Dwarf Pimp Busted in Bed-StuyThe rides at Coney are reportedly dangerous, Malcolm Gladwell buys up more of the West Village, and a little person gets caught big pimpin’ in Bed-Stuy. Ho-hum, just the start of another week in our daily boroughs report.
Coney Island High Jinks: This Summer, Adorably Tame!Doing your business in a shiny “pod” in Chelsea’s new Jade, sailing the lifeguard chairs at Coney, independent media going corporate in Riverdale, and more, in our daily boroughs dispatch!
neighborhood watch
They’re Crazy From the Heat!Harlem residents suspect gentrifiers are the cause of a raccoon outbreak, a miffed man burns down his neighbor’s house on Staten Island, and government workers from separate departments deliberately, sneakily sabotage one another in the East Village. All this and more in our daily boroughs report.
neighborhood watch
Scarlett Johansson Will Lay Her Head in Sutton PlaceScarJo buys a Sutton Place postwar, Billyburg and Greenpoint wait for their parks, and guilty liberal Slopies’ rage toward Greenpeace panhandlers finally boils over. That and more in today’s boroughs report.
neighborhood watch
Pro-Pussy Activists Attack Port AuthorityAnimal activists defend the feral kitties of JFK against collective euthanasia, a stolen bike is rescued by East Village heroes, and a man in Coney Island suffers a craptastic fall — all in your daily dish from the five boroughs.
in other news
Surfer Savior Keeps Getting SexierThe mysterious surfer who saved the life of a Brooklynite in the choppy waters off of Coney Island has been identified.
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
Coney Island 2008: The ‘Summer of Hope’Wrap up your week wetly, with a dead raccoon on the Upper East Side, a tiny woman on Coney, David Byrne way downtown, and some big breasts in the meatpacking district. All in today’s boroughs report!
neighborhood watch
‘Jeffersons’ Producer Moves On Up to Wrong SideWhat’s more dangerous, crossing the street to the park in Prospect Lefferts, having pot smoke blown in your face in Crown Heights, or living amid a bunch of rich bankers on Central Park West? You decide … in our daily boroughs report!
neighborhood watch
Scaffolding Already Up for Giant Waterfall SculpturesPesky squirrels in Astoria, a not-dead-yet beaver in the Bronx, and a baby born in the Port Authority. Furry little creatures abound in our daily boroughs report!
neighborhood watch
On the Bowery, New Hotel Tower Physically Squeezes Landmarked HomePlus, boos drowning out a Harlem rezone vote and Grand Theft Auto’s uncanny recreation of a certain famous, fun-oriented island (“Johnson’s Famous Hot Dogs”?). All that with mustard and sauerkraut in today’s boroughs report.
Bloomberg Shows Tyra That He Too Can Be FierceTyra and Bloomie pretend to plant trees in Chelsea, the broken playground in Union Square Park is creepy, and lesbian sightings are scarce in the Slope these days. That and more in our daily boroughs report.
