Cheyenne Diner

VANISHING

A commenter to this blog (eeps) tipped me to the closing of the Cheyenne Diner, which I just covered two weeks ago upon the happy news of the Market Diner's re-opening. I called the diner to confirm and yes, sadly, this will be the Cheyenne's last week on earth after more than half a century at 9th and 33rd.


more photos @ my flickr

Just as I thought life in New York was getting better for our diners, another is put out to pasture. Maybe it will follow the Moondance out to Wyoming. I just hope the autographed pics of What's Happening's Fred "Rerun" Berry will go with it.

What else is there to say? I am shocked and saddened.

• Two West Side Diners
• Rockaway Sunset Diner
• Wyoming Loves the Moondance
  

Luxury Living

Yesterday I attended the NY Observer's first annual Luxury Living New York Condo Showcase at the Puck Building, where dozens of booths manned by sharply dressed salespeople hawking condos were beset by hundreds of people pushing their way to the price lists and free swag.

I went with the hopes of gaining some new insight about the current condo culture and the future of our city. I'd like to come up with something brilliant to say about the event, but it wasn't much more enlightening than leafing through a glossy magazine. So, for what it's worth, here's a bunch of random snippets--snapshots, overheard conversations, bits and pieces of marketing materials...


80 Metropolitan gumball with Platinum and 45 John M&Ms

Mmm...condo cookie...


"She's getting a lot of personal exposure. She comes from money, so it's expenses first, money second."

"It's not how much you make. It's who you know."


model of Toren: coming to Flatbush

Own Your Share of New York.

You Belong Here.

"It's a great amenity-laden building."



"It's all about connections."

Prewar Elegance--Extravagant Scale.



"How can that be prewar if it's new?"
"It's new construction but with prewar style."

Starting at $8 million with a minimum of 4 bedrooms.



"You look fabulous."

Hell's Kitchen, It's Got a Bite...It's got a sexy smile, too. And an energy and a future that's making tomorrow a different story from today.



A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for those who demand the most amenity-rich, full-service, ultra-everything life-style imaginable.

"It's perfectly safe for a single woman to live alone in Astoria, Queens."



"Sorry--I flirt."

*Everyday Chatter

A giant silver penis with hairy testicles, outlined in hot pink, appears above the doomed one-stories at 10th and 4th--soon to be hidden by a towering hotel?


Fontana's shoe repair shop has been gutted. The sign is gone. There's a Dumpster out front. And three workers have managed to completely rip out the floors, walls, and ceiling (sob):


Shuttered CBGB's 313 Gallery opens as Morrison Hotel Gallery and one blogger who attended is "encouraged & amazed to see a creative based business actually thriving in the current climate." [Stupefaction]

Element Beauty Lounge covers up the great artifacts exposed by the facade teardown at 10th and 3rd. Why they would enclose a gorgeous, antique cast-iron column in sheet metal I cannot fathom:


DKNY and Pottery Barn get eaten by Abercrombie as the Vongerichtifiers devour each other across the Manhattan landscape. [Gothamist]

And someone, somewhere will no doubt shell out the $200 to buy the latest banned-in-America Abercrombie sales catalog. [NYPost] via Racked

Don't get too excited--that Coney Island roller rink pretty much proves to have been nothing more than a celebrity-infused publicity stunt for Tommy Hilfiger and Glamour magazine. What a tease! [Observer]

Next Thursday, April 3, catch a reading and peepshow about Diane Arbus' work on Hubert's Flea Circus, one of the great wonders of lost Times Square. [Freebird Books]

What's left of 6th Avenue? Not much--but what's there is good. [ForgottenNY]

Sweet Banana

Following up on yesterday's depressing news, I revisited the dying block of 9th Ave and popped into the Sweet Banana Candy Store around lunchtime, when middle-school kids pour out of the O. Henry building on 17th, making a beeline for Sweet Banana.



I was soon surrounded by clumsy, goofy little boys, many of them slurping Cup-O-Noodles or holding steaming styrofoam trays of Chinese food they got for lunch next door at New China (also packed with kids). Most of these boys were Asian and many of them wore glasses and big, oversized sneakers. They jostled around the plexiglass candy trays, grabbing for Chick-O-Sticks, Sugar Daddies, Air Heads, Hot Tamales...as NY Press put it: "a mix of both common and weird candies."



Sweet Banana sells nostalgic candy, the old-fashioned stuff, like Mary Janes, Goetze's caramels, and odd individually wrapped Circus Peanuts. I was the only one in the place who picked up a pack of Round Up candy cigarettes. I love the packaging. Turns out they're made by a company in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, called World Candies (aka Confections), one of the last producers of candy cigarettes in the U.S.

There's been a movement to ban candy cigarettes because, proponents claim, they encourage kids to smoke. I don't know about that. I didn't see any kids buying these things--and eating a candy cigarette is a lot like eating a stick of chalk dipped in sugar. I do know that candy cigarettes should be added to the list of vanishings, because how long can they stick around, really?



Which is the same way I feel about Sweet Banana, even though, when I asked the cashier if they were closing soon, she told me they were staying. But with the new owner planning a retail tenant overhaul, how long can they stick around, really?

Death of a Block

The eastern block of 9th Ave between 17th and 18th is filled with thriving small businesses. They have the look of an older New York, a hodgepodge of neon signs and scruffy awnings, and they're always crowded with neighborhood people. I've been wondering when the block would begin to vanish, but I didn't know it would happen with just one real estate deal.



8 of 10 businesses on the block are on the first floor of one residential building, #112-126 9th Ave. In November 2007, Morris Moinian's Fortuna Realty bought the building for $31.4 million. According to the Observer, Moinian planned "to renovate and upgrade, hoping to lure high-end retail to the storefronts on ground level." The renovating and upgrading has begun--and all 8 businesses will (eventually, quickly) be wiped out.



The first to vanish will be Chelsea Liquors. In business since about 1940, under the current ownership for over 30 years, they've been given 30 days to vacate the premises. The rent has jumped 300% and the lease is up. I went in to talk to the bereaved owner and a steady stream of regulars came in to grieve and express their anger. One guy told me, "I've known this man since I was a kid!" Another feared the sale of his home in the Fulton Houses projects across the avenue--he also told me that Donald Trump just bought his mother's home, the Lillian Wald Houses on the LES: not true as far I know, but this is what you call a case of "reality-based paranoia."



