The Revenge of the Stoop PooperBehold the return of the Boerum Hill Stoop Pooper, the chilled-out raccoon of Brooklyn Heights, and the aggressive Kennedy Fried Chicken sign of Bedford Park. All in today’s boroughs report.
ByTim Murphy
neighborhood watch
Bedbugs Threaten Boerum Hill Bastille Day’Real World’ rumors hit Carroll Gardens, strange “vocational” lions hit Staten Island, the “Beaver Butler” hits the financial district, and more, in today’s boroughs report.
neighborhood watch
Michel Gondry Moves to Historic East Williamsburg BlockYou can find libido-enhancing maca in Jackson Heights, aspects of Frenchness in Boerum Hill and, speaking of French things, possibly filmmaker Michel Gondry in East Williamsburg. That and more in our head-choppingly wacky Bastille Day boroughs report.
Preschool in Brooklyn Just Got More ToxicBoerum Hill: Parents who shelled out $1,200 for a preschool found that it was full of toxic hazards, running without a license and bouncing teachers’ checks since last summer. That’s so not the New Brownstone Brooklyn! [Brooklyn Eagle]
Bushwick: In which a bored cop mistakes a narcissistic gay Russian taking pictures of himself for a terrorist. Sounds like the start of a porn vid. [BushwickBK]
Harlem: Will a possible rezoning of 125th Street into towers of luxury condos and chain stores be a good thing for Harlem, or “Katrina-fication done by the swipe of a pen”? [VV]
gossipmonger
Heath and Michelle: Everything’s Wrong!Michelle Williams may be leaving Boerum Hill because the brownstone she lives in is too big for just her and the baby. A pregnant Nicole Richie smoked a cigarette outside Da Silvano. Ed Westwick, a.k.a. Chuck Bass on Gossip Girl, likes playing the bad boy. (Also, he’s British!) Ryan Gosling shopped for flannel shirts at the Urban Outfitters on West 14th and also set off the store alarm. Jennifer Hudson canoodled with New York Jets free safety Kerri Rhodes at Cipriani. Joan Rivers claims her apartment was once haunted by a Jewish ghost from Larchmont. Natalie Portman couldn’t flirt her way to a table at LES restaurant Apizz. The launch party of the Supper Club at the National Arts Club was way too hot.
in other news
Either Heath Ledger or Michelle Williams Fleeing BoHi
After their recent well-publicized breakup, at least one half of Boerum Hill’s most famous couple seems to be moving out, reports 801a. We’re guessing it’s Heath, based upon how aggressively he’s been trying to find another place to sleep lately. But the best part? The above picture, captured on their street today.
When Celebrities Move [801a]
in other news
Vox Populi: The Boerum Hill BreakupAs the end of the day nears, it’s time we assessed the people’s reaction to New York’s biggest news of the holiday weekend, the breakup of Brooklyn Über-couple Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams. We have our own opinions on the matter (read a couple that never, ever looks happy might actually not be), but on this we’ll turn to the experts – the commenters on the Us Weekly blog, which broke the news. Their words of wisdom after the jump, God bless ‘em.
neighborhood watch
The Gays Have Found Forest Hills — or Maybe NotBoerum Hill: Prudential Douglas Elliman is pissed at bloggers who write about how their Brooklyn properties won’t sell. Good, because we’re pissed at all brokers for taking our money and only showing us “studios with a nook.” [Brownstoner]
Chelsea: All that construction at the General Theological Seminary on Tenth Avenue is for a “Geothermic Well Field.” Great Scott! [Blog Chelsea]
Forest Hills: Gays in the Hills! “Or maybe more straight guys are wearing Abcrombie [sic] andFitch t-shirts and walking tiny dogs with their male friends.” [Forest Hills 72]
Lower Manhattan: Curbed has hot pics (literally) of the destruction of a T.G.I. Friday’s downtown, to make way for the Fulton Street Transit Center. TGIF indeed! [Curbed]
Union Square: If you need $100 a month, why not let this Internet wunderkind hang out in your apartment sometimes? [Zach Klein]
West Village: Gothamist gathers all the info on one of our New York real-estate obsessions, the Northern Dispensary Building. [Gothamist]
neighborhood watch
Boerum Hill Apartment Papered With WrathBay Ridge: The Duane Reade on Senator Street and Fourth Avenue closed. Please, please replace it with a grocery store. [Bay Ridge Brooklyn]
Boerum Hill: Some new residents on State Street were inundated with love notes from neighbors (or neighbor?) after jackhammering all weekend. [Brownstoner]
