Astor Place: If ever a Starbucks were to be missed, it might be this big one, where the world meets up. But it's not closing … they're just fixing the sign. And yet, the longtime newsstand here will be replaced with a shiny glass box. [Vanishing New York]
Bedford-Stuyvesant: Cops are — wisely — advising parents not to let their kids play with a toy 9 mm that looks uncannily realistic. [Bed-Stuy Blog]
Ditmas Park: A bit less than $800,000 will get you this picture-postcard of domestic bliss: cute white house, front yard, white picket fence … and roaring street-level subway just ten feet away! [Ditmas Park Blog]
Harlem: Paging Tracy James, paging Tracy James. (That's Diana Ross's designer turned supermodel character in Mahogany, FYI.) Please report to the Apollo this Sunday for the 50th annual Ebony fashion fair… [Uptown Flavor]
Long Island City: The city thinks this burgeoning condo-tower haven is "poor" and "underdeveloped" enough to make it worth wooing colleges to move here. [NYS via Queens Crap]
Sheepshead Bay: Um, not to sound peevish, but would someone please dredge the entrance to the bay before it gets any narrower? Pretty soon a clam roll won't be able to sail through here. [Gerritsen Beach]
Williamsburg: Advertising for the Edge condo takes a page from the Basic Instinct flash-that-muff playbook. And how bold to pair sex and Asian men. [Copyranter via Curbed]