It’s Grass, Not Garbage, That Attracts Rats in ChelseaBrooklyn Heights: If only the kids around here could reference MC Hammer correctly. [Brooklyn Heights Blog]
Bushwick: Gentrification is forcing frustrated superintendents to gussy up their own threatening signs. [Newyorkshitty]
Chelsea: Blame the rat infestation in the park on Ninth Avenue on the plant liriope. It provides excellent cover for burrows. [Blog Chelsea]
Cobble Hill: The home of the Independence Community Foundation is gone; look for six-story apartment building at 182 Atlantic, instead. [McBrooklyn]
Coney Island: Want to work at a karaoke bar? One here is hiring. [Kinetic Carnival]
Dumbo: Folks are moving into the J Condo and paying $300 to $350 a month for parking spaces. [DumboNYC]
Park Slope: The Fifth Avenue dog run has too many overexcited dogs. [Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn]
Prospect Heights: The Buildings Department blamed water damage and Forest City Ratner for the Ward Baking Co. collapse. [NYDN]
West Bronx: Neighbors proved a point to gangs and drug dealers at last night’s “National Night Out.” [West Bronx News]
neighborhood watch
It’s Hard Out Here for a MascotBrooklyn Heights: Yet another Montague Street restaurant mascot has been vandalized … and it sure looks creepy lying on the ground. [Brooklyn Heights Blog]
Chelsea: Um: Cool air was being force-fed into the Episcopal seminary here during shooting of a new TV show about an immortal detective yesterday. Huh? [Blog Chelsea]
Clinton Hill: A former dry cleaner on Lafayette is accepting “proposal’s” [sic] for the space. [Clinton Hill Blog]
Flatbush: Doesn’t this post-rainstorm pic remind you of how Tara looked when Scarlett finally got there from Atlanta? [Living in Victorian Flatbush]
Harlem: Extreme Makeover: Home Edition hunk Ty Pennington will build a playground at P.S. 72 to help fight ADHD. Or something like that; we stopped paying attention. [HealthNewsDigest via Uptown Flavor]
Midtown East: Developer Sheldon Solow faces off against locals as he launches the approval process for a massive riverside residential-commercial project between 35th and 41st Streets. [NYS]
Williamsburg: When new buildings go up, taggers hit them fast to make sure they fit in with the graffitiscape. [Gowanus Lounge]
neighborhood watch
Red Hook’s Deadly NatureBrooklyn Heights: Those who live on Joralemon Street are not pleased about the parade of swimmers on their way to the floating pool. [Brooklyn Eagle via Brooklyn Heights Blog]
Bushwick: Is a developer surreptitiously buying up air rights to build a condo tower? [Bushwick BK]
Central Park: Starting Monday, car-free time in the park on the West Drive extends by one hour in the morning. Now you only have to watch for traffic between 8 and 10 a.m. [Streetsblog]
Chelsea: Chelsea Hotel residents got a note saying that BD Hotels was “no longer the managing agent.” An elaborate hoax or what? [Hotel Chelsea Blog]
Clinton Hill: Someone’s trying to flip a heinous Green Avenue building for a ridiculous $1.4 million. [Brownstoner]
Park Slope: Thank goodness there’s an instruction manual for the summer, lest we forget to watch a baseball game and let our dog crap on some guy’s stoop. [Newyorkshitty]
Red Hook: Beware the dog-eating tree on Van Brunt Street. [McBrooklyn]
Williamsburg: Bruce Ratner’s crew is looking for an artist’s workspace to use in a promotional video for investors. If you’re interested, keep your I.D. a secret for your own safety. [Curbed]
neighborhood watch
A Higher Level of Cleanliness in Washington HeightsBrooklyn Heights: An 1844 train tunnel, rediscovered in 1980, is now open to tours, via a manhole at Court Street and Atlantic Avenue. [NewYorkology]
Chelsea: Health clinic’s trash is a rat magnet. Yum! Medical waste! [Blog Chelsea]
Clinton Hill: Pratt students, not the projects on DeKalb Avenue, are the source of filthy sidewalks on Kent Avenue. [Brownstoner]
Kew Gardens: Queens beep Helen Marshall wants a grimy statue of a zaftig naked dude taken down because she thinks it’s sexist. [NYS via Queens Crap]
Little Neck/Douglaston: Tired of trust falls? Alley Pond Park has a huge ropes course. [Gothamist]
Washington Heights: Sounds awesome, but exactly how much does the Grand Ba Ba, “ascended master of cleaning,” cost? [Copyranter]
neighborhood watch
Hey, Water Taxi! Over Here! At North 7th Street!Carroll Gardens: Homeowners on 2nd Place are displaying solidarity, with a petition to restrict building heights to 50 feet. [McBrooklyn]
Chelsea: A construction crane got in a fight with a tree on 15th Street. The tree lost. [Blog Chelsea]
Clinton Hill: Yikes! Someone’s painting their brownstone white. [Brownstoner]
Glendale: Residents are fighting a developer who wants to reroute public bus service to entice more shoppers to his mall. [Queens Chronicle via Forest Hills 72]
Greenpoint: Watch out, construction workers. Neighborhood women wary of your catcalls have had enough. [Newyorkshitty]
Times Square: Look like a big jackass for less than $30! [NewYorkology]
Williamsburg: A temporary Water Taxi pier at North 7th Street would ease congestion on the L train. [I’m Not Sayin’, I’m Just Sayin’]
