Kiddie Condo

In the window of West 10th Street's Kid-O ("modern design for modern kids"), I spotted this familiar-looking structure. A condo for kids? I'm afraid so.

Made by Momoll in Switzerland, the Plexiglass Playtower "can be expanded in height (almost) without limit," just like the limitless, ever-rising glass towers of our city. It features floor-to-ceiling windows for maximum exposure, just like the real things in our panopticon metropolis.



Of course it makes sense that a generation of children raised in glass boxes would want to play in glass boxes furnished with plain wooden blocks and not in carpeted, wallpapered Victorian dollhouses filled with teeny-tiny details. And maybe, though its one-dimensionality lacks all depth, the simplicity of a modernist toy sparks creativity.

Still, I can't help believing that the Plexiglass Playtower, like all the stuff at Kid-O, is really for parents who don't want bright and chaotic, messy toys clashing with their minimalist ultra-modern decor.


photo from Momoll

P.S. The tower sells for $350. I figure that's about $130 per square foot. A bargain in these inflated days--maybe we should all "minimalize" ourselves and move in. And, look, there's room to park our private helicopters!

*Addendum: The Times writes about parents who wish their kids wouldn't disrupt their modern decor.

McSam Rising

It isn't news that Sam Chang is putting up a boutique hotel on the corner of 13th St. and 4th Ave. Curbed has a pic of the reportedly 11-story tourist trap. I just walked by where there was lots of activity behind the plywood. I asked one official-looking guy (hardhat, collared shirt, clipboard) how many stories it would be and he said, "Umm...22 or 24." That's not 11.

Then I asked another guy (hardhat, t-shirt, shovel) and he told me, "About 14 stories, depending on whether or not they add a mezzanine." That's not 11 either.



And, he said, "it's going up quick." Though they were shut down for a month, he expects the hotel to be up by the end of the year.

So, which is it: 11, 14, or (gasp) 24 stories?

Gino the Royal Tailor

For 40 years, Gino DiGirolamo had a busy, cluttered tailor shop on Avenue A near the corner of 12th Street. In late 2006, his landlord moved him out to a new space on 14th Street between A & B. That’s where you’ll find him now, at the Royal Tailor shop, chatting with customers in English so broken it’s utterly scrambled, peppering his talk with Italian words brought over from his native Palermo.



He wears a measuring tape around his neck. He has two televisions sitting one on top of the other. His walls are covered with pictures of the Italian soccer team, boxer Rocky Marciano, and a poster showing popular lengths of sleeves and trouser legs.



A gray-haired woman sits with him. While customers are present, she is silent. But after the customer leaves the shop, she gets up and berates Gino, telling him what he’s doing wrong and asking why can’t he do things the way she says. The tailor just smiles.

He seems happy with the way business is going on 14th Street, but he liked his old spot better. After a year, the abandoned shop is still empty, a FOR RENT sign hanging overhead. In fact, all four commercial corners of 12th and A have been empty for at least the past year. People wonder what’s happening there.



One Livejournaler who used to live on the corner noticed recently that his building has been almost completely emptied of residents. He also reminds us that Mary Help of Christians Church and flea market were sold “under rumors that the land was being bought for a condo development and/or NYU dorms.”

I asked a man I encountered emerging from the basement and he denied such rumors, saying Gino's old space would be rented soon. (*Read this update for the answer.)





Whatever is happening on those long-shuttered corners, Gino's tailor shop won't be returning. He'll be staying on 14th Street. For now.

Watch Gino on Youtube in these short films by Matthew Handal:

• Gino introduces himself
• Gino sews a button on a man
• Gino eats some pasta
• Gino complains about the Yankees
  

American Psychos

If you have watched American Psycho lately, as I have, you may have noticed that the film and the main character bear a striking resemblance to today's New York. In 1991, when the book was published, and 2000, when the film came out, Patrick Bateman was a caricature of the 1980s Wall Street yuppie with a sleek condo on the Upper East Side. He was specific to a certain time and place.

Watching the movie today, his specificity washes away. In 2008, Bateman's condo could be anywhere in Manhattan (and many places in Brooklyn), he could work in an office in Times Square or Soho, and his malignant narcissism is no longer a pathology of the few.

In today's New York, the American Psycho is an everyman.

1.


Bateman's kitchen is an orgy of stainless steel and overperforming appliances, features greatly fetishized in today's popular condos. Below is the gleaming metallic kitchen from Blue:



2.


