The Subway Transfer We’ve All Been Waiting ForBedford-Stuyvesant: A new building on Spencer Street turns out to have some Technicolor character. [Bed-Stuy Blog]
Bushwick: Doing wonders to improve the area’s reputation, kids hit new trees with baseball bats. [BushwickBK]
Carroll Gardens: A self-described distant relative of Frank Lloyd Wright is organizing opposition to a massive, shiny condo planned for brownstone-y Smith Street. [Gowanus Lounge]
Red Hook: It appears that Willy Wonka’s dream house has officially relocated here. Actually, this artifact-packed domicile has been here a while. [McBrooklyn]
Soho: Plans are finally underway to renovate the Broadway-Lafayette/Bleecker Street subway station, where only the very clued-in escape paying twice to transfer from the 6 to the B/D/F. [Second Avenue Sagas]
Upper East Side: Phone ads dissing the area, meant actually for the Upper West Side, were stupidly posted here, causing local dudgeon. [Radar]
West Village: A large, glassy, undulating condo is coming to that big empty lot at Eighth Avenue just below 14th Street. [Curbed]
neighborhood watch
Upper East Side Now Open to LootersBedford-Stuyvesant: You can only wonder what owners of sober-faced neighboring brownstones think of this Santa Claus acid trip on Pulaski. [Bed-Stuy Blog]
Dumbo: Now open for viewing, the meticulously restored antique carousel of Jane Walentas, wife of area hero-villain developer Dave. [DumboNYC]
Greenpoint: Every neighborhood should have its own billy goat. [Gowanus Lounge]
Park Slope: Visitors want to ensure that any new plan for a green redo of Prospect Park’s Wollman Rink has plenty of parking. [Streetsblog]
Upper East Side: Attention scavengers: Make an appointment to troll through an uptown mansion next week for some pre-gutting cash-and-carry. [Brownstoner]
Williamsburg: In the bocce off-season, take up ping-pong. [Brooklyn Record]
neighborhood watch
A Jail With Retail Space Now That’s GentrificationBedford-Stuyvesant: That mysterious door on Bedford with the funky lady painted on it? It leads to a private party space … holla! [Bed-Stuy Blog]
Boerum Hill: The Brooklyn Detention Center on Atlantic and Smith (a.k.a. the slammer) may be ready to reopen its doors, with twice its former space including ground-floor retail, by summer. Shoplifters discouraged. [McBrooklyn]
Chelsea: “Don’t Buy It Destroy All Condos!” proclaims some tagging on an AmEx billboard on Tenth and 23rd. [BlogChelsea]
Coney Island: New renderings present the proposed look of 152 co-op units and a community center on West 30th Street off Surf Avenue. [Kinetic Carnival]
Flatbush: Gentrification alert! FreshDirect will soon begin delivering to new Zip Codes east and south of Prospect Park. [Brooklynian via Brooklyn Record]
Greenpoint: Has Magic Johnson’s 110 Green development destabilized an adjacent building? [Newyorkshitty]
neighborhood watch
The Slope-ification of WilliamsburgAstoria: For those pained by poor punctuation, the owner of Lot’s of Bagels probably had to pay extra for the unnecessary apostrophe. [East Village Idiot]
Bedford-Stuyvesant: Residents and soon small businesses can get unlimited property maintenance and help teens use gang slang in a productive manner at the same time. [Bed-Stuy Blog]
Chelsea: The new development going up at 245 Tenth Avenue may not have caused the collapse of its neighbor building last week, but seeing its construction workers swigging what appears to be beer is alarming all the same. [Curbed]
Clinton Hill: Entourage star Adrian Grenier has added photovoltaic panels to his ecofriendly historic house, irking some local preservationist-aesthetes. [Brownstoner]
Park Slope: Not only do yuppie parents kill edginess here, but dogs kill trees, too. [Gothamist]
Williamsburg: Urban Green Condos is using Banksy and an imagined Bedford Street filled with young families to sell $900,000 condos on North 6th Street. [Gowanus Lounge]
neighborhood watch
Natives Frighten Yuppies in Carroll GardensBedford Stuyvesant: CW11 hired graffiti artists to paint billboards for Everybody Hates Chris. They didn’t hire the other graffiti artists to bomb the ads. [Razor Apple]
Carroll Gardens: Old Brooklyn and new Brooklyn walk into a bar. New Brooklyn gets scared and leaves. Back to the Zombie Hut. [Brooklyn Record]