neighborhood watch
Chelsea Turns Lost Property Into a Casual EncounterBushwick: Angry residents are not hesitant to make graffiti jokes about presidential anatomy. [Newyorkshitty]
Carroll Gardens: Folks watching for the F train from the vantage point of Smith and Second look like some kind of strange human art installation. [McBrooklyn]
Chelsea: Was your camera stolen? The one with the picture of the naked guy in the Mets hat? Yeah, someone found it. [Craigslist via Curbed]
Coney Island: Area megadeveloper Joe Sitt has allegedly welshed on his promise to preserve some of the amusement site’s most historic buildings. [amNY]
Greenwood Heights: Price cuts suggest that the condo boom here was a little overenthusiastic. [Brownstoner]
Upper West Side: Is the Time Warner Center really “the gateway” to this storied neighborhood? [The Weblicist of Manhattan]
Williamsburg: It’s official — the McCarren Park Pool has been landmarked, ensuring its status as hipster shrine for eons to come. [Gowanus Lounge]
neighborhood watch
High Line to Get New Glass TowerChelsea: Architect Stephen Holl surprised Charlie Rose last night when he announced on the TV show that he’s designing a glassy tower for the “spur” of the High Line, at 30th Street. [BlogChelsea]
Dumbo: Some jerk decapitated the Urban Fossil Bird Woman sculpture in Brooklyn Bridge Park! That wasn’t very cool. [DumboNYC]
Greenpoint: Locals will rally on Franklin Street tonight to say “No, No, No!” to harassment from landlords. [Newyorkshitty]
Kensington: Check the expiration date on items from Foodtown, locals warn. [KensingtonBlog]
Long Island City: Why is the Landmarks Preservation Commission fawning all over altered buildings on the LES but ignoring the historical buildings here? [Queens Crap]
Times Square: Remember the halcyon days when a walk down 42nd Street would yield leers from a real live pervert … not a giant M&M ad? [Copyranter]
neighborhood watch
Boerum Hill Apartment Papered With WrathBay Ridge: The Duane Reade on Senator Street and Fourth Avenue closed. Please, please replace it with a grocery store. [Bay Ridge Brooklyn]
Boerum Hill: Some new residents on State Street were inundated with love notes from neighbors (or neighbor?) after jackhammering all weekend. [Brownstoner]
Chelsea: In this fairy-tale hood, there aren’t just many wicked queens, but a dragon, too! [BlogChelsea]
Clinton Hill: There’s a giant empty building on Emerson and Park. Apartments in there could be hot. [Clinton Hill Blog]
Gramercy Park: Beware a young new barber who trims beards to the jawline. [Manhattan Offender]
Harlem: It sounds like the bougie intellectual crowd and the pulp-fiction “sista lit” crowds clashed at the book fair this weekend. [HarlemFur]
Lower East Side: Efforts are under way to landmark a big chunk of the neighborhood before tenements are completely supplanted by shiny condos. [SaveTheLowerEastSide]
neighborhood watch
Rats Attack Chelsea Health ClinicBattery Park City: The Solaire, which touts itself as “America’s first environmentally advanced residential tower,” is cracking down on bikes parked in hallways. [Streetsblog]
Brooklyn Heights: The Love Lane Garage will close at month’s end, to make room for — OMG, this is so surprising! — new condos. [Brooklyn Heights Blog]
Central Park: Free classical music does nothing but bring out the rudeness in people. Fortunately, no fistfights. This isn’t Boston, after all. [City Specific]
Chelsea: Ew, rats! No, not the condo developers — real rats! And all over the park in front of the Ninth Avenue city health clinic, no less. [Blog Chelsea]
Dumbo: Is the spruced-up Pearl Street Triangle painted the same lime green as the city’s bike lanes because the Department of Transportation had extra paint left over, or because it really likes this color? [Brownstoner]
Gowanus: A whole lotta enviro-cleanup is going to have to happen before the city can turn the parcel known as Public Place into the affordable-housing complex it envisions. [Gowanus Lounge]
Upper West Side: Fights reportedly broke out at the Columbus Circle Whole Foods this morning as people queued up to by ecofriendly, $15 designer canvas “I’m Not a Plastic Bag” shopping sacks. [Gothamist]
neighborhood watch
Horseshoe Crabs Invade Washington HeightsBay Ridge: A community board here enthusiastically green-lighted a new Home Depot at 200-plus housing units. [The Brooklyn Paper]
Chelsea: The don’t-walk signal on Eighth Avenue and 19th Street has mysterious stigmata. [Blog Chelsea]
Cobble Hill: Freebird Books and Goods is up for sale on Craigslist; $45,000 will buy you the store with inventory and liquor license. [Brownstoner]
Maspeth: An ugly confrontation took place yesterday between tree-cutters and protesters at the site of the set-for-demolition St. Saviour’s Church. [Queens Crap]
Washington Heights: How did a dead horseshoe crab come to be on 185th Street? [Copyranter]
West Village: Nothing ruins a birthday cruise for 3-year-olds more than spotting a body in the water. [Gothamist]
Williamsburg: Locals are pissed that the brand-new East River State Park closes before 8 p.m. on beautiful summer evenings. [Gowanus Lounge]
vu.