Bateman's condo shows off the cold emptiness of luxe condo aesthetic. But his windows are small compared to the floor-to-ceiling "oculi" enjoyed by 21st-century yunnies and seen here at 459 18th Street:



3.


Bateman is obsessed with his looks. He wants his body to be hard. So do the people who will live in The Platinum, according to their advertising images of steely cyborgs:

• Slate's review

*Everyday Chatter

Is aspirational shopping finally dead? [NY Times]

Sophie's Bar, "the last peg of a dying neighborhood," is up for sale and here's another inside scoop. [Villager]

Is Florent, the original Meatpacking pioneer, the Queen of the neighborhood since 1985, really to close? Not without a fight. [Eater]

The Wackness may be the first movie to wax nostalgic for New York in the 1990s: "To transform the city to its less gentrified self, the filmmakers threw more garbage on the street, sprayed some more graffiti, painted a mural to Kurt Cobain and obtained a 'Forrest Gump' bus poster. 'There was this unspoken-of good will toward the time,' said Mr. Levine, who was in production the film earlier this week. 'Is the New York of today, which has a Starbucks on every corner, better than pre-1994?' He was proud of the fact that 'It’s one of the first movies to fetishize the 1990s.'" Oh, and it stars Mary-Kate Olsen, too. [City Room]

More college kids to come bulldozing New York neighborhoods. [AMNY]

Amato Opera

With all the recent destruction on the Bowery, I figured it was time to revisit the Amato Opera house and I went to see La Boheme. I saw the show years ago and not much has changed. Now they have a screen above the stage with English supertitles, a great improvement. That's about it. A lady who might be Ukrainian still sells home-made brownies at the snack bar. A stack of old records and VHS tapes sits for sale nearby. Otherwise, the place is the same.



Founded in 1948 by husband and wife Tony and Sally Amato, they moved to the Bowery in 1964. For years their tenement theater stood between a parking lot and CBGB's, both now gone. If there is one reason to grieve for that parking lot it's because that was where you could see (and hear) the chorus practicing before performances on temperate afternoons.



Another loss, greater than that parking lot, in 2000, Sally Amato passed away, leaving Tony to carry on the tradition of big opera in a small space. She no longer makes her cameo appearance as the silent waiter in La Boheme, but Tony still comes out on stage during each performance's final intermission to conduct a raffle (a buck a ticket) and say a few words.



He's almost 90 years old and I don't know what will happen to the opera house when he is gone. Hopefully, there are heirs who aren't interested in selling the place to developers, who care deeply about continuing the Amatos' work. But who knows? It is best these days to go and enjoy, before it's too late.



Read more on the death of the Bowery:

• Extra Place
• Another Bowery Tower 1
  
• Another Bowery Tower 2
  
• How SATC Killed NYC
• Varvatos Rocks CBGB's
• Bowery Flops
• Cooper Square Hotel
  

*Everyday Chatter

A photographic obit for a Tompkins Square Park character, one of a disappearing breed. [NMNL]

Help save the Bowery from luxury development. [SLES]

Juicy Couture's eye-catching window display grabbed me last week and also attracted the folks at Racked. They associated to rats and I associated to scat. In Freudian theory, money is feces. In this window display, money is being eaten. The ultimate yunnie dream? Remember, they do want to shit gold:


Take a look at Astor Place's famous musical note clock--and be sure to check out the link to some great pics of Astor back when it had a parking lot loaded with street vendors. Who was the last vendor to make that lot home? The porno man of Astor Place. [Bowery Boys]

Went to see Cloverfield this weekend--what a disappointment. Like the Times, "For a brief, hopeful moment, I thought the filmmakers might be making a point about how the contemporary compulsion to record the world has dulled us to actual lived experience, including the suffering of others — you know, something about the simulacrum syndrome in the post-Godzilla age at the intersection of the camera eye with the narcissistic 'I.'" But no luck.

Ooh, the History Channel is offering a DVD set: “The Apocalypse and Doomsday Collection.” [Times]

Pick Up Your Shoes

Last month I reported that the East Village's A. Fontana Shoe Repair will be closing after 45 years in business. Yesterday, it became "official" with Mr. Fontana's "Lost My Lease" signs going up in the windows.



You have until February 28 to pick up your shoes. If you don't have any shoes to pick up, visit the place anyway. Buy a can of weatherproofing spray or a pair of shoelaces. Just go. Come March 1, it will all be gone.