Clinton Hill: So it looks like a greenhouse, but it’s made of metal tubing. What is this place on Emerson for? [ClintonHillBlog]
Flatbush: Depressed that that blast of spring is fading away? Take heart … the cherry trees are starting to blossom in Brooklyn Botanic Garden. [Gothamist]
Harlem: Yet another New York Sports Club may come to the area, this time at 115th and Fifth. [Uptown Flavor]
Kingsbridge: In a few weeks, the city will have racked up $1.5 mil in fines for putting off the building of that dang filtration plant in Van Cortlandt Park. Ouch. [NYP via West Bronx Blog]
Prospect Heights: Old parapets are falling on the demo sites that will be the Atlantic Yards complex. [Curbed]
neighborhood watch
Home Sweet Warehouse in Red HookBedford-Stuyvesant: A bus ride along Throop Avenue will show all the local sights, plus an outstanding “Wall of Fame” mural. [Bed-Stuy Blog]
Clinton Hill: Does anyone have information on the SUV driver who hit a local motorcyclist Saturday morning on Kent and Flushing — leaving her brain-dead? [1010 WINS via Clinton Hill Blog]
Coney Island: Thor Equities, which is leading the controversial redevelopment of the amusement park, has set up shop there with its own project trailer. [Kinetic Carnival]
Park Slope: Megadeveloper Shaya Boymelgreen’s bringing yet another condo project to the area’s southern flank, this one called the Heritage. [Curbed]
Red Hook: Looking to live in a 5,000-square-foot, red-painted warehouse? It can be yours for $1.4 million. [Brownstoner]
Soho: Prince Street might get a bike lane to alleviate unsafe traffic on Houston. [Streetsblog]
neighborhood watch
Holy Kensington, Batman!Bedford-Stuyvesant: Who’d have thunk: Cute boîtes like Le Toukouleur are popping up in old do-or-die Bed-Stuy. [Bed-Stuy Blog]
Corona: The Willets Point corridor, a.k.a. that patch of car-related shops called the Iron Triangle, won’t be redeveloped without a fight from area biz owners. [Queens Courier via Queens Crap]
Greenwich Village: So just how much did NYU pay off the residents of 250 Mercer to rip up their street in order to expand a co-generation plant? [The Villager]
Harlem: While area pet owners await Animal General’s arrival in the neighborhood, they can bring their furry friends to Petland Sunday for a quick and cheap vet check. [Harlem Fur]
Kensington: The hood isn’t merely getting popular; it’s also really holy in a multisectarian way. [The Brooklyn Paper]
Lower East Side: Yet another scrappy art gallery loses its home to make way for — surprise! — a condo conversion and is instead moving to — surprise — Bushwick. [Downtown Express]
Williamsburg: Sure, the Karl Fischer condos are taking their own sweet time to rise. But look at all those balconies! [Curbed]
neighborhood watch
Park Slopers Indignant Over Hypothetical CrimesBedford-Stuyvesant: Does a yoga studio on “murderous Myrtle” portend for still-gritty Bed-Stuy an increase in serenity, gentrification, or both? [Bed-Stuy Blog]
Coney Island: Those with a primal need to purge societal misfits can rest easy. Coney’s much-loved “Shoot the Freak” attraction will survive another year, despite surrounding demolition by dervish developer Thor. [Gowanus Lounge]
Elmhurst: Built in 1906 with funds from Andrew Carnegie, the charming local library is slated for demolition to make room for a bigger facility. [Queens Chronicle via
neighborhood watch
Fake-Poor Kids Derided in WilliamsburgBedford-Stuyvesant: There are no outstanding violations, so why hasn’t there been any work at 377 Franklin Avenue for the past three months? [Brownstoner]
Chelsea: Communist Party headquarters on 23rd Street rent out space to (gasp!) a real-estate agency, proving even pinkos can’t resist the potential lucre of the housing bubble. [Blog Chelsea]
Lower Manhattan: Those huge light projections you’ll see tonight are actually an antiwar protest. BYO candle. [1010 WINS via Gothamist]
Prospect Park: So where exactly can you pick up a free wi-fi signal? [Daily Slope]
Williamsburg: How quickly the trust-funded hipsters turn on each other when the Times reveals that one-quarter of their parents bought their apartments for them. [Gawker]
intel
Cursed Brooklynites Seek Relief