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]
neighborhood watch
Chelsea Clearview West Finally Cedes Dominance to Chelsea ClearviewChelsea: The School of Visual Arts has acquired the Chelsea West Cinemas on 23rd Street for use as auditoriums … and the school’s acting chair, design legend Milton Glaser (who did both the “I Heart NY” logo and the original New York Magazine emblem), will redo the place inside and out. Cool! [Mediabistro via Blog Chelsea]
Cobble Hill: Did some of Spitzer’s ho brokers live here or in Brooklyn Heights? Either way, kinda classy hoods to be associated with this tawdriness, if you ask us. [Cobble Hill Blog]
Coney Island: The city will replace huge, ugly, hazardous gaps in the boardwalk with a concrete-plastic wood-look-alike material … but, fakaktaishly, not until after the summer season. [NYDN]
neighborhood watch
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]
neighborhood watch
Sharks on Coney Island! And Expensive Ones, at ThatBowery: No sooner had this lovable bum moved out of the street box he lived in and into a proper $300-a-month room than his troubles began. [NYT]
Bushwick: Behold the new ‘swhick-specific haiku trend: “Dude with the corn rows/Stop selling crack, you scumbag/Sell good pot instead.” [BushwickBK]
Coney Island: The fancy exterior redo for the New York Aquarium may have to be, uh, scaled back due to a planned $64 million exhibition on sharks. [Coney Island via Curbed]
neighborhood watch
She Was a Day-tripper, Ferry Driver, Yeah!Coney Island: “Imagine getting on a ferry at Hunt’s Point for a day trip” here! That’s what Christine Quinn floated yesterday in her big speech. Could it really happen? [Kinetic Carnival]
East Village: McMansion mogul Robert Toll’s 27-year-old NYU social-work-student son Jacob lives with two of his buds in a $2.2 million condo in his dad’s glossy new One Ten 3rd building. How will he pay that mortgage on a social worker’s salary? (Cue cynical chortles.) [NYO]
Midtown: Wouldn’t it be cool if the retired math professor who nearly died of a bondage incident in a sex club here could get his wife in on his S&M thing instead of having to shamefully confess it to her in the Post? Now he’s vowing to break his addiction. Why not just go safe, sane, and consensual? [Gothamist]
neighborhood watch
The East Village Has Gone Euro. No, Really.Coney Island: Here, 105 years ago today, Thomas Edison electrocuted a rogue elephant to prove the power of direct (versus alternating) current. He even filmed it. And where was PETA? [Gothamist]
East Village: Local biz owners are banding together against chain stores. Meanwhile, the trendy hood’s so overrun with Euros that stores have started accepting, uh, euros. [Vanishing New York]
Long Island City: Bollywood comes to LIC, hip-hop style, in this cute video. Shakalaka, baby! [LICNYC]
neighborhood watch
Bed-Stuy Fires Back at the ‘Shwick!Bedford-Stuyvesant: Uh-oh. Bed-Stuy just upped the stakes in the blog battle between it and Bushwick. They even dis ‘shwick homegirl Rosie Perez. This is war, muthaf*ckas. [Bed-Stuy Blog]
Coney Island: So many people showed up last night at the first public meeting on the city’s plans for Coney that it had to be canceled for lack of space. Wow. This should be an epic novel. [Gowanus Lounge]
Jackson Heights: The hood’s got a new bulletin board! Where else will you learn where to get the area’s best pizza, Mexican cocoa power, and $5-or-under eyebrow threading? [Jackson Heights Life]
neighborhood watch
Coney Island: The New Blackpool, England?Astoria: Everyone’s all excited about this new apartment building, but doesn’t it kind of look like a seventies computer or TV set? [OuterB]
Brooklyn Heights: Now that Norman Mailer’s dead, the hood’s most famous resident could well be right-wing scribe Peggy Noonan. How depressing. [Brooklyn Heights Blog]
Coney Island: If new visions for the amusement zone ever take hold, it may end up looking something like … Blackpool, England! Check out that twister coaster beside the tram. [Kinetic Carnival]
in other news
Stephon Has an Alibi, and It’s a Good OneOkay, remember yesterday when everyone made such a big deal out of Stephon Marbury’s fleeing the Knicks in Phoenix and returning to New York all of a sudden? Nobody knew quite what was going on, not even Isiah Thomas, who had gotten in a nasty fight with Marbury on the team plane when he told the point guard he wouldn’t be starting in the night’s game. This spurred a lot of anti-Marbury sentiment, with columnists and pundits and us grumpily speculating as to what he might have been up to. Today, the Times figured at least part of it out. If you haven’t read about his activities during his two-day break, pick the most likely-sounding scenario from the below list:
A) He was plotting revenge on Thomas and spending his time figuring out how, as he put it, to “fuck him first.”
B) He was having sex with an intern in a truck.
C) He was at a Coney Island housing project grieving with the family of a deceased basketball coach who had mentored hundreds of talented players in the tough neighborhood, including Marbury (who once gave the coach a white Cadillac with vanity plates).
Ding Ding Ding! The Times says it’s C. Who’s the jerk now?
