Thinking about trekking out to brave the shopping crowd at the Red Hook IKEA this weekend? If you're in it just to check out the always-entertaining room setups, then Ikea may just have fulfilled your every desire. Adverblog has discovered a magical little toy over at Ikea's Swedish site which gives you the room set-up experience without having to go to the store.
The "Come Into the Wardrobe" experience includes five rooms, all showcasing Ikea furnishings given life by random people doing random things in them. Their movements depend on the music, or your voice if you turn on your mic, or tracks you upload. Granted we can't understand much of the Swedish, but put men in boxers, spandex and a pilot suit with Ikea furniture and they've got our attention.
This week writer Mike Albo heads to Red Hook to check out—you guessed it—the brand new Ikea store on the waterfront. He has a mostly positive take on the place: "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...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." [NY Times]
"Ikea is rolling out a handy service at their Danish stores. Partnering with bicycle manufacturer Velorbis and the Freetrailer service, they plan to offer low cost rentals of bikes and trailers to shoppers. Ikea of Denmark did a study that reveled 20% of their customers traveled to the store by bike, which prompted the offering. Hopefully this catches on in Brooklyn, as the new Red Hook Ikea is kind of off the beaten path." [PSFK]
Oh, the Swedish, and their filthy-sounding furniture names. Writes the tipster who sent this gem in: "I spotted this at Ikea this weekend and was like, 'You want me to do what now?'" Why, they want you to rub your face up against the soft, velvety exterior of this pillow. Nothing off-color about that.
· Ikea: Ofelia Collection [Ikea]
RED HOOK—A Red Hook resident sends word that not only are neighborhood locals pissed about the new Ikea, some are going as far as throwing their old Ikea purchases out in...protest? The report: "On the eve of the Ikea store opening we found it ironic that someone in our building was throwing out their Ikea furniture in Red Hook." Will community furniture burnings be far off? [RackedWire Inbox]
GREENWICH VILLAGE—A random note from a reader: "I just found this really nice boutique called Helianthus on La Guardia Place near the NYU campus. They have dresses, tops and jewelry by up and coming NY designers. Sweet!" Interesting PR tactic here. [RackedWire Inbox]
Ikea has finally opened in Red Hook. As the neighborhood continues to react to the massive stream of cars pouring down Van Brunt Street, The Life Vicarious scribe Adam Robb, who liveblogged his time camping out in front of the furniture chain, shares some final thoughts on the experience.
The spoils of the Ikea camp out: two free couches
Being Racked's Red Hook bureau chief for a week was like a foray into Graham Greene fantasy camp. Much like James Wormold in Our Man in Havana or Harry Pendel in John Le Carre's The Tailor of Panama, I found myself falling ass-backward ill-equipped to be embedded with the duty of espionage on the eve of revolution; the only difference being those characters were chronicling banana republics, I was assigned to an Ikea. Alas Cuba, Panama and Red Hook remain stable this morning, their residents suffering another day in heat, horns and the gridlock of inching gentrification, used American cars clogging narrow foreign streets. They'll survive because they possess superior coffee and ballfields and no amount of encroaching modernity can take away those simple pleasures.
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