IKEA Comes to Town
June 18th, 2008

(Photo courtesy of the Brooklyn borough president’s office)
The yellow and blue have taken over Brooklyn.
That’s right, with a clap of a yellow baton, Red Hook IKEA thrust open its doors this morning to a hipster-laden crowd, anxiously awaiting to embrace the big box, Swedish chain store.
And while police directed traffic for the grand opening and gaggles of Brooklynites sought out affordable, “functional” furniture, discussions abounded across the city of what it means for small businesses.
So far, the five boroughs have resisted the Wal-Mart temptation, having fought off numerous attempts, but supporters of IKEA — of which there are many since the stores worldwide saw 583 million customers last year — claim this is different.
On WNYC’s Brian Lehrer Show this morning, shoppers responded from Brooklyn to Brazil — and, according to the show’s comment page, it appears most people are pretty perturbed to have IKEA in town.
On the show this morning, Community Board 6 district manager, Craig Hammerman, gave IKEA credit for improving transportation in the access-starved Red Hook area, which now gets shuttle buses to Brooklyn Borough Hall and Smith and 9th Street on the F . IKEA is also funding a ferry from Manhattan.
But this may not calm the flared tempers of Red Hook residents, who may be more used to biking around Brooklyn than hopping on IKEA-funded buses.
Here is one commenter, Charles, on WNYC today:
“Ikea in Red Hook is a government facilitated corporate takeover of a neighborhood. It’s the new form of corruption, where government officials make backroom deals and tax breaks for the benefit of one corporate entity or developer. Make no mistake about this, the people of Brooklyn are getting screwed, and once again, there is nothing to do about it.”
IKEA, however, seems to be trying hard to get customers acclimated to the outer borough. Its grand opening web site, which says “its easy to get there,” hosts a game, where users can search a Brooklyn map for hidden IKEA boxes.
Some officials seem to be happy the Swedes have infiltrated Brooklyn. This just in from Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz:
Clearly, IKEA recognizes that if you want to make a big splash in this city, you gotta go to Brooklyn. IKEA has not just built a store that offers stylish, quality furniture that average Brooklynites and New York City residents can actually afford, it has committed to becoming a valued member of the communityby bringing hundreds of new jobs to Red Hook and making the hiring of local residents a priority.
For other coverage of the prevalence of chains by Gotham Gazette, you can check out this discussion from the Municipal Art Society that we ran several years ago and this holiday story.
By Courtney Gross on June 18, 2008, 4:03 pmIn category: Community Development, Finance, Gotham City, Transportation
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June 18th, 2008 at 6:08 pm
I still hope people will check out our awesome live videos from Ikealand at http://www.BrooklynPaper.com.
Thanks
GERSH KUNTZMAN
Editor