In Greenpoint, the Rainbow Is Somewhere Under an Oil SlickIf you were Lady Liberty, they’d pay $150,000 to see if it was safe for people to walk on your head. That’s status! Plus news from Crown Heights, the LES, Clinton Hill, and Wash Heights, in the week’s final boroughs report.
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!
Ikea Shuttle-Crisis Solved?Plus the sad old buildings of the Bowery and Gowanus, the ecoartist of Bushwick, and the developmentally disabled clown lovers of Staten Island, in our daily borough report.
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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Loch Ness Monster on 21st?A Macy’s in Harlem? A sea serpent in Chelsea? A chatty Kathy in the East Village? Yes, children, all that and more in today’s boroughs report.
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Chelsea Clearview West Finally Cedes Dominance to Chelsea ClearviewChelsea: The School of Visual Arts has acquired the Chelsea West Cinemas on 23rd Street for use as auditoriums … and the school’s acting chair, design legend Milton Glaser (who did both the “I Heart NY” logo and the original New York Magazine emblem), will redo the place inside and out. Cool! [Mediabistro via Blog Chelsea]
Cobble Hill: Did some of Spitzer’s ho brokers live here or in Brooklyn Heights? Either way, kinda classy hoods to be associated with this tawdriness, if you ask us. [Cobble Hill Blog]
Coney Island: The city will replace huge, ugly, hazardous gaps in the boardwalk with a concrete-plastic wood-look-alike material … but, fakaktaishly, not until after the summer season. [NYDN]
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Ghost Towns and Old BonesFlushing: Time to buy a new bathing suit! Or, um, ice skates? The plush, $66.3 million Flushing Meadows-Corona Park Natatorium and Ice Rink is opening today. [Curbed]
Lower East Side: Loud messy construction from Jason Pomeranc’s hotel at 200 Allen Street and Morris Platt’s 26-story condo on Orchard Street has turned the surrounding blocks into “a ghost town.” [NYO]
Lower Manhattan: Signs that speak of the World Trade Center in the present tense will be removed. [NYT]
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Sharks on Coney Island! And Expensive Ones, at ThatBowery: No sooner had this lovable bum moved out of the street box he lived in and into a proper $300-a-month room than his troubles began. [NYT]
Bushwick: Behold the new ‘swhick-specific haiku trend: “Dude with the corn rows/Stop selling crack, you scumbag/Sell good pot instead.” [BushwickBK]
Coney Island: The fancy exterior redo for the New York Aquarium may have to be, uh, scaled back due to a planned $64 million exhibition on sharks. [Coney Island via Curbed]
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Michael Cerveris Will Be Spending Valentine’s Day With Vampires, His DogLast night, at a benefit for Women’s Expressive Theater, the cool old shul on the Lower East Side that’s the Angel Orensanz cultural center hosted short plays about love or its complications by women playwrights like Brooke Berman and Jenny Lyn Bader. The plays starred folks like Gretchen Mol, Martha Plimpton, Josh Hamilton, and Michael Cerveris. After the shows, we asked Cerveris (star of Broadway masterpieces like Sweeney Todd, The Who’s Tommy, and Titanic) what he’s been up to lately. Apparently, he’s been flying between here and New Orleans a lot to shoot the film Cirque du Freak, based on the popular young-adult Vampire Blood book trilogy (“It’s like Harry Potter with vampires”). He’s co-starring across from Willem Dafoe, Salma Hayek, and John C. Reilly. Since we don’t know much about sucking blood, but we do know a little about sucking chest wounds, we asked him about Valentine’s Day. Has he ever put himself out on a limb for love? “My whole life I’ve been making grand gestures,” he said wearily. “And they meet with intermittent success, but often abject failure.” Oh, no! “In the long-term, I’m still going home to my dog, Gibson.” And his plans for Thursday, the 14th? “I’m flying back from New Orleans. Unless there’s a particularly lonely stewardess, I’m probably looking at me and Gibson that night,” he said. “She appreciates my presence in a consistent way. So maybe I’ll get her a red…bone or something.” —Tim Murphy
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‘Queen of Delancey Street’ Killed in AccidentDumbo: From the offices of “legendary” Brooklyn Paper editor (and self-encourager) Gersh Kuntzman comes news that he’s auctioning off his ankle cast, signed by (self-encouraging) beep Marty Markowitz, with proceeds going to Markowitz’s Camp Brooklyn. The bid’s up to $41! [eBay]
Jamaica: Sure, Jamaica Center may look a bit rough, but you can still haggle over prices here, and find great real-estate deals posted to trees! [Queens Crap]
Lower East Side: RIP to Josephine LaPlaca, the 83-year-old “Queen of Delancey Street,” who was struck dead by a car Wednesday night at the dangerous intersection of Delancey and Allen. [Gothamist]
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It’s Raining Cristal! Oh, WaitBay Ridge: The congregation of a pretty 108-year-old stone church here wants it torn down to make room for condos and a smaller house of faith, but preservationists and bloggers are trying to stop them. [RightInBayRidge]
East Village: There’s a super-deluxe penthouse atop the Bowery Hotel for rent for $30,000 a month. And whoever wrote this e-mail pitch apparently thinks it’s okay for would-be renters to “piss Cristal off the balcony.” [Curbed]
Forest Hills: If you want nice local businesses like Laytner’s to survive over skeevy stores, you have to shop local, instead of paying slightly less at the big chains. And here’s the receipt to prove it. [Forest Hills 72]
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10 Jay to Get Five More StoriesAstoria: If a park designated as a “sitting area” has nowhere to sit, is that kind of like if a tree fell in the forest in that park — if there were a forest there — and no one heard it? Is it really a sitting area at all? Or even a forest or a park? Think about it. [Queens Crap]
Bushwick: Get your knives out, the Argentines are coming! Uh, your steak knives, that is, because they make great steaks. Get it? [BushwickBK]
Dumbo: That landmark building at 10 Jay Street where the raves used to be held in the early aughts? Those aren’t cabanas going on the roof — it’s added five stories! Is it going residential? [DumboNYC]
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Husband and Wife Strippers Leave Us HangingBushwick: If you squint really hard, you can pretend this house is in a suburban glade and not next to the elevated subway in a tough hood. Or so this Realtor’s poster hopes. [Newyorkshitty]
Carroll Gardens: Locals rejoice at the news that his-buildings-don’t-fit-with-this-hood architect Robert Scarano is off the job at 333 Carroll Street, but what will become of that inappropriately huge penthouse thingy they’ve been building on the roof? [Pardon Me for Asking]
Corona: A husband-wife stripper team were busted for using MySpace to lure two teenage girls to their home, then to an orgy at a Manhattan strip club. Hey, why didn’t they ask us instead? God knows we’re of age. [NYDN via Queens Crap]
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Dancer Boy Does GreenpointCarroll Gardens: Hey, have you heard the one about the yacht that got stuck trying to take a left turn onto Second Place from Smith Street? [Gowanus Lounge]
East Village: Wow, look at that … they actually put two bike lanes on Second Avenue to make it easier for bikers to cross Houston without incurring death from left-turning traffic. [Streetsblog]
Greenpoint: Upper East Side office girls may have Chippendales strippers for their birthday and bachelorette parties. But the lucky ladies of Greenpoint have … Dancer Boy! [Newyorkshitty]