Second in line to vanish is the New China take-out joint next door. Their lease ends in September. The 9th Ave Gift Shop bodega has a lease extending until 2013, but neighbors suspect he'll be bought out before then. There's also Tamara Dry Cleaners, a Moneygram check-cashing place, Famous Deli, and the Sweet Banana Candy Store--hailed by NY Press as the best in town and "the only NYC candy shop that still makes 'candy shop' a term full of sinister meaning."

But the most heartbreaking loss will be the New Barber Shop.



I went in for a haircut and was warmly welcomed by Willie, one of the three barbers who man the shop's antique chairs. He told me their lease will end in a year and a half, but they may to go sooner, perhaps in the next 6 months, as soon as they can find a new place.

Run by Manuel Manolo for the past dozen or so years, the New Barber Shop is an unofficial social club, a community center, a home. Men sit in chairs silently or chatting in Spanish, surrounded by pictures of baseball players, boxers, and John F. Kennedy.

A friendly, talkative guy named Marshall ("but people call me Flaco--it means skinny") introduced himself. A wealth of information and a sort of barber shop ambassador, he knows everything that's happening up and down the block. He told me that the building is already being renovated to install a gym in the basement on one side and a parking garage on the other.



Flaco emphasized how special the shop is, saying, "You can't find another barber shop like this. It's full of characters, like me. In the day, we got the daytime characters. At night, after we close, we got the nighttime characters--the homeless guys come in then--and we all just hang out." When the barber shop and all the other businesses here are gone, Flaco said, "We'll have no place to go."



No, they won't, because whatever replaces the New Barber Shop, Chelsea Liquors, and the rest of those small businesses will be financially out of reach for Flaco and the many other lower-income neighborhood people. New retail in those spaces is "expected to reflect the trendy neighborhood," and it seems the new owner hopes to extend the super-luxury of the Meatpacking District and neighbors Maritime Hotel and Vikram Chatwal's soon-to-come Dream Downtown hotel (occupying a former homeless shelter).

According to Mr. Moinian's Fortuna Realty website, he owns 5 hotels, including the Dylan, a "lifestyle hotel...with all modern amenities," where he partnered with Britney Spears in the trainwreck restaurant Nyla. Mr. Moinian looks for "hipness." He likes places "to see and be seen and all that good stuff." You can imagine what Fortuna will bring to the unlucky people of 9th Ave.

For amenities, hipness, celebrity, and all that good stuff, an entire world is about to vanish from the face of our city. How much more can we bear to lose?

• See more pictures of the block and the barber shop on my flickr
• The building is being managed by REM Residential
• The Times explores the disparity between rich and poor on 9th
  

*Everyday Chatter

Grub Street picked up on my Beatrice Vongerichtified post and expanded beautifully on it, pointing to the "dissolution of communities into an ocean of self-interested particles living together in a heartless and abstract society." And they provide the answer to my question, "What is NYC becoming as it ceases to be a democracy?" An oligarchy, of course. [Grub St]

Brownstoner comes out of the blog closet and curates a new Brooklyn flea market. [Observer]

Cosmo cocktail creator gets evicted from the neighborhood destroyed by the same people who made his creation famous. [Observer]

The Chinatown Fair arcade has a big for rent sign on it, says tipster Ben: "Now you can't even see the old ghost lettering for the Tic-Tac-Toe chicken. Worst of all, it might close! I asked the arcade attendant about the sign and he said not to worry. It was only for the apartments above. However I read the sign again and it said looking for retail tenants. Maybe this guy doesn't know what he's talking about. I hope he's right." He might be, according to the Voice. Here's a photo from Ben:


Those little buildings on 13th are coming down for Karl Fischer's 18-story luxe hotel. The rat bait's been set and yesterday the places were wide open and crawling with workers. I asked one and he swiped his hand through the air to signify demolition and said in broken English, "New building coming." What does this mean for the 13th St. Rep?

Closing: Even the CBGB's retail store can't make it in the new East Village. [Voice] via [Urbanite]

Very exciting! Coney's old B&B Carousell horses are leaving storage at the Brooklyn Army Terminal to be restored to their former glory. [Urbanite]

Chin's Laundry

I don't know much about Chin's Laundry and Dry Cleaning on West 13th Street. I don't have my laundry done there (like this blogger does). I only walk by it often and, when I do, I enjoy a peek at laundry wrapped neatly in brown paper packages labeled with pastel slips in pistachio green. I love seeing these old-fashioned packages in Chinese laundries. There's just something about them.



Yesterday, when I walked by Chin's I saw a BUILDING FOR SALE sign in the window and my heart sank. I don't know what this means for Chin's, if it will vanish or remain, but I have no doubt that Chinese hand laundries are disappearing from the city.

A decade ago, most laundries in the city were Chinese owned. Wrote the New York Times, "The Chinese began dominating the laundry business in the 19th century, when hostility barred them from many other lines of work and spawned immigration laws that specifically excluded Chinese workers."



There used to be a small and shadowy Chinese hand laundry on East 9th Street (or was it 10th?). It's gone now. And Harry Chong on Waverly closed in 2005 after 60 years. Chong's painted sign remains and I pang whenever I pass it (Lost City recently featured a pic), now that those brown-paper packages tied up with strings are gone and a hipster hair salon has taken their place.

If Chin's does close when the building sells--and it seems inevitable--maybe whatever Vongerichtifying restaurant or boutique that takes its place will leave these wonderful red-and-gold, Chinese-style numbers on the door, so we can at least remember what's been lost.

*Everyday Chatter

EV Grieve finds a couple juicy news items focusing on our Vongerichtified East Village: New York Mag looks at the rise of chilly glass towers and proclaims the arrival of the Cooper Square Hotel as one that "cements the neighborhood’s transformation from a seedy enclave of oddballs into a strip of more humdrum glamour." And the NY Post picks up on some news I recently passed along (Extra Place, Morrison Hotel--glad to see they're reading) to explore the neighborhood's loathing of the nightmare brought by Avalon.

