Is Schnabel’s Palazzo Chupi in Crisis? Schay It Isn’t Scho!Is Julian Schnabel’s big, pink Palazzo Chupi in the West Village so sleepy that the doormen are giving tours to any old passerby? That and more blasphemous rumors from Sunnyside Gardens, Dumbo, and Park Slope in today’s boroughs report.
ByTim Murphy
neighborhood watch
Chelsea Hotel Bars Right to Peaceably AssembleIllegal and blatant fruit stands in Brooklyn Heights, Donatella in the Clock Tower building, and maybe even rats on a beach (awesome potential metal-band name, right?) in Staten Island: That wackness and more, in today’s neighborhood report.
neighborhood watch
Cock Loose in Sunset ParkThe noisy rooster of Sunset Park, the apartment-phobic tenant of West 57th Street, the crumbling misogynist statue of Kew Gardens … and other true tales, in today’s boroughs report.
The Maple-Syrup Smell Returns!Crown Heights unites against a homeless center, Snug Harbor gets ready to rock, and more in our week’s-end boroughs report.
neighborhood watch
This Weekend on Governors Island, Avoid the Steaming DivotThere’s a lot of weird news in our boroughs report today: Tony Soprano’s maid is evicted from Williamsburg, Alex Hamilton’s house is afloat in Harlem, and possible sex hotels are cropping up in Gowanus! Click through for all the oddacity!
neighborhood watch
Gersh Kuntzman Takes Dump in the Name of JournalismG-train riders protesting in Fort Greene! Eighth-graders protesting in the South Bronx! Party poopers protesting on Park Avenue! What will you choose to protest? Read our daily boroughs report and decide.
neighborhood watch
Obama Gets Whitewashed (and Not How You Think)An Obama graffiti war on the Bowery, canal-dunked art in Gowanus, Meryl in the Slope, and “shit juice” in Greenpoint. Drink it all in with our daily boroughs report!
The G Train to Get 50 Percent Less Hateable in 2008Bedford-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]
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She Was a Day-tripper, Ferry Driver, Yeah!Coney Island: “Imagine getting on a ferry at Hunt’s Point for a day trip” here! That’s what Christine Quinn floated yesterday in her big speech. Could it really happen? [Kinetic Carnival]
East Village: McMansion mogul Robert Toll’s 27-year-old NYU social-work-student son Jacob lives with two of his buds in a $2.2 million condo in his dad’s glossy new One Ten 3rd building. How will he pay that mortgage on a social worker’s salary? (Cue cynical chortles.) [NYO]
Midtown: Wouldn’t it be cool if the retired math professor who nearly died of a bondage incident in a sex club here could get his wife in on his S&M thing instead of having to shamefully confess it to her in the Post? Now he’s vowing to break his addiction. Why not just go safe, sane, and consensual? [Gothamist]
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Bedford-Stuyvesant Not So Sold on the ‘Hope’ and ‘Change’ Parts of This ElectionBedford-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]
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Battle Over Randalls Island Playing Fields Wages OnBedford-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]
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10 Jay to Get Five More StoriesAstoria: If a park designated as a “sitting area” has nowhere to sit, is that kind of like if a tree fell in the forest in that park — if there were a forest there — and no one heard it? Is it really a sitting area at all? Or even a forest or a park? Think about it. [Queens Crap]
Bushwick: Get your knives out, the Argentines are coming! Uh, your steak knives, that is, because they make great steaks. Get it? [BushwickBK]
Dumbo: That landmark building at 10 Jay Street where the raves used to be held in the early aughts? Those aren’t cabanas going on the roof — it’s added five stories! Is it going residential? [DumboNYC]
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A Chabad BlogsAstoria: Hm, if we get on the list now, can we make it into this de-gorgeous affordable housing complex for the elder set by the time we’re 65? If our income stays where it is now, we know we’ll qualify. [OuterB]
Crown Heights: The Chabad Orthodox sect here has a totally pimped-out ride memorializing the late, great Rebbe Schneerson. And did you know they also have their own blog? They’re so now! [Curbed]
Harlem: At P.S. 161 on Convent Ave., the teachers park on the sidewalks! Do they think they can get away with this just because they make subsistence wages? We think not. [Streetsblog]
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Urban Outfitters to Bring Freshman-Dorm Furniture to Cobble HillCobble Hill: Urban Outfitters is “coming soon!” [BK11201]
Downtown Brooklyn: After endless outrage, the city will spare the little Duffield Street house believed to have been a stop on the Underground Railroad. [DDDB via Gowanus Lounge]
Financial District: Maybe, in time, all the pretty old buildings in Manhattan will be reduced, like this one, to Hollywood-set-style façades for the big new buildings behind them. [Curbed]