A Mentor of Street Ball Dies, and a Missing Knick Appears [NYT]
Earlier: Marbury Stephs on All Our Dreams
neighborhood watch
Should Stuyvesant Heights Secede?Bushwick: This blogger hates on gritty Bed-Stuy, claiming that it’s nothing compared to its slicker, ‘shwick-er neighbor. That’s harsh, but maybe he’s right to suggest that pretty Stuy Heights secede from the rest of the hood. [BushwickBK]
Chelsea: Even before 100 Eleventh Avenue developers could obscure Knox Martin’s landmark mural next door, they’ve covered his signature with their ad. It’s a proto-dis! [Chelsea Blog]
Coney Island: An ice-skating rink at the base of the Wonder Wheel? That’s bigger than Wollman? That’s a summertime sailing pond? Yes, yes and yes! [NY1 via Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn]
neighborhood watch
Astroland: Now in the City’s Own Flipper HandsAstoria: Miss Heather from Newyorkshitty gets back to what she does best: poop art. [Newyorkshitty]
The BQE: Tracks from Sufjan Stevens’s homage to the venerable expressway are online! [Vulture via Hypeful]
Coney Island The city will save Astroland’s land (as a park) by taking it away from Thor, thus saving the amusement park! Yay! Except, oh wait, what does the city know about running a freak show? Don’t answer that question. [Curbed]
developing
Astroland Saved!
Now hear this: The city will not sell out Coney Island’s Astroland. Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden told a roomful of civic heavyweights this morning that the city is weeks away from announcing a rezoning plan that will “save the amusement park, an icon of democracy which is beloved by the whole world.” She continued: “The strategy will catalyze a new park which will be open year-round…and housing, in the right place.” Planning insiders have long doubted rumors that Astroland would become a northern outpost of Del Boca Vista (come on, Seinfeld’s parents’ retirement community? Anyone?). Thor Equities, which had floated the idea of time-shares near the hallowed ground, has also been pretty quiet lately. But this hammers the point home. The devil will be in the details, as any change to Coney’s curious chemistry will be hard for some people to swallow. Mayor Bloomberg, in a speech at the same conference, promised that the rezoning will “take full advantage of the wonderful new subway terminal at Stillwell Avenue.” So apartments could still cluster near the Cyclone. As long as we get direct access to the boardwalk from the subway, that’s fine with us. —Alec Appelbaum
neighborhood watch
Cobble Hill Shall Only Remain Yea HighCobble Hill: In a last-minute about-face, Councilman Bill De Blasio said he’ll vote to deny developer Two Trees the right to build ten feet over the height limit in the quaint hood. [Brooklyn Eagle]
Coney Island: The deal has been inked, folks. Starting in March, Astroland will be open for one more season before the bulldozers roll in. [NYDN]
Flushing: Yeah, we know this blog features hideous new architecture around Queens every day, but these specimens are particularly heinous. What’s that thing atop the building in the first picture, a big brick handle? [Queens Crap]
neighborhood watch
It’s the Circle, the Circle of Homeless Life…Coney Island: Is it really any surprise that arguably the creepiest Halloween freak show in the city is here? [Kinetic Carnival]
Corona: The city has evicted rent-stabilized tenants to make room for homeless families, leaving the original families … uh, homeless. [NYDN via Queens Crap]
Dumbo: The Village Voice thinks this is the Best Manhattan Neighborhood in Brooklyn, and it even comes with that all-important “nostalgic desolation” that Manhattan now lacks. [VV]
neighborhood watch
Queer Femmes on Coney Island Get Their Own CalendarConey Island: Just when you realize the world really needs a female-controlled “queer femme swimsuit calendar” of the hot gals of Coney … boom, you get one. [Kinetic Carnival]
Dumbo: Even boring old drugstores around here are cashing in on that whole down-under-the-bridge glamour vibe. [Dumbo]
East Village: Some gays divided their time between watching Caligula and sneaking into sex booths at a new XXX-salon-type thing. [Gawker via Manhattan Offender]
neighborhood watch
Trader Joe’s Wants You … to Vaseline Your TeethBay Ridge: They’re saying that Representative. Fossella hasn’t come through on promises to help save a beautiful Methodist church from being razed for condo development. [Queens Crap]
Coney Island: We are increasingly intrigued by Rose, the compellingly coiffed lady who delivers terse morning weather reports on this blog from a tower high atop Coney. Let’s hear more about Rose! [OTBKB]
