Coincidentally (?), a FOR LEASE sign has appeared on the Galaxy Delicatessen directly across the street. Hmm...I'm having a mystical vision of another bank soon appearing in that space.
the doomed Galaxy in background
I have to wonder, do banks beget other banks? It does seem that whenever a corner bank is born, another springs up on the opposite corner. For example: The North Fork on 10th and 2nd begat the Chase across the avenue. The Chase on 10th and Broadway begat a Wachovia across Broadway. The Commerce/Chase on 14th and 5th is currently gestating another Chase across 5th.
10th and 2nd
10th and Broadway
14th and 5th Ave
If this is true, then a new corner bank is most certainly a harbinger of death for the remaining corners, but especially for whatever inhabits the corner directly across the avenue from said harbinger. Let this be a warning. If you see a bank spring up on any corner, watch its neighbors. If you love them, take their pictures, eat their food, buy their wares. They will not be there long.
For those who like to look into the deep past -- and, apparently, that includes the folks at Commerce bank -- here is a 1937 shot of the same corner spot where the Galaxy is today. Check out Sig Klein's fantastic Fat Men's Shop in the background. Klein's was there for many years. By the 1960s, they hung a sign that said: “If everyone were fat there would be no wars.” Maybe, if everyone were fat there would be no banks either.
Photo: Berenice Abbott via NYPL
15 comments:
Well, now it is true that the supposedly vintage images are a little spooky. But check out the other one in your flickr stream, #5122. See the reversed reflection of a sign on the left? It clearly reads "Pour House," which happens to be the name of the gin mill which opened in the past year on the SW corner of 11th and 3rd. So, I say to you, kind sir--WTF?
nice catch--i thought that was interesting. a ghost image of the present on the past. does it mean we'll all end up in the poor house? or, perhaps worse, the pour house, which is a hideous frat-boy sports pub.
I still don't understand why some people knock change. You can't live in the past, a past in NYC that was hardly glamorous or romantic. For a long time the majority of people living in the city ate unhealthy food, lived in inadequate housing and faced crime on an epic level that has given NYC it's infamous image. It's this city's history (stretching back 400 years) that makes the city so meaningful. But the current developments add even more excitement.
This evolution was held back by reactionary real estate laws, the massive exodus during the 1950's to the suburbs and a lack of cashflow coming into certain areas. If the people back in the "golden era" could pick which city to live in, the NYC of Then, or NYC of Now I think they would almost 90% pick the NYC of Now and would think it was wonderful.
The new thing being an explosion of people moving back into the city from the suburbs because crime rates are finally at healthy levels. The resulting development in real estate is an explosion, with the corporations the only ones with the cash on hand to move in on new space bodly enough.
Just imagine yourself as a hard-working self made businessman like Bloomberg. If you put a hundred millions of dollars into a new building in Manhattan, wouldnt you want the best tenants in your building to protect your investment? Bloomberg is by far the best mayor when it comes to balancing new affordable housing with the demands of the Luxury real estate industry.
Just give the new city a chance, when the economics of the market reach equillibrium, the rents cool down (supply and demand, econ 101 at work here) and the condo prices stabilize, the city will be the top place to live in the country.
re: anonymous:
Jeezus H. Christ.
so thoughtful of the Commerce people to design a chrome, glass and black granite box and then fill it with fake nostalgia. I guess that's their idea of architectural context.
When I first moved into the neighborhood, two of those pawn shops across the street were still there. Sadly, the Fat Man's store was gone.
And as far as the above commentor:
Puhleeze.
There was an article in the NY Times recently wherein a lady counted banks and atm storefronts on the upper west side: "Gale Brewer, the local City Council member, has counted 62 bank branches or A.T.M.’s from West 54th Street to West 96th Street, and Linda Rosenthal, a local State Assembly member, has counted 39 outlets of national chains, 20 banks and 6 pharmacies on the two dozen blocks of Broadway south of 96th Street."
And as for the comment-column of Mr or Ms. Anonymous, it is as stupid as it is boring, two adjectives which most likely fit its long-winded author as well.
thank you annon for speaking sense! its amazing how many people out there don't understand simple economics.
why should a landlord not be able to get the most economic profit out of his land? if it happens to be a bank who will pay the highest rent, why should you be against that?
Well, it looks like the long-suffering yunnie has finally found a rebuttal on this site he can rally around. Jeremiah did say he wanted to know how these people think, and it looks like he’s received a very apt answer. I think Anonymous’s comment is wonderful; it very succinctly empresses the yunnie attitude toward gentrification, and the main excuses they use to absolve themselves of responsibility for what’s been happening here these past few years. It’s even written, unlike most yunnie commentary, in paragraph form with correct punctuation! Obviously a lot of thought went into this, possibly the full weight of a university education, and it should be appreciated for the insight it gives.
