Yuppies Discouraged From Partying in Tompkins Square ParkPlus plaster nearly falling on East Harlem babies before their souls are insured and a cure for killer staph in the Gowanus Canal. Why wait? Click through today’s boroughs report!
Staten Island Has a Turkey Overpopulation ProblemEdward Albee is being used to market a condo, a cat-beating sicko lurks the streets of Queens, and Staten Island turkeys are being given mandatory abortions. The city’s gone mad, in our daily boroughs report.
Heather Mills Is Moving to the West VillagePaul McCartney’s ex drops some of his dime on a New York pad, well-meaning yuppie scum set up shop in the East Village, Enrique Norten gets a second chance in downtown Brooklyn, and more, in this week’s kickoff to our daily boroughs wrap-up!
Coney Island 2008: The ‘Summer of Hope’Wrap up your week wetly, with a dead raccoon on the Upper East Side, a tiny woman on Coney, David Byrne way downtown, and some big breasts in the meatpacking district. All in today’s boroughs report!
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Queens Children Face Giant ‘Dagger’Bronx-ites don’t like their hoods, a councilman doesn’t like plans for a power plant in Astoria, and everyone, it seems, doesn’t like the Chelsea Hotel’s manager, so they’re glad he’s leaving. Even more acrimony in our full daily boroughs report!
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Don’t Fear the River, Lower East Siders!Escalator vigilantes in Union Square, riverside Ping-Pong for the LES, and (gasp) a “sick” dog run in the Slope. Yep, it’s Freaky Friday in our daily boroughs report.
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Manhattan Mall: Ghost Town?Less rice in Jackson Heights! Less theater space in the Village! And one less groundhog on Roosevelt Island. All that and more (less?) in today’s boroughs report.
The ‘Crazy Super’ Has a Dog Named Pretty GirlBay Ridge: Richard Martin, the “crazy super” who posts homicidally threatening signs about trash disposal, says of his tenants “They’re Arab; they don’t give a f*ck”; has a cute Pekinese named Pretty Girl; and worships Jeanine Pirro. Feast on his cranky, strangely lovable weirdness. [NYP]
Chelsea: Facing lawsuits from folks who say it’s too loud and polluting to be there, the 30th St. pier heliport floats a plan to move itself onto two barges offshore. And Curbed is right… this homespun sketch of the plan indeed features the quaintest, gentlest West Side Highway we’ve ever seen. [Villager via Curbed]
Ditmas Park: Folks in these gentrifying, pretty parts know that the hatred currently directed at Park Slope will soon be visited upon them. And they’re probably right. [Ditmas Park Blog]
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Jail Reopening and Expansion Proposed for the Corner of Atlantic and SmithTwo city commissioners revived plans last night to reinvent the jail system — and, they say, gloss up Atlantic Avenue in the bargain. Martin Horn, who runs Corrections and Probation, told a roomful of architects that marooning detainees on Rikers Island thwarts justice (“Nothing angers a judge more than having a jury impanelled and a defendant stuck in traffic on the BQE”) and tempts disaster (the one bridge to Rikers evidently sits between a jet-fuel tank and what Horn describes as “railroad cars full of chlorine gas”).
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In Brooklyn, Is Everything Too Tall Already?Cobble Hill: On Atlantic Avenue, the maybe-too-tall rental that nobody wants is going up too fast, while the adjacent Trader Joe’s that everybody wants is going up too slow! Goldilocks is gagging! [Brownstoner]
Downtown Brooklyn: Uh, that tower that’ll top the big Citypoint development at the Albee Square Mall will be 65 stories! That’s, like, taller than the Williamsburgh Savings Bank! So is it … too tall? [Gowanus Lounge]
Greenpoint: At last, a Brooklyn detached unit you can afford, with extra amenities like a beer-swilling Lucy Van Pelt figure. [Newyorkshitty]
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Multicultural Caroling in Ditmas Park: It’s the New Trick-or-TreatingBay Ridge: With its unsolved crimes and rampant development, is the Ridge what L.A. was like back in the noir-y, true-crime forties and fifties? Seems a little grandiose for us. [Bay Ridge Rover]
Bedford-Stuyvesant: Okay, okay, it’s not the richest hood, but couldn’t they put up some holiday decorations? [Bed-Stuy Blog]
Ditmas Park: If you want to carol at the tree-lighting next weekend, you’d better know your Christmas and Hanukkah songs, but you’ll get extra credit if you can bring the Kwanzaa and solstice beats, too. [Ditmas Park Blog]
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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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Battery Park, Do We Need More of It?Battery Park City: Should the hood, itself built on landfill, be extended out into the Hudson with more landfill? The local community board says, “No, no, no!” [CityRealty]
