Results tagged “neighborhood”

              

Yesterday, a day before its 40th birthday, Sesame Street was designated with a temporary street naming at... 64th and Broadway? While there are many neighborhoods that went into the set design for the show, many seem to think the Upper West Side isn't the best spot to dedicate a street in its name. However, while the show is filmed in Astoria, the corporate headquarters are actually on the, wait for it, UWS.

Of course: Some real estate marketers are bandying about a new neighborhood name for a sliver of already pretty tiny TriBeCa—it's "North TriBeCa"—and they tell the NY Times that North TriBeCa has turn-of-the-last-century buildings (or facsimiles of them); eastern TriBeCa has the high risey buildings which a broker says "feels more like the financial district." But another broker says, "As a marketing ploy, I’d say buyers who come to TriBeCa are among the more sophisticated, and they’re not going to fall for it."

       

When the NY Times wrote about The Hole back in 2004, they said, "It is the closest thing New York has to a border town... an isolated neighborhood that straddles the Brooklyn-Queens line. The five blocks at the junction of Conduit Avenue and Linden Boulevard have all the characteristics of a frontier town in the Old West." Now, years later, Nate Kensinger has visited the almost-ghost town and come back to tell the story with plenty of gorgeous images of the decay. He says, "The Hole is literally a hole. It is 30 feet below grade... sunken down from the busy roads around it. The neighborhood floods often and is only a few feet above the water table, so its homes are 'not incorporated into the city sewer system. They all have cesspools.'"

Red Hook has been on a rollercoaster ride for quite some time, with redevelopment, gentrification/degentrification, IKEA, small businesses closing up shop, the Real World moving in...but could it be on its way up again? NY1 takes a look at the current state of things, and Steve Tarpin, owner of Steve's Authentic Key Lime Pie Bakery, comments on the transformation from violent to cozy, saying "You know a neighborhood has changed when people are running down the street because they want to, not because they have to. Red Hook would definitely fall into that category." Of course, the artists are being credited for the rejuvenated hood, but so are the Fairway, IKEA, water taxi service, and others. Residents still say it's not for everyone (read: they want to keep it a secret), with one comparing its diamond-in-the-rough status to "a hot chick in overalls." Meanwhile, a Corcoran realtor warns that housing prices will continue to go up in the neighborhood, because even if there's still no subway stop, there's plenty of space.

Ever wish you could have the best of all the boroughs? TONY takes a look at their ideal neighborhood, with features culled from various areas in the city. The urban utopia looks a little something like this: the affordability of Inwood, the architecture of lower Manhattan, the design of the West Village, the shopping of Williamsburg, the food of Hell’s Kitchen, the bar scene of the East Village, the arts community of the LES, the diversity of Jackson Heights, the parks of Egbertville, S.I., the street culture of Coney Island, and the eco-friendliness of Park Slope. The mag also has some fun with stereotyping neighborhoods--Park Slope is still the city's baby capital, the UWS still has money, and the Staten Island dudes still enjoy their Jäger bombs.

For a couple years now, a Chicago-based group called the Neighbors Project has been encouraging gentrifiers in cities across America to “connect with their diverse neighbors to improve the neighborhood for everyone.” The goal is to neutralize the “polarization” caused by widespread urban gentrification, and also offer advice for people who have had it with the corner bodega’s refusal to carry the New York Times and stock more produce beyond the usual “bananas that look like they're in pain.”

Yesterday, police announced they arrested people running a drug den on 93rd Street in Brooklyn, thanks to the help of neighbors who banded together. Resident Jason Miller told NY1 he and his neighbors "came together through a local web forum and there were many neighbors that were feeling much the same fear and issues that we were already observing."

Because of rising rents and lowering profit margins, supermarkets city-wide have been disappearing, according to a recent study. New York's boroughs have been especially hard hit, forcing low-income residents like Fort Greene's Della Dorsett to power her electric wheelchair several blocks uphill along Myrtle Avenue, "returning home with plastic bags dangling from handles and nestled between her feet." Something to think about next time the lines jam up at Whole Foods.

In Warhol's days everyone was famous for 15 minutes, now everyone is famous for 15 blocks. Two twentysomethings have recently risen the bar, however, by getting a NYMag piece profiling their neighborhood "fame."

Williamsburg missed a crucial stage of gentrification; the phase where gay people were supposed to pioneer a neighborhood before the young hipsters could supplant them. The social hop-scotching has left gay people out in the cold in Billyburg, unwelcome in what should be a pioneer ghetto. The nightlife reflects the less-than-edgy environment that marginalized NYers try to seek out.

“There’s like one go-go boy, what is that?” grumbled Matthew Kane, a scruffy 22-year-old photo agent. Still, he gazed at the sweaty man and reported, “He’s relatively hot, like hipster hot — you know, vaguely alternative and imperfect.” That description could also apply to Sugarland, where nearly everyone was under 30, weighed less than 160 pounds and wore a V-neck T-shirt and about three days of beard.

Continue reading "Gentrification Fast-Forward"