Savor Old Chelsea’s Past, If Not the PricesCheap Chelsea apartments pretty much have gone extinct, with developers churning out new buildings and turning warehouses into condos. (The High Line’s arrival will likely zoom prices further into the stratosphere.) But the newly arrived glitz and gloss even the Chelsea Hotel’s being fancified and the long-established retail rows (Container Store, anyone?) can sometimes obscure the neighborhood’s charms. That includes a historic center with townhouses rivaling other neighborhoods’ brownstones and one of the world’s biggest at the time it was built, anyway mega-apartment buildings, London Terrace. And don’t forget a gallery scene that continues to thrive. To get a better feel for Chelsea, stop by this weekend’s open houses, listed after the jump. S. Jhoanna Robledo
neighborhood watch
Hookers Don’t Bow to Brooklyn GentrificationBoerum Hill: OMG, there are still hookers here? It seems so, but new euphemisms from the yups include “sex care workers.” We love that. [Gowanus Lounge]
Chelsea: A bank may occupy one of the first-floor biz units of the Chelsea Hotel, under new corporate management. What’s next? The eviction of the age-old Dan’s Chelsea Guitars store? [Living with Legends]
Coney Island: Will the kiddie rides in Wonder Wheel Park be next to go? [Gowanus Lounge]
Cypress Hills: The criminals-posing-as-cops vogue spread to this sketchy Brooklyn hood, where five thugs faking an NYPD drug bust tied up folks and picked their apartment clean. [Gothamist]
East Village: Even in a holiday week with barely any passengers, the L train will still screw you. [East Village Idiot]
Greenpoint: Word drifts back our way that an area bookseller was hurt that we tittered over her announcing an “adults only” Harry Potter party. Didn’t she kind of set herself up for that? [Newyorkshitty]
Prospect Heights: Residents are still waiting for that Atlantic Yards ombudsman who was promised to the community two months ago. [Atlantic Yards Report]
neighborhood watch
East Village Park Will Outdo WilliamsburgChelsea: Will the venerable weekend flea market on 25th Street shut down now that the garage it’s in has been bought by Extell for $42.7 mil? [TheRealDeal]
East Village: Think you’re so cool with your new waterfront park, Williamsburg? Wait till you see the E.V.’s in-progress East River Promenade. [Curbed]
Greenpoint: If you’re looking for a blue audio tour of the area, there’s a podcast out there for you. [MikeyPod via Newyorkshitty]
Harlem: All hail (or fear?) the rise of area megadeveloper Henry Vargas, whose dad presciently bought up half of Harlem in the seventies. [TheRealDeal via Uptown Flavor]
Snug Harbor: Brooklynite goes to Staten Island for July 4 BBQ, fears world outside of Park Slope. [Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn]
Willets Point: The move to redevelop this 60-acre parcel near Shea Stadium gets ugly as the city lawyers up against business owners there. [Times Ledger via OuterB]
neighborhood watch
The People’s Republic of Bushwick RisesBoerum Hill: A rundown YWCA will become home to 84 new units of affordable studios (under $600) for women rather than the site of a luxury condo. File under So Refreshing You Want to Cry. [NYDN via Queens Crap]
Bushwick: The artists living at 345 Eldert Street plan to secede from Brooklyn tomorrow. [Brooklyn Paper]
Chelsea: That dance piece they were filming on the High Line last week? It’s Jerome Robbins’s 1958 work Opus Jazz, to be completed by next summer. [BlogChelsea]
Clinton Hill: It’s a race against the clock at 163 Washington Street as a developer tries to grandfather in a high-rise’s foundation before new zoning forbids it. [Brownstoner]
Gowanus: Since when is this desolate hood considered “the heart of downtown” Brooklyn? Since a just-opened Comfort Inn here started marketing it that way. [Gowanus Lounge]
Harlem: Just how loud is the weekly drum circle in Marcus Garvey Park? [Harlem Fur]
Williamsburg: East River State Park opens full-time today, just in time to offer the city’s best view of tomorrow night’s fireworks (if they’re not rained out, that is). [I’m Not Sayin’, I’m Just Sayin’]
neighborhood watch
Heatherette Classes Up Columbus CircleBoerum Hill: Smell a rat around here? Gee, maybe it’s that dead one that’s been peeping out of someone’s garbage can for several days. [Gowanus Lounge]
Chelsea: They were filming some dance movie on the High Line yesterday. Starring, uh, Craig. You know Craig, right? [BlogChelsea]
Clinton Hill: Did someone around here really lose a “mangy looking” pigeon with “black bits”? (Ooh, what are those?) Or is this sign some kind of birdbrained bluff? [Clinton Hill Blog]
Columbus Circle: It’s the Heatherette statute of a sneaker we’ve all been waiting for. [Copyranter]
Graniteville: Here on Staten Island, cops raided a home harboring 2,500 pounds of explosive materials. The owner was selling them over the Internet. [Staten Island Advance via Gothamist]
Harlem: They’ll be replenishing those wood chips in the dog run at St. Nick’s Park tomorrow … and they need your help! [Harlem Fur]
Park Slope: Grand Army Plaza could become safer, more serene, and more pedestrian-friendly. Really? [Brooklyn Paper]
neighborhood watch
Times Square Gets Butt-UglierBushwick: Finally, a place to share your memories of growing up around here. [BushwickBK]
Chelsea: First Ethan Hawke, and now Joe Franklin. Who will be the next celeb to show his support of Stanley Bard and family? [Living With Legends]
Clinton Hill: Don’t bitch that Brownstoner posts a preponderance of items about this hood … even the score by sending in tips about your hood! [Brownstoner]
Coney Island: Developer Joe Sitt hit a community meeting last night to drum up support for his embattled Coney plans, saying he’d go home and pray for good press. [Gowanus Lounge]
Harlem: How is it that construction starts here a full 45 minutes earlier than anywhere else in the city? [Above the Doorframe]
Highland Park: Who is poaching the beautiful wild American goldfinches in the Ridgewood Reservoir? For shame! [Queens Crap]
Times Square: A huge billboard of smiling buttocks will go up here soon to promote a new, built-in bidet-type gadget. [AdAge via Gothamist]
Woodside: More affordable housing will likely come to this part of Queens as well as to Elmhurst, Jackson Heights, and Corona. [NYDN via OuterB]
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]
photo op
Inside the Chelsea: The Sun Through Yellow Curtains
We read all about the Chelsea Hotel, and we walk past the hulking building on West 23rd Street from time to time, and we’ve always been vaguely curious about what the place looks like inside. (Not curious enough to actually walk in the door, mind you. But curious.) Apparently we’re not the only ones: Agence France-Presse obliges today with a handful of interior shots of the storied building, pegged, obviously, to the hotel’s recent de-Bardification. Above, what was apparently Madonna’s room when she first came to New York in the early eighties. After the jump, a few others.