Dumbo: Looks like yuppies and Farragut Houses residents alike will be rubbing shoulders over toothpaste and T.P. at the “New Pharmacy Coming Soon!” to Gold Street. [Brownstoner]
Forest Hills: If you’re an ambitious, adventurous, values- and people-oriented foodie who smiles easily, then the new Trader Joe’s here wants you! [Forest Hills 72]
Harlem: With HIV infections in the city’s young gay men up a third since 2001, the biggest jump in that group is here and East Harlem. Come on, brothas and papis — and Chelsea boys too, for that matter — rock the cock sock! [NYS]
Long Island City: Sounds like there’s an itty-bitty park planned for that waterfront lot at the end of Vernon Boulevard. Nice. [LICNYC]
Melrose: Who’s going to plunk down $25 mil to buy the fabulously rococo, former Bronx County Courthouse? And what’ll they use it for? [Curbed]
photo op
Astroland’s Last DayConey Island’s Astroland closed yesterday, perhaps for the last time ever. If you never got sick on the Tilt-A-Whirl or came off the Cyclone mysteriously bleeding, you missed out on one of the city’s most outrageous and real cultural experiences. After this year, the Cyclone will stick around, but the colorful lights and characters that surrounded it may never return.
Related: Show me the Coney
neighborhood watch
All Peeping Toms to Third Avenue, StatBedford Park: Council speaker Christine Quinn shopped at a Botanical Garden farmer’s market up here this morning to tout the acceptance of food stamps (well, EBT cards) at city Greenmarkets. Not that she used them to buy her string beans and melon. [West Bronx Blog]
Bushwick: In which a softhearted, London-bound alternababe holds a yard sale but ends up giving away half the items — including a doll’s head — to the local kids. [BushwickBK]
Coney Island: They’ll be protesting at Astroland on Sunday, the last day of the season, to demand that Coney megadeveloper Joe Sitt keep the park open next year. [Gowanus Lounge]
Downtown Brooklyn: The site harboring a huge pile of rubble right near MetroTech could soon become home to the borough’s tallest building. Yep, taller than the Williamsburg Bank. And that’s pretty tall. [McBrooklyn]
East Village: Until they install bigger venetian blinds at the new 110 Third Avenue condo, there’s good voyeurism to be had for passersby — or good exhibitionism for lower-floor occupants, if they dig that sort of thing. [Curbed]
Williamsburg: Boy, you gotta be pretty, uh, pissed off by dog drippings in your neighborhood to build a whole sandwich-board sign to denounce it. [Newyorkshitty]
the morning line
Two More Hurt at Deutsche Bank
• Things keep getting worse at the Deutsche Bank building: Yesterday a worker for the sinister John Galt Corporation “lost control” of a forklift on the 23rd floor, from which it tumbled 200 feet to the ground, crashing through the roof of a shed and sending two more firefighters to the hospital. [
neighborhood watch
Council Members Finally Wonder, Hey, What’s Up With the F Train?Coney Island: City Councilmen Simcha Felder of Borough Park and Dominic Recchia of Coney Island get behind an F Express plan, demanding the MTA to explain its foot-dragging. [Second Avenue Sagas]
Dumbo: There are only three days left to appreciate the Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition’s outdoor art display at Empire-Fulton Ferry and Brooklyn Bridge Parks. It’s actually quite nice – and you haven’t done much appreciating lately. [DumboNYC]
Staten Island: Prosecutors have charged a handyman in a string of break-ins on the North Shore, but stop short of saying they’ve ended the notorious North Shore Burglar’s reign of terror. Man, Staten Island rules. [Staten Island Advance]
Stuyvesant Town: Stuy Town’s new ad campaign reads, “Live closer to Greenwich Village than Greenwich, CT.” Mm. We didn’t know Connecticut was so, um, dormy. [Stuyvesant Town]
West Bronx: Max Roach, the legendary jazz drummer, will be buried on Friday at Woodlawn Cemetery, near the tombs of Miles Davis and Duke Ellington. [West Bronx News]
West Village: The Jefferson Market Library on Sixth Avenue is finally going to get its makeover. Knowing you, you’re just going to start complaining about the scaffolding. [Curbed]
neighborhood watch
Underground Railroad Landmarks to Become Underground GarageChelsea: This lost cat should be easily identified based on this accurate and lifelike illustration. Or, wait, is that a kangaroo? [Blog Chelsea]
Coney Island: Was someone cyber-posing as a circus executive to undermine the Cole Brothers big top that came here recently? [Gowanus Lounge]