Inside Streit's

Adler with great-grandfather Aron & grandfather Irving Streit

Alan Adler, a co-owner of Streit's Matzo factory and great-grandson of founders Aron and Nettie Streit, was kind enough to give me an early-morning tour of the factory, which I'd been wanting to do since I heard the news that Streit's will be moving out of the Lower East Side.

At 7:00 a.m., the bakery is already churning out sheets of matzo. In the basement, silos pump flour up through the building and big heaters stoke the ovens. Everything is covered with soft white powder and the air smells vaguely like a grandmother's pantry. The ceiling is a circuitboard of pipes. "The whole building is like a Rube Goldberg device," said Mr. Adler.



A manual damper system balances the heat in the oven's long hulk, into which a sheet of uncooked matzo streams after being poked by a comb-like device that makes holes in the dough to keep it from rising. Rabbis are on hand to ensure all is kosher throughout the entire process. We asked a rabbi if matzo could be kosher without holes. He said no, because then it might not be cooked straight through and it must be unleavened. Puffy matzo isn't kosher. A customer once wrote in to complain, "Your matzo is hard and dry." Mr. Adler shrugged, "I don't know what she expected." Matzo soft and moist?



Hard and dry is the way it should be. But it's a delicate balance. At the oven's end, where bakers do the picking (breaking the matzo and loading it onto traveling baskets), Mr. Adler pulled a few chunks of broken matzo from a bucket, where it goes to be recycled into matzo meal. He handed a piece to me and took a taste, which he does periodically. "A little heavy," he concluded to the bakers, "tastes a little thick." Matzo, he told me, should be crispy. This batch would need some adjusting.



Cooling baskets circle and criss-cross the building on a moving chain. It is a joy to watch them disappear through doorways and ceilings, while others appear, swinging as they go. We ducked our heads to avoid them and watched the matzos get packed into boxes for shipping out across the country.

Mr. Adler recalls his childhood in the factory, back when people stood on line to get fresh matzo. But things have changed. One of the reasons Streit's is moving from this location is because the building is 10 feet too short to accommodate modern equipment. "If we could get modern equipment in here," said Mr. Adler, "then maybe we'd stay."


Irving Streit with rabbis

If they move to Jersey, I asked, will the matzos taste the same? New York City water is an important ingredient. Mr. Adler assured me they would test the water of the new site, first carrying a truckful back to the Lower East Side to run it through a batch. And if it doesn't have that Streit's taste, I wondered, would sub-par Jersey water force them to stay? There's no chance of that, not in this age of science.

"Our engineer assures me we can get the water exactly the way we want it," he said, "through a process of reverse osmosis." Reverse osmosis? Doesn't sound kosher to me. I guess Streit's will have to stay.

• More photos of Streit's on my flickr
• Read more about Streit's
  

Save Hotel Penn

Rally with Save the Hotel to rescue the historic Hotel Pennsylvania from corporate destruction. Show up at the hotel tomorrow, Saturday, from 9:00 - 11:00 in the morning and you will not only get the satisfaction of doing a good thing, you will also get free donut holes! And you might also get on TV.

I visited the hotel back in November and took a walk around the neighborhood. If we lose this landmark, we will also most certainly lose an interesting block of New York City. Turning the hotel into another corporate tower will change the surrounding businesses, a motley collection of wig shops, bars, odd little churches--the places that make New York different from Disney World.



We could lose Hickey's Bar, an Irish dive that's already changed (or changing) hands, though the owner of 40 years assured me it isn't closing, as the Times reported. When I was there, Neil Diamond was singing "Love on the Rocks" from the juke and the walls were covered with pictures of fighters, like Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney, and Joe Louis standing over a defeated Max Schmeling.

"We're not closing," the owner told me, "there's a new owner, that's all." Did he think the new guy would change the bar much? "Oh, he'll do it up a little bit," I was told, "Yeah, he'll do it up a little bit."



Next to Hickey's is an Old Navy and next to Old Navy is Peep World.



We could lose that, too--Peep World, not Old Navy. But the girls standing outside smoking cigarettes hadn't heard any rumors to that effect. Not yet anyway.

Now maybe you're thinking, What do I care about saving a dive bar and a porno shop? Well, it's places like these that keep our city from turning into a total capitalist utopia. They're keeping it real. That's worth saving.