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]
neighborhood watch
Make Art Not CondosBrooklyn Heights: Is Joralemon Beach on schedule to open July 4? [Newyorkology]
Chelsea: Days after new corporate management is announced at the Chelsea Hotel, tenants get a “gentle” warning about unpaid back rent. [Living with Legends]
Coney Island: After the Mermaid Parade this Saturday, real people—not just ghosts!—will rock abandoned Child’s Restaurant, for the first time in 30 years, for the post-parade ball. [BrooklynBased]
Forest Hills Gardens: It’s true! This is the country’s No. 1 “cottage community,” says Cottage Living. [Queens Crap]
Harlem: Better head to Dunkin’ Donuts for now, local Starbucks freaks. That 145th St. branch won’t open as soon as you thought. [Uptown Flavor]
Williamsburg: The site where big developer Quadriad wants to build has sprouted some anti-gentrification agitprop art. [Gowanus Lounge]
buy low
Prices Slip on Chelsea Condos
Who says you can’t get a new-construction condo on the cheap in Chelsea? Well, maybe not exactly “cheap.” (This is pricey, trendy Chelsea, after all.) But still, this two-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath apartment at the Chelsea Stratus (101 West 24th Street), supposedly the tallest condo in the neighborhood, has had two price changes, according to Streeteasy.com. The most recent slash was two days ago, lowering the asking by more than 20 percent to $2.88 million. If this floor plan’s not to your liking, there are more than a dozen left on the market, all of which are outfitted with name-brand kitchen appliances (Fisher & Paykel, Sub-Zero), high-end finishes, and other de rigueur luxuries. Par for the condo course, the building’s larded with goodies like a wine cellar, billiards room, and indoor basketball court, too. S. Jhoanna Robledo
in other news
Stanley Bard Ousted From Chelsea HotelThe legendary Chelsea Hotel has seen all kinds of unpleasantness over the course of its history, but never, to the best of our knowledge, a coup. Living With Legends, an insider blog written by an occupant, breaks the news that the hotel’s managing partner, Stanley Bard, is being pushed out by its board of directors. Bard’s part in shaping the Chelsea Hotel myth is hard to overstate: He has lorded it over the grand brick heap since back when Leonard Cohen canoodled there with Janis Joplin. Adding to the uncertainty about the hotel’s future is the fact that its ownership structure is a bit of a secret: It was originally split by three families, but Bard’s is the only one that still manages it hands-on; the other two are represented by a board. Now, at that board’s bidding, an “unnamed management company” will take over Stanley’s day-to-day duties, and we do not like the sound of that one bit. Which comes first, you think: the condo conversion or the “Chelsea Hotel West” in Vegas?
UPDATE: Rubenstein emails with news on the new managers, Richard Born and Ira Drukler, who are apparently “two of New York City’s most successful and acclaimed hoteliers.” Stanley Bard will still be involved in management, the announcement says. Full press release after the jump.
