In Greenpoint, the Rainbow Is Somewhere Under an Oil SlickIf you were Lady Liberty, they’d pay $150,000 to see if it was safe for people to walk on your head. That’s status! Plus news from Crown Heights, the LES, Clinton Hill, and Wash Heights, in the week’s final boroughs report.
neighborhood watch
Astor Place to Get Slightly Less Life-ThreateningScruffles are playing in the streets in Jackson Heights. Gays are scared for their Vespas in Chelsea. Some other group of people is turning in its Uzis in Clinton Hill. And everybody is reading our daily boroughs report.
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!
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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!
neighborhood watch
Gersh Kuntzman Takes Dump in the Name of JournalismG-train riders protesting in Fort Greene! Eighth-graders protesting in the South Bronx! Party poopers protesting on Park Avenue! What will you choose to protest? Read our daily boroughs report and decide.
neighborhood watch
Brighton Beach Baths: Too Good for Manhattanites?Is the city really dumping trash in a Ridgewood wetland? How could we have missed the Sinatra tribute in Williamsburg? And how would you get by without your daily boroughs report?
A Biggie Biopic Grows in BrooklynA movie in Clinton Hill, a murder in Carroll Gardens, Obama faces popping up all over Brooklyn, and more in our daily roundup of neighborhood news.
neighborhood watch
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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Bushwick Life: Rat Poop on Your Pillow, Organic Milk in Your BodegaBushwick: The area is not so gentrified that you may not still experience the thrill of rats going through your trash or taking a dump on your bed. But at least you can get organic milk in the bodegas now. [BushwichBK]
Clinton Hill: It looks like the stakeout for Spitzer’s hooker bookers has moved here, with TV crews sniffing around for Tameka Lewis, a.k.a. “Rachelle.” [Nervous Acid]
Fort Greene: Perhaps remorseful that he demolished the area’s only supermarket to make room for a massive 600-unit condo project, John Catsimatidis promised it’d have a grocery. But nearby project dwellers worry they won’t be able to afford it if it’s one of his Gristedes. [NYDN]
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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]
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After Taco Bell, Rodents Take On Cobble HillClinton Hill: What? You say you weren’t at the Pratt annual antique steam-whistle concert on New Year’s Eve at midnight? Like, where else could you have been? At least it was captured on this YouTube video. But, dude, it’s not the same thing as being there. [Clinton Hill Blog]
Cobble Hill: Is that a squirrel or a rat sunning himself in the window of that shamefully derelict Kane Street walk-up? Locals are bitterly divided over the answer. People, can we all agree that it’s a rodent? [Lost New York City]
Dumbo: Will the new owners of an old Water Street warehouse really build a theater and host a Korean film festival in there? We’ll see, kimchee. [Brooklyn Eagle via DumboNYC]
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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]
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You Aren’t the Only Person Who Comes Home to Find Random People Smoking in Your StairwellClinton Hill: Beware of undesirables who sneak into your apartment building to smoke butts, do drugs, copulate, urinate, and drink coffee. Because it’s happening. [Clinton Hill Blog]
East Village: The latest bank branch hopes that if it puts up a big photo of the hood in Ye Olden Days, no one will notice that it’s filled mostly with bank branches now. [Vanishing New York]
Flushing: Local Quaker farmers demand freedom of worship! Well, they did in 1657. But the tatty document in which they listed their demands, called “The religious Magna Carta of the New World,” is on display up in here. [NYT]
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Just What You Always Wanted: A Philippe Starck Bike RackClinton Hill: Tonight, the Pratt design gang unveils new street-furniture ideas for the hood. Eames chairs in the bus shelter, anyone? [Clinton Hill Blog]
East Side: Bloomberg will ban schoolkid field trips to the U.N. if its myriad fire-safety violations aren’t fixed by March. They won’t be, if the kids are lucky. But what about the pope?! [Newyorkology]
Elmhurst: Hey, Asians, don’t think that just because the cops served Chinese food at the last community meeting in an effort to reach out to you that it’ll happen again. At least not this month. [Junction Boulevard]
