Battery Pier: A Beautiful Disaster?

Battery Park: Are we weird because all the decrepit buildings the city wants to renovate — like this pier with a Victorian clock tower — we think are beautiful just as they are? Yeah, we're probably weird. [NYT via Curbed] Greenpoint: It was difficult to visit friends yesterday at this crazy-ass apartment because "the buzzards" weren't working. Well, it was a holiday, after all. [Newyorkshitty] Harlem: The Rev. Al Sharpton said yesterday that if MLK were to walk through Harlem today, he might not like what he saw. You mean his dream didn't include "the gentrification people"? [NYS]

Posted 01/22/08 in Daily Intel : Neighborhood Watch

Tags: battery park, greenpoint, harlem, long island city, midtown east, neighborhood watch, park slope, west village

Green School

• Nine New York universities, including Columbia, CUNY, NYU, and Pratt, have signed on to cut their greenhouse-gas emissions by 30 percent by 2017. This exceeds Bloomberg's PlaNYC goals and should, the mayor says, "make a sizable dent" in the city's carbon footprint. [amNY] • A 15-year-old Connecticut girl who disappeared a year ago was found alive, apparently imprisoned in a secret room of her parents' acquaintances' house. [NYP] • Someone is destroying entire print runs, and harassing the editors, of the city's two Urdu-language weeklies that cater to Pakistani-Americans. This is perhaps an inopportune moment to say it, but how cool is it that we have two Urdu weeklies? [CPJ] • More mayhem: A "strapping" and "burly" (in the Daily News' oddly swooning description) ex-con prowled the 2 train for a week, stealing iPods and gold jewelry plus kissing and exposing himself to women. [NYDN] • And Frank Gehry is going to design a playground in Battery Park, as a "gift to the city." Aw, you shouldn't have! As opposed to Miss Brooklyn, which you really, you know, shouldn't have. [NYT]

Posted 06/07/07 in Daily Intel : The Morning Line

Tags: battery park, columbia university, connecticut, crime, cuny, education, environment, frank gehry, newspapers, nyu, pratt, subway, the morning line, urdu

Chickens Further Brooklyn Gentrification

Battery Park: This funky glass carousel thingy could serve as a spot that links park visitors to the Coney Island aquarium via a ferry. [Kinetic Carnival] Clinton Hill: Why go to a food co-op or the farmers' market when you can raise chickens right behind your own brownstone? [Brownstoner] East Village: A first peek inside (and through the windows of) the Bowery Hotel, where rooms start (for now) at $245. [Hotel Chatter via Curbed] Gowanus: Oh, boy! It's the four-part lecture on the history of the canal we've all been waiting for. [Brooklyn Record] Morningside Heights: Columbia students use clever street art to strike back at their school's real-estate takeover of the area. [Gothamist] Prospect Heights: Have you met Sydney, Hudson, Jenny BiBabe, and Dakota on MySpace? They're the new condos that want to be friends with you. [Gowanus Lounge]

Posted 02/21/07 in Daily Intel : Neighborhood Watch

Tags: battery park, chickens, clinton hill, columbia university, east village, gowanus, morningside heights, neighborhood watch, prospect heights