Ikea is Everyday People
The Times’ “Critical Shopper” columnist has concluded that it’s time to “make lemonade” when it comes to how Ikea’s presence in Red Hook is viewed: Sure, it furthers Red Hook’s transformation into the Paramus Park shopping mall in New Jersey. Yes, it may bring traffic and inauthenticity to the area. But walking through the maze…
The Times’ “Critical Shopper” columnist has concluded that it’s time to “make lemonade” when it comes to how Ikea’s presence in Red Hook is viewed:
Sure, it furthers Red Hook’s transformation into the Paramus Park shopping mall in New Jersey. Yes, it may bring traffic and inauthenticity to the area. But walking through the maze of home furnishings, I saw what I love about Brooklyn: everyone. A middle-aged woman was buying bathroom slippers; a gay couple was deciding on a kitchen countertop; two Muslim women in beautifully printed silk head-scarves were inspecting the sliding walls of a bedroom closet; a Latino family was deciding on bunk beds for their excited daughters. This store is for everyday Brooklynites needing something cheap and relatively well designed, even if the stuff is of dicey quality and doesn’t last forever. When you see Ikea furniture on curbs around town, at least you’ll know that these everyday Brooklynites can still afford to live in Brooklyn.
How does the columnist know the gay couple, Muslim duo and Latino family are all Brooklynites? Eh, let’s not sour the lemonade—think he’s got a decent point?
A Diverse Brooklyn, With Meatballs [NY Times]
Photo by madaes
“ikea is a disaster for bklyn, in the same way that the “new” times square was a disaster for new york.”
Yes, clearly the new Times Square is a total disaster evidenced by the millions of people that file through there each year and contribute a great deal of cash to our tax revenue enabling residents’ taxes to stay relatively low as compared to other major cities. Yes, Times Square is a total disaster. Right.
OK, now everyone say it in unision:
“You stupid dick!”
“it’s not the same as setting up and supporting successful stores -owned by locals- that sell merchandise created by locals using local suppliers and skilled labor that live here”
Those shops are called boutiques, can be found in Dumbo, and are not affordable to the vast majority of Brooklynites.
The point that most people miss is that the profits from these types of corporate chain stores (target, wal-mart, ikea) don’t stay in the community, and in this case, don’t even stay in the country.
sure, it creates jobs, but not many high-paying ones, and sure, it creates sales taxes for our coffers, but it’s not the same as setting up and supporting successful stores -owned by locals- that sell merchandise created by locals using local suppliers and skilled labor that live here.
and these guys were really total pricks when they got their hands on the property – demolishing buildings against stop work orders, releasing asbestos, messing with the graving dock, etc.
I actually like Ikea, I don’t have a lot of money, and I’ve bought their products in the past, but I’ll try to avoid them now if at all possible.
They’re really no different from McDonalds.
The best thing about Ikea in Red Hook is that you can park your car in their lot and walk across the street to the old Lillies bar, now called Annabelle’s. It’s owned by Neil Ganic of La Bouillabaisse/Petite Crevet fame (the adjoining restaurant will open in Sept).
Great collection of tap beers and the live music is terrific. Neil’s majority partner is Vinnie Fodera, one of the top three custom bass builders in the world. So the bar gets some outstanding bassists, which is particularly exciting for me because I’m a bass player. On opening night he had three of my favorite bassists playing: Otiel Burbridge from the new Allman Bros Band, Victor Wooten from Bela Fleck and Anthony Jackson (Steely Dan, Paul Simon and hundred other artists).
I’ve not walked into Ikea yet though.
“ikea is a disaster for bklyn, in the same way that the “new” times square was a disaster for new york.”
It’s cool how you masterfully skewer your own argument.
the tone ikea is ‘everyday brooklyn people’… not everyday ‘NewYorkers’. Don’t wanna include the more sophisticated manhattan person(code for white affluent) in this.
Of course writer has no idea where the shopppers live… But gratuitously wants the reader to know how cute these natives and commoners. That is the jist of NYTimes.
Good to see that even its shopping critic has to go through the NYT’s “thought editor”. Mention of Diversity? Check. Insertion of gay couples/marriage into story? Check. Reference to how NYC is under siege by big,bad developers who want to homgenize every neighborhood (with rich elitists, who, we are embarassed to admit, happen to be akin to NYT editors)? Check.
Is it any wonder that this newspaper is sinking into an (unprofitable) niche, and is becoming irrelevant to the life of New York and our country? For the first time in its history, the NYT had to recently lay off members of its editorial staff.
Hey NYT, how about applying a new concept of diversity: diversity of thinking and some degree of editorial freedom?
Benson
albo is a nyt manque, having sold his artistic soul for a paycheck and access and publicity. he makes a lot of assumptions about the folks walking through the ikea, assumptions that are probably shared by many times readers who might “get out to brooklyn to see it, cause i read a story in the paper about it, and its kinda happening, and i wanna be happening, or at least not 10 years behind it…”
the truth is that the nyt has been ‘behind it’ for about the last…million?…years. or maybe just since they got in bed with ratner on their new tower. let’s not forget their complicity in gwb’s fun war abroad. but i digress…
ikea is a disaster for bklyn, in the same way that the “new” times square was a disaster for new york. it’s the point of the spear, in the overall, over arching, over oppression of all things individual, untidy, unsurveilled. Identical shiney new glass towers, idential crap ass, flat pack bedside tables, identical supersized population.
“make lemonade?” kinda makes me want to mix up some kool-aid……
We prefer the term “Differently-abled Inuit Womyn who love Womyn.”