*Everyday Chatter: Capitalist Utopia Edition

I just stumbled across the book Evil Paradises, edited by Mike Davis. I really hope it's as good as it sounds. Here's a blurb from Booklist's review: "As neoliberal economic policies are increasingly applied to city planning, urban spaces worldwide increasingly reflect the deliberate effort to amass capital and stimulate consumer spending. The most dramatic neoliberal development schemes—private archipelagoes in Dubai, gated communities in Hong Kong, the Mall of America in Minnesota—can even be said to resemble capitalist utopias, free of the chaotic diversity of city life and immune from concern for the welfare of the broader public."

THIS is what I've been talking about here. THIS is what's happening in New York--it is NOT gentrification, but something much larger and far more devastating. Crow about the decrease in crime statistics, the cleanliness, the increased tourism -- but all of it is the groundwork for our city's transformation into an evil paradise.



When I picture a capitalist utopia, pushed to its utmost extreme, I see those evil global warming Diesel ads in which all but the rich are dead. And then I think of this billboard that currently floats over the site of a new 22-story luxe hotel on Ludlow. Global warming? It's just a good way to get your whiskey bottle open:



JVNY reader and filmmaker Paul Dougherty sent me a link to his short films about the LES on youtube. Check out Luxe Towers and vLES Reality Check for a peek at some Capitalization.

Speaking of capitalist utopias, here's the latest "evil paradise" to rise over Union Square. [Curbed]

"The Spirit of Greenwich Village is alive and well," thanks to the mega-rich condo One Jackson Square. Can someone please slap the copywriter who came up with that one? [Curbed]

What's that color of the newest NYU monstrosity? Ah, yes, "chunky puke." [Curbed]

Then Hollywood throws the unwashed masses some good old-fashioned catharsis, a little bread and circuses. Who suffers and dies en masse in Cloverfield, the latest destroy-NY flick? "self-absorbed young Turks [who are] buying the condos, crowding the Meatpacking district and pricing the rest of us out of town." Now that's my kind of movie! [Gothamist]

Another image for our Manhattan Apocalypse collection:


What if all these destroy-NY fantasies are actually prophetic visions? What if the dystopic future is one in which landmarks like the Brooklyn Bridge are torn down to make room for more lucrative constructions? What if those Diesel ads are right and someday the only people left in our city will be the yunnies?

Peter McManus Cafe

One of the best places in the city for a beer and a burger is Pete McManus. On 7th Ave in Chelsea, the bar was opened in 1936 by brothers Peter and James. It hasn't changed much since. The Times has described it as ''an inviting place in a rough-and-tumble sort of way, with a well-worn tile floor, lead-paned windows and a splendid carved mahogany bar.''

New York Magazine notes it's the oldest family-run bar in the city, still under the guidance of grandson James.



The place has all the things that are good about a bar: wood worn smooth by countless elbows, a warm amber glow, crazy but friendly barflies who look as if they've been pickled in the place, which they have. It even has a lovely pair of wooden phone booths that light up when you open their doors as if welcoming you into them.



But, like all good old bars in this city, you have to visit early. After 7:00, the kids come out. These kids are not the well-heeled, yunnie spillovers from the Meatpacking District that clog Corner Bistro, and they're not even the frat boys and girls that murder McSorley's every night. They seem a little smarter and a little closer to 30 than 20. It's not great, but it could be worse.

• More pictures of Pete's on my flickr

*Everyday Chatter

As 13th Street Rep proprietor Edith O'Hara predicted here, a giant glass hotel is going up on 13th Street between 5th and 6th. Unless, of course, the neighbors rally and boot the plan in the ass before it can happen. Or is that too much to hope for? [Curbed]

Zoolander comes to Elizabeth Street as the Hollywood-dream, classic-styled luxury condo building rises on the corner at Prince. We should count our blessings it's not another glass box, and yet, I'm not counting them. Because I remember when it was part of LaRosa & Son Bread Co. and, with the smell of baking in the air, you could stop in on a cold night for a hot loaf of Italian bread, fresh from the oven. It melted in your mouth. That was a blessing.

...and the rendering:


The Gertel's sign has been mysteriously resurrected in Brooklyn. [Lost City]

More big-box building for Red Hook? Here comes the 'burbs in all their unwieldy glory--time to install one of those miserable, life-sucking "office parks." God, I hope they put in an Outback Steakhouse and a Chili's, too. I'm just about dying for a Bloomin' Onion. [Racked]

International Bar Redux

Back in November, I posted about the demise of the East Village's International Bar, watering hole of dive lovers everywhere. This week I noticed the windows have been papered over and I wondered what was happening. Tonight, I got the answer via the following very informative tip from commenter "branmasterflash," who apparently has the inside scoop. Branmaster assures us, "The International is in good hands." Finally, some good news!