Bedford-Stuyvesant: Herewith, twenty reasons to love the hood’s hated-on, not-so-trendy north side. (“11. The selection of current bootleg DVDs at the laundromat.” Can’t argue with that.) [Bed-Stuy Banana]
Downtown Brooklyn: One of those sleek, new bus shelters has been smashed to pieces … again! [McBrooklyn]
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Gentrifying Ditmas Park: The Move That Dare Not Speak Its NameAstoria: Graffiti gives this not-even-moved-into-yet new building “a cozy, ‘lived-in’ feel.” [Curbed]
Clinton Hill: Hipsters turned breeders will learn this weekend how to replace skateboards with infants as their top new accessory. [Still Hip Brooklyn via A Child Grows in Brooklyn]
Ditmas Park: The hood’s pioneering yups preen over their new cafés and shops but balk at charges of gentrification. You can’t have it both ways, people! [Ditmas Park Blog]
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Chelsea, Now With Lap Pools!Chelsea: New promo pics for the too-fabulous Yves (so French!) condo tell a smoldering story of love, lust, and on-site lap pools. [Curbed]
Clinton Hill: Don’t click here unless you’re ready to see the dead, mutilated squirrel left in front of the home of this blogger. Revenge from a developer who got a snarky write-up? [Brownstoner]
Downtown Brooklyn: The massive new real estate planned for the area may not be so massive overall…think 1.6 mil square feet of office space versus the 4.5 mil projected a few years ago. [NYO]
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The Coen Brothers Pony Up for the HeightsBrooklyn Heights: The figures are in: To say thanks for letting them shake up the hood while shooting a new Clooney flick here, the Coen brothers gave the Brooklyn Heights Association $10,000, and a few other groups one or two thou each. [Brooklyn Paper]
Ditmas Park: In this fast-gentrifying hood, “Go back to Park Slope” is a four-letter word. [Ditmas Park Blog]
Downtown Brooklyn: A Renzo Piano–designed complex of housing and office space is planned to take the place of City Tech’s Klitgord Auditorium. With a name like that, maybe best that it come down after all. [McBrooklyn]
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Social Unrest on G PlatformGreenpoint: Long waits for the G train are breeding angry calls for socialized medicine. Plus, who impaled these poor tomatoes? [Newyorkshitty]
Downtown Brooklyn: A bunch of Morgan Stanley employees were caught on camera cornholing in Cadman Plaza Park yesterday. [McBrooklyn]
Dumbo: Yep, Dave Walentas — and a few other big local developers — went down in the dunk tank last night at a fund-raiser to preserve the hood’s brick streets. [Brownstoner]
Harlem: Columbia has bought a site to build new homes for people its expansion will displace, but the folks in question weren’t consulted beforehand. [Columbia Spectator]
Prospect Heights: The hood may get landmark status, which some locals hope will protect against the ripple effects of the massive ongoing Atlantic Yards development. [Atlantic Yards Report]
Washington Heights: Police broke up a coke ring run out of a deli. God, imagine snorting blow with a slice of rolled-up salami… [NYS]
Williamsburg: The city wants to kick out La Marqueta’s food vendors to make room for affordable housing, but locals doubt they’ll benefit from the new units. [amNY]
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All Peeping Toms to Third Avenue, StatBedford Park: Council speaker Christine Quinn shopped at a Botanical Garden farmer’s market up here this morning to tout the acceptance of food stamps (well, EBT cards) at city Greenmarkets. Not that she used them to buy her string beans and melon. [West Bronx Blog]
Bushwick: In which a softhearted, London-bound alternababe holds a yard sale but ends up giving away half the items — including a doll’s head — to the local kids. [BushwickBK]
Coney Island: They’ll be protesting at Astroland on Sunday, the last day of the season, to demand that Coney megadeveloper Joe Sitt keep the park open next year. [Gowanus Lounge]
Downtown Brooklyn: The site harboring a huge pile of rubble right near MetroTech could soon become home to the borough’s tallest building. Yep, taller than the Williamsburg Bank. And that’s pretty tall. [McBrooklyn]
East Village: Until they install bigger venetian blinds at the new 110 Third Avenue condo, there’s good voyeurism to be had for passersby — or good exhibitionism for lower-floor occupants, if they dig that sort of thing. [Curbed]
Williamsburg: Boy, you gotta be pretty, uh, pissed off by dog drippings in your neighborhood to build a whole sandwich-board sign to denounce it. [Newyorkshitty]
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‘If These Walls Could Talk, They’d Probably Be Screaming’Bronx: A city inspector went to the basement of 1912 Holland Avenue to check on a hot-water heater, but he ended up contacting the police because he found a crazy laboratory, complete with vials of acid, and preserved bones and organs. As one resident said, “If these walls could talk, they’d probably be screaming.” [Gothamist]