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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]
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Chelsea, Now With Lap Pools!Chelsea: New promo pics for the too-fabulous Yves (so French!) condo tell a smoldering story of love, lust, and on-site lap pools. [Curbed]
Clinton Hill: Don’t click here unless you’re ready to see the dead, mutilated squirrel left in front of the home of this blogger. Revenge from a developer who got a snarky write-up? [Brownstoner]
Downtown Brooklyn: The massive new real estate planned for the area may not be so massive overall…think 1.6 mil square feet of office space versus the 4.5 mil projected a few years ago. [NYO]
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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]
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Wait, We Kind of Want One of Those Full-Body UmbrellasBrooklyn Heights: The Fairway Shuttle made its first stop in the Heights today! What, you white people don’t want to walk through Red Hook? [Brooklyn Heights Blog]
Chelsea: Straight and gay couples have been walking around the city handing out condoms — underneath condomlike umbrellas. Extra points for this blogger who titles his post “It’s Raining (Se)Men!” [Copyranter]
Clinton Hill: Because of inclement weather, tomorrow’s Great PUPkin Dog Costume Contest in Clinton Hill will be delayed until Sunday, which gives you just that much more time on the “Dead Flower From Meerkat Manor” costume for your Chihuahua. [Clinton Hill Blog]
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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]
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Rooms to Rent in the Chelsea Hotel! Sort Of.Bushwick: Oh, God: Now the Offensive Gay Gentrifier is writing offensive haiku. (“Oh, the bodega/So many on each corner/Like ghetto Starbucks…”) [BushwickBK]
Chelsea: Once again, new management is advertising rooms at the storied Chelsea Hotel for the low price of $119 a night. “Subject to availability,” that is. So are they really available? [Living with Legends]
Clinton Hill: They’re filming something in the hood today…and it’s probably a Heineken commercial. [Clinton Hill Blog]
Park Slope: That raccoon that attacked a woman in the park recently? It and its kind apparently like fresh, raw fish. Hm — sushi-eating attack raccoons. [Gowanus Lounge]
Sunnyside: It’s the new Astoria! Or so some are saying, based on slightly cheaper rents in this Queens nabe. [OuterB]
Williamsburg: At the community-board meeting last night, it was all about the fate of the half-built Finger Building (just how tall should it be?)… that, and the faltering sewage system, that is. [Brownstoner]
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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]
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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]
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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]
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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’]
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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]
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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’]
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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]
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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]
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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]
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Greenpoint Smells Worse Every YearBrooklyn Heights: Despite all the protests during the planning process, no one showed up to heckle the unveiling of new turf at Cadman Plaza Park. [McBrooklyn]
Clinton Hill: It will take one more weekend of volunteer labor to install the composting toilet in Hollenback Park. [Clinton Hill Blog]
Elmhurst: City Council members honor veterans here by dressing like slobs. [QueensCrap]
Flatiron: A reward is being offered for information in the hit-and-run death of a Brooklyn resident on Saturday. [Gothamist]
Greenpoint: The area never smelled fantastic, but this warm-weather season is starting off as the stankiest ever. [Newyorkshitty]
Williamsburg: Parishioners at Our Lady of Mount Carmel can’t pray peaceably on Sunday morning for all the racket at the nearby construction site. Developers, beware of God’s wrath! [Gowanus Lounge]