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‘Heeb’ Parts River, Crosses to DumboBedford-Stuyvesant: On her recent Bed-Stuy cable show, the hood’s buppie doyenne (and former Essence editrix) Monique Greenwood kept calling the Brownstoner blog “Brownstone.” Like that nineties En Vogue ripoff group! [Bed-Stuy Blog]
Dumbo: Heeb magazine moves here from Soho, perhaps launching an influx of snarky hipster Jews into the hood. If they’re not already here. [DumboNYC]
Forest Hills: According to this blogger, the rudest people around here are the white, non-immigrant ones. [Forest Hills 72]
Neighborhood Watch
Lotus Changing Hands; Pedigreed Smoked Fish Now Served in TribecaMeatpacking District: Tenjune’s Eugene Remm and Mark Birnbaum are reportedly poised to take over Lotus from David Rabin after eyeing the space back in September, but we’re not sure of the fate the waitress who dubbed the club a “tourist attraction.” [Down by the Hipster]
Midtown East: Café St. Bart’s may change its name to Inside Park at St. Bart’s by early 2008 when the restaurant reopens to show off its new renovations. [Bottomless Dish/Citysearch]
Prospect-Lefferts-Gardens: Lime, the new bar opening on Flatbush, has hoisted a sign, which has been described, possibly with sarcasm, as “pretty damn spiffy.” [Across the Park]
South Bronx: The produce is speaking for itself at the smallest food co-op in the city, which began operations in September and now has 30 members. Who wouldn’t want better-priced tomatoes whose “juices just burst in your mouth and you have that sensation of loveliness growing in your mouth”? [NYT]
Tribeca: Murray’s sibling Zucker’s Bagels & Smoked Fish, on Chambers near West Broadway, had its grand opening this weekend. [Grub Street]
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How High Can Walentas Go In Cobble Hill?Cobble Hill: Whether Dave Walentas gets to build ten feet higher than the limit in the historic district here is no trivial matter. [Curbed]
East Village: How dare this woman feel so secure around here that she leaves her bike unlocked? Would someone please steal it to teach her a lesson? [Vanishing New York]
Gravesend: Sears Tower co-owner Joseph Cayre just sold his home here, an enclave of rich Syrian Jews, for $10 million, the second-highest price ever for a Brooklyn crib. [Real Deal]
Neighborhood Watch
Mermaid Inn UWS to Open Late Fall; Garifunan Cuisine Has Arrived … in theChelsea: Candy Camp confectionary classes for kids start Saturday at Sapa. [Cakehead]
Clinton Hill: A confused source says the former Bodegas space will become Clinton Hill Bistro, but that’s what Bodegas had painted on its windows when it was open. [Clinton Hill Blog]
Harlem: Doug E. Fresh talks chicken and waffles and the late-night feel of his second restaurant: “Hot Pot, the Caribbean spot I’m opening in December … Harlem’s always been known for its late-night style.” [Uptown Flavor]
Long Island City: Big Easy landmark Jacques-Imo’s New York branch has lost its uptown lease and will take refuge in Queens. [Joey in Astoria via Eater]
South Bronx: If you’ve been craving Garifunan food (the cuisine of “Coastal Caribbeans of African and Native American descent”), head to newly opened and possibly only-one-of-its-kind Garifuna Star at 640 Prospect Avenue for “curry-esque soup and a fufu-esque plantain dish.” [Eat for Victory/VV]
Upper West Side: Danny Abrams plans to open his second Mermaid Inn by the end of the fall. [Eater]
neighborhood watch
The Decline of West Village Sex ShopsBay Ridge: Sad to say, news of revived ferry service between the hood and Staten Island was simply an April Fools joke. [Bay Ridge Blog]
Clinton Hill: The city will take a noisy church to court for gathering in a building zoned as an art gallery and irritating neighbors for fifteen years. [The Brooklyn Paper]
Dumbo: A reward will be given to anyone who can identify this greedy mom who hoarded far more than her share of eggs at yesterday’s Brooklyn Bridge Park egg hunt. [Brooklyn Record]
Lower East Side: Madonna’s hung up on 179 Ludlow, which she may convert into a three-floor Kabbalah center. [NYO]
Park Slope: A falling glass shard from a decrepit brownstone nearly decapitated a prominent Windsor Terrace preservationist last week. [The Brooklyn Paper]
South Bronx: Will the city pay for parking decks at Yankee Stadium, encouraging more cars to visit this asthma-choked area? [Streetsblog]
West Village: Between the Internet and gentrification, it’s rough times for the area’s sex and fetish shops. [Manhattan Offender]
neighborhood watch
Relaxing, Fighting Fires in the South Bronx• Brooklyn Heights: Other community theaters do Fiddler on the Roof; this one gets all uppity with Into the Woods. [A Brooklyn Life]
• Morrisania: A century ago, South Bronx firefighters had it easy. [Brooklyn Ramblings]
• Prospect Heights: City takes steps to prevent tenants from moving into Robert Scarano’s crappy buildings. [Brooklyn Papers]
• Sunset Park: Mom from Park Slope beat neighborhood roosters, no question. [Sunset Parker]
• Upper West Side: What’s the point of living here if you don’t enjoy the CNN-obstructed view? [CitySpecific]