Chelsea: In this fairy-tale hood, there aren’t just many wicked queens, but a dragon, too! [BlogChelsea]
Clinton Hill: There’s a giant empty building on Emerson and Park. Apartments in there could be hot. [Clinton Hill Blog]
Gramercy Park: Beware a young new barber who trims beards to the jawline. [Manhattan Offender]
Harlem: It sounds like the bougie intellectual crowd and the pulp-fiction “sista lit” crowds clashed at the book fair this weekend. [HarlemFur]
Lower East Side: Efforts are under way to landmark a big chunk of the neighborhood before tenements are completely supplanted by shiny condos. [SaveTheLowerEastSide]
neighborhood watch
When Brooklyn Commenters AttackBoerum Hill: Brownstoner hates a Robert Scarano building, but commenters think the blogger has a grudge. [Brownstoner]
Brooklyn Heights: Costume-makeup-sex-toy emporium Ricky’s is promising nervous locals that, when it opens on staid Montague Street in September, it’ll keep the dildos out of direct view. [Brooklyn Eagle via McBrooklyn]
Dumbo: Transformation of the Pearl Street Triangle has sparked a heated local debate (check the comments) on homeless people in the ever-more-gentrified hood. [DumboNYC]
Maspeth: Might St. Saviour’s Church be saved from demolition on the grounds that the wreckers have broken federal law by cutting down trees harboring migrating birds? [Queens Crap]
South Jamaica: “We’re losing our capes!” No, it’s not a superheroes’ lament. Just locals in this Queens burg mourning the supplanting of cute, small-scale homes with plot-hogging McMansions. [Progressive Southside]
Upper West Side: It’s overpriced camp season again, which means a lot of bad chords coming from your kid’s bedroom. [Copyranter]
neighborhood watch
Hookers Don’t Bow to Brooklyn GentrificationBoerum Hill: OMG, there are still hookers here? It seems so, but new euphemisms from the yups include “sex care workers.” We love that. [Gowanus Lounge]
Chelsea: A bank may occupy one of the first-floor biz units of the Chelsea Hotel, under new corporate management. What’s next? The eviction of the age-old Dan’s Chelsea Guitars store? [Living with Legends]
Coney Island: Will the kiddie rides in Wonder Wheel Park be next to go? [Gowanus Lounge]
Cypress Hills: The criminals-posing-as-cops vogue spread to this sketchy Brooklyn hood, where five thugs faking an NYPD drug bust tied up folks and picked their apartment clean. [Gothamist]
East Village: Even in a holiday week with barely any passengers, the L train will still screw you. [East Village Idiot]
Greenpoint: Word drifts back our way that an area bookseller was hurt that we tittered over her announcing an “adults only” Harry Potter party. Didn’t she kind of set herself up for that? [Newyorkshitty]
Prospect Heights: Residents are still waiting for that Atlantic Yards ombudsman who was promised to the community two months ago. [Atlantic Yards Report]
neighborhood watch
The People’s Republic of Bushwick RisesBoerum Hill: A rundown YWCA will become home to 84 new units of affordable studios (under $600) for women rather than the site of a luxury condo. File under So Refreshing You Want to Cry. [NYDN via Queens Crap]
Bushwick: The artists living at 345 Eldert Street plan to secede from Brooklyn tomorrow. [Brooklyn Paper]
Chelsea: That dance piece they were filming on the High Line last week? It’s Jerome Robbins’s 1958 work Opus Jazz, to be completed by next summer. [BlogChelsea]
Clinton Hill: It’s a race against the clock at 163 Washington Street as a developer tries to grandfather in a high-rise’s foundation before new zoning forbids it. [Brownstoner]
Gowanus: Since when is this desolate hood considered “the heart of downtown” Brooklyn? Since a just-opened Comfort Inn here started marketing it that way. [Gowanus Lounge]
Harlem: Just how loud is the weekly drum circle in Marcus Garvey Park? [Harlem Fur]
Williamsburg: East River State Park opens full-time today, just in time to offer the city’s best view of tomorrow night’s fireworks (if they’re not rained out, that is). [I’m Not Sayin’, I’m Just Sayin’]
neighborhood watch
Red Hook Too Gentrified for Wild DogsBoerum Hill: The unidentified crapper has been caught in the act! [Curbed]
Dumbo: The acronym may actually mean “Down Under the Manhattan and Brooklyn Overpasses.” [Dumbo NYC]
Fort Greene: Architectural salvage up for grabs: mantels, mirrors, bathtubs, and more! [Brownstoner]