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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]
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City Encourages Park Slope’s Superiority ComplexClinton Hill: Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are shooting here this week. [Clinton Hill Blog]
East Village: Police copters and even a Second Avenue shutdown failed to find the person who was violently throwing tableware from his window last night. [Gothamist]
Greenpoint: Here, even the statues of local notables are crappy. [Newyorkshitty]
Middle Village: Four ball fields were closed down yesterday for a sparsely attended fair in this Queens park. At least Councilmember Melinda Katz sang (as she often does). [Queens Crap]
Park Slope: Another thing to feel superior about: recycling more than any other neighborhood in the city. [Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn]
Upper East Side: A street fair on Second Ave. yesterday did have the tube socks, but it also had some excellent accessories. [Upper East Side]
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Nothing Says ‘Small-Town Feel’ Like Community ToiletsThe Bronx: Car-free Sundays return to the Grand Concourse. [Streetsblog]
Clinton Hill: Hollenback Garden invites all the neighbors to soil the soil, but wait until the composting toilet is built on Saturday. [Clinton Hill Blog]
East Village: One Ten 3rd is still not ready for human occupancy, but for now it’s populated by a bunch of Sub-Zero refrigerators. [Curbed]
Jackson Heights: The normally private gardens here are open to the rest of us schlubs for the weekend. [OuterB]
Kensington: Virgin doesn’t even bother giving this underrated neighborhood its own ad. They just get a generic “Brooklyn” one. [Kensington Blog]
Park Slope: Anyone want to buy Seventh Avenue Books? It’s “priced to sell.” [Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn]
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Murray Hill Is Tragically MisunderstoodBrooklyn Heights: A couple moved into a new building in 1901 and later passed the apartment on to their son. When he died in March, he was paying $451 a month for a two-bedroom. [Brooklyn Eagle via Brooklyn Heights Blog]
Clinton Hill: Depending on which typo you follow, dumping at this building on Emerson will cost you either $3,000 or $3 million in fines. [Clinton Hill Blog]
Fort Greene: Does a plywood fence at Carlton Mews mean work will finally begin there? [Brownstoner]
Greenpoint: Oversize ads drilled into vinyl siding wouldn’t last a second in Williamsburg or Park Slope. So why here? [newyorkshitty]
Murray Hill: Unless the frat boys have all moved away, this is no “lagoon of calm.” [Curbed]
Prospect Lefferts Gardens: Miss the PLG house tours over the weekend? There’s a slideshow to keep you sated. [Planet PLG]
Upper West Side: Tonight, take a rare chance to complain about how cruddy the subway station is at 96th and Broadway. [Second Avenue Sagas]
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Forget the Toxins. Just Build the Damn Whole Foods.Brooklyn Heights: Get a look inside the fancy One Brooklyn Bridge Park at a rare open house tonight. [Brooklyn Eagle via mcbrooklyn]
Bushwick: It’s a zoning puzzle on Harrison and Wallabout: a residential building on a “light manufacturing” lot. [QueensCrap]
Central Park: The city’s transportation commish is considering a car-free Central Park trial this summer. [Streetsblog]
Clinton Hill: Looking for the right community garden? Here’s where you can picnic or pull weeds. [Clinton Hill Blog]
Gowanus: An informal poll suggests that some are concerned about the environmental impact of the new Whole Foods, while others just want the damn market already. [Brownstoner]
Greenpoint: Discarded self-help guides suggest “quarter-life crises” are rampant around here. Egads. [Newyorkshitty]
Hell’s Kitchen: A new condo is looking for buyers, preferably ones made of precious metals. [CopyRanter]
Long Island City: How long till owner Tishman-Speyer demos this (admittedly none-too-charming) parking garage and puts up an office park? [LICNYC]
South Beach: It’s dirty-needle season at the beach! [7online via Gothamist]
Williamsburg: Will drawing attention to this cool new street art attract the wrath of the graffiti-defacing Splasher? [Williamsburg]
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Outside the Grid Is a Senseless, Scary WorldClinton Hill: Of the two area buildings called “The Chocolate Factory,” which one actually used to make chocolate? [Clinton Hill Blog]
Greenpoint: How to keep dogs off your grass? Say it’s intoxicated. [Newyorkshitty]
