Red Hook Journal Awaiting a Big Blue Box and Bar furniture

Bar Furniture It was a drowsy neighborhood where one could smell the harbor, aclose-knit community where people signed for one another’smail. Ms. Carson tended a small garden on the sidewalk near herbuilding. Today, the graving dock and many of the cobblestones are pavedover, and from her garden, Ms. Carson sees something else: anenormous blue and yellow Ikea superstore, all 346,000 square feetof it, rising along the waterfront. The old warehouse is now aFairway supermarket, with luxury rentals above. “I’m at the fulcrum here,” Ms. Carson said oneevening, as she tended to the lilies and goldenrod in her garden.“It’s so much at once.” After years of delays and bruising fights with local activists, thenewest branch of Ikea, the Swedish furniture store, will open onWednesday — another signpost, for better or worse, in RedHook’s transformation. Thousands of visitors, most of them incars, are expected to stream into the neighborhood every day. As the store, known for its selection of relatively inexpensivefurniture and the Swedish meatballs for sale in its cafeteria,prepared to open its doors, residents and people who work in theneighborhood expressed varying assessments of what Ikea would meanfor Red Hook. For some, it was an occasion to be celebrated; for others, a fineexcuse to leave town. Some people said they would line up to be among Ikea’s firstshoppers (and win free prizes, like an Ektorp sofa, that the storeis offering). Others said it was a moment to reflect and mourn NewYork’s vanishing industrial landscape. For the residents hired by Ikea, Wednesday is simply the start of anew job. For those who fought long and vigorously against thestore, the day is shaping up to be a funeral. Many people sounded much like Ms. Carson, slightly anxious andunsure about what would happen when the huge blue building finallyrumbled to life. Ikea is the latest sign of change in Red Hook, for decades aworking-class neighborhood that depended on the shipping industryand which declined in the 1950s and ’60s as container portsopened in New Jersey. As it turned from its industrial past, parts of Red Hook became ahaven for artists, and more recently, a lure for developers. Mostof the area’s residents live in the Red Hook Houses, a publichousing development that the neighborhood’s resurgence hasbarely touched. Income levels for the people who live there remainlow, and unemployment levels are high. Ikea has been battling to open its first store in New York City foryears. Its supporters said the store would create jobs and helpother businesses in Red Hook. Ikea also said it would develop thedilapidated shipyards into an esplanade, allowing people to enjoymore of the waterfront. Opponents said traffic to and from thestore would overwhelm the Brooklyn neighborhoods surrounding it andwould mean the destruction of historic shipyards. In the end, a new esplanade did come into being and the ToddShipyards were destroyed. In tiny Red Hook, everyone had a stake in the arguments, includingIan Marvy, one of the founders and the executive director of AddedValue, a community farm on a concrete lot directly across BeardStreet from Ikea. “There’s real apprehension,” hesaid during an interview at his farm on Saturday.“Manhattan’s population doubles in a day, and we allknow the impact. You’re talking about tripling the populationof this neighborhood.” Estimates of the extra traffic vary widely, ranging from a fewthousand visitors on weekdays to more than 14,000 cars a day onweekends. All year long, students work and learn at Mr. Marvy’s farm,crossing the roads that lead to it, thoroughfares that will now bebusy with furniture buyers. But Mr. Marvy also saw an opportunity,and he has spoken to the general manager at Ikea aboutcollaborating, perhaps on a composting system. “We’vegot to make lemonade,” Mr. Marvy said. The store presented other opportunities as well, and the daysbefore its opening were training days for many residents who hadfound jobs at the store.