What doesn’t Brooklyn have? An ad in today’s Metro promised to undo the curses that plague us, be they addictions, debt, rage, or witchcraft. But if you can’t make it out to the Universal Church in Bedford-Stuyvesant on Friday night at seven, call ahead and reserve a prayer. We asked for help in getting rid of our migraines, and the gentleman working the phones added us to the list. Doctors “won’t fix all your problems,” he said, encouraging us to stop by the church sometime: “How can you taste the food if you never go in the restaurant?” Caution to the cursed: Our man said the phone has been ringing ever since the ad hit the streets, so your prayer may not be answered in a timely fashion. Jocelyn Guest
Metro New York [Official site]
neighborhood watch
Track Bikes To Tear Through LESBedford-Stuyvesant: Does Head Over Heels Café actually exist, or does it just have terrible business practices? [Clinton Hill Blog]
Chelsea: Mullen’s Pub is gone, done in by rent increases. [Blog Chelsea]
Greenpoint: Give the neighborhood some T-shirt love, and show everyone how much you love the terminal market. [Newyorkshitty]
Lower East Side: Monster Track 2007 starts at 3 p.m. at Sarah D. Roosevelt Park; cheer on a slew of bikers without brakes. [Razor Apple]
Park Slope: Police warn Tea Loungers of nefarious terrorists who plot using the hangout’s free wi-fi. [Brooklyn Paper]
Richmond Hill: Residents are livid over plans to build low-income housing on land only recently revealed to be contaminated. [Queens Chronicle]
Williamsburg: New moms rave about the midwife program at Woodhull Medical Center. They even liked the food! [Block Magazine via Brooklyn Record]
neighborhood watch
What Do the Fortune-Tellers Know About Bay Ridge?Astoria: Got some genius idea for something fun to do in the waterfront park? Don’t hold your breath for a MacArthur … but apply for one of these mini-grants to bring your brainstorm to life. [Joey in Astoria]
Bay Ridge: Looks like knowing the future really confers the business edge: These days, fortune-tellers are the only storefronts hanging in there. [Brooklyn Paper]
Bedford-Stuyvesant: An entrepreneur’s poll of what new businesses are needed has unleashed a flood of pleas for nice groceries and wi-fi–enabled cafés. What new digs would you like to see in Bed-Stuy? [Brownstoner via Brooklyn Record]
Crown Heights: Gentrification chatter! Everybody’s buzzing that Starbucks and Washington Mutual are poised to supplant fried-chicken joints on gritty Eastern Parkway. [Brooklynian]
Dumbo: Not in my light-industrial backyard! Locals pressure city to landmark the area before old brick is dwarfed by shiny new glass towers. [DumboNYC]
Harlem: Hancock Place Apartments are under construction, and 44 rental units will be for households making at or below 60 percent of the area’s median income. So that’s, at most, $37,680 for a family of four. [Uptown Flavor]
Upper East Side: Pauper literati, get your asses over to that used bookstore on Lex between East 89th and 90th Streets. They’re closing, and last night they had tables groaning with free books! [Upper East Side Informer]
neighborhood watch
The Sky Is Not Falling (in Carroll Gardens, at Least)Bedford-Stuyvesant: Who’s this mysterious “Michael,” whose handwritten notes left on doorsteps offer to pay for Brooklyn homes in cash? [Brownstoner]
Carroll Gardens: Is the sky falling? Nah, it’s just corrugated steel from a condo conversion crashing down near neighbors’ windows. [Brownstoner]
Chelsea: On the 23rd Street strip that once hosted New York’s flagship Krispy Kreme, the newish Burgers & Cupcakes – complete with giant, spinning cupcake – draws mixed nabe reviews. [Chelsea.ClickYourBlock via BlogChelsea]
Chelsea: Will landmark 1971 Knox Martin mural “Venus” be eclipsed by sleek new Jean Nouvel condo tower? [Curbed]
Clinton Hill: Is Pratt planning to destroy these beautiful, boarded-up townhouses on Willoughby Street? [Clinton Hill Blog]
Prospect Heights: With stakes raised by Sunday Times coverage, the backlash against the street art–defacing “Splasher” intensifies. [Englishman in New York]
Red Hook: There are good places to eat in a nabe that’s “not just for crackheads anymore.” [Chow via Brooklyn Record]
neighborhood watch
What’s the Shittiest Street in Greenpoint?