Robert DeNiro is getting $38.9 million in tax-free September 11 Liberty Bonds to build a hotel for the affluent! [Chelsea H]

Take a terrifying look at a Vongerichtified vision of the Chelsea Hotel. [Gothamist]

Rolando discovers Vanderveer Park, a forgotten neighborhood in Brooklyn. [Urbanite]

The War of Bushwick rages on as the scourge of welfare beans and dusty carpets is slowly eradicated by gentrifiers both celebrated and reviled. [BushwickBk]

Greenpoint loses a "much-needed houseware store" for a totally unnecessary bank branch. [NYShitty]

As we embark on the final season of Yankee Stadium, a look back at the history of its team. [BBoys]

Todd gets a peek behind the scenes before the Stadium falls. [Hell'sK]

Taxpayers shell out $190 million to destroy the ballpark they love. [Queens Crap]

Beatrice Vongerichtified

*Update: Vongerichtified's originator follows up with VNY

I was walking around the Village when I stumbled upon the Beatrice Inn. It's been there since 1926. I've passed it before, but never went inside. I took a couple pictures and made a note to go back for dinner sometime. But after an eye-opening Google session, I realize that I won't be going back to the Beatrice Inn, because I seriously doubt the bouncers would allow me inside.

Yes, the Beatrice Inn has bouncers. It's exclusive. It's uber-hip. A celebrity hot spot. But long before Lindsay Lohan started going there to make out with hunky guys, it was a family business run by Elsie and Ubaldo Cardia, and then their children, Aldo and Vivian. It was a neighborhood place where regulars dined nightly. As for celebrities, Jane Jacobs ate there, but today she'd never make it past the proverbial velvet ropes--she was not very fashionable.



The new owner, when he opened the new Beatrice Inn, said he would reserve Monday nights for the old regulars, featuring red-sauce specials and Scrabble. "The whole idea behind the bar-restaurant is bringing things back to NYC, like American and New York things." I wonder if he's honored this promise.

In 2005, when the restaurant closed upon the Cardia children's sale of the building, David Kamp in The Times wrote: "In a neighborhood that grows ever more fabulous, expensive and Vongerichtified, the Beatrice is one of the last vestiges of the nudgy, agitational, oppositional Village of yore."



I had to look up "Vongerichtified." Frank Kirkland at Hunter College says it's from the name of a glamorous, high-end chef and "a neighborhood that is 'Vongerichtified' would be one whose restaurants have shifted their cuisine, their ambience, and their prices in this high-end direction. sociologically this is quite interesting characterizing a neighborhood in terms of its restaurants. usually a neighborhood restaurant carries a kind of 'gemeinschaftlich' (communal) sense. a restaurant in a 'Vongerichtified' neighborhood does not appear to carry such a sense."

Maybe this is a solution to the problem of the word "gentrification," which isn't strong enough, and has to be replaced by something like "super-gentrification" or "hyper-luxurification" to really get at what's happening in this city.

Just think of how many neighborhoods, how many streets, how many places in this city have recently gone from gemeinschaftlich (common, shared, mutual) to Vongerichtified (aristocratic, exclusive, separate). We are moving away from democracy, from a city in which all kinds of people--classes, races, ethnicities--mix and mingle.

What, then, are we becoming?

*Everyday Chatter

Take a look inside the most recent crane disaster. [Curbed]

A visual roundup of crane accidents. [Gothamist]

Blog commenters get really mad about a pro-Marc Jacobs post that celebrates shops filled with "young, charming and hilarious people." [Racked]

A new roller rink opened recently in Staten Island--and here I am saying some stuff about rollerskating. [Observer]

And another roller rink opens at Coney, in the old Childs building--too bad this one is temporary. [Curbed]

Speaking of Childs, a piece of the Childs restaurant chain survives at Fulton. [City Room]

Chelsea Barnes and Noble to shutter this week. Hurry in to get your big sale puppy calendars and photo essays about tractors. [Racked]

A great old pic of Streit's Matzo Factory from the VNY Flickr Pool:

photo by LeoLondon

Margon Restaurant

There are few places left in Times Square to enjoy authentic, tasty, inexpensive food. Margon Restaurant is one of them--and it's been serving up Cuban comfort on W. 46th Street since the 1960s.



This weekend I enjoyed a plate of beef stew with beans and rice and talked with Getty Rivas who told me about how his father came from the Dominican Republic and first worked in the restaurant as a dishwasher. In 1987, after Margon had moved into its current spot, a former go-go bar, Mr. Rivas took over. The place continues to be managed and staffed completely by the Rivas family--"aunts, uncles, cousins..."--17 family members in total. They have since added their own Dominican flavors to the Cuban dishes.



The place is narrow and cafeteria style. You order your food from the counter and take a seat. Salsa plays over the radio. People chat and sometimes dance while they wait for their plates of octopus salad, plantains, roasted chicken so tender it falls off the bone. Taxi drivers and tour bus drivers come for lunch. It just feels like New York City here.

Gleason's Gym

The last time I went to the part of Brooklyn now popularly known as DUMBO was in 1997. I went to Gleason's Gym because I was interested in boxing and wanted to see one of the oldest boxing gyms in America.

Getting there felt like a dangerous adventure. It was the middle of nowhere, it seemed, a wasteland of forgotten cobblestoned streets in the dark shadow of the rusty Manhattan Bridge. I did not feel safe, but I did feel brave. And that seemed like the right feeling to have when you go to a real boxing gym. It's impossible to have that feeling today.



I went back to Gleason's last week to find an entire world turned upside-down. The gym is in the same place, but everything around it has changed. There's a West Elm and a Bo Concept on the first floor. The affluent walk the scrubbed cobblestones, shopping for luxury goods. Gourmet markets sell $5 single-serving bottles of juice.



Gleason's sign is on the outside door, but it's dwarfed by a sign for The Fitness Guru. I waited for their customers to come down the stairs, carrying a fleet of Bugaboo strollers, figuring a Mommy and Me class had just let out. I trembled to think what I would find inside Gleason's.



