Historic Brooklyn Navy Yard Houses Get a Stay of ExecutionBrooklyn Navy Yard: The Feds have indefinitely delayed plans to tear down ten nineteenth-century houses here in order to build a supermarket. Patina before potatoes! [Brownstoner]
Dumbo: The waterfront Empire Stores warehouse is so decrepit that the park surrounding it has been closed for safety, and everyone’s pointing fingers over who let the Civil War–era pile languish for so long. [Brooklyn Paper via Curbed]
Elmhurst: This no-frills Queens hood isn’t slated to do so well in the real-estate boom, but maybe it’ll fare better than expected with loving testimonials like this: “At sunset, the dirty black bricks of the six-story apartment buildings turn deep red and almost dark pink. At night, it’s peaceful.” Ahhh… [NYDN via Queens Crap]
neighborhood watch
Flatbush Is Even Noisier Than Your HoodEast Village: Do a piercing salon, tattoo parlor, and bong shop qualify as the “community facilities” a developer said he’d rent to in return for being allowed to build bigger than code here on St. Marks? Discuss. [Neither More Nor Less]
Elmhurst: A skater boy rescued a newborn baby, umbilical cord intact, from a freezing Dumpster. Troubled young moms, New York law says it’s okay to abandon babies … as long as you leave them somewhere safe and warm where they can be found! [Newsday]
Flatbush: Locals here called in more noise complaints in the second half of 2007 than in any other Brooklyn hood. So does that make Flatbush the borough’s noisiest hood or just full of its noisiest kvetchers? [Ditmas Park Blog via NYDN]
neighborhood watch
Just What You Always Wanted: A Philippe Starck Bike RackClinton Hill: Tonight, the Pratt design gang unveils new street-furniture ideas for the hood. Eames chairs in the bus shelter, anyone? [Clinton Hill Blog]
East Side: Bloomberg will ban schoolkid field trips to the U.N. if its myriad fire-safety violations aren’t fixed by March. They won’t be, if the kids are lucky. But what about the pope?! [Newyorkology]
Elmhurst: Hey, Asians, don’t think that just because the cops served Chinese food at the last community meeting in an effort to reach out to you that it’ll happen again. At least not this month. [Junction Boulevard]
neighborhood watch
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]
neighborhood watch
Will Trader Joe’s Be Haunted?Cobble Hill: Trader Joe’s is coming to an old bank building that may be haunted. Did those frozen tofu tamales just fly through the air? [McBrooklyn]
East Village: An artist makes T-shirts lamenting the hood’s new megadevelopments. [Vanishing New York]
Elmhurst: Controversial architect Robert Scarano, detested by many in Brooklyn, now hits Queens. [Queens Crap]
neighborhood watch
Jackson Heights: The Musical! Wait, That Sounds Familiar…Cobble Hill: Some performance-art weirdos queued up, droidlike, outside of the future Trader Joe’s here. Was this some sort of Marxist semiotic commentary on the store’s long lines to come? [A Brooklyn Life]
Elmhurst: The locals are getting into t’ai chi, which is cool, but they look like they’re doing the Thriller zombie dance in this pic. [Junction Blvd]
Hell’s Kitchen: The flea markets haven’t been doing as well since they moved here from their longtime home in Chelsea, where condo-velopment pushed them out. [Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York via Chelsea Now]
Jackson Heights: Stay tuned for Jackson Heights: The Musical! Hey, wait a minute, that Washington Heights show hasn’t even opened on Broadway yet! [Queens Crap via NYDN]
Morningside Heights: Creatures including a camel, two llamas, some goats, a Chinese goose, a fourteen-pound rabbit, a porcupine, and a hermit crab paraded down the aisle at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine yesterday for a blessing. These pics are so cute! [Gothamist]
Upper East Side: This sticky Indian summer is hardest of all on uptown gals planning the final stages of their wedding, don’t you agree? [Sex and the UES]
Williamsburg: Yuppies moving here and to Greenpoint don’t want to send their kids to the local public schools, leaving some of them half-empty. [Brownstoner]
neighborhood watch
Greenpoint Smells Worse Every YearBrooklyn Heights: Despite all the protests during the planning process, no one showed up to heckle the unveiling of new turf at Cadman Plaza Park. [McBrooklyn]
Clinton Hill: It will take one more weekend of volunteer labor to install the composting toilet in Hollenback Park. [Clinton Hill Blog]
Elmhurst: City Council members honor veterans here by dressing like slobs. [QueensCrap]
Flatiron: A reward is being offered for information in the hit-and-run death of a Brooklyn resident on Saturday. [Gothamist]
Greenpoint: The area never smelled fantastic, but this warm-weather season is starting off as the stankiest ever. [Newyorkshitty]
Williamsburg: Parishioners at Our Lady of Mount Carmel can’t pray peaceably on Sunday morning for all the racket at the nearby construction site. Developers, beware of God’s wrath! [Gowanus Lounge]
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
