Greenpoint Gets a Thematic Swimming PoolA tourist treat in lower Manhattan, a vomit victim in Prospect Heights, and a paucity of pedagogy in Tribeca … all in our daily boroughs report!
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]
neighborhood watch
Rooms to Rent in the Chelsea Hotel! Sort Of.Bushwick: Oh, God: Now the Offensive Gay Gentrifier is writing offensive haiku. (“Oh, the bodega/So many on each corner/Like ghetto Starbucks…”) [BushwickBK]
Chelsea: Once again, new management is advertising rooms at the storied Chelsea Hotel for the low price of $119 a night. “Subject to availability,” that is. So are they really available? [Living with Legends]
Clinton Hill: They’re filming something in the hood today…and it’s probably a Heineken commercial. [Clinton Hill Blog]
Park Slope: That raccoon that attacked a woman in the park recently? It and its kind apparently like fresh, raw fish. Hm — sushi-eating attack raccoons. [Gowanus Lounge]
Sunnyside: It’s the new Astoria! Or so some are saying, based on slightly cheaper rents in this Queens nabe. [OuterB]
Williamsburg: At the community-board meeting last night, it was all about the fate of the half-built Finger Building (just how tall should it be?)… that, and the faltering sewage system, that is. [Brownstoner]
neighborhood watch
Sir Ben Kingsley Goes to Columbia HeightsBrooklyn Heights: Nice to see that the new, lime-green bike lane is getting used … by motor vehicles, that is, while bikers brave the middle of the street. [Flickr via Curbed]
Bushwick: If you complain enough, trash heaps eventually get cleaned up, even here. [BushwickBK]
Columbia Heights: You lost your parking spot to The Wackness, a movie starring Ben Kingsley that’s shooting here through tomorrow. [Brooklyn Heights Blog]
Greenpoint: A local blogger recommends avoiding the Greenpoint Hotel. [11222]
Harlem: Graceline Court, that peach-trimmed, cantilevered condo-in-progress on West 116th, has been issued a stop-work order. But why? [Harlem Fur]
Red Hook: The container port here may not be supplanted by a bigger cruise-ship port after all. [Curbed]
South Jamaica: Locals fret that area vandals will shatter the hood’s swank new glass Cemusa bus shelter. [Progressive Southside]
Sunnyside: Now that the hood has been landmarked, when will plans to refurbish the Sunnyside Arch, two years on the table, finally become reality? [Queens Chronicle via OuterB]
West Village: Rose’s Turn, the legendary Grove Street piano bar, will have its last sing-along this Sunday. Thank God there’s still Marie’s Crisis down the street! [Lost New York City]
neighborhood watch
Park Slope Kids Experiment With Spontaneous PlayBrooklyn Heights: The scaffolding at 185 Montague, up for years, is finally down, revealing a stunning Deco façade. [Brooklyn Heights Blog]
Highbridge: Cycling advocates want the graceful 1848 High Bridge, connecting the Bronx and Washington Heights, to be bike-friendly now that it’s up for refurbishment. [Streetsblog]
Lower Manhattan: The naked or undie-clad illustrated hotties once populating the Website for André Balazs’ forthcoming Beaver House condo have disappeared. Perhaps under the orders of a new sales team? [Curbed]
Park Slope: Parents loosen scheduling death grip and encourage kids to play pickup baseball. [Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn]
Sunnyside: Signs pleading “no dumping your garbage here” are lavishly decorated. [Newyorkshitty]
Williamsburg: Nearly a year after it was hastily erected, this Kent Avenue synagogue still doesn’t have a proper façade … or a certificate of occupancy. [Brownstoner]
The Other Critics
Love and Hate for the Inn LW12; Esca Pulls Even With BabboThe Sun’s Paul Adams considers the Inn LW12 an out-and-out Canadian restaurant, to a greater extent than anyone else has, and praises the poutine, a Québécois version of disco fries, along with the rest of the menu. [NYS]
Poutine aside, Randall Lane thinks the Inn LW12 is a snobby “poseur sanctuary” still carrying the taint of Lotus, owner Jeffrey Jah’s other place. [TONY]
Esca gets a third star from the Times, moving it even with Babbo, and reminding everybody that David Pasternack is not just Mario’s fish guy, but one of the city’s great chefs. [Esca]
The Other Critics
‘New Yorker’ Backs Up the Chowhounds; Sietsema Uncovers a FoodThe New Yorker discovers Sripraphai, and though baffled by its vast and uneven menu, admits that the chowhounds were right to glorify the place. [NYer]
Sietsema provides his readers with a major service this week, guiding them through one of the city’s best and most baffling food courts in the Flushing’s J&L Mall [VV]
Rosanjin gets the two-star Bruni treatment in its first review, and seems to only have missed a third star by reason of anticlimactic later courses. Still, an auspicious start. [NYT]
Openings
Kebab Master Takes the UWSWe were tipped off to the month-old Seven’s Mediterranean Grill by Orhan Yegen, the city’s ambassador for Turkish food. As at Yegen’s East Side restaurant, Sip Sak, an array of house-ground, delicately spiced kebabs are complemented by fresh yogurt sauce and freshly baked bread. There’s also a big selection of the Turkish-Armenian spiced pizzas called lahmajoun. Chef and co-owner Aziz Seven has a history in New York kebab circles: His work at Ali Baba on East 34th Street was much admired, and his most recent New York venue, Sunnyside’s Turkish Grill, was a favorite of connoisseurs. Neither place, though, featured Seven’s oven-baked halvah, a must-have dessert of hot sesame pudding topped with toasted walnuts.
Seven’s Turkish Grill, 158 W. 72nd St., nr. Columbus Ave.; 212-724-4700.
Click and Save
Beer and Chicken, From Moonachie to SunnysideEvery Monday, Click and Save surveys food service journalism from the previous week. Today, shaking the trees for plums, we came up with a collection that ranges from Sunnyside to Seoul, with special attention paid to beer and chicken.