Thankfully, not much has changed inside the old gym. Once the door closes behind you, you can imagine you're still on a former Front Street. Aside from a few young women in hot-pink gloves and a few middle-aged men with white-collar faces, the room is filled with boxers, serious and sweating. Champions and contenders still train at Gleason's.

The owner, Bruce Silverglade, sits by the door and makes you feel welcome--but inside you still get that unsafe feeling. And it feels good. Men are beating each other. Other men dance around the floor, punching heavy bags. A bell goes off and they all drop their hands. It goes off again and the soft/hard sound of fists and gasps resumes. The room seethes with aggression.



I got comfortable next to a ring where two men were sparring, one small and brown, one big and white (and clearly white collar). Sometime in the late 1990s, about the time of my first visit, Gleason's instituted White Collar Boxing and this has enabled them to stay afloat.

I understand the businessman's wish to have his courage challenged--I long for it myself--and I could never get in the ring, so I hold back my judgment. But I did feel a thrill that day watching the small brown man beat the crap out of the big white man. His face turned red and, unable to bear it any longer, he threw in the towel.

The other brown men standing ringside (they looked like trainers or retired boxers) had a good laugh, slapping each other on the backs. One turned to me, flashing a toothless grin, and chuckled, "He quit! That guy quit. He quit!" Like it was the funniest joke in the world. And it must have felt like a triumph, a moment of victory over the Big White Man, that symbol of imperialism, invasion, gentrification. At least, it felt that way to me.



Back on the manicured street, the victory faded. I saw that beaten man again, in one of the gourmet markets. His face was still pink, but he didn't wear any look of defeat. He was glowing, proudly bearing to the checkout counter his overpriced bottle of juice, secure in the knowledge that, no matter how many punches he took at Gleason's, he would still walk out to the streets of DUMBO the winner.

Chez Brigitte Turns 50

*Update: Vanished June 5, 2008

For those who miss Sucelt and anticipate missing Florent, there is a tiny luncheonette on Greenwich Ave, just past 7th Ave, that manages a loose combination of the two: French diner meets inexpensive Latin flavors.



Chez Brigitte has been in business since 1958--this year is their 50th anniversary--and was begun by a woman named Brigitte Catapano, a native of Marseilles. When she retired to Florida, the diner went to her partner Rosa Santos and acquired its Spanish touch. Both women have since passed away, but the diner is still in the hands of a Spaniard, and chef Raphael hails from Mexico. The atmosphere is friendly and the food is pure comfort, "la cuisine grandmere."



The Voice's Robert Sietsema writes: "The signature is beef bourguignon, a massive platter of tender gravied meat with a touch of red wine (that's the French part), with petits pois and a couple of starchy sides; or check out the poulet roti, a tender breast painted with a dark sophisticated demi-glace."



The names of the dishes may be French--Boeuf Bourguignon, Ragout de Veau, Fricassee de Poulet--but it's Latin-style eating at affordable prices. The lunch special is $7.40 and comes with dessert and soda. For breakfast, any omelette with potatoes is $3.75.

Even at these prices, business has been slow. Little Chez Brigitte tends to blend into the woodwork. I must have passed it a hundred times before I noticed it and bothered to stick my head inside. So here it is. It's good, it's cheap, it's the real deal. Now go--before they're gone.

*Everyday Chatter

Remarkably, after much construction and stop work orders, 27 E. 7th Street has become a (illegal?) hostel. Down by the Hipster reported this, Curbed commented, and Hostel World has all the details (free pizza parties!), but I didn't really believe it until I looked up last night and saw the rooms filled with bunkbeds and sleepy-eyed young Asians:


CBGB's will be a John Varvatos, but the 313 Gallery will still be a gallery--Morrison Hotel is moving into #313 and a little bit of rock-n-roll history remains on the Bowery, if only in museum form. It's better than another bank. The first show will feature work by rock photographer Steve Joester. [Stupefaction]

Here comes Karl Fischer. Despite protests to the plans to demolish these little buildings on 13th Street and replace them with a giant hotel, the first sign of demolition has appeared: The rat poison is out!


Celebrate 125 years of the Chelsea Hotel at the Museum of the City of New York. [Living w/Legends]

NYC construction accidents only to get worse--as billions of building dollars and another million people flood into the city. [Curbed]

Go inside an East Village open house--where you can get a teeny studio and access to a crappy rooftop "deck" for just $2,900. [EVG]

Ah, the disparity of NYC economics: See a family of 5 living in a two-room on Ludlow ($?) and then check out an empty two-bedroom in the Plaza ($16,500 per month!) just waiting for a single out-of-towner to call "not home."

What was once the Tiffany Diner, once beloved of drag queens, club kids, and leatherdaddies, and situated in a 1929 landmarked building, will now be...a Bank of America:

8th Street Ghost Town

Back in 2006, The Real Deal covered the demise of 8th Street's shoe stores, reporting that "Since the collapse of the World Trade Center towers, 24 of 54 shoe stores have closed, a devastating percentage." Since then, that number has most certainly gone up.



The street is a ghost town of soaped-over windows, for rent signs, and going out of business banners. Rugged Sole is currently holding a "Business Sucks" sale. The sidewalks are empty, which actually makes 8th Street a pleasant route for walking unmolested by jerks with giant shopping bags, drunken NYU kids, and entitled Wall Streeters. It's a place to be (almost) alone. But that is going to change. Fast.



After the onslaught of rent hikes, the street has been in a holding pattern, waiting for super-gentrification to wash away the urine and incense vendors. Recently, the luxurification arrived.



In a space once occupied by a club called 8th Wonder, where Jimi Hendrix used to play, upscale restaurant Elletaria just opened. The crowds are pouring in for pigs feet and sweetbreads--washed down with the 8th Wonder cocktail--and I predict that its presence will tip the scales on 8th Street once and for all.

• Magic Shoes
• 8th Street Re-Visited
  

Join VNY Flickr Group

Many readers send in photos of places they love and are losing, interesting old signage, and other vanishing items. It's great--I can't be in all places at all times. So I've started a Flickr group:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/vanishingnewyork/

The group is open, so please join and add any photos--and descriptions--you think fit the category. I'll do my best to get them onto the blog.