Board-Directed Coup Topples Chelsea Hotel’s Famed Manager Stanley Bard [Living With Legends]
War on Breeders in Brooklyn Heights?Brooklyn Heights: Youngish guy pops out and coldcocks a dad with young kids. Violence against breeders in this upright place? [McBrooklyn]
Chelsea: Here lives a shaman who will touch you and tell you things about yourself. Sounds like a typical night out in Chelsea to us. [Blog Chelsea]
East Harlem: A rogue developer has been blocked from building a hotel whose planning he’d already sunk $7 million into. [NYDN]
Red Hook: A kid-core band had to perform without percussion last weekend after its 16-year-old drummer was arrested for tagging the corner of Dwight and Beard. [McBrooklyn]
Williamsburg: History will soon be made on Bedford and North Seventh when street space to park cars is actually supplanted by bike parking. [Streetsblog]
neighborhood watch
Brits Complain About How Expensive New York IsBattery Park City: Move over, David Rockwell and your high-tech playground, there’s another kid in the sandbox. Frank Gehry’s now designing a $4 million kiddiespace for the Battery. [Gothamist]
Chelsea: The London Times complains about how much it costs to call London from New York ($35 for five minutes from the Chelsea Hotel). But doesn’t everyone just use cell phones? [London Times via Living with Legends]
Hell’s Kitchen: Locals meet tonight to formulate their official suggestions for desnarling congestion on Ninth Avenue near the Lincoln Tunnel. Good luck to them. [Streetsblog]
Park Slope: Enrique Norten will follow Richard Meier as the next starchitect in the area, designing a swank condo on Garfield Place, complete with English garden. [Brooklyn Eagle via Brownstoner]
Willets Point: Wi-Fi at Shea Stadium? Not so much. [East Village Idiot]
Williamsburg: Sweet! Get inside the Domino Sugar factory. [BlueJake]
neighborhood watch
Scary Alpha Girls Terrorize Prospect HeightsBayside: No one’s angered residents of this pricey enclave more than violation-collecting developer Tommy Huang. [Queens Chronicle via Queens Crap]
Brooklyn: It’s the third annual Tour de Brooklyn on Sunday; register to bike through Park Slope, Sunset Park, Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights, and Kensington. [Streetsblog]
Chelsea: What’s more disturbing about this poster ad of hot torsos — its antigay graffiti or that the torsos lack navels? [Towleroad]
Dumbo: Beware of attack dogs, poison, and deflated balloons if you’re thinking of living in the new luxury Bridgeview Towers. [McBrooklyn]
East Village: Will Cabrini Stuyvesant Polyclinic become an eatery, a dormitory, or a condo? Only developer Herbert Hirsch knows … and he ain’t sayin’. [Villager via Curbed]
Greenpoint: How can you protest this grocer’s $1.75 ATM fee when you get to watch a Bruce Lee clip while you wait for your money? [Newyorkshitty]
Prospect Heights: Set It Off meets the Bratz gang in this chilling tale of local marauding female tweens. [The Brooklyn Paper]
Rego Park: A developer says his new $550 million residential-retail complex will be an “architectural landmark.” How scared should we be? [Queens Times Ledger via OuterB]
Williamsburg: Preservation-minded hipsters (and the bands they listen to) will rally Sunday to save the Domino Sugar factory. [Waterfront Preservation Alliance via Newyorkshitty]
neighborhood watch
New Park Confuses Williamsburg ResidentsChelsea: Cat litter in the toilets at the Chelsea Hotel is a common-enough problem to write a sign about. [Living with Legends]
East Village: Secret plans have surfaced to turn Stuy Town into a super-sleek eco-paradise! [Curbed]
Greenpoint: Around these parts, some prefer vinyl siding for their façades, others prefer … needlepoint? [Newyorkshitty]
Little Neck: Mayor Bloomberg and friends were booed at the Memorial Day parade here. [Queens Crap]
Midtown: Should the congestion-pricing border start at 59th Street? That’s what an uptown pol suggests. [Streetsblog]
Prospect Park: Neighbors want the redesigned Wollman Rink to turn into a pool in the summer. [Across the Park]
Williamsburg: If a park opens and no one is around to use it [Brownstoner]
neighborhood watch
Whole Foods Brings Beetles; Are They Organic?Brooklyn Heights: The focus is not on area kiddies but rather on their hardworking nannies in a St. Francis College photo exhibit. [Brooklyn Eagle]
Chelsea: You’ve heard of slow food. Now get ready for a “slow park” — that is how starchitects Scofidio and Diller described their in-progress High Line last night. [Blog Chelsea]
Downtown Brooklyn: While an Underground Railroad site fights for its life on one side of Duffield Street, 500 new hotel units are going up on the other. [Brownstoner]
Dumbo: The streets are torn up because KeySpan is installing new power lines. But the utility company promises it’ll restore those prized Belgian blocks. Cobbly! [DumboNYC]
Lower East Side: Ever since Whole Foods moved in downstairs, residents of the glossy new Avalon Christie have been facing a beetle deluge, they say. [Racked]
Rego Park: A new shopping center in the shadow of Lefrak City will house a Kohl’s, a Century 21, and (yet another) Home Depot. [QueensCrap]
Williamsburg: Oil has mysteriously oozed from the ground at North 11th and Roebling Street, and for some reason that’s making folks think twice about buying a swank new condo there. [Gowanus Lounge]
neighborhood watch
Kylie Minogue’s Giant Head Protects SohoBrooklyn Heights: This posh hood got a little grittier yesterday when a truck carrying tons of “deep, rich loam” overturned on Cadman Plaza West. [Curbed]
Chelsea: Even the famously shabby Chelsea Hotel is freshening up, now with a new awning. [BlogChelsea]
Downtown Brooklyn: There were fake-blood-soaked dummies and actors galore yesterday for the 7th Annual EMT/Paramedic Competition. [McBrooklyn]
