REAL ESTATE

An Interior Designer Finds Plenty of Room for Ikea
By CANDACE TAYLOR,
Staff Reporter of the Sun
June 12, 2008
A New York-based designer, Elaine Griffin, said nearly everything in her kitchen is from Ikea, the Swedish furniture chain that will open its first New York City location June 18. “I am crazy about Ikea,” Ms. Griffin, who is a contributing editor of Elle Decor and is ranked as one of House Beautiful’s Top 100 American Designers, said.

Ikea Leads a Retail Renaissance
By MICHAEL STOLER
June 12, 2008
A major retail expansion is under way in Brooklyn, especially in Red Hook and downtown. The emergence of more retail stores comes in response to rising local incomes, growing demand for quality goods, and a national consolidation of retail into urban areas to avoid high energy costs, experts say.

NEW YORK

Ikea Awakens a Sleepy Corner of Brooklyn
By PETER KIEFER, Staff Reporter of the Sun
June 12, 2008
Residents of Red Hook are bracing themselves for the first wave of shoppers eager for an early glimpse of the first Ikea store in New York City, slated to open next week at a former shipyard in the once sleepy corner of Brooklyn.

Bröken Up By Ikea
By RUTH GRAHAM
January 24, 2006
Two months into their marriage, Andrew Motiwalla and his wife had only a futon mattress to their name and an entire unfurnished house to decorate. And so the blissful couple set out from New Rochelle to the 350,000-square-foot Ikea in Elizabeth, N.J., eager to acquire the trappings of their new life together. But by the end of the day, Mr. Motiwalla had been reduced to a cursing, furniture-throwing wreck in front of his new bride.

OPINION

The Ikea That Never Was
By ANDREW WOLF
June 12, 2008
On a visit to Washington, D.C. many years ago, a slick advertising supplement fell out of my morning newspaper. It was for a store I had never heard of, but immediately wished there was a branch in the New York area. The booklet was filled with the kind of furniture that would appeal to people who appreciated modern design and incredibly low prices, in other words many New Yorkers like me. So I celebrate the opening of the city’s first Ikea branch in Red Hook, Brooklyn. I had hoped that the store would come first to my home borough of the Bronx.

EDITORIAL

Ikea’s Promise
The Swedish furniture giant Ikea hopes to break ground on a new Red Hook location, its first in New York City, in November, provided the City Planning Commission and then the City Council vote to approve the project. It should be a an easy decision. But a vocal minority of well-heeled Red Hook residents has been doing everything it can to stop the retailer from setting up its business there. It’s a legitimate aesthetic preference, but it is wrong to impose it on an unwilling majority.