Greenwood Heights: Neighbors are petitioning the Department of Buildings over unsafe conditions at 18-20 Jackson Place. [Gowanus Lounge]
Long Island City: Throw out your trash in Court Square so you can try out the solar-powered garbage compressor. [LICNYC]
Lower Manhattan: A gridless world proves confusing to an Upper East Sider. [The Upper East Side Scene]
Soho: The Mulberry Street branch of the New York Public Library opens today. [Gothamist]
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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]
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It’s All Downhill From Morningside HeightsBoerum Hill: It’s not enough that the Brooklyn House of Detention could reopen. Besides room for 720 inmates, look for two towers with residential or commercial space. [Brooklyn Daily Eagle via mcbrooklyn]
Clinton Hill: Residents of the area’s southern flank, rejoice … a bank (a North Fork) is finally coming to Fulton and Clinton! [Brooklyn Record]
Greenpoint: Residents come together to complain to a building inspector about excessive noise and damage caused by construction at 110 Green Street. [Newyorkshitty]
Harlem: The Beaumont, a 63-unit Art Deco apartment building on Riverside Drive, has been sold for just over $20 million. [Uptown Flavor]
Morningside Heights: This area has the greatest number of bike commuters — after Park Slope, of course. [Streetsblog]
Park Slope: A local brothel is undergoing a renovation. But what will the building be now? [Curbed]
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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]
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Come and Listen to a Story ‘Bout WilliamsburgBrooklyn Heights: A Remsen Street building catches fire for the second time in six months, and word is an older third-floor tenant is responsible for both. [Brooklyn Heights Blog]
Clinton Hill: A new private school, Phyl’s Academy, appears to be going up on the empty lot at Classon and Quincy. [Brooklyn Record]
Park Slope: Times-reading neighbors want to know: Does “hipster” refer to all of Brooklyn, or just Williamsburg? [Brooklynian]
Times Square: The buttons to the elevator in Renzo Piano’s new Times building are actually … in the lobby! [Curbed]
Upper West Side: Trying to avoid rabies shots, a Central Park jogger wants to know the identity of the dog that bit him. [Curbed]
Williamsburg: Is there more black gold under Williamsburg? Monitoring wells at Roebling Street will find out. [Gowanus Lounge]
neighborhood watch
Secret Art Pops Up in DumboBrooklyn Heights: The elevators at the Clark Street subway stop have broken down 400 times over the past two years, trapping riders inside more than twenty times. [NYS]
Clinton Hill: There’s a vacant lot for sale on Greene and Grand. Please don’t do something awful with it. [Clinton Hill Blog
Downtown Brooklyn: Dumbo realty mogul David Walentas’s new condos at the old McKim, Meade & White–designed 110 Livingston are 85 percent sold. [Brownstoner]
Dumbo: French artist Space Invader has managed to slip at least two of his mosaics on the Brooklyn Bridge and elsewhere. [Dumbo NYC]
Lower East Side: What you missed at the East Side Bike Polo invitational over the weekend. [Razor Apple]
Nolita: For a little while longer at 11 Spring Street, you can still see the art on the interior walls. [Just Another White Guy via Curbed]
Prospect Heights: According to this breakdown, parts of the Atlantic Yards project will not be fully built until today’s newborns are already in college. [Atlantic Yards Report]
neighborhood watch
Natives Frighten Yuppies in Carroll GardensBedford Stuyvesant: CW11 hired graffiti artists to paint billboards for Everybody Hates Chris. They didn’t hire the other graffiti artists to bomb the ads. [Razor Apple]
Carroll Gardens: Old Brooklyn and new Brooklyn walk into a bar. New Brooklyn gets scared and leaves. Back to the Zombie Hut. [Brooklyn Record]
Clinton Hill: So it looks like a greenhouse, but it’s made of metal tubing. What is this place on Emerson for? [ClintonHillBlog]
Flatbush: Depressed that that blast of spring is fading away? Take heart … the cherry trees are starting to blossom in Brooklyn Botanic Garden. [Gothamist]
Harlem: Yet another New York Sports Club may come to the area, this time at 115th and Fifth. [Uptown Flavor]
Kingsbridge: In a few weeks, the city will have racked up $1.5 mil in fines for putting off the building of that dang filtration plant in Van Cortlandt Park. Ouch. [NYP via West Bronx Blog]
Prospect Heights: Old parapets are falling on the demo sites that will be the Atlantic Yards complex. [Curbed]