Thanks!

*Everyday Chatter

Life's been hard for the shoe stores of 8th Street. Rugged Sole is holding a "Business Sucks" sale as most of its neighbors have shut down:


Coney Island opens! Perhaps for the final season of Astroland. [BIB]

Rundowns of recent construction accidents as the rush to super-gentrification continues. [Gothamist] [Lost City]

These days, many of us live anxiously in the shadow of teetering cranes. [City Room] [EVG]

Others tremble in the shadow of cell-phone towers. [PMFA]

I wrote about Extra Place in January--more recently, the Real Deal revealed the developers' dream for a "park-like environment that fosters a sense of community with lots of small retail shops and cafés." Whose sense of community will it foster? Just take a look at the cream-of-wheat folks in the rendering below. And here's the prediction: "It's like what Jeffrey did to the Meatpacking District." Couldn't be more prescient! [RD]

P.S. Both Curbed and Eater picked up my coverage of this debacle, and their readers' comments are worth checking out--for once, most are in agreement this plan is putrid.

Panic sets in as Brooklyn liquor store changes hands. [Brklynometry]

Miss Heather invents a fun new game: Gentrification Bingo! This is good stuff--send her your contributions. [NYShitty]

Ronald McDonald gets on stage at The Apollo--and a small note tells us that the Apollo is 1 in a total of only 4 landmarked buildings in Harlem, a neighborhood on the brink of being plucked clean by super-gentrification. [NYO]

Since Fontana's officially closed, Angelo has been going in to the shop every morning. I've seen him sitting by the window, reading an Italian newspaper, and I thought, Maybe he's holding out for a possible reprieve, maybe there's hope. Then I saw this sign:

Armando's

My last (and first) meal at Armando's 72-year-old restaurant in Brooklyn Heights was enjoyed this weekend beneath a water-damaged portrait of Marilyn Monroe, one-time habitue of the place, back when Arthur Miller lived in the neighborhood and the two were falling in love. The Brooklyn Dodgers drank here. So did Norman Mailer. But beginning in the mid-1990s, with an influx of chain stores to Montague Street, Armando's began to feel the pinch.


more photos @ my flickr

It was quiet at lunchtime, only a few tables occupied. At the bar, the regulars gathered for last drinks. "Where ya going?" they asked each other, wondering what the new hangout would be after Armando's is gone. Shrugs all around. Mancuso's? Harry's? "That's long gone, didn't you know." Callahan's? Joe's? "You can all come up to my apartment!" Laughter.



The place was closing at 9:00, the free drinks would start at 6:00, they said, but keep it quiet. Someone wisecracked, "I swear to God, if a stranger comes in here for free drinks, I'll break his arms." More laughter. Hugs and kisses as familiar faces came and went. They exchanged phone numbers. "Call me," they said, "Let's stay in touch. We'll have lunch." But where? Armando's is gone and only the chain stores and the fast-food joints will remain.

2 West Side Diners

The New York Times reports that the Market Diner will reopen--not as a high-rise condo and not as a French bistro, but as a diner. This is wonderful news for our ever-depleting stock of once-copious West Side diners. It's been bought by the Greek owners of the Cosmic Diner on Eighth Avenue and 52nd Street, who say they will make it more upscale, but how upscale can it be? Hopefully it won't go the way of the Empire.

According to Agilitynut and Diner City, the Market was built in the 1960s by DeRaffele, one of the last remaining manufacturers of prefab diners. A hangout for Frank Sinatra and Hell's Kitchen gang the Westies, it's been closed since 2006.


1972 photo by Thorney Lieberman

At its spot on 11th and 43rd, the Market is scheduled to open in a couple of months. In the meantime, you can continue to enjoy the Cheyenne Diner at 9th Ave and 33rd St, a Paramount dating to about 1940.


more photos @ my flickr

The Cheyenne features Greek food and bison burgers--and booths upholstered in sparkly metallic red and silver vinyl.



It also has a whole Native American motif to enjoy.

• New York Diners at ForgottenNY
• The Market Diner in the Times

*Everyday Chatter

The scaffolding is off Bigelow and it's back to looking ever so lovely:


Admittedly not a good pic, but I have to point out the incredible scatological porn scene of this poster on the wall inside Chocolates from the Bald Man on 9th and 2nd, where NYU kids and tourists smear themselves with what is, let's face it, an unconscious symbol of poo. (It should be laced with gold.) And here it is dribbling from the mouth of this post-coital-faced woman:


The Minetta Tavern is selling--and going from authentic Italian-American to faux-French in the hands of Mr. Pastis. Hurry before it dies. [Eater]

The unofficial shopping mall that is Soho may become the official Soho Mall. [Villager]

Don't even try loitering, i.e. sitting on a bench, in the new cleaned-up Washington Square Park. It's just for looking at, so keep it moving. [Curbed]

Goodbye lobster, hello pickle: Armando's will be replaced by a fast-food chain. Go Sunday to say goodbye. [Bklyn Paper]

Fulton Fish Market goes upscale green market--I guess all those non-wealthy residents who are losing their Pathmark to a luxury tower will get to enjoy some primo Dumpster diving. [Racked]

Save St. Brigid's--here's another chance to wear your Irish anti-gentrification attitude, tomorrow at Webster Hall.

The long-languishing North Fork (coming soon, it said forever) on 8th Ave and 17th St will never come--it's been plywooded and Capital One'd:

Stuyvesant Curiosity Shop

The facade teardown of the former Galaxy bodega on the northwest corner of 10th St. and 3rd Ave. has revealed a lovely cast-iron column and other architectural details.



