Whole Foods to Alter Brooklyn PlansPoor undertrafficked, overcharitable Ikea! Poor Slopies thinking only poor people have public sex! (Not!) So many people to feel sorry for in today’s rainy, weepy boroughs report.
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Yuppies Discouraged From Partying in Tompkins Square ParkPlus plaster nearly falling on East Harlem babies before their souls are insured and a cure for killer staph in the Gowanus Canal. Why wait? Click through today’s boroughs report!
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Circulation Report: ‘Vogue’ Down, ‘Ladies’ Home Journal’ UpPlus, Katie Couric takes control of CBS News’ political coverage, hotels keep cropping up in Gowanus, and KKR’s IPO doesn’t go as well as planned, all in our daily industry report.
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There’s a Sloop on the GowanusPlus the Upper West Side gets “rods of falling water,” and Flushing’s Sky View Parc–condo dwellers get sludge-front property, in our daily neighborhood wrap-up.
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Ikea Shuttle-Crisis Solved?Plus the sad old buildings of the Bowery and Gowanus, the ecoartist of Bushwick, and the developmentally disabled clown lovers of Staten Island, in our daily borough report.
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The Maple-Syrup Smell Returns!Crown Heights unites against a homeless center, Snug Harbor gets ready to rock, and more in our week’s-end boroughs report.
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This Weekend on Governors Island, Avoid the Steaming DivotThere’s a lot of weird news in our boroughs report today: Tony Soprano’s maid is evicted from Williamsburg, Alex Hamilton’s house is afloat in Harlem, and possible sex hotels are cropping up in Gowanus! Click through for all the oddacity!
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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.
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Obama Gets Whitewashed (and Not How You Think)An Obama graffiti war on the Bowery, canal-dunked art in Gowanus, Meryl in the Slope, and “shit juice” in Greenpoint. Drink it all in with our daily boroughs report!
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The Look Book Comes to the ‘ShwickKingsbridge may get the next fancy public toilet, Bushwick gets it own look book, and the Slope could get veeery stinky this summer. All in our daily boroughs report.
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Okay, Really, There Will Be Life on the Gowanus?Even more development on the canal, a grocery store saved, and a new American Apparel parody. What would you do without your daily Neighborhood Watch?
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Toxic Wind Blows From GowanusConstruction in Gowanus blows a fetid wind across the land, babies terrorize Upper East Siders, and Chelsea residents tear apart Barnes & Noble with their bare hands in our daily roundup of neighborhood news.
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Cobble Hill Is All Afflutter Over Alex McCordChelsea: Jack White stopped by the Chelsea Hotel the other day*, in full fur-coat regalia, to soak up some of Bob Dylan’s residual energy from the place in order to prepare for his upcoming album with the rock hero. [Living With Legends]
Cobble Hill: This neighborhood blog is all excited that Alex McCord is one of the crackpot stars of The Real Housewives of New York City. They’ve started an open-comments thread. But no one has an opinion yet. Chime in! [Cobble Hill Blog]
Gowanus: A new south Brooklyn neighborhood coalition, which includes residents of Red Hook, Gowanus, and Carroll Gardens, is preparing to fight for your right to gentrify! Or, you know, stop gentrification. As the case may be. [Gowanus Lounge]
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The Plaza Will Soon Let You Throw Money at It AgainGowanus: The Gowanus Village is on the market for $27 million, and Curbed has a photo gallery, including shots of the “beautiful canal waterfront.” [Brownstoner]
Lower Manhattan: Today is the fifteenth anniversary of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. The visitor center down there will have a public program at 7 p.m. in remembrance. [WTC Visitor’s Center]
Midtown: The Plaza’s final opening date is scheduled for March 1. It starts at only $1,000 a night. But that comes with wireless! [NYT]
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Clive Campbell Wants Slavery Reparations From Jay-Z, Of All PeopleAtlantic Yards: Activist Clive Campbell has filed a $5 billion suit against Bruce Ratner, Jay-Z, and Barclay’s bank. He’s suing for slavery reparations, because of alleged slave trade ties in the history of the bank. [NYO]
Bedford-Stuyvesant: Cleaning your dog’s poop is all about respect. Respecting yourself, that is. [Newyorkshitty]
Dumbo: If you want your short film to play on the big screen at Brooklyn Bridge Park, now’s the time to submit it to Movies With a View. No subtitles, please. [Dumbo NYC]
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Take a Walk Down Tin Pan Alley, Er, 28th StreetEast Village: Right across from its iconic 1859 building, Cooper Union wants to build a corrugated, spiky new thing by Japanese architect Fumihiko Maki. Um…yeah, we’ll skip the stupid, vaguely racist sushi joke. [NYO]
Flatiron: The next time you walk down nondescript 28th between Broadway and Sixth, sing out “Won’t You Come Home, Bill Bailey?” or “In the Good Old Summertime” to commemorate that the block was once the famed Tin Pan Alley. There’s no plaque or anything that denotes as much. And that’s a sad song. [Lost NYC]