Downtown Brooklyn: It’s increasingly likely that those Duffield Street homes believed to have been stops on the Underground Railroad will soon be replaced by, among other things, an underground parking garage. Inspiring. [Brooklyn Eagle via Duffield St. Underground]
Greenpoint: Looks like an open-air weekend art-and-antiques fair is coming to, uh, Grinpoint. [Newyorkshitty]
Harlem: A packed room at a community-board meeting was so opposed to Columbia’s expansion in Harlem that even eminence noir David Dinkins, who supports the growth, was booed and heckled. [Harlem Fur]
Lower East Side: Residents of the Rutgers Houses and Knickerbocker Village don’t want all those Chinatown buses congregating on a two-block stretch in their midst. [Chelsea Now via Streetsblog]
Soho: “If you had to find one word to describe Soho, it would be ‘beauty,’” writes this flack-y blogger. Funny, that. We thought it would be “mall.” [Weblicist]
intel
Coney Island USA to Buy Its Building, Thwarting ThorYou’d need a fortune-teller to determine the future of Coney Island these days: What will Thor Equities ultimately build, and will the city swap land with the developer, as has been proposed, to preserve amusements on the boardwalk? But this much, at least, is clear: Fans of sword swallowers and facial tattoos can down a celebratory pint of Coney Island Lager in two weeks, when the nonprofit that runs the Mermaid Parade, the Coney Island Museum, and the Circus Sideshow closes a deal to buy the building it currently leases. Coney Island USA founder Dick Zigun says that with the city’s backing, it will purchase the 1917 structure, originally a restaurant, at a price of $3.6 million — beating out Thor for the deal. “We have never been so secure and permanent in the neighborhood,” Zigun said, “and that’s totally thanks to the political leadership of New York City.” Within five years the building will be restored to its former glory and the Coney Island Circus Sideshow will expand, along with the Freak Bar and museum gift shop, to twice its size. Best of all, this means the Mermaid Parade will have a long-term home base. Unless, Zigun points out, everything is under water 30 years from now. —Daniel Maurer
neighborhood watch
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
They Didn’t Have Google Maps During the Last TornadoBay Ridge: How close were you to the tornado? Check this map to find out. [McBrooklyn]
Coney Island: Astroland rides are off the market, for now. [Bloomberg via Kinetic Carnival]
East Village: St. Mark’s Hotel is still the best one in the city for a cheap quickie. Yikes. [Gridskipper]
Forest Hills: There’s photographic proof that Trader Joe’s is really coming. [Forest Hills 72]
Gowanus: Put down $15 million for a warehouse on Third Avenue now, and just wait for zoning laws to go your way. [Brownstoner]
Riverdale: Will a Starbucks open here, too? [HuntGrunt]
South Slope: The shoddy building at 18-20 Jackson Place finally collapsed! [Gowanus Lounge]
neighborhood watch
All the World’s a Duane ReadeBedford-Stuyvesant: With the real library closed (endlessly…) for renovations, a host for the “Free Children’s Library of Bed-Stuy” is sought. [BedStuyBlog]
Coney Island: While Coney’s amusement-park future remains up in the air, live animals are thrown through the air at the nearby, sketchy Sea Rise housing projects. [Brooklyn Eagle via McBrooklyn]
Dumbo: Four West Coast street artists are putting up a pretty cool graffiti on Water Street at Pearl. [DumboNYC]
Flushing: There are big puddles all over Flushing Meadows Corona Park, which are leading to swarms of mosquitoes, which are terrorizing people. [Queens Tribune via Queens Crap]
Greenpoint: There’s no better way to undermine your attempt to build a period-looking brownstone than by sticking balconies on it. Real classy, Bridge Realty. [Newyorkshitty]
Midtown West: God help us, it’s finally happened: two Duane Reades, right across the street from each other. [East Village Idiot]
Park Slope: Anyone know if Shaya Boymelgreen has cleaned up the scaffolding around his Novo condo on Fourth Avenue that collapsed into the street Saturday? [Brownstoner]
photo op
Off to Join the Circus
The Cole Bros. Circus was at Coney Island last week, through yesterday, the first circus there since 1938. It had trapeze artists, animals, a human cannonball, the whole thing. What brought the big top back to Surf Avenue after a nearly 70-year hiatus? Thor Equities, natch, which now owns most of the historic amusement area. Thanks, soulless, history-destroying, neighborhood-changing major developers!
