neighborhood watch

Now Brooklyn Heights Is Climbing Aboard the Ikea Whine Wagon

Bedford-Stuyvesant: According to this graffiti mural, Laurence Fishburne wants you to “Think! Before you buy!!” from FreshDirect or Duane Reade, instead of that humble little mom-and-pop store that really needs your dollars. Oh, wait. What? That’s Malcolm X? Oh. Well, Laurence Fishburne would probably agree with him. [Bed-Stuy Banana]
Brooklyn Heights: The hood’s been joined by Park Slope and Gowanus in complaining that the free Ikea buses that wind through these areas en route to the Red Hook store are idling and hogging the streets. And Ikea said this wouldn’t happen! Just like they said assembling their stuff was easy! You can’t trust those Swedes. There’s probably trans fats and MSG in the meatballs, too. [Brooklyn Paper]
Coney Island: The Wonder Wheel turns 88 today! Everybody sing: “Because maybe / You’re gonna be the one who saves me / And after all / You’re my Wonder Wheel.” What? Yeah, we know it doesn’t rhyme. Loosen up. Goddamned rhyming Nazis. [Gowanus Lounge]

East Village: Well, they’ve stopped the bag searches before movie night in Tompkins Square Park, but now those pugnacious postriot locals are bitching that they only show Hollywood classics, not local indies, and that the free water bottles come from a Coca-Cola company. Jeez, will you guys ever be happy? [Villager]
Lower East Side: City planning-commission head Amanda Burden walks around the hood and says she likes it just how it is, small-scale and dense. We presume that’s the angle she’ll take next week at meetings about tightening up zoning to stop more way-high condos like the Rivington and the Blue. [NYDN via EV Grieve]
Roosevelt Island: In the longest post ever written in the short history of blogging, this blogger goes off on councilwoman Jessica Lappin because, amid tough economic times, she secured $4 million in city funds for a long-planned FDR memorial that many say will ruin views at the island’s southern tip. And we have to admit that the thing, which Louis Kahn designed before his 1974 death, does look kind of blocky and outdated. [Roosevelt Islander]
Washington Heights: When a rabbi and his wife decided to move up here, they tried to get 30 of their friends to move up here, too. Because why gentrify a fairly cheap hood one household at a time when you can do it en masse? And their Realtor’s last name is Bizzarro. [NYS]

Now Brooklyn Heights Is Climbing Aboard the Ikea Whine Wagon