The Montauk Monster Has Competition. Sort Of.There is a colorful beast of some sort climbing out of the East River. Plus, Harlem’s eye-straining new condo, Chinatown’s intra-hood Olympics smackdown, and the big-cabbage guy of Staten Island. In our Freedom Friday edition of the daily boroughs report!
in other news
Bloggers Quick to Disprove Rite Aid Anti-Gay PolicyA sign went up in a West Village pharmacy telling patrons not to act gay while in the store. But the convenience chain says it had nothing to do with it!
neighborhood watch
‘Ugly Betty’ Watch Begins!America and friends come to Dumbo, Betsey Johnson sells her Village penthouse and moves uptown, and the hipsters still haven’t taken over the Giglio Feast in W’burg. That and more in our daily boroughs report!
The Long Arm of the Law Even Reaches Into Subway BathroomsGetting all colonial in Union Square, watching crabs rut in Marine Park, letting go of fancy F-train plans in the Slope, and busting the gays in Forest Hills. All that and more in our week’s-end boroughs report.
company town
Ana Marie Cox Comes Full Circle at ‘Radar’The founding Wonkette editor signs on to do irreverent political coverage for Maer’s magazine, another Charles Kushner associate goes down, and Andrew Cuomo noses around Dick Grasso’s package, in our daily roundup of news from the worlds of media, real estate, law, and finance.
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.
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Okay, Really, There Will Be Life on the Gowanus?Even more development on the canal, a grocery store saved, and a new American Apparel parody. What would you do without your daily Neighborhood Watch?
neighborhood watch
Stuy Town Residents Finally Get to Have Puppies!Cuddly, scrumptious puppies! The people who live there must be so happy! Or not: “We will now have sidewalks like the rest of the city with puddles of urine and smears of dog poop,” grumbles one. All this and more in our daily roundup of neighborhood news.
neighborhood watch
The City Takes On the Squirrel HouseCobble Hill: Whether that house on Kane Street where the old lady lives is infested with rats or squirrels is now a moot point — the city’s ordered her to vacate, and trusty NY1 is on the story! [Lost NYC]
Greenwich Village: The Department of Buildings is bitter because the developer of the units that went up over landmark Circle in the Square theater lied and said they’d be used for dorms. They’re not, meaning no zoning breaks. Meaning pare down those hideous balconies! [Villager]
Lower Manhattan: Also bitter are Seaport locals, who laughed in the face of moguls last night who offered them community use of the Fulton Market floor where the “Bodies” exhibit is in exchange for development. Looks like they want waaaay more public space than that. [Downtown Express]
neighborhood watch
Moynihan Station: Now Only $1 Billion Short!Carroll Gardens: Increasingly unpopular architect Robert Scarano is off yet another job, this time at controversial 360 Smith, which now features a more contextual, though still towering, façade. [Brownstoner]
Clinton: Adding to a string of crimps in big plans for the West Side, the redo of neoclassical Farley Post Office into a train station/moved Madison Square Garden is $1 billion short. Egad. [NYS]
Greenwich Village: Should NYU’s I.M. Pei–designed Silver Towers be landmarked…or are they just, well, ugly? [Gothamist]
neighborhood watch
Bedford-Stuyvesant Not So Sold on the ‘Hope’ and ‘Change’ Parts of This ElectionBedford-Stuyvesant: Some folks are skeptical that anything will change here, no matter who’s elected in November. And they’re employing their mailboxes to say so. [Newyorkshitty]
Greenwich Village: After renovations of Washington Square Park found human remains there, folks will protest there tonight, saying the city should merely “repair” the park and not upset buried bones with a full-scale redo. [Metro]
Jackson Heights: This is the home of the largest of 47 rent-stabilized apartment buildings throughout Queens just purchased for $300 million by Vantage Properties. Housing advocates fear the new owner will systematically push out low-rent-paying tenants in the nearly 2,000 units. [The Real Deal]
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Beware Midtown Fortune-Tellers! (As If You Weren’t Wary Before)Chelsea: All the fabulous old Chelsea freaks and bohos partied at Cindy Gallop’s wacky loft in the old YMCA building, but this time, sadly, the waiters kept their pants on. [Living with Legends]
Midtown: It’s funny/sad that a fortune-teller here duped an entrepreneur out of nearly half a million by telling him he was cursed, but it’s just plain funny that the Post said the guy was from “tony Wilson, Wyoming.” Bitchy! [NYP]
Red Hook Guess which “degentrifying” hood had the distinct honor of producing confetti for today’s Super Bowl–victory parade? Local hearts were “aflutter” with pride…get it? [The Real Deal]
21 questions
Shep Smith Doesn’t Have Anybody Hanging in His Living RoomName: Shepard SmithJob: Host of The Fox Report and Studio B on Fox News. Smith will also anchor a jumbo, two-hour Superbowl/Super Tuesday special, “Fox Super Sunday,” on February 3 starting at 10 a.m. on Fox.Age: 44Neighborhood: Greenwich Village.
Who’s your favorite New Yorker, living or dead, real or fictional?
Derek Jeter
What’s the best meal you’ve eaten in New York?
