Inter IKEA Systems BV

• The bones of Brooklyn's Ikea have been erected, representing a long stride toward the borough's horrifying self-destruction. Doomsday is near, via inexpensive Swedish furniture. [Gowanus Lounge]
• Vanity Fair lovingly dubs The Bowery Hotel "funky." Why? Because the building "was literally built out of Styrofoam, with hideous aluminum windows." [VF, via Curbed]
• Apparently, Chinatown (an oasis of "whimsy, mystery, and grit") has singularly rebuffed the tide of NYC gentification. That means the area will never be as horrifying as West 27th Street's clubland [pictured above]. [NY Mag]
• The "sickest rental in Brooklyn right now" is a Park Slope brownstone. The owner won't sell, and won't break up the apartments either, and has generously opted to paint the whole house eggshell. [Brownstoner]
- Max Abelson
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• Oh, Ikea! The Swedish furniture kings are rolling out ready-built "timber-framed homes" in London. They're called BoKloks (prounced booklook), which means "live smart" in Swedish. In English, it means "homogenous Scandinavian design is slowly taking over the world, leading inevitably to a deathly, red-and-white colored dystopia." [Interior Design]
• 11 Spring Street is officially the blogosphere's favorite piece of Manhattan real estate. But who can resist a graffiti-heavy Murdoch palace? Here's a realty/art fetish video. [A Blog Soup]
• Speaking of sneak peeks, Brownstoner takes a look at the unholy, unapproved church-to-townhouse conversion at 232 Adelphi Street in Brooklyn. The Lord is not happy. [Brstnr]
• First poor Yves Saint Laurent's French 75-acre estate was price-cut to a paltry $19.9 million. Now, his Jed Johnson-designed Pierre Hotel apartment is down to $7.75 mill. At least he still has those bags. [WSJ]
- Max Abelson
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A remnant of the Civil War may trip up the Ikea store planned for Red Hook, Brooklyn. The Municipal Art Society announced on Tuesday a lawsuit against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which plans to allow a parking lot for the Ikea store on what was once a graving dock.

The society is suing to require the Corps to do a full review of the effects of the Ikea on all historic properties in the area, including the dock, which dates to the 1860s. "The law requires a proper historic review, and the public deserves it," said Municipal Art Society president Kent Barwick in a statement.

The society filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court on Friday.

The nonprofit's full release after the jump.  read more »

- Tom Acitelli

BEIJING -- Oggi, a Japanese fashion magazine with a Chinese edition, held a fifth anniversary celebration the night of Nov. 10, at the Rui Fu nightclub. At first glance, it appeared that Rui Fu had closed and been replaced by another nightclub--a routine thing to happen in Beijing, with or without bulldozers involved--and that the new nightclub was called Oggi. There were lit-up signs that said "Oggi" and an "Oggi" backdrop in front of which arrivals were required to pause, standing on footprint markings, for photographs before entering. In the vestibule was a gigantic bowl that said "Oggi" again. But inside, the club was still Rui Fu, though a narrow tan carpet with the Oggi logo on it snaked the length of the room, making right turns to get around the bar. A spur of the carpet led to the vestibule and the stairs. The main event of the evening was a fashion show by the Beijing label Zemo Elysee, for which the tan carpet would be the runway.  read more »

Here's a little before and after of the Ikea site in Red Hook. (be in awe of our Photoshop skillz!) Demolition seems to be going quickly. We'll try and see what's happened to the graving dock this weekend.  read more »

-Matthew Grace

AIMEE: Toodle-oo Ikea pots and pans! Hello All-Clad! Goodbye mismatched tumblers, hello sassy martini glasses!

We've spent hours unpacking our wedding gifts and our apartment is a disaster area, COVERED with open boxes, mountains of china, stemware, kitchen appliances and millions of little pieces of styrofoam and sheets of bubble wrap.

"This is soooo comfy," I call out to Brian. I'm submerged in a box the size of a small bathtub brimming with styrofoam packing peanuts. We've both run out of steam earlier than expected.