Kensington: You know Brooklyn’s gotten trendy when none other than J.C. Penney starts shooting catalogs in its parks. [Kensington]
Soho: Grey Gardens–obsessed Kylie Minogue will replace Madonna (and her boobs) as the face of H&M staring down on Houston Street. [Copyranter]
Williamsburg: Get some sun Saturday in the new East River State Park, which for now is open only on weekends for “passive recreation.” [Metro NY via i’m not sayin’, i’m just sayin’]
neighborhood watch
Did Brooklyn Inspire ‘Urinetown’?Chelsea: Blogging about the McBurney Y has inspired at least one documentary about gentrification. [Blog Chelsea]
Clinton Hill: Nothing like finding a used colostomy bag on the street. [Clinton Hill Blog]
Malba: Residents of this Queens enclave are protesting the construction of a massive Korean day spa, saying it will cause a traffic nightmare. [Times Ledger via Queens Crap]
Park Slope: What’s with the kids peeing on trees? [Gowanus Lounge]
Turtle Bay: East 48th Street at Second Avenue may be renamed for a former resident, the recently deceased author Kurt Vonnegut. Call it Slaughterhouse 48? [NYS]
West Village: Behold the first High Line’s–eye view of the in-progress Standard Hotel straddling the old elevated rail line. [Curbed]
neighborhood watch
Park Slope Send Arab School to Boerum HillBoerum Hill: The proposed Arabic language and culture school so infuriated Park Slopers that the city decided to put it in Boerum Hill. [The Brooklyn Paper]
Brooklyn Heights: Last chance to buy tickets for the Brooklyn Heights House Tour tomorrow. [Brownstoner]
Chelsea: Someone’s looking for information on what a building on the north side of Seventh Avenue between 23 and 24th Streets looked like in the sixties and seventies. [Blog Chelsea]
Park Slope: The Brooklyn Blogfest was last night, giving bloggers an opportunity to see daylight, and each other. [Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn]
Williamsburg: After months of wondering, the new rendering of 184 Kent Street causes a significant “whoa.” [Curbed]
neighborhood watch
A Jail With Retail Space Now That’s GentrificationBedford-Stuyvesant: That mysterious door on Bedford with the funky lady painted on it? It leads to a private party space … holla! [Bed-Stuy Blog]
Boerum Hill: The Brooklyn Detention Center on Atlantic and Smith (a.k.a. the slammer) may be ready to reopen its doors, with twice its former space including ground-floor retail, by summer. Shoplifters discouraged. [McBrooklyn]
Chelsea: “Don’t Buy It Destroy All Condos!” proclaims some tagging on an AmEx billboard on Tenth and 23rd. [BlogChelsea]
Coney Island: New renderings present the proposed look of 152 co-op units and a community center on West 30th Street off Surf Avenue. [Kinetic Carnival]
Flatbush: Gentrification alert! FreshDirect will soon begin delivering to new Zip Codes east and south of Prospect Park. [Brooklynian via Brooklyn Record]
Greenpoint: Has Magic Johnson’s 110 Green development destabilized an adjacent building? [Newyorkshitty]
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]
developing
High Line Cars Should Stay on the Street, Community Board Says
Sometimes a parking space is just a parking space — even in the glitzy new High Line district. That’s what Chelsea’s Community Board 4 declared last night when it swatted down developer Young Woo & Associates plan for en suite parking at its 200 Eleventh Avenue development. Plans called for a car elevator that would have allowed residents to drive right to the door of the building’s fifteen floorthrough luxury condos — Madonna was said to be interested in buying one — but the Fire Department has made its disapproval known and last night the community board said the plan violated local zoning laws. (The board’s decision is only advisory, but the borough president, planning commission, and city council typically follow boards’ leads.) Under those rules, a new development can offer parking spots for only 20 percent of its units without a special permit. “The board has a principle that because of too many cars in the community board’s confines, they want to enforce the 20 percent,” district manager Robert Benfatto told us. So three spots, even hovering ones, would be just fine. — Alec Appelbaum
Related: The High Line: It Brings Good Things to Life [NYM]
Earlier: West Chelsea Car-Elevator Apartments: Going Down?
neighborhood watch
Gramercy Park: Now Elitist Only 364 Days a YearBrooklyn Heights: Does having the same landlord entitle you to “accidentally” park in your neighbor’s driveway? Vote now! [Brooklyn Heights Blog]
Carroll Gardens: Starting this Sunday, it’s the attack of the weekend street fair. Beware of tube socks. [Gowanus Lounge]
Chelsea: Times Square moves south with the arrival of advertising projected onto a building at 23rd and Eighth. [BlogChelsea]
Dumbo: Beacon Tower residents are starting to move in. Lucky for them, they don’t have to endure those high-powered spotlights on the side of the building. [DumboNYC]
Gramercy: Gramercy Park Day no longer exists, so the grubby public is shut out save for some Scrooge-like caroling on Christmas Eve. [NewYorkology]
Prospect Lefferts Garden: Council Woman Letitia James doesn’t represent the district, but that doesn’t mean you can’t complain to her about supporting the loud circus that angers the neighbors. [Across the Park]
West Village: Help wanted in getting rid of loitering teens. [Curbed]
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
Harlem on Only $600 a NightChelsea: The nasty Jag ad is gone from the side of the old McBurney Y, but a giant glass of Stella Artois has taken its place. [Blog Chelsea]
Flatiron: Coming soon to Madison Square Park: steel trees! [Polis]
