The Nouveau PoorLest we forget, it’s not just the rich who have been affected by the Wall Street crisis. The real victims are the twentysomethings who, laid off from their finance jobs, have been forced to live in reduced circumstances.
ByJessica Pressler
neighborhood watch
Don’t Worry, There Will Still Be Four Starbucks at Astor PlaceAstor Place: If ever a Starbucks were to be missed, it might be this big one, where the world meets up. But it’s not closing … they’re just fixing the sign. And yet, the longtime newsstand here will be replaced with a shiny glass box. [Vanishing New York]
Bedford-Stuyvesant: Cops are — wisely — advising parents not to let their kids play with a toy 9 mm that looks uncannily realistic. [Bed-Stuy Blog]
Ditmas Park: A bit less than $800,000 will get you this picture-postcard of domestic bliss: cute white house, front yard, white picket fence … and roaring street-level subway just ten feet away! [Ditmas Park Blog]
Harlem: Paging Tracy James, paging Tracy James. (That’s Diana Ross’s designer turned supermodel character in Mahogany, FYI.) Please report to the Apollo this Sunday for the 50th annual Ebony fashion fair… [Uptown Flavor]
Long Island City: The city thinks this burgeoning condo-tower haven is “poor” and “underdeveloped” enough to make it worth wooing colleges to move here. [NYS via Queens Crap]
Sheepshead Bay: Um, not to sound peevish, but would someone please dredge the entrance to the bay before it gets any narrower? Pretty soon a clam roll won’t be able to sail through here. [Gerritsen Beach]
Williamsburg: Advertising for the Edge condo takes a page from the Basic Instinct flash-that-muff playbook. And how bold to pair sex and Asian men. [Copyranter via Curbed]
intel
Go to School in an ‘Elle’ Staffer’s House!The latest educational trend in Brooklyn’s Sheepshead Bay is homeschooling, though not by choice. In early May, a three-alarm fire forced Inheritance Christian Academy out of its classrooms in Emmanuel Episcopal Church, and ever since, the school of fifteen students has relied upon the generosity of congregants. Nina Weiss, Elle magazine’s editorial production coordinator, has been letting teachers hold classes in her one-bedroom apartment. “The ninth-grade boys meet in my living room, and the sixth-grade boys meet in my breakfast nook,” says Weiss, who’s friends with some faculty members. And Weiss says the perks outweigh the inconvenience of things like bins of smoke-scented books and extra tables and chairs cluttering her space. “The students fixed a leak in my bathroom the other day, and when I went out of town, they watered my plants,” she says. Weiss’s only rule: “The boys aren’t allowed in my bedroom.” —Emma Rosenblum
sex diaries
The Potential Future Sex WorkerOnce a week, Daily Intel takes a peek at what your friends and neighbors are doing behind doors left slightly ajar. Today, the Potential Future Sex Worker: female, 24, Sheepshead Bay, sales administrator, straight.
DAY ONE
9:00 a.m.: Woke up extremely horny, but unfortunately I can’t get laid because my boyfriend went upstate for the weekend.
1:20 p.m.: I see a girl with her boyfriend walking hand in hand and laughing. I get extremely jealous. I start to wonder if I can really make it the whole weekend without getting any.
3:15 p.m.: I call my boyfriend because I just can’t take it anymore and I’m willing to settle for phone sex. I get his voice mail.
5:30 p.m.: Boyfriend calls me back, but he’s at his grandparents’ house. The phone-sex idea is a huge bust, and I now realize just how long this weekend is going to be.