photo op
Hello, My Coney Island Baby
Coney Island, yesterday, when the high reached 92 degrees, according to Weather.com. It’s 89 degrees right now, with a forecast high of 92 again. Isn’t it fun sitting at your desk, staring at the computer?
neighborhood watch
Cue the Violins in Park Slope and KensingtonConey Island: The clowns have been sent. Cole Brothers Circus is on the old go-kart tracks through August 5. [Gowanus Lounge]
East Village: Duane Reade finally has Harry Potter. There’s no need to go without. [East Village Idiot]
Jackson Heights: Mayor Bloomberg runs afoul of locals complaining about traffic, noise, and sanitation gripes. [FoxNews via QueensCrap]
Kensington: Talk about a virtual inferiority complex: Locals here lament that their Wikipedia page is not as nice as Park Slope’s. Cue violins, please. [KensingtonBlog]
Park Slope: Whine of the Day from the Slope set? “Why did they reduce driving hours in Central Park and not our park? Whaaa!” [Gowanus Lounge]
Union Square: Beware the hordes of student filmmakers in the park today. [The Weblicist of Manhattan]
Williamsburg: White middle-class preservationists faced off against nonwhite low-income affordable-housing proponents at a hearing over the future use of the Domino sugar factory. [Brownstoner]
neighborhood watch
Dumbo Gets All HistoricalBrooklyn Heights: Neighbors are riled over rumors of the murder of a century-old elm tree. [Brooklyn Heights Blog]
Bushwick: If you press a buzzer and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? [Newyorkshitty]
Carroll Gardens: Don’t mess with the garden diva. Just don’t. [McBrooklyn]
Cobble Hill: Will chain stores make this place more like the LES than the West Village? [NYT via A Brooklyn Life]
Coney Island: Thor Equities tries to get all groovy in promoting its new attractions that no one seems to like. [Kinetic Carnival]
Dumbo: The Landmarks Preservation Commission voted 8-0 to consider the whole neighborhood for landmark status. [Dumbo NYC]
Upper East Side: Sometimes a bookstore can make you forget what a giant expense hole we live in. [Around the Block on the Upper East Side]
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]
photo op
Good-bye, My Coney Island Baby
We have no idea why Getty Images decided this was the right weekend to mark Astroland’s final summer with a package of wistful photos of Coney Island. But we’re not complaining: They’re pretty. A few more after the jump.
neighborhood watch
Let’s Go to Red Hook and Burn Cars!Brooklyn Heights: The Henry Street bike lane has been painted solid green … and it looks kinda cool! Will other bike lanes citywide get the look? [McBrooklyn]
Chelsea: Even as the Chelsea Hotel, under new corporate management, prepares to go sorta fancy, it’s slashing nightly rates to as low as $99. What gives? [LivingWithLegends]
Coney Island: The circus is coming here for a week starting July 30, complete with Pastel Poodles and the Human Cannonball! [KineticCarnival]
Dumbo: The hood just wasn’t complete without a full-service pet-supply store–slash–kung fu academy. And now it has one. [DumboNYC]
Greenpoint: On Franklin Street, E.T. mounts a lemur from behind while simultaneously ruining your childhood. [Newyorkshitty]
Red Hook: Ritual car-burnings on Beard Street continue here, even in the shadow of the in-progress Ikea. [GowanusLounge]
West Village: Work is under way to bring some order to the chaotic (and a wee bit dangerous) meatpacking-district intersection of Ninth Avenue and 14th Street. [Streetsblog]