Harlem: Marking yet another gentrification benchmark, a former Associated supermarket on 124th will become a $600-a-night W Hotel. [Columbia Spectator]
Parkville: Is Ocean Parkway the “Madison Avenue of Brooklyn”? That’s what the condo developers say. [Kensington (Brooklyn)]
Prospect Lefferts Gardens: Neighbors suspect a developer of wanting to tear down a single-family home on Ocean Avenue to make way for condos. [Across the Park]
West Village: Richard Meier’s glass towers on Perry Street will soon compete with a spire from edgy husband-wife design duo Asymptote. [Curbed]
neighborhood watch
You’re Now Priced Out of Crown Heights, TooChelsea: If you want to keep your job at the (historically and refreshingly) unfabulous McBurney Y, you better be edgy. [Chelsea Blog]
Crown Heights: Behold yet another gentrification benchmark: the first $1 million-plus condo. [One Hanson Place]
Dumbo: Disagreement among residents (for) and developers (against) about landmarking the area is prompting sure-to-be a contentious public hearing. [DumboNYC]
East Village: Opponents of a new NYU dorm on 12th Street continue to fight construction, which has been going on for eight months. The new target? Air rights. [Runnin’ Scared/VV]
Flushing: Whatever that big box going up on 163rd Street is going to be, it’s going to clash with the traditional homes next door. Did somebody say “stop-work order?” [Queens Crap]
Upper West Side: Residents (including, probably, Bill Moyers) fear that the Landmarks Commission has given New-York Historical Society the green light for changes including a view-crushing 23-story condo on its property. [NYS]
neighborhood watch
Downtown Graffiti Goes CommercialChelsea: Maritime partiers, take note: The Frying Pan, that “legendary party vessel,” has moved from Pier 63 a few blocks north to 66. [Curbed]
Downtown Brooklyn: City Council is in no rush to hold hearings about the future of the Duffield Street homes that may have been Underground Railroad stops. [The Daily Gotham via Gowanus Lounge]
Dumbo: Local megadeveloper Thomas Arden is the subject of a new adaption of the 1739 play Arden of Feversham, now titled The Lamentable Tragedie of a Dumbo Real Estate Mogul. [The Real Deal]
Greenpoint: Vice’s online video channel will run a new exposé on the toxic sludge that lies beneath the ground here and in Williamsburg. [VBS.tv via A Brooklyn Life]
Nolita: Seven graffiti artists are painting a fake subway car on Houston and Lafayette as guests of Adidas, much to anti-graffiti councilman Peter Vallone Jr.’s dismay. [Razor Apple and Newsday]
Soho: Has the city’s plan for a bike lane on Houston Street been quietly abandoned? [On NY Turf]
neighborhood watch
Tourists Held Hostage in ChinatownChelsea: Blood flows red in Chelsea. But is it an art project on Seventh Avenue, or a fight to determine which gym is fiercest? [Blog Chelsea]
Chinatown: Knockoff Louis Vuitton shoppers, beware! You, too, may be locked in a basement by vendors attempting to hide you from the cops. [NYP]
Coney Island: Thor Equities may one day close Astroland Park, but the Cyclone is safe and sound on city-owned land. [NYP]
East Harlem: How do you protect a community garden from turning into a condo tower and African art museum? Chain yourself to the fence. [On NY Turf]
East Village: Rififi, that fun dive of burlesque, live comedy, and the notorious dance bash Trash, is on the market, with rent at $15,000 a month. [Brooklyn Vegan]
Midtown: Iconic towers like the Chrysler, Woolworth, and Empire State don’t even make today’s list of the ten most valuable skyscrapers in the city. [NYO]
developing
With Polshek Tower Dead, Chelsea Seminary Turns to Affordable HousingThe pooh-bahs of nouveau Chelsea and the guardians of old Chelsea might want to start working together. The General Theological Seminary, situated in an elegant Gothic quad on West 20th Street, has been trying since 2005 to get approval to build a James Polshek–designed residential tower at the Ninth Avenue edge of its property. (With everyone else making money off the neighborhood’s real-estate boom, the aspiring Episcopalians saw an easy way to finance a desperately needed renovation of its buildings.) But after being shot down by old-timers on the local community board in February, the seminary last night announced it was giving up its residential-tower dreams. Now it’s proposing a much smaller, seven-story (but still Polshek-designed) structure along Ninth, with a library downstairs and co-ops upstairs. (The co-ops will help pay for at least some renovations.) And there will also be one more part of the new plan, according to seminary executive vice-president Maureen Burnley: During negotiations with the community board, she said, the seminary offered some of its land to the New York City Housing Authority for affordable-housing units. Score one for the old guard. —Alec Appelbaum
neighborhood watch
Fake-Poor Kids Derided in WilliamsburgBedford-Stuyvesant: There are no outstanding violations, so why hasn’t there been any work at 377 Franklin Avenue for the past three months? [Brownstoner]
Chelsea: Communist Party headquarters on 23rd Street rent out space to (gasp!) a real-estate agency, proving even pinkos can’t resist the potential lucre of the housing bubble. [Blog Chelsea]
Lower Manhattan: Those huge light projections you’ll see tonight are actually an antiwar protest. BYO candle. [1010 WINS via Gothamist]
Prospect Park: So where exactly can you pick up a free wi-fi signal? [Daily Slope]
Williamsburg: How quickly the trust-funded hipsters turn on each other when the Times reveals that one-quarter of their parents bought their apartments for them. [Gawker]
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
Jim McGreevey Exercises Gay American Right to Protest
