Boerum Hill: Recently imperiled, the first YWCA in the county to racially integrate its program is in the middle of a big renovation that'll preserve housing for 200 women who'd likely be on the streets if the joint had closed. [Brooklyn Eagle]
Coney Island: A Daily News writer ate a pitiful five franks in the qualifying round of Nathan's Hotdog-Eating Contest, managing at least not to vomit and to tie with a writer from Italian Vogue. Journalists are such pussies. [NYDN]
Flatiron: Hey, there's a cool pedestrian-street reclamation taking place near Madison Square Park! Soon, meatpacking district–style, you may be able to eat your lunch surrounded by car exhaust! [Streetsblog]

Red Hook: The new Ikea opened today, amid much whoop, but you may find even better deals at the soon-to-open "Ikea Annex" nearby. You didn't know about that, did you? [Curbed]
South Bronx: An artist is sad and miffed that local protests got her erotic paintings of "women in tender embraces" taken down from a gallery adjacent to hipster beachhead Bruckner Bar and Grill. But...do the paintings give you a slightly icky-cheesy feeling, too? [amNY]
Upper East Side: It just didn't matter that developer Aby Rosen and posh-chitect Sir Norman Foster toned down plans for a tower atop the Parke-Bernet Gallery, at 980 Madison. Tom Wolfe still thought it was wholly inappropriate. [NYS via Curbed]