Greenpoint: If you need a Panama hat or a fine Mexican wedding shirt, go to Huitzilli. [newyorkshitty]
Long Island City: Pay $5,000 a month for 4,700 square feet. [OuterB]
Red Hook: A couple of the wild dogs from the Revere Sugar Factory have found a new home in Pennsylvania. [Gowanus Lounge]
neighborhood watch
Heatherette Classes Up Columbus CircleBoerum Hill: Smell a rat around here? Gee, maybe it’s that dead one that’s been peeping out of someone’s garbage can for several days. [Gowanus Lounge]
Chelsea: They were filming some dance movie on the High Line yesterday. Starring, uh, Craig. You know Craig, right? [BlogChelsea]
Clinton Hill: Did someone around here really lose a “mangy looking” pigeon with “black bits”? (Ooh, what are those?) Or is this sign some kind of birdbrained bluff? [Clinton Hill Blog]
Columbus Circle: It’s the Heatherette statute of a sneaker we’ve all been waiting for. [Copyranter]
Graniteville: Here on Staten Island, cops raided a home harboring 2,500 pounds of explosive materials. The owner was selling them over the Internet. [Staten Island Advance via Gothamist]
Harlem: They’ll be replenishing those wood chips in the dog run at St. Nick’s Park tomorrow … and they need your help! [Harlem Fur]
Park Slope: Grand Army Plaza could become safer, more serene, and more pedestrian-friendly. Really? [Brooklyn Paper]
neighborhood watch
Standing Up for Double-Parking Rights in the SlopeBoerum Hill: Neglected Thomas Green Park could become a $4 million skate park. [Brooklyn Paper]
Forest Hills: There’s a stop-work order on the demolition of a historic 72nd Avenue townhouse, but will the developer behind the demo honor it? [Forest Hills 72]
Harlem: A cute black and white Chihuahua named Bugzy has gone missing. Have you seen the adorable uptown critter? [Harlem Fur]
Park Slope: The 9th Street bike-lane opponents fear they’ll lose their ability to double park. [I’m Seeing Green]
Times Square: Even with guns, drugs, and hookers freely traded there, the Aladdin Hotel is still not the worst-ranked inn in the city. [NewYorkology]
Williamsburg: It came in the night. The long-dreaded pile driver for massive Billyburg condo devo the Edge, that is, heralding a massive project that will deprive locals of their waterfront view. [i’m not sayin’, i’m just saying’]
neighborhood watch
Park Slope Send Arab School to Boerum HillBoerum Hill: The proposed Arabic language and culture school so infuriated Park Slopers that the city decided to put it in Boerum Hill. [The Brooklyn Paper]
Brooklyn Heights: Last chance to buy tickets for the Brooklyn Heights House Tour tomorrow. [Brownstoner]
Chelsea: Someone’s looking for information on what a building on the north side of Seventh Avenue between 23 and 24th Streets looked like in the sixties and seventies. [Blog Chelsea]
Park Slope: The Brooklyn Blogfest was last night, giving bloggers an opportunity to see daylight, and each other. [Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn]
Williamsburg: After months of wondering, the new rendering of 184 Kent Street causes a significant “whoa.” [Curbed]
neighborhood watch
It’s All Downhill From Morningside HeightsBoerum Hill: It’s not enough that the Brooklyn House of Detention could reopen. Besides room for 720 inmates, look for two towers with residential or commercial space. [Brooklyn Daily Eagle via mcbrooklyn]
Clinton Hill: Residents of the area’s southern flank, rejoice … a bank (a North Fork) is finally coming to Fulton and Clinton! [Brooklyn Record]
Greenpoint: Residents come together to complain to a building inspector about excessive noise and damage caused by construction at 110 Green Street. [Newyorkshitty]
Harlem: The Beaumont, a 63-unit Art Deco apartment building on Riverside Drive, has been sold for just over $20 million. [Uptown Flavor]
Morningside Heights: This area has the greatest number of bike commuters — after Park Slope, of course. [Streetsblog]
Park Slope: A local brothel is undergoing a renovation. But what will the building be now? [Curbed]
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]
in the magazine
Sex Diaries: The Bisexual PolyamoristIt’s the Sex and Love issue of New York this week, and for it six New Yorkers kept Sex Diaries that chronicled their sexual lives (or lack thereof) over a period of seven days. Daily Intel has even more diaries, and today we end our week of sex diaries with a big one. Here’s the Bisexual Polyamorist: female, 28, lawyer, Boerum Hill, single.
