The Chelsea Hotel Has Not Lost Its EdgeThe naked girl at the Chelsea Hotel, the lost ‘SNL’ sets of the Brooklyn Navy Yards, and a very awkward tale of gentrification from Harlem, in today’s boroughs bundler!
neighborhood watch
Cheapest Plaza Room: $775 a NightBedford-Stuyvesant: Please don’t let something tacky occupy this empty storefront and set back this nicely gentrifying block! (cries a blogger). I mean, is that really wood-paneling? [Bed-Stuy Blog]
Glendale: Furious folks in this Queens burg, which provided the exterior of Archie Bunker’s TV house, say that too many buses passing through caused a water main to break, cutting off the agua supply. [NYDN]
Harlem: The W hotel-condo planned for Frederick Douglass Boulevard looks like a Lego’s miscarriage on acid. [Harlem Fur]
Midtown: The soon-to-be-100-years-old Plaza Hotel is booking rezzies after January 1 starting at $775 a night. Maybe if you hawk all your Heloise first-editions on eBay… [Newyorkology]
Park Slope: Who is torching all the cars around here? That’s wicked mean. [Brownstoner]
West Village: This outspoken young Jewish gay is disgusted that Marc Jacobs — another outspoken young Jewish gay — is taking over his hood. [West Village Kid]
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’]
photo op
Will Houdini Escape From Queens?
The descendants of escape artist Harry Houdini want to exhume his body to determine if he was poisoned. Houdini died on October 31, 1926, of a supposed burst appendix (the result of a punch in the stomach), but the performer’s great-nephew believes it was murder. An autopsy could determine if Houdini was poisoned by his rivals for debunking the Spiritualists, a group that claimed to communicate with the dead. Houdini’s grave, above, is in Machpelah Cemetery in Glendale.
NYC Exhumation Could Determine If Houdini Was Poisoned [AP via Newsday]