Now Brooklyn Heights Is Climbing Aboard the Ikea Whine Wagon

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

Joshua Kushner: Jared 2.0?

Posted 08/05/08 in Daily Intel: Neighborhood Watch

The Chelsea Hotel Has Not Lost Its Edge

Posted 07/31/08 in Daily Intel: Neighborhood Watch

Battle Over the Brooklyn Flea Goes to the Religion Place

Posted 07/25/08 in Daily Intel: Neighborhood Watch

The High Line: Now With Seating!

Posted 06/24/08 in Daily Intel: Neighborhood Watch

The old Domino Sugar plant keeps its cool sign, the Village likely loses a theater save its façade, and the High Line gains its first bench! More wins and losses in today's boroughs report.

Brooklyn Parents Leave It All Behind

Posted 05/29/08 in Daily Intel: Intel

A Bed-Stuy family is shedding their belongings and embarking on an unusual journey.

Queens Children Face Giant ‘Dagger’

Posted 04/30/08 in Daily Intel: Neighborhood Watch

Bronx-ites don't like their hoods, a councilman doesn't like plans for a power plant in Astoria, and everyone, it seems, doesn't like the Chelsea Hotel's manager, so they're glad he's leaving. Even more acrimony in our full daily boroughs report!

Loch Ness Monster on 21st?

Posted 04/23/08 in Daily Intel: Neighborhood Watch

A Macy's in Harlem? A sea serpent in Chelsea? A chatty Kathy in the East Village? Yes, children, all that and more in today's boroughs report.

Hide the Anecdotes: James Frey Is in Soho to Stay

Posted 03/26/08 in Daily Intel: Neighborhood Watch

Frey buys more in Soho, stained glass lingers in Bay Ridge, and Bed-Stuy sales are in the toilet in our daily roundup of neighborhood news.

A Biggie Biopic Grows in Brooklyn

Posted 03/25/08 in Daily Intel: Neighborhood Watch

A movie in Clinton Hill, a murder in Carroll Gardens, Obama faces popping up all over Brooklyn, and more in our daily roundup of neighborhood news.

Toxic Wind Blows From Gowanus

Posted 03/24/08 in Daily Intel: Neighborhood Watch

Construction 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.

The G Train to Get 50 Percent Less Hateable in 2008

Posted 03/04/08 in Daily Intel: Neighborhood Watch

Bedford-Stuyvesant: Wait a minute. Is this entire building just a carefully executed, giant beer bong? [Newyorkshitty] Dumbo: This hood's waterfront is getting rezoned. What does it mean for you and your view? [DumboNYC] Long Island City: The G train might be 50 percent more useful? Stop the world, we wanna get off! [Clinton Hill Blog]

The Chelsea Hotel Undergoes a Voice Change

Posted 02/28/08 in Daily Intel: Neighborhood Watch

Bedford-Stuyvesant: Someone who lives on this cute block has a thing against homeless people. Or hipsters. We can't tell which. [newyorkshitty] Chelsea: After 30 years as the voice of the Chelsea Hotel, telephone operator Amy Miller is retiring. Bet she's heard some bad verbiage in her days. [Living with Legends] Cobble Hill: Are those yellow boxes on top of this Walentas building going to be bulkheads or illegal beachy cabana things? Only time and angry neighbors will tell. [Brooklyn Paper]

Clive Campbell Wants Slavery Reparations From Jay-Z, Of All People

Posted 02/25/08 in Daily Intel: Neighborhood Watch

Atlantic 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]

Feral Cats Displaced in Favor of Waterfront Fun

Posted 02/20/08 in Daily Intel: Neighborhood Watch

Bay Ridge: Gotta love this "crazy super," whose psychotic signs routinely threaten to kill tenants who don't take out their trash properly. [Right in Bay Ridge] Bedford-Stuyvesant: Elation erupts upon news of an imminent Duane Reade: "No longer will we have to drink Tropical Fantasy ginger ale. We'll be able to step it up a notch with the effervescence of Schweppes." [Bed-Stuy Blog] Greenpoint: A colony of feral cats will have to be displaced as part of plans for a concrete waterfront park here, which will include a twelve-foot view-blocking fence. [Newyorkshitty]

Flatbush to Rise?

Posted 02/07/08 in Daily Intel: Neighborhood Watch

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]

Bedford-Stuyvesant Not So Sold on the ‘Hope’ and ‘Change’ Parts of This Election

Posted 02/06/08 in Daily Intel: Neighborhood Watch

Bedford-Stuyvesant: Some folks are skeptical that anything will change here, no matter who's elected in November. And they're employing their mailboxes to say so. [Newyorkshitty] Greenwich Village: After renovations of Washington Square Park found human remains there, folks will protest there tonight, saying the city should merely "repair" the park and not upset buried bones with a full-scale redo. [Metro] Jackson Heights: This is the home of the largest of 47 rent-stabilized apartment buildings throughout Queens just purchased for $300 million by Vantage Properties. Housing advocates fear the new owner will systematically push out low-rent-paying tenants in the nearly 2,000 units. [The Real Deal]

Cobble Hill May Remain Without a Trader Joe's After All

Posted 02/04/08 in Daily Intel: Neighborhood Watch

Bedford-Stuyvesant: SpongeBob SquarePants, a Care Bear, a tiny Santa, and various scary baby dollies gathered here recently for an alfresco forum on gentrification and its effect on the area's creepy marginalized toy population. [Curbed] Cobble Hill: A rumor's out there that Trader Joe's is not coming here after all. Cobblers may have to keep schlepping their little sustainable satchels to Union Square for that red eggplant stuff. [Cobble Hill Blog] Crown Heights: The Lubavitchers are building more housing here to accommodate all their babies, but some sources say they're having fewer kids all around, from eight to ten per family to a streamlined, downright Euro-chic six. [Brownstoner]

Battle Over Randalls Island Playing Fields Wages On

Posted 01/28/08 in Daily Intel: Neighborhood Watch

Bedford-Stuyvesant: Here's an arty do-it-yourself interpretation of the glassy standard bus shelter that's taking over the city. No surprise this is for the bus that goes to Williamsburg, where all those arty DIY kids live! [Bed-Stuy Banana] East Harlem: Locals are still waging a legal battle against the city's plan to take $52 million over twenty years from top private schools like Dalton and Spence in exchange for the schools' use of most of the Randalls Island athletic fields during peak after-school hours. [Newsday] Forest Hills: Sure, that mini-mall on Austin Street is pretty hideous-looking, but it still has a Thai restaurant, a Greek restaurant, a creperie, a skater shop, and a comic-book emporium, so let's stop complaining about its ugliness and count our blessings! [Queens Central]

Skeletons Found in Washington Square Park

Posted 01/25/08 in Daily Intel: Neighborhood Watch

Greenwich Village: Renovations in Washington Square Park have uncovered human remains, and not for the first time in the park's history: The site used to be a graveyard for the poor. [Gothamist] Bedford-Stuyvesant: You all know cool little Brownstone Books in Stuy Heights, right? Well, it's going to take over the bookstore at BAM, too. Wowza. [Bed-Stuy Blog] Carroll Gardens: Some streets here will probably be reclassified as "narrow," rather than "wide," in order to impose new building-height limitations in these quaint parts. [Gowanus Lounge]