It's also revealed bits of signage from the Stuyvesant Curiosity Shop which long ago occupied the space. That word at the bottom is definitely GUNS:






Here's a detail from an old Con Edison photo that probably dates to the 1940s or 50s. Here you can see, as in the above photo, the address number 48 and the word TOOLS painted down the side:



Here is Berenice Abbott's 1937 photo of the place. You can see that the corner column was buried even back then:


Photo: Berenice Abbott via NYPL

I don't know much about the Stuyvesant Curiosity Shop other than that it was a pawnshop and one of those oddball places that lived quite well in the shadow of the Third Avenue El. Next to it was another pawn shop and Sig. Klein's Fat Men's Shop. And next to that was Sipmeier's Restaurant for ladies and gents.

The city planners had high hopes for Third Avenue when they tore down the El, imagining a pleasure promenade. What they got were a lot of nail salons--and here, at #48, is coming one more.

Florent

After weeks of speculation, it's official: Florent will close on June 29. Confirmed by The New York Post, the closure comes on Gay Pride Day, though Florent's lease ends on March 31, at which time rent on the spot will jump from $6,000 to $50,000 per month.


all pics: my flickr

Many credit, or blame, Florent Morellet for launching the current super-luxurification of the Meatpacking District. It's a distinction he gives to himself, saying in The Times that his diner brought "the first bit of gentrification to the area.'' And Gawker, in their satirical history of Meatpacking, calls it "the root of the poisonous tree from whence springs all evil."

But it wasn't until Keith McNally's faux-Parisian Pastis moved in, almost 15 years after Florent, that the current slaughter of Meatpacking ensued.

During those 15 years, blood and other bodily fluids continued to flow freely on the cobblestoned streets. Meatpacking in the 1990s still had Jackie 60, the Clit Club, the Vault, the Lure...but it was vulnerable. Metromix put it aptly (if a bit transphobically) when they wrote, "If it weren't for Pastis, the Meatpacking District would still be an abandoned line of butcher shops littered with friendly trannies instead of today's trendy meet-market littered with, well, tranny lookalikes."



It is appropriate that Florent will close on Gay Pride since it was born from gay defiance, springing from the SM leather bars that once graced (and greased) the formerly gritty neighborhood. “Maybe it was 1978 or ’79 or ’81," Morellet told The Villager, "and I was coming from the Anvil, or the Mineshaft, or someplace...It was morning, and I went into the R&L diner for breakfast. I immediately loved the place.” In 1984, when the R&L went up for sale, Morellet bought it, leaving the old diner intact because he liked its Hopperesque feeling.


a recent note from Florent: is he hopeful when he writes, "real estate goes down, nyc survives"?

Saying goodbye to Florent most likely means saying goodbye to the R&L as well. Who but someone Furstenberg-sized can afford $50,000 per month? It was the site of a speakeasy in the 1920s and became the R&L in the 1930s. A place where longshoremen and meatpackers would dine at night, in the 1950s they called it "Eatem and Beatem," according to the Chicago Sun, "because they would zip in and out around 3 in the morning." The chrome sign still stands as much of the original R&L remains.



Whatever your feelings about Florent and its place in history, it's worth taking a visit if only because it is a part of New York history--a part that will soon be wiped off the map.


"no hard feelings"

Christopher's End

I was walking down Christopher Street recently when a for rent sign on the Badlands Adult Video emporium stopped me. When I asked the guy inside when they were closing, he only said, "When someone takes it, we will close." Any takers? At $40,000 a month, it's been up for grabs for a while now. Last summer, Eater talked with the broker, who urged prospects to "Do your part in the continuing gentrification of the West-Side Hwy and open a damn restaurant/ nightclub here already.”



Before someone grants his wish, take a walk to the very end of Christopher. It still feels like New York City out there. You'll pass Meier & Oelhaf Marine Repair, with its windows made from ship's portals (also for rent), and The Dugout, where you can enjoy beer in plastic cups and the company of friendly bears.



Badlands is in the Weehawken Street Historic District (click that link for lots of details). The building was built in 1937 and housed Harry's Men's Shop for seamen's supplies until the 1960s-70s, when it was claimed by gay men (insert seamen/semen joke here).

The end of Christopher was once a leatherman's paradise. The wooden shack at 392 West Street dates to 1834 and is the last remaining structure from the Weehawken Market. It also later became the home of gay bars and next door to it was the Ramrod, mecca of hardcore leather and much featured in the Pacino film Cruising. (Soon after the film's release, a man fired an automatic weapon on the Ramrod, killing two and wounding six.)



Like San Francisco, gay enclaves seem to spring up wherever sailors come to port. The Keller Hotel, once a home for sailors, where "ghosts of the past breathe deeply," stands like a fading oceanliner above the Hudson. It hosted a leather bar where disco was born. It went up for landmarking last year and there's rumor it's getting a surreptitious luxury remodeling.

Like the other vanished gay leather land, the Meatpacking District, there's not so much cruising at the end of Christopher anymore--unless you count rollerblading as cruising--but you can still get a taste of the real city, a gritty, desolate, riverside taste of it. Like everything else in town, it's a rare feeling that is fading fast.

• View more pics on my flickr

• ForgottenNY walks on West Street
• Bridge and Tunnel walks on Christopher

*Everyday Chatter

Extell giddily gears up for World War III as they market brand-new, 21st-century "prewar" condos. [Times]

Defunct Chelsea cabaret Helen's, nee Judy's, loses its cool purple entranceway to become a bar/restaurant called Ate Ave. Now hiring:


A burlesque roller-rink in the old Childs at Coney Island? It really is a dream come true! (It's also just a temporary stop on the way to something no doubt nightmarish.) [Curbed]

The rezoning of Harlem has pro-gentrifiers celebrating and defensive. [Curbed] But one brave man calls Amanda Burden (Bloomberg's city planner) "a rich, rich, rich horrible person." [Gothamist]

More Manhattan Apocalypse excitement--Columbia's aggressive redevelopment will end up underwater someday. Something to look forward to. [Gotham Gazette]

The East Village/LES is one of the loudest, most obnoxious neighborhoods in the city, and we lament the peace and quiet of pre-gentrification drug deals. [Gothamist]

"[W]here's the real St. Mark's?" asks one graffitist on this Pinkberry plywood. "Dead," comes the reply:


Sad to see banks changing hands? Here's a sort-of ode to dead regional banks. [AMNY]

From the ghost town of Orchard Street, Sammy Gluck, owner and son of G&G International Menswear keeps things alive. [Intothebox]

"Make Manhattan your own." Whose New York is this? Has anybody else noticed that many ads these days sell the city as a personal, individual possession?