Chelsea: More glassy façades are replacing the old tenements of Eighth Avenue north of 14th Street, creating more reflective surfaces for area pretty boys to admire themselves in. [Blog Chelsea]
Clinton Hill: Trap-neuter-return. Those three magic words can help humanely manage the area’s feral cat population. [Clinton Hill Blog]
Cobble Hill: Is that boarded-up old building on Warren St. really a former Christmas-ornament factory? And whatever is to become of it? [Lost City]
Gowanus: Faster than you can smuggle out towels in your suitcase, it looks like another hotel is coming to the area. [Gowanus Lounge]
Greenpoint: The most awesome house ever is on Beadel Street and has a leopard-print door. [New York Shitty]
Times Square: As he promised yesterday, ex-Jersey guv Jim McGreevey turned out at the military recruitment center today (above) with about 60 other gays to protest a top general’s calling la vida homo “immoral.” [Towleroad]
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
I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen to Gramercy!Chelsea: Turns out the broker listing the penthouse in the old McBurney YMCA is former gay-porn star Fredrik Eklund. Oh, and the price keeps dropping. [Blog Chelsea]
Gramercy: A massive new condo on 23rd Street is being advertised as a pied-à-terre to Irish jet-setters. Times have changed. [Curbed]
Greenpoint: Magic Johnson is sinking $12.4 million into the 110 Greene Street condos, hoping to draw more yuppies to the area. [Crain’s]
Harlem: Blogger finds community cleanup of St. Nicholas Park dog run nearly too nice and fun to comment on. [Harlem Fur]
Upper West Side: Was the recently renovated Beresford penthouse of Coach CEO Lew Frankfort destroyed by fire? [Curbed]
Williamsburg: Zipcar’s bringing a fleet to the ‘burg! Now what about Fort Greene and Clinton Hill? [Gowanus Lounge]
neighborhood watch
Truman Capote Slept Here, But Not for $40,000 a MonthBoerum Hill: Believe it or not, the new Boerum Heights Condos are 100 percent sold out even though they’re smack up against the Atlantic Yards project. [One Hanson Place]
Brooklyn Heights: Rent 70 Willow Street (where Truman Capote used to live) for only $40,000 a month. Call Sotheby’s for details. [Brownstoner]
Chelsea: Body-conscious Chelsea boys will no longer be tempted by the huge, pink rotating cupcake atop 23rd Street’s Burgers and Cupcakes. The store has 30 days to take it down. [Blog Chelsea via JamesWagner]
Dumbo: With all these CGIs of planned improvements for the area (including a new Brooklyn Bridge walkway), it’s almost like they’ve already happened! [Dumbo NYC]
Fort Greene: One resident is launching a campaign to get Zipcar to place some cars here and in Clinton Hill. [Brooklyn Record]
Howard Beach: Was Liberace’s last bungalow mistakenly constructed in Queens? [Queens Crap]
neighborhood watch
You, With the Pet Raccoon! Time for Your Rabies Shot
Chelsea: When you buy into “the most coveted new address” in “New York City’s most desired neighborhood,” hot babes in fishnets await you on your couch. [Curbed]
East Harlem: Were you one of the two white thirtysomethings wearing scrubs who brought that injured raccoon to the 110th Street animal shelter Tuesday? Well, you better call the Health Department, because that little mofo was rabid! [Flatbush Gardener]
East Village: Complaints from upstairs neighbors have led to a ban on live music at Avenue B punk dive Manitoba’s, owned by Handsome Dick Manitoba of the Dictators [Brooklyn Vegan]
Prospect Heights: Those long-sought financials for the Atlantic Yards project are finally out. Now just try to understand them. [Brownstoner]
Sunnyside Gardens: Residents want to turn the pretty area into a landmarked historic district, but their state senator opposes the idea. [Queens Crap via Queens Gazette]*
Sunset Park: A high-rise threatens to obscure the view of Lady Liberty from one of the highest points in Brooklyn … and residents are fuming about it. [NY1 via Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn]
*Correction: An earlier version of this story suggested that Sunnyside Garden residents opposed the area’s historic designation while their state senator supported it. Also, the original item was found in the Queens Gazette, not the Queens Courier.
gossipmonger
Tom Brady Does Not Love New York, or Bridget MoynahanTom Brady put his New York pad up for sale as soon as he found out ex-girlfriend Bridget Moynahan was pregnant. Speaking of officially pregnant: Naomi Watts. Speaking of maybe pregnant: Christina Aguilera. Hillary Clinton, or someone from her office, got mad at David Geffen for throwing a party last night for Barack Obama. Former As Four designer Kai Kuhne flipped out after his credit card was denied at Sway. A Chelsea nightclub doesn’t want handicapped customers upstairs.
neighborhood watch
Track Bikes To Tear Through LESBedford-Stuyvesant: Does Head Over Heels Café actually exist, or does it just have terrible business practices? [Clinton Hill Blog]
Chelsea: Mullen’s Pub is gone, done in by rent increases. [Blog Chelsea]
Greenpoint: Give the neighborhood some T-shirt love, and show everyone how much you love the terminal market. [Newyorkshitty]
Lower East Side: Monster Track 2007 starts at 3 p.m. at Sarah D. Roosevelt Park; cheer on a slew of bikers without brakes. [Razor Apple]
Park Slope: Police warn Tea Loungers of nefarious terrorists who plot using the hangout’s free wi-fi. [Brooklyn Paper]
Richmond Hill: Residents are livid over plans to build low-income housing on land only recently revealed to be contaminated. [Queens Chronicle]
Williamsburg: New moms rave about the midwife program at Woodhull Medical Center. They even liked the food! [Block Magazine via Brooklyn Record]