Cobble Hill: A planned new building next to the incoming Brooklyn Trader Joe’s has caused a kerfuffle – developers want to build higher than zoning permits, but Borough president Marty Markowitz doesn’t want to set a bad precedent. Mm. We’re not sure “kerfuffle” is the word he’d use. [Brownstoner]
Downtown Brooklyn: The city has decided to use its powers of eminent domain to seize 21 downtown Brooklyn lots that are said to have been a part of the Underground Railroad. Oh, and the city is also about to spend $2 million to commemorate abolitionist activity in the area. [McBrooklyn]
Forest Hills: A planned shopping center in the hood hasn’t received approval, despite signage to the contrary. The suspicious civic association, naturally, have their caftans in a twist. [Forest Hills 72]
Soho: A giant, boxers-clad poster of Michelangelo’s David dominates Lafayette, trying to get you to donate sperm. Because, you know, Lafayette has the best daddies. [Copyranter]
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Underground Railroad Landmarks to Become Underground GarageChelsea: This lost cat should be easily identified based on this accurate and lifelike illustration. Or, wait, is that a kangaroo? [Blog Chelsea]
Coney Island: Was someone cyber-posing as a circus executive to undermine the Cole Brothers big top that came here recently? [Gowanus Lounge]
Downtown Brooklyn: It’s increasingly likely that those Duffield Street homes believed to have been stops on the Underground Railroad will soon be replaced by, among other things, an underground parking garage. Inspiring. [Brooklyn Eagle via Duffield St. Underground]
Greenpoint: Looks like an open-air weekend art-and-antiques fair is coming to, uh, Grinpoint. [Newyorkshitty]
Harlem: A packed room at a community-board meeting was so opposed to Columbia’s expansion in Harlem that even eminence noir David Dinkins, who supports the growth, was booed and heckled. [Harlem Fur]
Lower East Side: Residents of the Rutgers Houses and Knickerbocker Village don’t want all those Chinatown buses congregating on a two-block stretch in their midst. [Chelsea Now via Streetsblog]
Soho: “If you had to find one word to describe Soho, it would be ‘beauty,’” writes this flack-y blogger. Funny, that. We thought it would be “mall.” [Weblicist]
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You Can Choose Your Friends, But You Can’t Choose Your Friends’ CondosAstoria: Tonight at the Beer Garden, it’s Harry and the Potters. Get drunk with your fellow nerds! [Joey in Astoria]
Downtown Brooklyn: New buyers into 110 Livingston will be relieved of common charges for six months if they can convince a bud to buy in the building, too. [Curbed]
Harlem: Rumors are flying that rich, new white residents want the name of Marcus Garvey Park — longtime site of the Saturday-night African drumming circle — changed back to Mount Morris Park. [Amsterdam News via Harlem Fur]
Kensington: Local watchdogs regret to inform you that the hood ain’t got much crime, save the occasional Peeping Tom or delivery-boy mugging. [Kensington Blog]
Northwest Bronx: When Bronx councilmember Joel Rivera didn’t show up at a meeting to address restaurant workers’ rights, the workers flooded his office with “menus” demanding he hear them. [WestBronxNews]
Sunset Park: Construction is under way here on … no, not a new luxury condo, but an actual public high school, complete with bright yellow squares on it! [IMBY]
Upper East Side: Old-timers oppose a bike lane on a stretch of 91st Street that’s become an unofficial park over the years. Younger locals support it. [Streetsblog]
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Bloomberg Summers in BrooklynBushwick: The group of students who were mass-arrested en route to a friend’s wake will gather outside the police precinct here this afternoon to protest their treatment. [OnNYTurf]
Downtown Brooklyn: The mayor’s office moves in temporarily, and so do the police and barricades in Cadman Plaza. [McBrooklyn]
Fort Greene: If you don’t clean up your doggy doo around here, someone will kick you and your dog’s ass. [Newyorkshitty]
Harlem: What happens to a dream deferred? Just ask new residents in the much-hyped Langston complex, where half-mil units are reportedly less than, uh, perfect. [Uptown Flavor]
Maspeth: Rogue developer Tommy Huang of Queens, you were caught doing an illegal demolition again? Will you ever learn? [QueensCrap]
Park Slope: The blogs are finally finding the courage to say they’re sick of stories about Slope parenting culture. Ring dem bells! [Brownstoner and Gothamist]
Upper East Side: The Second Avenue T line doesn’t exist yet, but that won’t stop Absolut from advertising like it does. [Yorkville Blog via Curbed]
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Whole Foods Brings Beetles; Are They Organic?Brooklyn Heights: The focus is not on area kiddies but rather on their hardworking nannies in a St. Francis College photo exhibit. [Brooklyn Eagle]