Bed-Stuy: Ungainly-Monster-Sandwich Alert: Five-story Karl Fischer rises like bully behemoth between two tiny lil houses on Monroe Street. [Brownstoner]
Crown Heights: CHers are already sotto voce–ing about the imminent opening of Secrets, a West Indian–cum–American eatery and bar on Nostrand Avenue. [Brooklynian via Brooklyn Record]
Greenpoint: You didn’t ask for it, but here it is … a geostatistical breakdown of dog droppings on and around DuPont Street. And it looks like the area behind the Dupont Street Senior Center is, uh, the Hot Zone. [Newyorkshitty]
Harlem: Luxury on high, God down below: A planned tower for Fifth Avenue at 120th Street will have a church on the first four floors and both affordable and market-rate residential units on the 26 stories above. [Uptown Flavor]
Red Hook: Ahoy, ye geeks! PortSide New York’s maritime mascot is in dry dock at the Brooklyn Navy Yards. Follow every moment on the boat’s new blog. [Portside Tanker Blog via Gowanus Lounge]
Williamsburg: Realtor’s second “Homebuying for Hipsters” seminar tomorrow night elicits equal parts grudging appreciation and repulsed cringes from “hipsters” in question. [Curbed]
neighborhood watch
UES Just Says No to Norman FosterBedford-Stuyvesant: Fledgling Bed-Stuy–Bushwick landlord launches (highly f**ckin’ profane) blog. [A Landlord’s Life via Curbed]
Dumbo: Just in time for coldest winter week thus far, the barge swimming pool due to open this summer is spotted on Pier 2. [Curbed]
Flushing: Butt-ugly new housing flushes Queens nabe’s charm right down the toilet. [Forgotten NY via Streetsblog]
Lower East Side: Whole Foods makes its workers gather petition signatures to get permission for a liquor store next door to its imminent new Bowery branch. [Polis]
Park Slope: There’s finally a name for the no-man’s-land at the juncture of Park Slope, Red Hook, and Carroll Gardens at the F train’s Smith-9th stop. It’s the Notary District! [423smith]
Upper East Side: Landmarks committee to Sir Norman and Aby Rosen: Take that 30-foot glass tower off that art gallery! [Curbed]
the morning line
The Inexplicables
• Mayor Bloomberg seems to be making all the right moves in the wake of the 50-bullet NYPD hailstorm that killed an unarmed man in Queens. The mayor called the shooting “unacceptable or inexplicable” during a meeting with the city’s black leaders (including Al Sharpton and Charlie Rangel) — unusually strong language considering that all the facts aren’t officially in yet. [NYT]
• Firefighters doused a fire in the basement of a Bed-Stuy apartment only to find a man’s body duct-taped to a bed. It’s unclear whether the flame killed the victim or was intended to hide the crime. [WNBC]
• Even the most radical proponents of graffiti-as-legit-art would have a hard time defending one Patrick McCormick, whose fifteen arrests alternate between graffiti offenses (his artless tag, seen all over town, is “MAP”) and things like robberies and the murder of homeless people. He is now back behind bars after pleading guilty to a relatively mild crime of smashing a subway window with a hammer. What a guy. [NYDN]
• In Trenton, the heirs of a wealthy couple that donated $35 million to Princeton in 1961 want the money back. Their reasoning hinges on a claim, which they’re taking to court, that the university is misusing the endowment. It’s safe to say there goes that honorary degree. [NYP]
• And the Whitney is jumping on the High Line: The museum has inked a tentative deal with the city to build a downtown expansion that will also function as the entrance to the trippy park. This appears to mean that all talk of expanding its uptown space is now officially over, and the meatpacking district has ornery UES landmarks boards to thank. [amNY]
neighborhood watch
Condos and Beer (Which Could Well Be New York’s New Motto)Bed-Stuy: A new wave of Bed-Stuy condos go where no condos have gone before. (East, of course). [Brownstoner]
Boerum Hill: Mmmm, beer: Cask Ale Festival kicks off at the Brazen Head on Atlantic Avenue. [Brooklyn Record]
Soho: Bedbugs chase Maya Rudolph and Paul Thomas Anderson from Greene Street. [NYP]
Financial District: A 24-hour diner will invade Gold Street in January. As if bankers don’t just order in, anyway. [MetroNY]
East Village: “Loanshark Bob” Marion returns to Avenue A after years of absence. Hooray. [Neither More Nor Less]