And Averaging 93.6 Inches Of Snow Annually!

Adam “Jersey City” Sternbergh out-Sternberghs himself:

Until last May, Cloyd and Herbeck were living in Sunset Park, in Brooklyn, and they were barely making it. They ate mac ‘n’ cheese for dinner. They couldn’t afford to go out with their friends. They wanted a family, but “there was no room in our Brooklyn equation to have kids unless we put them in a closet,” Herbeck says.

Then one night, Herbeck, who’s 30, found herself browsing online listings in Buffalo. (Why Buffalo? She comes from Buffalo. And like many young Buffalonians, she got out as soon as she could.) “We were like, ‘Okay, the prices are great,'” she says. So they looked at some photos. “And we were like, ‘Okay, they’re really nice apartments. They’re really big. And right by the park.'”

And all of a sudden, they found they were staring at a very different what-could-be life: the one they’d be able to have if they were willing to leave New York.

Next Thing You Know, You’ll Be Thinking Blue And Yellow Actually Go Together

This is how it happens:

But since the store opened, something unexpected has happened. Ikea has won grudging acceptance from some of its detractors, who admit, somewhat sheepishly, that the feared blue box has brought perks enjoyed even by those who have no interest in stepping into the store.

There is the daily water taxi and shuttle bus service provided free by Ikea, technically for its customers. But for residents, the boats and buses have made the hard-to-reach neighborhood without a subway stop a little less remote; the ferries in particular have given them a picturesque way to travel between Manhattan and Red Hook.

The grassy waterfront esplanade that Ikea built, featuring benches with a view of the Lower Manhattan skyline, framed by remnants of Red Hook’s maritime past, is also catching on as a neighborhood attraction.

And the onslaught of Ikea-generated traffic that so many predicted has yet to materialize. Indeed, traffic is so light on some days that a rumor started among locals that Ikea was actually turning out to be a customer-starved failure (Ikea said its store was meeting its financial expectations).

Just before sunset one recent evening, Kerri-Ann Jennings, a graduate student at Columbia University who said she had opposed the store’s opening, sat in a chair on the esplanade with a view of the water, sketching plans for a new bedroom that she was considering filling with Ikea furniture. She offered the kind of reluctant approval heard over and over in interviews, a declaration somewhere between an armistice and a retreat.

“It isn’t awful,” she said.

Good Thing The City Only Requires Calorie Counts For The Mean Old Chains

Otherwise even more soul food restaurants would probably close:

A recitation of the names of the vanished Harlem soul food restaurants — where the waitress/owner called everyone “Baby,” and the temperature in the room was determined by the amount of lard in the skillet — would be longer than the menu at most of the places.

Among those now out of business are: 22 West, where Malcolm X used the pay phone in back to do radio broadcasts; Adel’s, popular for its fried chicken; Pan Pan, which burned down in 2004; Wilson’s, known for its breakfasts; Wimps, revered for its smothered chicken and red velvet cake; Singleton’s, which was among the last restaurants to regularly serve pig tail stew, hog maws, and pig ears; and Wells Supper Club, best known as the restaurant credited with putting chicken and waffles on the same plate.

Onetime staples like butter beans, country fried steak, hog maws, oxtails, chicken livers, ham hocks, neck bones, and chitterlings have become uncommon, and in some cases, unavailable, in this former soul food capital.

. . .

Restaurants, including soul food places, are also operating under increased pressure from the city to offer more nutritious meals. This summer, the city banned restaurants from using artificial trans fat to prepare foods, and also required chain restaurants to post calorie counts of their menu items.

Even before the new laws took effect, some traditional soul food restaurants began to offer more healthful choices, including sometimes using skim milk in macaroni and cheese, and offering the option of oven fried, instead of deep fried, chicken.

The calorie count for a traditionally prepared dish of macaroni and cheese, for instance, is about 650 calories, and a single piece of deep fried chicken can have more than 400 calories, said Lindsey Williams, author of Neo Soul cookbook.

Those numbers are in line with a typical fast food meal: At McDonald’s, a Big Mac has about 540 calories, while a McDonald’s premium crispy chicken club sandwich contains 630 calories, according to the restaurant.

Admit It: Jazz Sucks!

Then it’s “goodbye, pork pie hat”:

No one outside the pub that night would loan me a cell phone to dial 911. Crying, I went inside and borrowed a phone from Melvin. Two uniformed cops responded to the call, a man and a woman, young and as unsympathetic as the patrons at the bar — who hugged me in greeting most nights — and now wouldn’t look me in the eye.

“Nobody knows you,” the cops said. “Nobody saw anything,” they said.

“It’s always like that in there. Someone gets stabbed in the backyard and nobody saw nothing, nobody knows nothing. It’s a matter of time until someone is killed here, and we can shut the place down. What’s a woman like you doing in a dive like this?”

“I love the jazz,” I said.

They looked at me like I was crazy.

You Mean You Want To Buy My Business, In The Neighborhood Without Streets, Sewage Or Running Water?

Well, when you put it that way:

Two Willets Point business owners have signed agreements to sell their land to the city, marking the first major property acquisitions the New York City Economic Development Corp. has made in its bid to raze and redevelop the 62-acre industrial district.

The EDC announced Wednesday afternoon that Sambucci Bros. Inc. and BRD Corp. have each reached agreements with the city to sell their combined 74,000 square feet of land if the city wins approval from the City Council later this year to redevelop Willets Point.

“NYCEDC is pleased to have completed the first property acquisition agreements,” President Seth Pinsky said. “They provide tangible evidence that we will make good on our promise to achieve fair, negotiated deals with as many businesses and owners as possible in connection with the Willets Point redevelopment.”

But while the deals were trumped as substantial benchmarks of progress by the city, the excitement was not universally shared.

Shortly after the news was released City Councilmen Hiram Monserrate (D-East Elmhurst), John Liu (D-Flushing) and Tony Avella (D-Bayside) sent a letter to Community Board 7, urging its members to vote against the plan when the board issues its recommendation. This is expected to take place June 30.

Location Scout: Iron Triangle.