Thanks, branmaster, whoever you are. I reproduce here your comment in full (if slightly copy edited):



"The International is being restored as a neighborhood bar. It will not be quite as gritty as it was, but it will be very similar to what it always was. There will also be some differences in the layout. The bar has been moved to the other side of the room and there is more room at the front of the bar. The proximity of the old bar so close to the front door was always a problem. Unfortunately the old bar was torn out when the new owners came in. However, and at great pain, the owners purchased the 30-year-old mahogany wood bar from the original Raccoon Lodge on First Avenue and have installed it in the International.

One of the new owners was a customer at the International. Another of the three owners has been a resident of the Lower East Side since 1956. So rest assured, the International is in good hands.

And, yes, the name will remain the same, the gold-leaf lettering in the window will be restored, and Leonard Cohen will still be on the juke. Old fans of the bar will feel at home.



The community board was unusually helpful in their quick approval of the new owners' liquor license application. That's because the new owners are committed to restoring the International Bar as a neighborhood landmark. The East Village has been overrun by 'trendy' bars and the community board has stopped issuing new license approvals. So give credit to the community board for recognizing that this particular application was an exception that deserved approval.

If all goes well with construction, permits, and licenses, the International Bar should re-open sometime in March."

*Everyday Chatter

Now what I want to know is, who pays $18,000 for a belt? [NY Mag] via [Racked]

Save Whole Earth Bakery, on St. Mark's since 1978. [SBT]

The Ukrainian B&M Meat Market and European Products on 1st Ave and 7th St has been shuttered for a while now. A flyer says a restaurant is coming and they're looking for a beer and wine license. The hearing is tonight. I am sure they'll have no problem getting it. My fingers are crossed in futile hope this won't be another wine bar spilling obnoxious yunnies onto the sidewalks.





Do we really need 50 million tourists here every year? I sure don't. [Sun]

A profile of Chelsea's cigar makers, including La Rosa Cubana. The owner, who I interviewed here, says he may have to move his 50-year-old shop to Jersey due to high rents. [Chelsea Now]

Second Ave Subway helps murder the city's mom-and-pops. [Metro]

Check out this amazing found art: Still life with rat and Heineken cap? [NY Shitty]

Hunk-O-Mania

More evidence that the Lower East Side has gone the way of cheesy Suburbanism -- it is now the site of "New York's #1 Bachelorette Party Destination." No, I don't mean Lucky Cheng's (that's #2). I'm talking about Hunk-O-Mania at Club Element (formerly The Bank, formerly Jasper Johns' studio, formerly a bank).



I walked by the other night and was stopped in my tracks by the Fabio-licious signs out front. It was so unbelievable, I thought it was ironic, like some postmodern punk band was playing inside, calling itself Hunk-O-Mania for laughs. No sir. I asked the bouncer and he said it was the real deal, "Just like Chippendale's."

"Is it for gay men," I asked, figuring it had to at least be a queer venue. The bouncer looked at me like I'd asked if the dancers came from Mars.

"It's all ladies in there," he scowled.



You know what that means. Bachelorettes, it's time to knock back a few apple martinis, put on your tiara and bedazzled Bridezilla baby T, climb into your white Hummer limo, stand up through the sun roof, and get ready for some faux-hetero beefcake, 'cause the skies over the Lower East Side are raining men!

Extra Place

What's happening behind the Avalon? A whole lotta garbage dumping. Curbed reported last year on Avalon's plans to turn this alley into "a slice of the Left Bank, a pedestrian mall lined with interesting boutiques and cafes." Maybe the left side is poised to be Left Bank, but the right is strictly a slice of the old Bowery.



The alley is called Extra Place and it's behind the defunct CBGB's. Read and see more about its rock-n-roll history from ForgottenNY.

Go further back into its history with Brendan Gill, who wrote about Extra Place for The New Yorker's Talk of the Town in 1952. Back then, the alley housed a garage, a metalworking shop, and an old guy who fondly recalled the speakeasy that used to be there in the '20s.