Gowanus: Take a look at the residential-retail complex the Toll Brothers would like to build along the canal. Nothing like mixed-use magic alongside the miasma! [Gowanus Lounge]
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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]
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They Should Call It ‘Burrow Hall’!Bronx: Okay, okay, so this isn’t hood-specific … but how cool is it that there’s gonna be an online mag, called Cross Bronx (get it?), featuring writers and artists in the Boogie Down? [Talk Bronx]
Brooklyn Heights: The rats around Cadman Plaza are so out of control it seems the city’s called in a private exterminator, which may be wise judging from the massive size of those rat burrows. Burrow Hall? Ha-ha! [Pardon Me for Asking]
East Village: The old lady who sits next to Gino the tailor all day in his 14th Street shop is quiet when people come in, but when they leave, she yells at him about all the things he does wrong. Reportedly. [Vanishing New York]
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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]
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Fishing in the Gowanus Canal: Yeah, They Do It. What?Astoria: Boy, Pete Hamill’s writer bro Dennis sure loves the park here. Perhaps just a few hundred words more than necessary? [NYDN via Queens Crap]
Bushwick: Horny gay gentrifiers, listen up. That hot local papi you just took home may agree to tie you up … but only to steal your Gucci watch. [NYP via BushwickBK]
Gowanus: They’re fishing bluefish out of the toxic Gowanus Canal … and eating them! Ew, that’s just naasty! [Gowanus Lounge]
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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]
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Target! Must You Brand Everything?Bedford-Stuyvesant: It’s nice that Target funded the beautiful redesign of this community garden … but obnoxious that they put all those big red dots up in there. [Bed-Stuy Blog]
Dumbo: Sorry we didn’t notice this the other day, but are they building a little penthouse atop the iconic clock tower of One Main Street? [Brownstoner]
Forest Hills: Did you guys know that the hood apparently has a really cool, retro Adidas sneaker named after it? These are probably sooo what the homies were wearing in the Summer of Sam. [Overstock via Forest Hills 72]
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The MTA Gets Into RentalsBrooklyn Heights: Brad Pitt has now joined George Clooney in the Heights. Also, lots people dancing for Sukkot. [Brooklyn Heights Blog]
East Village: Those fancy signs on the L platform that tell you when the subway is coming? In some cases, they’re already broken. [East Village Idiot]
Gowanus: The Gowanus Canal has gonorrhea. No, really. [Gowanus Lounge]
Greenpoint: Dangerously adorable puppies found in a cage under a highway overpass. Do not click through to look unless you are prepared to adopt a dog. [Newyorkshitty]
Upper East Side: The MTA has given in and finally started just renting up apartments as they become available in buildings that will need to be demolished to make way for the Second Avenue line. Bet they’ll be good, long-standing tenants. [Second Avenue Sagas]
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Children Banned From Hotel Chelsea LobbyChelsea: Children have been banned from the lobby of the Chelsea Hotel, reportedly because a rude kiddie called a maid a bitch. [Living with Legends]
Flushing: Angry residents have stopped the LIRR from cutting down trees along the rail line, which they did to keep wet, slip-slidey leaves off the tracks. [Queens Chronicle via Queens Crap]
Greenpoint: It’s getting ugly between outspoken hood blogger Miss Heather and commenters who appear to be linked to 110 Green Street, the noisy condo-in-progress that Miss H. and other locals hate. [Newyorkshitty]
Gowanus: Brooklyn parrots have landed in Thomas Greene Park — and they’re so cute! (Though the linked photo, while of a Brooklyn parrot, wasn’t taken in Gowanus. Aw.) [Gowanus Lounge]
Prospect Heights: Locals cleaned up the hood this weekend while socking it to Atlantic Yards developer Forest City Ratner. [Atlantic Yards Report]
Times Square: Thankfully, there’s plenty of places on Seventh Avenue where you can buy computers, cameras, luggage and … galerie? What’s galerie? [East Village Idiot]
Upper West Side: The line outside the Delacorte for tickets to tonight’s free 40th-anniversary staging of Hair is out of control! [Newyorkology]
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Roosevelt Islanders Resent Their Frothy MoatBoCoCa: The skateboarders terrorizing this Boerum Hill/Cobble Hill/Carroll Gardens “compound” neighborhood are “light-skinned and Asian.” Sound the alarm gong! [Brooklynian]
Chelsea: The fact that Ethan Hawke has stepped up against the de-corporatization of the Chelsea Hotel does not keep denizens there from mocking his “experimental” film Chelsea Walls. [Living with Legends]
Dumbo: Sounds like a few hard-core panhandlers continue to thwart the hood’s evolution toward loftopia. Aw. [DumboNYC]
Gowanus: The sleek new Hotel Le Bleu’s opening is delayed again, now till October 1. Could they be cowed by their own nightly rates of up to $400 (for Gowanus)? [Brownstoner]
Harlem: Keith Haring’s 1986 “Crack Is Wack” mural in Harlem River Park is getting a makeover. You know what? We miss Keith Haring. [About.com]
