What brought IKEA to Brooklyn?
This was an opportunity that we had planned for for a very long time. I’ve got to tell you, it took guts and a lot of very hard work on the part of the U.S. organization, working very closely with the city of New York, the mayor and many community organizations to make that happen. But we are so thrilled to be there. We had such an exciting day when that store opened to see IKEA with a view from the restaurant to the Statue of Liberty and the bottom of the battery in lower Manhattan. It was really cool. How does IKEA make itself part of the neighborhood? We need to help people understand what we’re all about and become part of that community before we can be accepted. We try to be true to ourselves, focus on those things that we are good at and stay away from those things that we’re not good at or that we don’t know anything about. How did that play out in Brooklyn? We went into an area where there was a lot of lost opportunity. It was waterfront. It was not accessible to the people li