Click on these to enlarge and read from Gill's piece:


Take a walk back there to soak up its still-seedy atmosphere, before Avalon succeeds in turning it into another trendoid Freeman Alley. It's just up 1st Street from Mars Bar, so be sure to fuel your visit with booze from the holdout dive. Whether in the 1920s or the 1970s, it sounds like Extra Place might have been best enjoyed when drunk.

A New View of the LES

After an evening on the Virtual LES (thanks to the brave reader who showed up), it's time for a visit to the Vanishing LES.

We all know the Lower East Side has been dying an agonizing death, but seeing it up close is something else. The slaughter is almost unimaginable. I took a ride up to the 11th floor of The Ludlow, the new 23-story* luxury rental building at Houston and Ludlow, for a look at the carnage from above.



To visit the 11th floor, you have to act like you're interested in renting and they'll show you their model apartments, pricey shoeboxes with no closet space. The perks of visiting? An equally miniature bottle of Ludlow water and "a new view of the Lower East Side."


Thompson LES seen from 11th floor of The Ludlow

From the windows you'll see the Thompson LES hotel, 18 stories sheathed in black at 185 Orchard. Directly across from that behemoth, at 180 Orchard, there's a massive, block-wide hole into which concrete is being poured for another luxe hotel, this one a mere 8 stories.


180 Orchard hole from Ludlow side, with Thompson LES in background


180 Orchard hole getting concrete, seen from Orchard side, in front of The Ludlow

From the southern windows of The Ludlow, you'll look straight down into another giant pit at 180 Ludlow, also being readied for construction. The "The Ludlow" realtor told me it will be a 16-story hotel, but a construction worker on the scene said it's going to be a 22-story hotel (Scoopy agrees). Abutting The Ludlow, that's high enough to blot out the sun for renters on the southern side, whose "new view" will be a peek into hotel rooms filled with Eurotrash enjoying their room service and pay-per-view porn.


pit of future hotel next to Max Fish

This new hotel replaces Joseph Yavarkovsky Paper, in business since 1898--that's 10 years after Katz's opened across the street. Yavarkovsky supplied delis with paper goods and we might assume they had a relationship with Katz's. Next door to this pair of monsters is Max Fish, opened in 1989, looking like a small, shivering kitten these days. How long will Katz's and Max Fish last?



To sum up, that's 4 in (essentially) 1 block of the LES. Of course, there's also Hotel Rivington and Blue, and the new SVA dorm (20 stories!) going up fast at Ludlow and Delancey (that's the one that blocked the Baby Ruth ghost sign). And the corner of Stanton and Clinton, cruelly demolished by Giuliani a decade ago, has a sign that says it's in the hands of an architect named Backos, so it might be turning into something soon.


SVA dorm coming on fast

Back to The Ludlow's 11th floor -- you can also see, in the northern distance, 3 monsters of the East Village: The Astor, The Cooper Square Hotel, and the still-skeletal 52 East 4th, the latest blight on the Bowery.


view of EV from Ludlow's 11th floor

So, what does all this mean? I think this LES American Apparel mannequin in the Houston window kind of says it all: "Hey, Lower East Siders, kiss my cold, dead, overpriced ass."

• See more of the new LES in my flickr pics

*All the numbers for building heights here are based on imperfect Web research and sometimes info conflicted, so I may be off by a few stories here and there. Feel free to offer corrections.

P.S. Anonymous commenters here and at Curbed add to this list a condo or hotel building (13 stories? 18 stories?) going up at 136 Ludlow.

Meet Me on the VLES

I planned to enter the Virtual Lower East Side so I could write a scathing critique of it. But instead, the thing pulled me in. Maybe it's because the streets are almost empty, quiet like they were years ago. Maybe it's because there are no luxury towers and no one's on a cell phone. Or maybe it's because the "V" could stand for Vanishing. Whatever it is, the VLES has a strange appeal.

Before I go into my first VLES experience, I want to send out an invitation. VLES is free to download. You'll be dressed and on the streets in minutes with a fast Internet connection (click here). Let’s all crash MTV's party. Let’s flood this kid’s fantasy world with curmudgeonly adults.

Meet me at the virtual Max Fish. I’ll be there tonight at 8:00.


Me in front of virtual Max Fish

First off, in the VLES, you are inevitably young. You can't give yourself a belly or a receding hairline. There is one body type to choose from (skinny) and you can only change your height. In my avatar, I don't look like the real me. I don't even look like the younger me. I look like an MTV-ized me.