Brian pulls me up and I stumble out, adjust the "hard at work in the home" bandana that's tied around my hair and return to the kitchen to continue tearing it apart.  read more »

Taking a break from our coverage of the Fairway opening yesterday, we walked over to the Ikea site that sits on the Erie Basin. While officially inaccessible, smart adventurers know how to gain access to the site--which is where we found this creepy tableau that's suggestive of horrors too eh, horrible to mention. These children's bicycles were found, as is, feet from a former homeless encampment adjacent to the Ikea site.

 read more »

Yeah, it's clever of Ikea to use a Dire Straits song for its animated walk-through of their planned Red Hook store (the Erie Basin and the long struggle to get this store approved are but two referents we can think of immediately), but "Walk of Life"? Song blows, yo. Nonetheless, this video (click on connection speed at top of page) shows a livable compromise between Ikea's big boxiness and public access to the waterfront. The cranes in Ikea yellow and blue does seem like a sellout--can't they be kept decrepit and maritime?

(Via Amy's New York Notebook.)  read more »

-Matthew Grace

The Municipal Art Society's president for communications passes on this communique from Kent Barwick, president of the M.A.S. (with spellin' lessons--our bad).

"The Municipal Art Society did indeed develop two alternative site plans for the Ikea project that would meet their publicized program needs while preserving the rich history of the site. And, it is true that Ikea rejected both of these alternatives, in one case for financial and political reasons and the other for newly disclosed operational reasons. Nevertheless, these two alternative plans demonstrate another fact we've long known: talented design professionals can develop creative solutions to challenging problems when there is a will to do it. But, so far Ikea has been unwilling to even try.

We continue to hope that Ikea will recognize that they can build their store and their parking lot, while saving Civil War-era buildings and a functional ship repair dry dock that dates to the Lincoln Administration. They can also save high-skill, high-wage jobs on the working waterfront by allowing the shipyard to remain open. When it comes to Brooklyn's historic past and its promising future, Ikea can be a hero in this matter and we hope they will be.

PS: I'd like to gently point out to the original writer that it's Erie Basin and Erie Canal, not Eerie.

Kent Barwick, President, Municipal Art Society"

-Matthew Grace

We just got word that the Revere sugar factory, which sits in between the Ikea site and the just-open-already! Fairway grocery store in Red Hook, barely dodged the Industrial Business Zone bullet today. Thor Equities, which bought the site last year for $40 million, wants to develop the property into residential and commercial buildings. But standing in its way was the likely I.B.Z. designation that the area was due to receive. Update: We've got the final Southwest Brooklyn I.B.Z. map after the jump.  read more »

Spokesman Jamie Van Bramer e-mailed The Real Estate with this statement from Ikea's Joseph Roth.

"IKEA's Brooklyn store underwent an extensive and thorough review under the City's ULURP process and our plans received virtually unanimous approval at every step. The project that received final approval was developed over the course of more than two years with significant input from residents, community groups and City officials. In fact, IKEA's innovative plans to include a 'working waterfront' barge facility, to expand the public waterfront esplanade and to retain the property’s historic gantry cranes and a portion of the drydock were all the result of public suggestions and input.

"The plans approved by the Community Board, Borough President, City Planning Commission and New York City Council also were always very clear that the drydock would not be maintained in its present form. Further, the Municipal Art Society's never presented their proposal during the months-long public review process.

"Nonetheless, the IKEA project team did review MAS's proposal and at the request of Community Board #6, IKEA representatives attended a public meeting last June in Red Hook--after the project had already been approved--to explain its findings to Community Board #6 members and the public. At that meeting, IKEA's land use counsel, their architect, and their store operations team provided a detailed, point-by-point explanation of the legal, financial and operational reasons why the MAS scheme could not work. Among the most noteworthy was the fact that one of MAS's proposals would even require IKEA to purchase an additional parcel of land and begin the entire ULURP process again. Clearly, this was not realistic or viable, and our team was clear in their reasoning for rejecting it.

"We look forward to developing the IKEA Brooklyn project--which has earned significant, widespread support throughout Brooklyn and beyond--that was approved last fall by the City of New York."

-Matthew Grace

The Municipal Art Society, in concert with the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance, the Save the Graving Dock Committee, the Roebling Chapter of the Society for Industrial Archeology and PortSide, opened its exhibit last night at the Urban Center, Big Box on the Basin.

The impetus for the exhibit is Ikea's development of the former Todd Shipyard on the Eerie Basin in Red Hook. Part of the shipyard is currently occupied by Graving Dock No. 1, a massive concrete canyon cut into the shipyard for maritime ship repair, and its pumphouse (which is half-demolished as of now).  read more »

The M.A.S. is trying to get Ikea to preserve the graving dock, even going so far as to commission an alternative design for the Ikea store that would allow the two to co-exist--and the graving dock to remain in operation.

