Soho Knows ‘Rod Stewart Loves the Hamptons’A rogue graffiti artist really wants you to believe that the aging rocker really has a thing for the East End. And for palm trees. Plus, pandas in Union Square, a ‘Gossip Girl’ spat, and more in our daily borough report.
ByChris Rovzar
neighborhood watch
Now Carrie Bradshaw Is Really Going to Need a Cell PhoneBushwick: Teens here are flipping the bird to military recruiters, instead embracing Che Guevara and Cesar Chavez at their own social-justice high school. [Indypendent]
East Village: Is the end near for that infamous phone booth on Avenue A where “thousands of heroin orders have been placed”? [Neither More Nor Less]
Flatbush: The city wants to refurbish the grand but fading 1929 Loew’s Kings Theater, where Brooklyn beep Marty Markowitz got his first kiss. Sexy imagery like that should help accelerate the project. [Real Deal via Ditmas Park Blog]
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
Flatbush to Rise?Bedford-Stuyvesant: Guess which dark lord lives in this sleekly hideous black fortress? It’s your dad, Luke Skywalker! [Newyorkshitty]
East Village: Big-time developer Ben Shaoul thinks the East Village will always be “gritty and inexpensive and arty,” even though he’s renting $7,500 marble-bedecked apartments here. [NYO]
Flatbush: Look for some major redevelopment on shabby Flatbush Avenue, where the Pintchik family, long the owners of the local hardware store, own about $100 million in property and are readying to class it up to the level of Park Slope or Cobble Hill. [NYS]
neighborhood watch
Skeletons Found in Washington Square ParkGreenwich Village: Renovations in Washington Square Park have uncovered human remains, and not for the first time in the park’s history: The site used to be a graveyard for the poor. [Gothamist]
Bedford-Stuyvesant: You all know cool little Brownstone Books in Stuy Heights, right? Well, it’s going to take over the bookstore at BAM, too. Wowza. [Bed-Stuy Blog]
Carroll Gardens: Some streets here will probably be reclassified as “narrow,” rather than “wide,” in order to impose new building-height limitations in these quaint parts. [Gowanus Lounge]
neighborhood watch
People in Dumbo Still Read BooksDumbo: Local, too-cool-for-school publisher powerHouse Books better watch out! Another indie publisher, Melville House, plans to open offices plus a bookstore and event space, just like pH did! [DumboNYC]East Harlem: Council member Melissa Mark-Viverito, who fights for affordable housing here, is “vivacious enough to play herself in any television biopic.” Shouldn’t that be a requirement for the whole City Council? [NYDN]East Village: Hygienic bohos, rejoice! Soap dispensers are returning to the women’s restroom at Tompkins Square Park! [Suzannah B. Troy Artist]
neighborhood watch
Flatbush Is Even Noisier Than Your HoodEast Village: Do a piercing salon, tattoo parlor, and bong shop qualify as the “community facilities” a developer said he’d rent to in return for being allowed to build bigger than code here on St. Marks? Discuss. [Neither More Nor Less]
Elmhurst: A skater boy rescued a newborn baby, umbilical cord intact, from a freezing Dumpster. Troubled young moms, New York law says it’s okay to abandon babies … as long as you leave them somewhere safe and warm where they can be found! [Newsday]
Flatbush: Locals here called in more noise complaints in the second half of 2007 than in any other Brooklyn hood. So does that make Flatbush the borough’s noisiest hood or just full of its noisiest kvetchers? [Ditmas Park Blog via NYDN]
neighborhood watch
Flatbush Enters the Food Co-op FrayChelsea: The proliferation of noncontextual glass condos is driving area high schoolers to stab one another in front of the construction sites. [Vanishing New York]
Flatbush: Watch your back, Park Slope Food Co-op. The one here is moving into an old Associated market, and they’ve poached a Trader Joe’s staffer to be their produce czar. [Ditmas Park Blog]
Jackson Heights: Wow, the scrappy hood beat out Manhattan’s newly hot financial district in Curbed’s Best Nabe of ‘07 competition. Now, can it trounce — gulp — Tribeca? [Curbed]
neighborhood watch
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]
neighborhood watch
Okay, Now Who Leaves a Kitten on a Rooftop?Brooklyn Heights: Rumors are burbling that the hood’s symphonically hyped “Subway Cyrano” saga — where a guy reconnected with his subway crush after searching for her via an online vid — is a Lonelygirl-type hoax. Wouldn’t that be sad? [Brooklyn Heights Blog]
East Village: Sure, two low-paid young’uns can share a $3,000 Stuy Town one-bedroom. If they bring along their $1,000 pressurized wall. [Hunt Grunt]
Flatbush: Several cats have been abandoned on a rooftop! And they’re scared and hungry! [Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn]
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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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Can Ethan Hawke Save the Chelsea Hotel?Astoria: A month after its opening day, the Astoria Park Pool is still closed. [LICNYC]
Chelsea: Hood heartthrob Ethan Hawke stopped by the Chelsea Hotel to tell the new managers he’s watching them like a, well, hawk. [Living with Legends]
Dumbo: Filming on the latest mind-bending Charlie Kaufman flick is taking place here. [DumboNYC]
Flatbush: Finally see the faces behind all those snarky Brooklyn blogs … they were all here last night at café Vox Pop. [Flatbush Gardener]
Long Island City: Gentrification has brought a bevy of laundromats to the area. Now where are all the damn cobblers? [LICNYC]
Park Slope: Taggers don’t take kindly to a new Prudential Douglas Elliman office. [Gowanus Lounge]
Prospect Park: Cars aren’t supposed to be in the park after seven, but video surveillance by annoyed pedestrians catches violators. [StreetFilms via Gothamist]
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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]
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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]
neighborhood watch
H&H Bagels Completes Harlem GentrificationClinton Hill: What the hell is this Legos-meets-Mondrian thing that’s sprouted up on Reuben north of Myrtle? [Clinton Hill Blog]
East Village: Apparently only the “big” L-stations get those train arrival-time signs. So much for Third Avenue. [CitySpecific]
Flatbush: Seems like this ain’t the only Brooklyn hood the city has failed to provide with those free, slickly packaged condoms. [Flatbush Gardener via Gowanus Lounge]
Harlem: If only Bagel in Harlem had stuck it out another month or so. She could have picked up H&H bagels at the Saurin Park Café. [
neighborhood watch
Christmas Trees Look Good in Chelsea, Struggle in the Slope• Chelsea: The Hotel Chelsea gets festive in the lobby. Or at least more so than the Allerton. [Living With Legends]
• Coney Island: So which is worse, Thor Equities or Forest City Ratner? [Gowanus Lounge]
• Flatbush: With Yvette Clarke on her way to Washington, the fiasco to fill her City Council seat begins. [Daily Gotham]
• Flatiron: No more feeling inferior to every other area of Manhattan with an H&M. But we’ll miss Daffy’s. [Metroblogging NYC]
• Park Slope: This place has questionable Christmas trees, at best. [Brooklynian via Daily Heights]
• Sunset Park: How long will one man’s fight against litter last? [Cloud Starchaser via Sunset Parker]