“Mama’s” pasta at Gradisca. She comes over from Italy every few months and makes it at a table by the front door.
neighborhood watch
Skeletons Found in Washington Square ParkGreenwich Village: Renovations in Washington Square Park have uncovered human remains, and not for the first time in the park’s history: The site used to be a graveyard for the poor. [Gothamist]
Bedford-Stuyvesant: You all know cool little Brownstone Books in Stuy Heights, right? Well, it’s going to take over the bookstore at BAM, too. Wowza. [Bed-Stuy Blog]
Carroll Gardens: Some streets here will probably be reclassified as “narrow,” rather than “wide,” in order to impose new building-height limitations in these quaint parts. [Gowanus Lounge]
neighborhood watch
The Fuzz Play Hide the Salami With a PerpBrownsville: A would-be thief shoved seven large salamis under his clothes at Western Beef. But the police found his salami. The police found his salami. [Gothamist]
Bushwick: These ‘shwickers aren’t reacting very compassionately to a former New York editor’s account in this week’s issue of getting assaulted there. Except for this one: “Being a lamer doesn’t mean he deserved to get his jaw broken.” Wow, uh, thanks. [BushwickBK]
Central Village: After a $123 million sale fell through last year, the grand old Emery Roth–designed Devonshire House on East 10th and University has been bought by Mets owner Fred Wilpon for $110 mil. It’ll go condo. [NYP]
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Malcolm Gladwell: Big Hair, Big Feet, Big Heart?Upper East Side: Malcolm Gladwell revealed his big feet, gesticulated intensely, said people shouldn’t be allowed to say where they went to college, and stole bloggery hearts at the 92nd St. Y the other night. [UES Informer]
Bushwick: Now the hipsters are staging Punk Rock Pillow Fights. Will their crazy, ironic, lo-fi fun ever stop? [Brooklyn Rink via the vaguely anti-Semitic BushwickBK]
East Harlem: A principal at a high school here sent teachers a memo telling them to dumb down their standards for the kids. Uh-huh. [NYDN]
Harlem: Amid its massive, seventeen-acre expansion in the hood’s west side, Columbia says it won’t tear down the Cotton Club on 125th after all. That’s Christian of them. [NYP]
intel
Trying to Save Part of Edward Hopper’s New YorkWhen much of Greenwich Village was landmarked in 1969, the low-rise sprawl of humble Italian-immigrant groceries and tenements southeast of the neighborhood, along Sullivan and Thompson streets and even Seventh Avenue South, didn’t make it inside the designated historic safety zone. The area, while not full of great monuments, has its own quiet claims on history. The artist Edward Hopper lived there most of his life, and his paintings like Early Sunday Morning were set there. On December 10, the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation and the local community board convened more than 100 people inside Our Lady of Pompeii Church to figure out how to get the city to landmark the area to keep its Hopperness intact. GVSHP’s Andrew Berman points out that it’s filled with gems like Macdougal Street’s Provincetown Playhouse, which launched Eugene O’Neill, and a nearby rowhouse where Louisa May Alcott may have worked on Little Women. Parts of the façade are all that remains of Edgar Allan Poe’s house on West 3rd, which NYU subsumed into a big new building, raising alarms.
neighborhood watch
Should Stuyvesant Heights Secede?Bushwick: This blogger hates on gritty Bed-Stuy, claiming that it’s nothing compared to its slicker, ‘shwick-er neighbor. That’s harsh, but maybe he’s right to suggest that pretty Stuy Heights secede from the rest of the hood. [BushwickBK]
Chelsea: Even before 100 Eleventh Avenue developers could obscure Knox Martin’s landmark mural next door, they’ve covered his signature with their ad. It’s a proto-dis! [Chelsea Blog]
Coney Island: An ice-skating rink at the base of the Wonder Wheel? That’s bigger than Wollman? That’s a summertime sailing pond? Yes, yes and yes! [NY1 via Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn]
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Okay, Now Who Leaves a Kitten on a Rooftop?Brooklyn Heights: Rumors are burbling that the hood’s symphonically hyped “Subway Cyrano” saga — where a guy reconnected with his subway crush after searching for her via an online vid — is a Lonelygirl-type hoax. Wouldn’t that be sad? [Brooklyn Heights Blog]
East Village: Sure, two low-paid young’uns can share a $3,000 Stuy Town one-bedroom. If they bring along their $1,000 pressurized wall. [Hunt Grunt]
Flatbush: Several cats have been abandoned on a rooftop! And they’re scared and hungry! [Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn]
neighborhood watch
Bella the Cat Has a New LifeBrooklyn Heights: Bella the Cat, who charmed passersby on the Brooklyn Bridge footpath in Cadman Plaza Park, is alive and well and living in bourgeois comfort in a home on Pineapple Street. [Brooklyn Heights Blog]
Chelsea: Residents of the Chelsea Hotel swear they saw blood-sucking ghouls in the lobby last night: the hotel’s new corporate management. [Living with Legends]
Clinton Hill: Pratt has taken over the Kentucky Fried Chicken spot! Less wings, more wingnuts. [Clinton Hill Blog]