Roosevelt Island: The locals are griping that they have no way of gaining access to the water, even though they’re surrounded by it — being on an island and all. [Roosevelt Islander]
Williamsburg: Hipsters are getting mugged around here — and we don’t mean in East Williamsburg (né Bushwick), we mean in the expensive, trendy part! [Brooklyn Paper]
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Buttoned-Up Gowanus? Now That’s a Theoretical Rendering.Bushwick: Hoo-boy. We’re worried that this very outspoken gentrifying gay blogger — “The Ghetto Gauntlet”? “Shitbag bodegas”? — is cruising for a serious, Bushwick-style bruising. [Bushwick]
Gowanus: Only more shocking than this rendering of a massive glass tower planned for Third Avenue and 6th Street is its imagining that, in the near future, people in this skanky/hip hood will be wearing suits and ties. [Gowanus Lounge]
Harlem: A very angry-sounding Katrina two-year-anniversary rally is planned for 125th Street this afternoon. [Uptown Flavor]
Meatpacking District: How could we have missed that the spike-heeled Carrie Bradtrons who’ve overrun the meatpacking district have their very own blogger? (And we love that she thinks area designer Thom Browne might be straight. Come on, girl. The guy wears short shorts.) [Stilettos on Cobblestones]
Prospect Heights: In a nice match, newcomers here sound about as unpretentiously boring and nondescript as the neighborhood itself. [Daily Heights]
Tribeca: Area landlords are saving on exterminator dollars by recommending that their tenants let loose “Gecos” [sic] on insect invaders. As in the salamander-type creature that’s the car-insurance mascot. Yes, it’s come to that. [Curbed]
Willets Point: Did the city encourage blight in the decrepit Iron Triangle area of the Bronx in order to evoke eminent domain and gentrify it? One columnist thinks so. [NYO via OuterB]
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Manhattan Mini-Storage Ads Go Over Line, West Side HighwayBushwick: It’s hard out there in the ‘shwick … for a gay, twentysomething yuppie when he’s waiting for the hood to gentrify so he can cash in on your property and leave. [BushwickBK]
Chelsea: Manhattan Mini-Storage’s ads can sometimes be annoying, but how excellent is it that this flagrantly pro-choice one, hangin’ large over the West Side Highway, has NYC’s six conservatives enraged? [Gothamist]
Flushing: Brace yourself for a big, shiny new development here with a Home Depot, Target, and million-dollar condos for folks who, according to the developer, are “upscale, middle-income and multiethnic” … all at once! [OuterB]
Gowanus: State enviro-honchos and Keyspan have reached an agreement on cleaning up the subterranean toxic goop at two sites in this area, plus at several others in the borough. [Gowanus Lounge]
Kensington: Faced with choosing between two blights on society to fill a long-empty building — methadone users or law students — it seems locals will gladly suffer the latter. [Kensington Blog]
Lower Manhattan: Is it an art installation … or the indoor bike-parking facility set up at 280 Broadway for city workers? Click and decide. [Streetsblog]
Williamsburg: All the hipsters had a good, self-referential laugh last night during the McCarren Pool’s screening of Bonnie and Clyde when the screen duo’s sidekick C.W. Moss is scolded by his dad not for being a criminal but for getting a tat. Ha ha ha, movie stars, they’re just like Us! [Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn]
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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]
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Hunting for Yuppies in GreenpointCorona: Is this the hot new Queens nabe? Is there a truly hot Queens nabe? [OuterB]
East Village: So the new marketers of Stuy Town are spinning the open lawns there as “a park.” But say some they’re not, technically. Ouch. [Atlantic Yards Report]
Gowanus: Swank new condos are slated for the canal. How Venice — stench included. [BrooklynPaper]
Greenpoint: The hood’s old-timers (or maybe it’s just kooky blogger Miss Heather) want to fuck up smack-talking yuppie insurgents. [Newyorkshitty]
Kensington: Around these parts, they sneak pics of taggers, then pedal away like hell when the taggers spot ’em. Brave. [KensingtonBlog]
Soho: Just because that proposed sanitation garage on Spring and Washington might be colorful doesn’t mean locals are any happier about it. [The Villager]
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Park Slope Bullies Foreigner Into Changing Business NameBay Ridge: Allowing a Home Depot here will just open a Pandora’s box for other big stores, say opponents. [Brooklyn Eagle via McBrooklyn]
Cobble Hill: Book Court is expanding out back and hopes to bring in booze to attract the young folk. [The Brooklyn Paper]
Dumbo: Unpopular landowner Baruch Singer bought a Bridge Street building and plans to convert it into 53 apartments. [Brownstoner]
Gowanus: When the hard rain falls, move your stuff to high ground. [Gowanus Lounge]
Greenpoint: Beware the MetroCard machine at the Bedford Avenue L stop. There might be a dead rat blocking up the change chute. [Newyorkshitty]
Greenwich Village: Neighbors fear noisy, lengthy MTA construction of an “emergency ventilation plant.” [Blog Chelsea]
Park Slope: Proprietor changes the name of his store from “A.R.E.N.A. Bagels” to “A.R.E.A. Bagels” so customers won’t think he supports Atlantic Yards. [Brooklyn Paper]
