Local Outrages: Ratner's Wake-Up Call, Starbucks Cover-Up, Car Trouble in W'm'sburg

The author of the Footprint Gazette lives on a part of Dean Street undergoing heavy construction related to Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project. The author was away on business when, at 4:30 one morning, he got a cell phone call from a construction worker, asking him to come downstairs and move his car, the front tire of which the author later found mired in a sinkhole. "Apparently," he huffs, "my super thinks it's OK to give out my cell phone number to construction workers who are in the process of dismantling my community."

Let's Meet Up in Queens says a local Starbucks requested mothers who were nursing in their store to button up. LMUIQ objects to this and to Starbucks' "overpriced scorched coffee."

A recent bicycle hit-and-run on Kent Avenue was perpetrated by a driver employed by the Northside Car Service on Bedford Avenue. FreeWilliamsburg reports that a boycott of Northside is on. A linked email suggests the boycott is meant to address "the aggressive driving and lack of accessible and safe bike pathways in the 5 Boroughs" at least as much as it's against Northside, but the Brooklyn Paper lists other neighborhood complaints. FreeWilliamsburg helpfully provides the names of other car services whose drivers have not yet been caught mowing down cyclists.

Image via Steve Soblick (cc)