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 Read More
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 At first glance, it appeared that Rui Fu had closed and been replaced by another nightclub--a routine thing to happen in Beijing, with or without bulldozers involved--and that the Read More
The New York Shipyard today. The New York Shipyard a month ago. 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. -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. Disaster zone. "This 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 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 Read More
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 Read More
The Revere sugar facory--R.I.P.? 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 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 Read More
The alternative plan. 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 Read More
Graving dock. 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 Read More
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 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 Read More
