neighborhood watch

Does Dumbo’s Squarehead Have a Secret Admirer?

Bushwick: Everybody loves to see the quality seal of Boar’s Head cold-cuts at their local deli, but must the company keep its trucks idling and, ahem, hogging the sidewalk outside its plant on Bogart Street? [BushwickBK]
Coney Island: In a replay of what happened at this time last year, the Astroland amusement park may close forever on Thursday unless Thor Equities, which owns the property, and Carol Albert, who owns the park, can agree on the length of a new lease. Better play hooky on Wednesday and hop that F train to the end of the line. [NYDN via Curbed]
Dumbo: The guy, nicknamed “Squarehead,” who was constantly breaking into cars around here has been arrested due to DNA evidence … but the car break-ins continue after his arrest! [DumboNYC]

East Village: The rent-stabilized tenants at 176 East Third are turning down their landlord’s offer of $125,000 buyouts. Nothing but a mid-six-figure offer will do, says one secretary, 65, who pays $400 for a two-bedroom. Uh, ma’am, we’re apartment-hunting; would you consider renting out that second bedroom? We’ll cook you scrambled eggs every morning before work. Or give you an intimate back-rub when you get home? [NYP]
Midtown: Drivers are pissed at the pedestrian “hang-out” plazas that have reduced the number of driver lanes between 34th and 42nd Streets. And they’re not even going to be used when the weather gets cold, they gripe. Hmmm, perhaps a good point. Could they go back to lanes then? [NYP via Streetsblog]
Times Square: The tower at 1515 Broadway, whose lower floors are always surrounded by feral teens because they house MTV’s studios, will get a fancy face-lift of brushed aluminum panels over the old limestone. Kohn Pedersen Fox is doing the redo. [NYP]
Washington Heights: In other rent-stabilized-horror news, tenants at 452 Fort Washington Avenue, owned by slumlord Dorothea Levine, had their kitchens and bathrooms ripped out for “renovations” in January, but the renovations never happened. The building code says such repairs have to happen within 24 hours. Instead, people wake up in the middle of the night and go to the bathroom in a vacant unit. We are so feeling vulnerable and livid today! [NYDN]

Does Dumbo’s Squarehead Have a Secret Admirer?