The streets of the VLES are both familiar and strange. Yonah Schimmel’s knishery is here, but not in the right place. Katz’s is lit in neon but you cannot enter. There’s even Weinfeld's yarmulke shop, which actually vanished from the LES and is now in Brooklyn. Max Fish is open for business. Inside, you can lean on the bar, sit down, or just wander around.



There is a lot of wandering on the VLES. You wander from street to street. People look like zombies. I came upon a girl and guy chatting and asked if it was possible to cross Essex (I wanted to go to Streit’s). They said no and walked away like I was bothering them.


Here I am, looking a bit lonely, in Max Fish

My adolescent insecurities get very aroused on the VLES. I feel anxious about approaching people, both girls and guys. The girls strike teasing poses. The boys slouch coolly. People sit in circles in the middle of the street and ignore you. In Max Fish, I said hello to a girl and she walked right through me.

I approached two girls dancing on Ludlow. Another guy approached. He and I lingered nearby. Then I saw him grow taller. You can do this in the VLES, change your appearance instantly. I added six inches to my height and felt more confident. Then I worried about my shirt. I changed it four times. Taller and better dressed, I joined the dancing girls.

They said hi and I said hi. I felt better. We tried out fresh dance moves. When I got tired of dancing, I stepped backwards without seeing a girl who was dancing with me. “Just as I get my dance on you move away? That’s not cool,” she said, annoyed and maybe hurt. She looked tough in a black tank top and cute glasses. I tried to explain. She ignored me. She sat down on the curb and sulked. I tried to apologize but my avatar froze. I logged off.



The next morning, I walk through the real streets feeling like an avatar, floating along on cartoon feet. I turn my head like a robot and look at other people as if they are avatars, too. The city seems less real. I feel—this is very weird—kind of friendly. I want to say hi to people. And I have an odd, creeping empathy for the strangers on the street.

I keep thinking about the girl I inadvertently snubbed on virtual Ludlow. I hope she knows I didn’t mean to snub her. I imagine she is not like her avatar. She is pudgy and uncoordinated and lives in Nebraska. Only the cute glasses were true. I imagine she is terribly insecure and hates being 16.



I am sure that, very soon, the VLES will become incredibly boring to me. But, for now, it's a fascinating experience. In the meantime, I urge my readers to come check it out with me. At the very least, we can sit in Max Fish, or hang out in front of Katz's, and have a chat. Someday, the only city we'll have left might be virtual just like this.

*Everyday Chatter

Roger and Dave are closing up shop after 27 years in Chelsea. I like these guys. Very sad. [Racked]

Cafe Gigi on East 9th is closed and gutted--all but a lonely chandelier. I used to go to this place 15 years ago. I remember sitting there with a friend who told me that a friend of hers would flirt with guys across a crowded room by mouthing the words, "olive juice." Try it.


Ask an expert about immigrants on the Lower East Side. [City Room]

Then take a visit to MTV's virtual Lower East Side, aka VLES. Much more on this later, suffice to say for now, I've spent a few hours there recently and it's a fascinating and bizarre experience. [Gothamist] Here I am, in my avatar, bemoaning before the virtual Katz's:


A sad goodbye from Frank's Steakhouse in the Meatpacking District. [Eater]

I'm glad people are locking up their bikes in the East Village, but this is annoying. I had to walk past this one several times, with that tire crowding out half the narrow sidewalk. Come on people, pay attention. You are not alone in the world:

Chelsea Towers West

This weekend, I watched Soylent Green. Everybody knows the punchline, "Soylent Green is made of people," but do you recall where the wealthy, cannibalistic Soylent executives lived? In an ultra-modern place called Chelsea Towers West. How prescient! How did they know, back in 1973, that west Chelsea would one day be the home of wealthy cannibals?

Back in October, I did a little tour of the new developments in that area -- to the accompaniment of Sylvia Plath. Well, those mushrooms are getting bigger -- and there's a hell of a lot of them. Here's an update with more photos of more Soylent towers than I can stick in this post.

The Chelsea Modern on 18th is getting its skin of shiny Soylent Blue glass:





More and more towers keep on coming. At 23rd and 10th, they're digging for a big, blah Boymelgreen:

Today:


Tomorrow:


At 10th and 19th, they've broken ground for some crazy wavy job:

Today:


Tomorrow:


And, one of my personal favorites, 200 11th looks like it's getting outfitted with its car-vator, aka the En Suite Sky Garage. I'm guessing it's that center column in the photo below -- no floor, no c