DAY 1
10:00 a.m.: Arrive for the weekend at a nudist swinger sauna retreat in Maine.
5:00 p.m.: Give an impromptu sexuality workshop. Two grandmothers ask for a G-spot demo.
ByArianne Cohen
neighborhood watch
Williamsburg Gets Its Own JeansBoerum Hill: Outraged tenants are battling a local landlord with a lawsuit and a blog called Bad Landlord, of course. [Daily Slope]
Brooklyn Heights Jehovah’s Witnesses are selling their Columbia Heights property, formerly the Standish Arms Hotel. [Brooklyn Daily Eagle via Brooklyn Heights Blog]
Clinton Hill: Who’s haunting that abandoned church on Clinton between Greene and Gates — ghosts or junkies? [Clinton Hill Blog]
Nolita: According to the Medici Foundation, it’s anti-Italian-American not only to dislike the San Gennaro festival but also to say “Nolita” instead of “Little Italy.” [Curbed]
Prospect Lefferts Garden: The altruism of a group of neighbors who cleaned up graffiti this weekend doesn’t stop certain meanies from calling them ugly. [Across the Park]
Williamsburg: Well, they once named a jeans line for Studio 54. Is it any wonder the Gap should name its skinny denims after the city’s most insufferably trendy hood? [Free Williamsburg]
neighborhood watch
At William Beaver House, Brand Early, Brand OftenAstoria: Did a Bauhaus-era South Beach hotel fly through the air, Oz-like, and land on 21st Street? How else to explain the new Astoria Windsor apartment building? [Curbed via Queens Crap]
Boerum Hill: Perhaps where an air conditioner used to cool is now a shrine to the Virgin Mary and, uh, Barbie. Is the Bethlehem Barbie Dreamstable somewhere nearby? [Lost City]
Governor’s Island: So NASCAR didn’t work on Staten Island. What about Indy racing here? [NYS]
Kensington: The jilted neighborhood is conspicuously absent from Brooklyn Record’s breakdown. What gives? (Blog fight!) [Kensington Blog]
Lower Manhattan: At the construction site for André Balazs’s super-hyped Beaver House condos (studio: $870,000), even the construction crane is part of the branding. [Curbed]
Soho: Madonna and her cleavage will be overlooking Houston & Crosby on behalf of H&M for a while. [Copyranter]
neighborhood watch
Truman Capote Slept Here, But Not for $40,000 a MonthBoerum Hill: Believe it or not, the new Boerum Heights Condos are 100 percent sold out even though they’re smack up against the Atlantic Yards project. [One Hanson Place]
Brooklyn Heights: Rent 70 Willow Street (where Truman Capote used to live) for only $40,000 a month. Call Sotheby’s for details. [Brownstoner]
Chelsea: Body-conscious Chelsea boys will no longer be tempted by the huge, pink rotating cupcake atop 23rd Street’s Burgers and Cupcakes. The store has 30 days to take it down. [Blog Chelsea via JamesWagner]
Dumbo: With all these CGIs of planned improvements for the area (including a new Brooklyn Bridge walkway), it’s almost like they’ve already happened! [Dumbo NYC]
Fort Greene: One resident is launching a campaign to get Zipcar to place some cars here and in Clinton Hill. [Brooklyn Record]
Howard Beach: Was Liberace’s last bungalow mistakenly constructed in Queens? [Queens Crap]
the follow-up
Last Week in Minor MisunderstandingsIn this installment of our remarkably lax-on-ourselves annotated errata, we’re not quite apologizing for a Nader flub, a Central Park slight, and another Brooklyn border gerrymander. But we do find it necessary to clarify a few things.
vu.