Chelsea: You’ve heard of slow food. Now get ready for a “slow park” — that is how starchitects Scofidio and Diller described their in-progress High Line last night. [Blog Chelsea]
Downtown Brooklyn: While an Underground Railroad site fights for its life on one side of Duffield Street, 500 new hotel units are going up on the other. [Brownstoner]
Dumbo: The streets are torn up because KeySpan is installing new power lines. But the utility company promises it’ll restore those prized Belgian blocks. Cobbly! [DumboNYC]
Lower East Side: Ever since Whole Foods moved in downstairs, residents of the glossy new Avalon Christie have been facing a beetle deluge, they say. [Racked]
Rego Park: A new shopping center in the shadow of Lefrak City will house a Kohl’s, a Century 21, and (yet another) Home Depot. [QueensCrap]
Williamsburg: Oil has mysteriously oozed from the ground at North 11th and Roebling Street, and for some reason that’s making folks think twice about buying a swank new condo there. [Gowanus Lounge]
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Kylie Minogue’s Giant Head Protects SohoBrooklyn Heights: This posh hood got a little grittier yesterday when a truck carrying tons of “deep, rich loam” overturned on Cadman Plaza West. [Curbed]
Chelsea: Even the famously shabby Chelsea Hotel is freshening up, now with a new awning. [BlogChelsea]
Downtown Brooklyn: There were fake-blood-soaked dummies and actors galore yesterday for the 7th Annual EMT/Paramedic Competition. [McBrooklyn]
Kensington: You know Brooklyn’s gotten trendy when none other than J.C. Penney starts shooting catalogs in its parks. [Kensington]
Soho: Grey Gardens–obsessed Kylie Minogue will replace Madonna (and her boobs) as the face of H&M staring down on Houston Street. [Copyranter]
Williamsburg: Get some sun Saturday in the new East River State Park, which for now is open only on weekends for “passive recreation.” [Metro NY via i’m not sayin’, i’m just sayin’]
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Will Stuy Town Be Reborn As Luxury Condos?Carroll Gardens: Retired parents get bored with the suburbs and move here. There goes the neighborhood. [The Brooklyn Paper]
Downtown Brooklyn: Tillary Street might have a bike lane, but you can barely see it under all the cars. [McBrooklyn via Brooklyn Heights Blog]
Greenpoint: Horrifying new trend: tossing your smoke detector out back when it starts to beep, instead of just changing the batteries. [Newyorkshitty]
Harlem: An agent for a newish co-op was canned after his employers found out he was also using the place as HQ for a stripper and escort service. [Uptown Flavor]
Park Slope: Get ready for another tower on the corner of Carroll Street and Fourth Avenue. [Gowanus Lounge]
Stuyvesant Town: There’s a rumor going around that Tishman Speyer wants to tear down this middle-class enclave within five years and replace it with 150 luxury condos. [Curbed]
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Secret Art Pops Up in DumboBrooklyn Heights: The elevators at the Clark Street subway stop have broken down 400 times over the past two years, trapping riders inside more than twenty times. [NYS]
Clinton Hill: There’s a vacant lot for sale on Greene and Grand. Please don’t do something awful with it. [Clinton Hill Blog
Downtown Brooklyn: Dumbo realty mogul David Walentas’s new condos at the old McKim, Meade & White–designed 110 Livingston are 85 percent sold. [Brownstoner]
Dumbo: French artist Space Invader has managed to slip at least two of his mosaics on the Brooklyn Bridge and elsewhere. [Dumbo NYC]
Lower East Side: What you missed at the East Side Bike Polo invitational over the weekend. [Razor Apple]
Nolita: For a little while longer at 11 Spring Street, you can still see the art on the interior walls. [Just Another White Guy via Curbed]
Prospect Heights: According to this breakdown, parts of the Atlantic Yards project will not be fully built until today’s newborns are already in college. [Atlantic Yards Report]
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Downtown Graffiti Goes CommercialChelsea: Maritime partiers, take note: The Frying Pan, that “legendary party vessel,” has moved from Pier 63 a few blocks north to 66. [Curbed]
Downtown Brooklyn: City Council is in no rush to hold hearings about the future of the Duffield Street homes that may have been Underground Railroad stops. [The Daily Gotham via Gowanus Lounge]
Dumbo: Local megadeveloper Thomas Arden is the subject of a new adaption of the 1739 play Arden of Feversham, now titled The Lamentable Tragedie of a Dumbo Real Estate Mogul. [The Real Deal]
Greenpoint: Vice’s online video channel will run a new exposé on the toxic sludge that lies beneath the ground here and in Williamsburg. [VBS.tv via A Brooklyn Life]
Nolita: Seven graffiti artists are painting a fake subway car on Houston and Lafayette as guests of Adidas, much to anti-graffiti councilman Peter Vallone Jr.’s dismay. [Razor Apple and Newsday]
Soho: Has the city’s plan for a bike lane on Houston Street been quietly abandoned? [On NY Turf]
