‘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
Jean Nouvel Brings in the Big GunsThe fight for the MoMA Tower continues, they’re still burning cars in Red Hook, and more neighborhood news in our daily roundup.
neighborhood watch
Phat Tats No Longer Available in Quaint Cobble HillCobble Hill: The very popular Brooklyn Tattoo Shop is leaving the hood. [Brooklyn Heights Blog]
Dumbo: Two generally accepted truths debunked in one article: New York has outpriced artists, and the members of the Walentas family are a bunch of scrooges. [NYT]
Fort Greene: Attention, 124 Dekalb Avenue: Spike Lee has left the building. [Brownstoner]
neighborhood watch
Historic Brooklyn Navy Yard Houses Get a Stay of ExecutionBrooklyn Navy Yard: The Feds have indefinitely delayed plans to tear down ten nineteenth-century houses here in order to build a supermarket. Patina before potatoes! [Brownstoner]
Dumbo: The waterfront Empire Stores warehouse is so decrepit that the park surrounding it has been closed for safety, and everyone’s pointing fingers over who let the Civil War–era pile languish for so long. [Brooklyn Paper via Curbed]
Elmhurst: This no-frills Queens hood isn’t slated to do so well in the real-estate boom, but maybe it’ll fare better than expected with loving testimonials like this: “At sunset, the dirty black bricks of the six-story apartment buildings turn deep red and almost dark pink. At night, it’s peaceful.” Ahhh… [NYDN via 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
Will Dave Walentas Dunk?Dumbo: Will local megadeveloper hero-villain Dave Walentas really subject himself to a carnival-type dunk tank at an arts festival Thursday night? [DumboNYC]
East Harlem: Mt. Sinai will offer free prostate-cancer screenings on Thursday. Says an official there: “Smart men get checked annually.” But what do you call men who get checked more? [Uptown Flavor]
Lower East Side: The city’s looking to remove those Essex Street stalls selling things like religious figures and Uzbek haircuts. [Vanishing New York]
Nolita: Dandies, fops, feys, and flaneurs are the hot new archetype here. Wilde! [Gridskipper]
Prospect Lefferts: Why can’t that annoying marching band practice on the other side of Prospect Park … you know, where Jennifer Connelly lives? [Across the Park]
Roosevelt Island: If you take a daytrip to this loo-deprived isle, you better hold off on the bottled water or cross your legs real tight. [Roosevelt Islander]
Sunset Park: Oh my God, you guys, could we really get a park alongside some of that desolate postindustrial waterfront here? That would be awesome. [Brownstoner]
neighborhood watch
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]
neighborhood watch
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]
neighborhood watch
What Will ‘Post’ Coverage Mean for Prospect Lefferts Gardens?Battery Park City: The DOT is removing stop signs on a five-block stretch along the river. Is that good or bad? [Streetsblog]
Coney Island: This summer, the beach cops will be on Segways. Cue the laugh track. [AP via Brooklyn Record]
Midtown East: “The Splendido” is the worst name for a condo. Ever. [City Realty via Curbed]
Midtown West: There are new advances in janitorial techniques to be found at Penn Station. [East Village Idiot]
Park Slope: Daily fuel fumes at 6 a.m. Anyone know the source? [Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn]
Prospect Lefferts Gardens: If the Post calls this the next “It” place, does that ensure it won’t be? [NYP via Son of Planet PLG]
vu.
Find a Home for Life in Prospect Lefferts GardensEven in Brooklyn, finding a house for around a million or dare you dream? less is a near impossible feat, especially a house near a park that may even have a backyard. But in Prospect Lefferts Gardens and nearby Prospect Lefferts, it’s still a possibility. These still-underestimated and, some would say, undervalued neighborhoods are a treasure trove of houses (and some co-ops) that run the gamut from graciously renovated Georgian townhouses to noble Tudors to sturdy brick two-families needing some love. Some have details like turned banisters and butler’s pantries intact, and nearly all are an easy stroll away from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, the Brooklyn Museum, and, hence the name, Prospect Park. Homeowners, once bitten, tend to be smitten for life, so there aren’t always that many properties on the market (though this hasn’t prevented Manhattanites from invading the territory, a phenomenon we’ve covered before). For a peek at what life would be like in Prospect Lefferts Gardens, check out the requisite neighborhood blog Planet PLG or, better yet, stop by this weekend and hit the open houses listed after the jump. S. Jhoanna Robledo
neighborhood watch
Gramercy Park: Now Elitist Only 364 Days a YearBrooklyn Heights: Does having the same landlord entitle you to “accidentally” park in your neighbor’s driveway? Vote now! [Brooklyn Heights Blog]
Carroll Gardens: Starting this Sunday, it’s the attack of the weekend street fair. Beware of tube socks. [Gowanus Lounge]
Chelsea: Times Square moves south with the arrival of advertising projected onto a building at 23rd and Eighth. [BlogChelsea]
Dumbo: Beacon Tower residents are starting to move in. Lucky for them, they don’t have to endure those high-powered spotlights on the side of the building. [DumboNYC]
Gramercy: Gramercy Park Day no longer exists, so the grubby public is shut out save for some Scrooge-like caroling on Christmas Eve. [NewYorkology]
