neighborhood watch

Ikea Buses in Brooklyn: The Battle Is on the Streets and on the Blogs

Cobble Hill: Boy, the new Ikea sure has a friend in “Steve,” this commenter who defends the Ikea buses commandeering the streets here and in Carroll Gardens en route to the store. They’re better than lots of Ikea-bound cars! “Steve” points out cheerily. Could “Steve” be, oh, um, well, an Ikea flack? [Streetsblog]
Harlem: Oprah’s charity wing gave a $100,000 makeover to the community center of an affordable-housing complex for seniors here. Oprah, you put the O in SRO! [Uptown Flavor]
Greenwich Village: Some folks want to landmark NYU’s Silver Towers, designed in the sixties by I.M. Pei, largely to stop the school from building another tower on the site. [NY1]

Northwest Bronx: Locals in this way-poor area won’t support megadeveloper Related’s plan to convert the massive Kingsbridge Armory into a $310 million shopping mall unless they get guarantees of wage and hiring standards, plus space for athletics, cultural programs, and social services. [NYT via Curbed]
Prospect Lefferts: Are some locals protesting a glassy, twenty-story condo planned for Lincoln Road because it’ll drive up rents in the hood or just because it’s too tall? [Hawthorne Street via Brownstoner]
South Slope: What is that loud, annoying beep that keeps going off “at one minute intervals. (I timed it!)” on 16th Street between Seventh and Eighth? Doth the beep augur evil? [Gowanus Lounge]
Upper East Side: A big-ass, six-story townhouse once owned by a deceased BMW heiress and descendant of Nazi honcho Joseph Goebbels just sold for $37.5 mil, one of the biggest townhouse deals ever in New York. [NYO]

Ikea Buses in Brooklyn: The Battle Is on the Streets and on the Blogs