Jeremiah ought to take Anonymous’s thing and do an article about it. I think we finally found the Yunnie Manifesto.
I'm very glad Joshua said this, I could not agree more. After posting my previous thought, I wanted to come back and add a however, and say something about Mr. Anon being the very voice of the Bland New World. I DO think it is both stupid and boring, but if the big, boring condo building which stands on the site of the old 26th Street flea market could speak, no doubt Mr. Anon's words would be its voice.
Thanks, Joshua. Well said.
re: Joshua
I wrote the piece. And frankly, there was a time in Europe when people threw buckets of their own feces and urine out of their windows into the street before they had plumbing. They had to raze a couple city blocks to install the new plumbing. The people then probably reacted the same way you're reacting now to the changes happening in NYC. I believe in high quality housing for EVERYONE, but change is painful, but for the good...
How about that subtle racism? New York is getting whitewashed Anon. Being that the large majority of the world is NOT white and NOT priveledged (the opposite of priveledged being...oppressed? sorry cant say that word to a liberal, which I'd bet dollars to donuts you claim to be), its pretty fucking presumptuous of you to think this generic bland corporate efficiency is prefferred by most people. Manifest destiny, "We make it better!"
No, you make it boring, homogeneous and unaceptable to disagree. I'll take the risk of a mugging for vibrance, which your kind consume but never produce.
Maybe the problem is YOU and your kind's ATTITUDE, VALUES and ASSUMPTIONS.
Let suburbs be (wack) suburbs and cities be cities. Viva diversity!
Mr. (Still) Anonymous:
So let me get this right--because there are those of us here who don't agree with your eloquent defense of the new New York--a landscape of banks, drugstores, banks, overpriced coffee franchises, more banks, all as the face--the ground-level retail face of your new New York--and all of these anchoring shoddily constructed glass and steel identikit (as the Brits say) mausoleums for the living dead, the absolutely most boring, brain-dead, narcissistic end-of-times assholes it has ever been the shame and disgrace of a a putative civilization to disgorge upon a place and time--because those of us who have worked and lived here and yes oh yes found it to be romantic and glamorous and who now find ourselves displaced by these selfsame assholes from every place we have ever known and cared for--because, at last, sir, we don't agree with your anonymously delivered defense of this new status quo, we are therefore people who are akin to, who would defend the medieval practices of hurling piss and shit out of our homes?
Really?
Is that what you really think?
Any time you choose to throw away your anonymity and defend your perspective face to face, name the place and time. Until then, please keep your anonymously delivered licking of spittle to yourself.
thanks everyone for the lively debate--i am going to let KofNYC's last comment be the last word, though. as much as i like conversations going back and forth in the comments section, i think it's probably best to stop before it becomes an all-out slugfest. unless anon wants to name a place a time and we can all watch you guys slug it out in the real world...which would probably be fun.
Mega dormed to death and there are just not enough mega dorms, bars and banks and the East Village community chair owns lots of bars.
I call the SVA dorm a mini-mega dorm but all the dorms use the term community facility to exclude the community. We want community outreach resource centers in every mega dorm not another bank.
Pour House is a double entendre double offense because Webster Hall's just expanded across the street with 2 full bars. Talk about having powerful friends.
I went to a CB3 meeting and said too many dorms and too many bars and it is in the minutes. What you won't be able to read in the minutes is the chair or manager say it should be noted the chair owns many bars here in the neighborhood.
The neighborhood has been mega dormed to death and if you follow the sky piercing hideous NYU mega dorms past the SVA and Cooper Union sky piercing mega dorm the next hideous buildings are the luxury hotels and condos...thanks to NYU they jumped on the band wagon and these mega buildings are filled with people that don't have care about the community. The prefer mirrored buildings that reflect a history destroyed and a community that made the area so desirable no longer welcome.
Welcome to the new hideous new York.
Suzannah B. Troy
I'm a native Manhattanite, with family still there - as well as in Queens, Brooklyn and (through inlaws) Staten Island.
I left NYC for work reasons a long time ago, and still wish I could return.
What I think the other anonymous doesn't get was that NYC was once a very middle class city. You had local corner bakeries, barbers, cobblers, etc. Families of only modest means could live there. Chain stores hardly existed. We knew it wasn't glamorous (unless you were of a certain income) or romantic (unless you were young). And yeah it wasn't as safe as now.
But it was vibrant, and a real mix of people - which made it a very creative place. It saddens me when I return to see a city of mostly very rich and very poor - with a very-squeezed middle class remnant hanging on by its nails.
But you know what? Gentrification, chain stores and the fallout from globalization are facts in almost every major American city. New York's neighborhoods just seem to have more to lose from it.
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