Okay, Now Who Leaves a Kitten on a Rooftop?Brooklyn Heights: Rumors are burbling that the hood’s symphonically hyped “Subway Cyrano” saga — where a guy reconnected with his subway crush after searching for her via an online vid — is a Lonelygirl-type hoax. Wouldn’t that be sad? [Brooklyn Heights Blog]
East Village: Sure, two low-paid young’uns can share a $3,000 Stuy Town one-bedroom. If they bring along their $1,000 pressurized wall. [Hunt Grunt]
Flatbush: Several cats have been abandoned on a rooftop! And they’re scared and hungry! [Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn]
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At Least Your Super Didn’t Scald You With AcidEast Village: The rise of the yunnie, or Young Urban Narcissist, wasn’t the launch of Sex and the City. It was the 1994 opening of Bowery Bar. [Vanishing New York]
Greenpoint: The best way to find an apartment in this hot hood? Get off your ass, come out here, walk around, and ask, moron! Oh, and be polite. [11222]
Midtown: Wasn’t it just a matter of time before the public library at Fifth and 53rd was sold to a high-end hotelier? Especially given that midtown is the new red-light district. [Curbed]
Park Slope: Next week, local merchants will start offering free yellow umbrellas customers can borrow when it’s raining, then return on an honor system. Hey, wait … it rains in Park Slope? [Gowanus Lounge]
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Bella the Cat Has a New LifeBrooklyn Heights: Bella the Cat, who charmed passersby on the Brooklyn Bridge footpath in Cadman Plaza Park, is alive and well and living in bourgeois comfort in a home on Pineapple Street. [Brooklyn Heights Blog]
Chelsea: Residents of the Chelsea Hotel swear they saw blood-sucking ghouls in the lobby last night: the hotel’s new corporate management. [Living with Legends]
Clinton Hill: Pratt has taken over the Kentucky Fried Chicken spot! Less wings, more wingnuts. [Clinton Hill Blog]
