Winona Ryder Is Dating Tom Green?!?Also, apparently there’s an amusement park in Bensonhurst. There’s so much to learn in today’s boroughs report!
ByTim Murphy
neighborhood watch
Stroller Outrage at Park Slope Barnes & Noble
Bensonhurst: Beware the black mayonnaise! Dredging under Gravesend Bay for a new waste-transfer facility may unearth toxic gunk that could poison the waters off Southern Brooklyn. [Brooklyn Graphic]
Greenpoint: Creating a “Moscow on Newtown Creek” look, those sleek, new onion domes on the area’s northern edge are actually tanks for part of a high-tech new wastewater treatment facility. [I’m Not Sayin’, I’m Just Sayin’]
Greenwich Village: The West 12th Street townhouse that Meryl Streep sold to Johnson & Johnson heiress “Libet” Johnson last year for $9.1 million is back on the market for the audacious asking price of $15.9M. [Curbed]
Park Slope: Even Barnes & Noble employees (with kids, anyway) are bitching about new stroller rules at the bookseller’s scene-y Slope branch. What’s next? No sippy cups at the Co-op? [Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn]
Red Hook: Will it be new piers or plush condos for the Red Hook waterfront? Locals applaud remarks from the new Port Authority–czar suggesting the former. [Carroll Gardens Courier via Gowanus Lounge]
Springfield Gardens: Hey, wait a minute … why does this new, supposedly two-family home in Queens have six doors? Neighbors want to know. [Queens Press via Queens Crap]
Upper East Side: Take advantage of First Fridays more efficiently by knowing where the coat check is and going to the bathroom before you leave the house. [Upper East Side Informer]
neighborhood watch
Drive a Car? Get Mad.Bensonhurst: Irate teacher sets an example by punching out bus window. [NYP]
Lower East Side: Clinton and Delancey Streets have new bike-route stencils. Now share space with annoying hipsters and annoying cars. [Streetsblog]
Midtown: While searching frantically for the traffic light, you have the sudden urge to drink Enviga. [Curbed]
Staten Island: Stuck in traffic on your way home tonight? Come up with a three-minute invective to sputter at the City Council’s Committee on Transportation public hearing. [Staten Island Advance]
Upper East Side: Don’t worry, rent-stabilized residents: By the time the Second Avenue subway forces you to relocate, you’ll be dead. [NYP]
the morning line
Body Parts
• Somebody cut off and stole George Washington’s head. A statue of the first president now stands nogginless at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, with a dollar bill proffered as a mocking replacement. Suspects include leftover British royalists, Republicans driven mad by post-election grief, and, of course, adorable scamps from the nearby Columbia campus. [NYP]
• A city doctor is gearing up to do a uterus transplant, the country’s first (Saudi doctors did it once in 2000). Prospective recipients are being vetted right now. The transplant is meant to be temporary and last only through a pregnancy — still an ambitious goal. [NYDN]
• The Democratic majority has its first scandal! Harlem’s own Charlie Rangel is apologizing to Mississippi for a little zinger he unleashed on it yesterday. The exact phrasing, to refresh your memory, was “Who the hell wants to live in Mississippi?” Apparently some people do, and some of those, like Representative Chip Pickering (R-Miss., natch), are issuing angry press releases. [amNY]
• If you see something, say something: A black duffel casually dropped on Bensonhurst’s busy Shore Parkway has revealed an intact human body. The Times story is priceless for the colorful locals’ la-di-da reaction, which includes the phrase “This has always been a popular area for dumping bodies.” [NYT]
• And, let’s just get this over with: The taxi fare hike is kicking in a full month sooner than expected, on November 30. Under new rules, the riders will pay the same rate for slow or stopped traffic as they do when the cab actually, you know, is taking them somewhere. [WNBC]
