Venn Will You Know Not To Eat Somewhere?

Venn Yelp starts isolating both hipsters and foodies in the same precious spots around town:

Yelp, the “real people, real reviews” Web site, this month added a new option in its “ambiance choice” drop-down menu: hipster.

Kurt Andersen Comes Down Against Basketball, Wants To Take “Recreation” Out Of “Parks & Recreation”

Not to mention that there’s also something really pretentious sounding about “piazza”:

He told [the Brooklyn Paper] that his notion is to annex the “underused” western portion of [Carroll Park] near Court Street for the piazza, setting up tables, chairs and awnings — a cosmopolitan space where area cafés could serve drinks and food.

. . .

Andersen, the former architecture and design critic for Time magazine and a co-founder of Spy magazine, conceded that basketball players could be displaced by his plan, but ballers would have a readily available option nearby, as PS 58 at Smith and First Place has outdoor courts.

. . .

“Certainly, this connects to the ethnic heritage of the neighborhood of the last century,” he said. “But to me, this is for everyone in the neighborhood,” he said.

Location Scout: Carroll Park.

High Line Designer Encourages Standard Hotel Exhibitionism

You could call it an elevated train track that was converted into a park. Or you could conceive of it as an “urban catwalk,” if you prefer:

Gaspar Libedinsky, one of the High Line park designers, was all for the voyeurism: “It is like an urban catwalk. It is a place to see and be seen.”

Location Scout: High Line.

1300 Women In Connecticut Can’t Be Wrong!

Buried in the reaction to Cintra Wilson’s gratuitously obnoxious Critical Shopper piece about J.C. Penney in today’s Public Editor column is this admission exposing the Thursday Styles section for the sleazy high-end advertising vehicle that it is:

Wilson told me she usually writes about “obscure stores that don’t exist outside of Manhattan,” and she thinks of her audience as “1,300 women in Connecticut and urban gay guys in Manhattan.” She said it was “kind of provincial of me” not to realize how big The Times was and how her audience would expand when she reviewed a store like Penney’s. She said she also thought she hit a raw nerve with people already disposed to think of The Times as disconnected and unsympathetic. “It was dumb on my part not to see this coming,” she said.

But give bonus points to Wilson for ripping on Connecticut ladies in the process . . .

Red-State Revolution Suddenly Back In Gear

JC Penney opens in Manhattan, much to the consternation of fashion writers:

Why would this perennially square department store bother to reanimate itself in Manhattan — in the sleekest, scariest fashion city in America — during a hair-raising economic downturn, without taking the opportunity to vigorously rebrand itself? Why would this dowdy Middle American entity waddle into Midtown in its big old shorts and flip-flops without even bothering to update its ancient Helvetica Light logo, which for anyone who grew up with the company is encrusted with decades of boring, even traumatically parental, associations?

. . .

It took me a long time to find a size 2 among the racks. There are, however, abundant size 10’s, 12’s and 16’s. The dressing rooms are big, clean and well tended. I tried two fairly cute items: a modified domino-print swing dress with padded shoulders by American Living (a Ralph Lauren line created for Penney’s) and a long psychedelic muumuu of a style generally worn by Rachel Zoe. Each was around $80; each fit nicely andlooked good. I didn’t buy either because I can do better for $80, but if I were a size 18, I’d have rejoiced.

And herein lies the genius of J. C. Penney: It has made a point of providing clothing for people of all sizes (a strategy, company officials have said, to snatch business from nearby Macy’s). To this end, it has the most obese mannequins I have ever seen. They probably need special insulin-based epoxy injections just to make their limbs stay on. It’s like a headless wax museum devoted entirely to the cast of “Roseanne.”