*Everyday Chatter

Snowball fight turns Times Square, once an adult playground, into a playground--for children, college kids, and adults expressing their "inner child"--warms the cockles of many a Twitterer. [CR]

After 41 years: "Tell the people. Let it be known... There is no Boys and Girls Choir of Harlem." [NYT]

Snow on the Cyclone. [ATZ]

Denis Hamill imagines a modern-day Scrooge as "a yuppie Realtor in Brownstone Brooklyn." [NYDN] via Curbed

Santa living the Hi-Life:


Old-school hardware store gets boot from NYU property. [EVG]

One London investor went to East Harlem and bought 47 buildings to "ease out its mainly lower-income residents, rehabilitate the apartments and charge a new generation of younger, more affluent tenants substantially steeper rents." Now they're bankrupt and the tenants live with bedbugs, rats, and broken toilets. As one tenant "cuddles his 4-year-old daughter and rats squeak faintly from his kitchen cabinet, he marvels at the habits of the rich." [NYT]

A whole army of cops arrests a guy on Avenue A--maybe for stealing a bike. [NMNL]

As NYC loses firefighters, celebrities move into firehouses. [BB]

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