Sinister Phase 2

I recently referred to The Onion's joke about Starbucks instituting a sinister "Phase 2" of their operations, but what if it's no joke? What if ALL the chains are entering Phase 2?

Racked reports that Starbucks will not be expanding into Long Island City--perhaps expansion into the outer boroughs will be halted as Starbucks pulls back across the country.

Barnes and Noble has not only rescinded their liberal returns policy, they are also closing down shops in town, at least the one at Astor Place and one in Chelsea.

Another recent story from Crain's says the bank branch expansion has ended and even "Duane Reade is closing dud spaces."


North Fork becomes Capital One

We might take these phenomena as hopeful signs that the unbridled multiplication of chains has reached its limit and that the pendulum is swinging back. But let's not be too optimistic. We know that the plan all along has been: (1.) open as many locations as possible, thereby putting the competition out of business, and then, once the mom-and-pops are dead and buried, (2.) shut down those unprofitable stores and continue to thrive in a competition-free zone.

Hence, Phase 2.

Phase 1 was all about creating desire in the consumer, convincing people they "need" Starbucks, Duane Reade, Barnes & Noble, etc. They provided convenience and ease with many locations, low prices, and liberal policies on returns. They're like the drug dealer who gives you your first taste for free. Once you're hooked, the rules change. So keep your eyes open now--watch out for rising prices, increasingly stringent policies, more locations shutting down.


Pinkberry forbids peeing and pictures

What will be left? To use another metaphor, it's like when an obese person loses a lot of weight in a short amount of time--what's left is a stretched-out balloon of empty skin. Empty storefronts abound. But they won't stay empty for long.

Of course it's impossible for those mom-and-pops to move back in, or for new small businesses to take their place. What's coming are more chains. As the Crain's article says: “'Now starts the retraction.' Retail brokers are jumping at the chance to get clients like Steve Madden or American Apparel into any of the spaces banks abandon."

Call me a paranoid conspiracy theorist, but I think the corporate chains are all in cahoots with each other. It's the Art of War. Look at how the banks helped the big retailers, acting like a panzer division rolling in to clear the way. It was Blitzkrieg. It was Shock and Awe. Now the retail chains will hold the position, sharing territory with their allies to fend off smaller would-be competitors, aka "the enemy."

What if all we're seeing now are those tanks rolling away--their firepower no longer necessary in a defeated, crippled city held solidly by the occupying force?

Show World

VANISHED: 2004

A recent viewing, thanks to a tipster, of Guns N Roses' video for "The Garden," complete with footage aplenty of Times Square before Giuliani, brought to mind the old Show World, the adult emporium that once occupied the site of the current Laugh Factory next to the Duane Reade on 42nd and 8th.



In a 1995 article for the Times, Dan Barry wrote, "For two decades, Show World has been the brightest of the gaudy lights in the pornographic firmament of Times Square, so much so that one city official calls it the 'flagship of the sex industry in New York.' But Show World is in trouble. Its light now flickers and may be extinguished....the City Council passed a zoning ordinance designed to smash the clusters of peep shows and pornographic theaters that have cropped up throughout the five boroughs."

It was the beginning of the end for adulthood in Times Square. By 2001, the last of 42nd Street's peeps, Peep-O-Rama, would succumb to development after a lifetime on the Deuce going back to 1950. Its site is now buried under the ever-rising Bank of America Tower--you know, the one that keeps showering pedestrians with shattered glass and construction equipment?



But back to Show World. After the 1995 zoning ordinance, Show World managed to soldier on for another 9 years, its naughty bits whittled away, piece by piece. In 1998, the live girls were gone and the theater space was leased to an Off Off Broadway company called Collapsible Giraffe and Nada Show World, who performed Shakespeare and Chekhov plays on the stages where once naked girls performed live sex acts and something called Face Shows--as the sign said, "Let our girls sit on your face."

View an interview with one of those Show World girls here.



The interior of Show World, as seen in these 2003 photos, was decorated in circus style, complete with high-wire, bicycle-riding, acrobat clowns.



Sweet Dreams Come True--but not according to the sign on the wall. The live girls were gone--they used to stand above the stairs, on the second floor, catcalling and beckoning to the patrons as they climbed through the music and lights.



The video peeps kept running on the first floor until 2004, when the Laugh Factory moved in, today advertising "Family Friendly" comedy. A couple doors down is a new Christian bookstore and gift shop. As the Guns N Roses song ends, as if a farewell to old Times Square, "It sure was glad to know ya, bye bye, so long, bye bye."

• 1980s doc: Michael Weldon predicts death of Psychotronic Times Square
• Great film footage of Times Square in 1970
  

*Everyday Chatter

"The Museum of the City of New York will be mounting what is basically an infomercial for a private condo building." This kind of thing I'd expect from the New Museum on Bowery. Come on, MCNY! [Curbed]

Barnes & Noble revokes its liberal exchange policy. As of 3/3, you need a receipt and all returns must be made within 14 days. No exceptions. So much for one benefit of big chains. This is what you call a bait-and-switch folks!

An Upper East Sider grieves the chipping away of her neighborhood. [Times]

Creative people are being pushed further and further to the outer edges of Brooklyn--and many right off the NYC map. [Observer]

East Village bodegas are dropping like flies. [Racked]

God save the Minetta Tavern from whatever is stalking it! [Eater]

Before you jump off the Brooklyn Bridge (and before they convert the bridge into luxury condos), there may be good news:

"The great Manhattan bank branch boom is over. Financial players that paid top dollar to rent hundreds of retail locations, pushing out neighborhood coffee shops, florists and fashion boutiques, are ending their shopping spree, real estate sources say." [Crain's]

The Mayfair is still alive. Got my hair cut here not long ago. One of our last good barbershops. [AMNY]

The Moondance Diner isn't dead after this winter's roof collapse. [AMNY]

A blogger remembers Brooklyn's lost crayon factories. [PMFA]

A few signs with obsolete telephone exchanges live on--and, once in a while, I find one. They're not easy hunting, but Forgotten NY recently put up a bunch. Here are a couple of mine, the first in Forest Hills and the second in the East Village.