We're trying out a semi-regular feature here on The Real Estate this week: illustrated, aimless walking tours of neighborhoods we are personally interested in; plus a little digging after-the-fact to put the pictures in a bit of context.

This week's balmy weather found us in Red Hook, which ended up giving us an excuse to check out the New York Shipyards site, where Ikea is currently demolishing the old buildings--and the graving dock--to make way for its first New York City location.  read more »

More picture-postcards after the jump.

In the comments section of Curbed is a letter from Joseph Roth, of Ikea, disputing the Brooklyn Paper's assertion that the store's products' names will be embedded throughout the esplanade. Instead, according to Mr. Roth's letter, it will only be in the small area of the ferry plaza, and will not be there to provide people directions to the store.

We've left a message for Mr. Roth to confirm that the letter is his. He hasn't returned our call yet, so take it with a pinch of salt.

Update: Mr. Roth confirmed that the letter is legit.

The complete letter after the jump.  read more »

Curbed's got the goodies on Red Hook today. It's got a report from the Brooklyn Papers about the Scandinavian company's embedding of its company name on the esplanade railing--so that people can find the building (uh, it's the GIGANTIC BLUE BOX right behind you!). Also, the soon-to-opened Fairway down the street from the Ikea site will have fresh bagels! store-roasted coffee! a restaurant! store-smoked fish! an organic section! (NYDaily News) And the QM2 will dock at the new cruise-ship terminal in Red Hook on April 15.

And from the Curbed comments section, someone points out Ikea's pretty nifty environmental and labor guidelines, found at Treehugger.

-Matthew Grace

According to the Brooklyn Eagle (pdf), Swedish superstore-star Ikea is gaining steam in its quest to transform the Brooklyn waterfront into a big blue box.

The cheap-yet-cute furniture chain received approval last Friday from the Army Corps of Engineers to develop its store at Beard and Richards street (just across the way from Lilie's Bar) in Red Hook. So far, only asbestos has been removed from the site. Now the retailer is free to remove the historic graving docks and shore up deteriorating bulkheads at the New York Shipyard.  read more »

-Matthew Grace

The New York Times has a dense article today about Red Hook and the competing interests at play there. On the one side, there's Greg O'Connell, the ex-cop and scourge of crooked politicians who is a proponent of the area's industrial use and is renovating an old warehouse right on the waterfront (pictured) that'll have a Fairway and some nice residential units, and John McGettrick, the co-president of the Red Hook Civic Association, who's pushing for more and more housing.

The article also mentions controversial developments in the nabe such as 160 Imlay, the much-delayed luxury residential development sitting over the new cruise ship port (which, when completed, will service the Queen Mary 2), and Ikea's big-box store that'll occupy the southern portion of the waterfront.  read more »

All in all, it's a good overview by reporters Joseph Berger and Charles V. Bagli, and essential to anyone trying to understand the many different forces working to shape this seaside neighborhood. (The New York Times)

-Matthew Grace

Over at the McSweeney's mag, they're shilling a new, quarterly DVD compendium of short films, titled -- most bewilderingly -- Wholphin.

Ordinarily, this would not concern the Politicker. But issue No. 1 includes the "lost" 13-minute Al Gore documentary by Spike Jonze, the director who brought us everything from Being John Malkovitch (1999) to an endearing Ikea lamp commercial. Though the Gore film aired at the 2000 DNC, Dems never pushed it to a broader audience. To this day, nostalgics argue that it offered a (wasted) chance to shake Gore's wooden image...and the DVD release seems to have revived some interest in that line of thinking.  read more »

Ice-breaker or time-waster? If you didn't have an opinion on the film six years ago, you can watch it and have one now. [If you have a link to a version of the film that's larger than, say, a largish postage stamp, please pass it along! Though I found it viewable at this size, it's not for the beady-eyed or squinty among you.]

Behind a door in an apartment building in the West 70’s lives a man who has been anonymously pleas  read more »

Behind a door in an apartment building in the West 70’s lives a man who has been anonymously p  read more »

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Dear Rudy G: Hey, long time, no talk.  read more »