Prospect Lefferts Garden: Council Woman Letitia James doesn’t represent the district, but that doesn’t mean you can’t complain to her about supporting the loud circus that angers the neighbors. [Across the Park]
West Village: Help wanted in getting rid of loitering teens. [Curbed]
neighborhood watch
Harlem on Only $600 a NightChelsea: The nasty Jag ad is gone from the side of the old McBurney Y, but a giant glass of Stella Artois has taken its place. [Blog Chelsea]
Flatiron: Coming soon to Madison Square Park: steel trees! [Polis]
Harlem: Marking yet another gentrification benchmark, a former Associated supermarket on 124th will become a $600-a-night W Hotel. [Columbia Spectator]
Parkville: Is Ocean Parkway the “Madison Avenue of Brooklyn”? That’s what the condo developers say. [Kensington (Brooklyn)]
Prospect Lefferts Gardens: Neighbors suspect a developer of wanting to tear down a single-family home on Ocean Avenue to make way for condos. [Across the Park]
West Village: Richard Meier’s glass towers on Perry Street will soon compete with a spire from edgy husband-wife design duo Asymptote. [Curbed]
neighborhood watch
Williamsburg Gets Its Own JeansBoerum Hill: Outraged tenants are battling a local landlord with a lawsuit and a blog called Bad Landlord, of course. [Daily Slope]
Brooklyn Heights Jehovah’s Witnesses are selling their Columbia Heights property, formerly the Standish Arms Hotel. [Brooklyn Daily Eagle via Brooklyn Heights Blog]
Clinton Hill: Who’s haunting that abandoned church on Clinton between Greene and Gates — ghosts or junkies? [Clinton Hill Blog]
Nolita: According to the Medici Foundation, it’s anti-Italian-American not only to dislike the San Gennaro festival but also to say “Nolita” instead of “Little Italy.” [Curbed]
Prospect Lefferts Garden: The altruism of a group of neighbors who cleaned up graffiti this weekend doesn’t stop certain meanies from calling them ugly. [Across the Park]
Williamsburg: Well, they once named a jeans line for Studio 54. Is it any wonder the Gap should name its skinny denims after the city’s most insufferably trendy hood? [Free Williamsburg]
neighborhood watch
Prospect Lefferts Gardens Latest Victim of Youth ScourgeConey Island: The kids trying to save Coney from the plans of megadeveloper Thor have erected a MySpace page — so you know they’re serious. [Kinetic Carnival]
East Village: The Leaning Tenement of 12th Street? Look at how unaligned this old building is with the new one going up next to it. [Curbed]
Prospect Lefferts Gardens: Here come the low-rent hipsters … not to mention their publicly etched pronouncements on the difference between film and cinema. Oy. [Across the Park]
Richmond Hill: Say good-bye to the beautiful old Vetter Mansion on Lefferts and Hillside, because it’s comin’ down. [Queens Crap]
Tribeca: It may not be built yet, but that won’t stop Elliman from listing the penthouse at 415 Greenwich Street for $32.5 million. [Curbed]
Williamsburg: A fire last night in a garage housing dozens of Koolman ice-cream trucks may mean fewer of the vehicles on the streets plus lost income for their immigrant drivers. [i’m not sayin, i’m just sayin]
neighborhood watch
Last Call at NorthsixClinton Hill: Lots of abandoned homes up for sale—for first-time homebuyers, that is, not folks looking to trade their tiny co-op for a spacious fixer-upper. [Clinton Hill Blog]
Coney Island: Developing Coney Island isn’t “financially feasible” without high-rise housing on Stillwell Avenue, says Thor Equities. [Kinetic Carnival]
Harlem: That empty lot at 1405 Fifth Avenue will soon be low- and middle-income housing. [What About the Plastic Animals?]
Prospect Heights: Turns out there are still five privately owned acres smack in the path of Atlantic Yards. [Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn]
Prospect Lefferts Gardens: Would expanding the historic district help prevent new development eyesores? [Across the Park]
West Village: Which fashion label will grace the N.J. Turnpike–size billboard being affixed to the Gansevoort Hotel? [Curbed]
Williamsburg: Catch the last show at Northsix before the space closes to magically transform into the Music Hall of Williamsburg. [FREEwilliamsburg]
neighborhood watch
Cleaning Up the Lower East Side
Brooklyn Heights: Fishs Eddy is closing, but not until they sell everything in the store for 75 percent off. [Brooklyn Heights Blog]
Carroll Gardens: Brooklyn Yoga canceled its early-morning class. Where else to do the cobbler’s pose at dawn? [A Brooklyn Life]
Far Rockaway: Next time your cell phone dies at JFK, charge it in the terminal and thank Samsung. [NewYorkology]
Flatiron: Crayola-makers Binney and Smith have left the city for good. [Crazy Fingers via Blog Chelsea]
Lower East Side: It’s amazing what a little power washing can do. [Trevor Little via Gothamist]
Prospect Lefferts Gardens: What does rent control look like? Photos of Patio Gardens. [Sensei Oddsox via Across the Park]
neighborhood watch
What to Tip in Prospect HeightsBrooklyn Heights: A pedestrian was killed this morning on Henry Street near Montague. [Brooklyn Record]
Clinton Hill: This holiday season, help Todd Lester save an endangered artist. [ClintonHillBlog]
Greenpoint: If you start thanking government officials for efficient service, Marty Markowitz may call your house. So be careful. [New York Shitty]
Prospect Heights: Tip your cabbie at least $3 if coming home from Manhattan. [Daily Heights]
Prospect Lefferts Garden: According to CompStat, this place isn’t nearly as deadly as Brooklyn blog readers seem to think it is. [Across the Park]
Upper East Side: What’s the best sports bar for the football novice? [The Upper East Side Scene]