You’re Probably Too Late for Boerum Hill (Unless You’re Rich)Ah, Boerum Hill, the land of Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams. Gossips were shocked when the Brokeback Mountain twosome decided to buy their $2 million townhouse there. But locals who’d long been in Boerum Hill weren’t: They understood the allure of its leafy streets, its burgeoning dining and nightlife scene, and its brownstone Brooklyn charms. (The name, by the way, comes from Simon Boerum, who, according to the South Brooklyn Network, was a local farmer.) Besides, the neighborhood has had its share of fame before, though of a literary sort writer Jonathan Lethem set his books, Motherless Brooklyn and Fortress of Solitude there. Like other pockets in the city, its borders have become more malleable recently; it’s more or less between Schermerhorn Street and Douglass Street west of Fourth Avenue, depending on which real-estate brokers are talking. Boerum Hill is no question one of the most vibrant parts of the borough, making true bargains as unlikely here as in the nearby prime areas of Brooklyn Heights, Carroll Gardens, and Park Slope. So take a look at the open houses listed below and wish for the foresight to have bought long ago or the movie-world moola to stake a claim there now. S.Jhoanna Robledo
neighborhood watch
Brooklyn Tenants Rise Up Against LandlordsBoerum Hill: A construction project gives the whole area the DTs. [Brooklyn Record]
Chelsea: The area’s highest building is going up on Sixth Avenue. Expect to buy condos there in 2008. [Curbed]
Dumbo: J Condo invites local artists to submit work to be shown in the building. [Dumbo Improvement District via Dumbo NYC]
Greenpoint: Tenants, get stoked! There’s a vigil tonight against landlord harassment at 6:30 at 202 Franklin Street, near Huron Street. [New York Shitty]
Park Slope: Are families on the outs? Two new condos have mostly studios and one-bedrooms. [Brownstoner]
neighborhood watch
Indie Rockers Losing Death Grip on WilliamsburgBoerum Hill: Atlantic Yards’ next sin? Illuminated billboards that are fifteen stories tall. [Gowanus Lounge]
Chelsea: The High Line might not make it north of 30th Street after all. [Blog Chelsea]
Park Slope: Park Slope Towers is really a dorm, not a condo building. [Curbed]
Upper East Side: Meet the Gael Pub Quizmaster, David Jacobson. [Upper East Side Informer]
West Village: On Saturday, join the memorial ride for Eric Ng, a 22-year-old bicyclist who was killed December 1 by a drunk driver on the West Side bike path. [onNYturf]
Williamsburg: Parks Department placates angry residents by promising to diversify McCarren Park Pool concerts with Colombian and Polish music. [Brooklyn Downtown Star via Brooklyn Record]
neighborhood watch
Let’s Just Call Every Land Deal ‘Atlantic Yards’ From Now OnBoerum Hill: There are twelve units left in the Smith; expect a fancy grocery store in the retail space. Will that make up for jailhouse views? [Brownstoner]
Carroll Gardens: Schnack heard the screams for highly processed flour and answered: White buns are back. [A Brooklyn Life]
Chelsea: A Jaguar ad plastered to the old McBurney Y makes us yearn for the days when the neighborhood’s billboards were all PSAs. [BlogChelsea]
Coney Island: With the sell-off of Astroland, New York’s favorite crappy beach might be the new Atlantic Yards. [Gowanus Lounge]
Midtown: When you see Christopher Meloni at the gym, do you think SVU or Oz? [Tales From the City]
Sunset Park: Neighborhood tree lighting conveniently scheduled for a time when no one can go. [Sunset Parker]
neighborhood watch
Williamsburg’s Spawn Indoctrinated EarlyBoerum Hill: For those keeping score at home, that’s 583 car crashes on Atlantic Avenue between Flatbush Avenue and the river since January 2005. [Brooklyn Record]
East Village: East Village blogger Jim returns from Scranton to find his neighbors filching his online style. [Neither More Nor Less]
Prospect Heights: If a 95-year-old bakery can’t get landmark status, none of us can. [Brooklyn Papers]
Soho: Following the close of disreputable bar, the Falls, the space is reincarnated as an Indian restaurant. Better luck to Midnight Cafe II. [Villager]
UWS: Metropolitan Montessori School saves energy by switching over to wind power. No word on whether this will make annual tuition dip to $20,000. [NAW via Metadish]
Williamsburg: Beatles covers for your own little hipster-in-training. Yikes. [Willy Bees]
neighborhood watch
Stop!Boerum Hill: City replaces stop signs with traffic light at one intersection, and neighbors aren’t pleased. [Streets Blog]
Boerum Hill: Who you gonna call? Well, don’t bother with the police, if you live on a block stuck between two precincts. [NYDN]
East Village and Lower East Side: Work continues on East River Park, with 6th Street running track reopened and overall project set for final completion in 2008. [Grand Street News]
Fort Greene: There’s a new church coming, but don’t tell the local prostitutes. [Brownstoner]
Harlem: There’s some weird architecture — an old-school front porch, a very new-school modern thing — on East 128th Street townhouses. [Bagel in Harlem]
Lower East Side: Proposed neighborhood-friendly LES rezoning may not be as neighborhood-friendly as it’s cracked up to be. [LoHo 10002]
Lower East Side: Thanks to construction-detritus pulverized Styrofoam, you can play in the snow even when it’s 60-plus degrees out. [What About the Plastic Animals? via Curbed]
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]