Ukrainians Surrender?

Curbed reports today on The Sun's story about the next giant glass box coming to Cooper Square. The Sun says the Ukrainian community "surrendered to it amicably." Surrender does not mean support and I can speculate as to why they surrendered, other than having no choice in the matter.



Let's not forget that a few years ago, Cooper Union was making moves to erase Taras Shevchenko Place from the map. The Ukrainians went wild. [NY Times] [Brama]

Then Cooper Union tried to reduce the transparency of their "communal hive," thereby blocking views of St. George's church. The Ukrainian community was not happy about this. [Villager] [Brama]

There was even talk about demapping Astor Place. [Villager] This was around the time Cooper Union was leasing the Astor Place parking lot to the green monster. [Voice]



Then, "in a bizarre twist," Cooper backed off the demapping plan and, apparently, returned to their original design for transparency.

What's an effective way to get your enemy to surrender? How about threatening them with more damage than you will actually cause so they feel relieved when you back off those threats? It's a perfect way to take the fight right out of them. At the same time, you just keep grinding them down.

Super-gentrification is trauma. When someone is in the midst of trauma, they often dissociate. They go limp. Such a defensive strategy can look like surrender. This argument is used against victims of rape: "She relaxed, she stopped fighting, so she must've wanted it." Let's not be fooled by appearances.



Cooper Union began the bulldozing of Astor Place at the turn of this century. [NY Press] The plans were in place for a long time. Remember it was they who rented an old gas station to the controversial Bowery Bar in 1994. [NY Times]

There will only be more from Cooper Union to come. [Curbed] What else is there to do except surrender? But I hope that, from all the links provided above, it's clear that this surrender has been nothing close to amicable.

Grace & Hope Mission

Saw this coming when the Toll Brothers put their tower up on Third Avenue. After 77 years in the city, tiny neighbor Grace & Hope Mission is now defunct. They opened in New York City in 1930, first in Times Square, and then the building at 114-116 Third Avenue was built in 1964.


under Toll scaffolding October 2007

According to their website, "If you were to walk into 114 Third Avenue any evening (except Monday) you would find the chapel nearly filled to capacity and the singing enthusiastic. Those in attendance are mostly homeless, some living in shelters or hotels in the immediate area. Many are drawn to GHM by the necessity of food, which is freely, and compassionately, served, from these premises."



The women of the mission provided daily lunches and blankets. They visited the sick and dying. Now their building looks like the perfect spot for a Pinkberry.

So much for grace and hope.


today: scaffolding and mission gone

Jackson Square Wired

The developers of super-luxe One Jackson Square have WiFi'd their namesake derelict park, aka "charming urban oasis," in a move to further hottify the neighborhood for their own tenants' comfort.

Staying on point with their brand ("the spirit of Greenwich Village is alive and well"), the developer says in this press release: “Greenwich Village residents have a rich history of appreciating public space as an arena for communication, whether in the form of political activism, artistic performance, or other forms of urban experience.”



Now, the spirit of Greenwich Village will live on--not in political activism or artistic performance, but in one of those "other forms of urban experience," namely, burying your head in a laptop with iPod bud in one ear, cell phone in the other.

But are such people really going to want to sit in this crapped-out park, where the homeless and drug addicts play? Give it time. One Jackson Square is working on it, inch by inch.

Last fall, with the help of A/X Armani Exchange, they put in a new sprinkler system. Actually, Armani has officially "adopted" the park, to provide a nice place to lunch for its employees.

It also seems the cops have been more on top in their harassment of the homeless people there. And, let's not forget, yunnies are masters at being blissfully unaware of their surroundings, happy to squat in shitty locales.

If Monday's warm-weather turnout that turned the car-exhaust-choked median strip on 9th and 14th into a Riviera on Hudson is any indication, we will soon see Jackson Square loaded with new Villagers, soaking up the urban experience via their laptops.

33rd and Madison

Last night I happened upon the corner of 33rd and Madison, where several businesses are shuttered, spray-painted, absestos-abated, and rat poison baited. Behind the gates, the doors were wide open, expelling a noxious stink of decay that smelled dismayingly like 9/11. Something wicked this way comes...

Indeed, it's a 33-story, condo-hotel combo tower. And it looks like the developers are already dreaming of luxury with that fantasy Fendi placement in the rendering:


image and more info from curbed

Several small businesses have crumbled for this development and, strangely, not just on the northwest corner of 33rd and Madison where the tower will rise. On the south side of 33rd another cluster of businesses (including World of Pickles) are also shuttered and rodent-baited. So what's the plan there? Maybe making room for this 37-story tower: Wired NY. It's all a bit unclear to me. And somewhere in this mishigoss is one of Warhol's Factory buildings, soon to be converted.



In a sort of spooky coincidence, today's read of AMNY's Urbanite blog brought pictures of the same corner, highlighting the great revealed signage at Jeanette's Cards and Gifts, featuring Barton's Bonbonniere. I'll let Mr. Pujol fill you in about that place--and his pics are much better than my shady night shots.



Hurry if you want to see the old signage--the presence of rat poison and asbestos abatement can only mean that these buildings are about to fall.

Irving Place Lit Life

A big, fat condo is coming to 57-59 Irving. Down comes the old 2-story brick building:



And up come 8 more stories of glass:


Kushner

It's going up next to the house where O. Henry lived and reportedly wrote "The Gift of the Magi," with a view down onto Pete's Tavern. A quick look (see Songlines) reveals that these short blocks of Irving Place are loaded with history and creativity: Oscar Wilde stayed here, as did Charles Dickens. The Nation and the Rosicrucians have their offices here. Screenwriter George Axelrod (The Manchurian Candidate) lived here. Contributors to The Dial gathered here--folks like e.e. cummings, Hart Crane, and Marianne Moore.



What will today's generation of Irving Placers leave to history? Well, in a restaurant on the corner of 17th Street, Sex & The City's Carrie and Charlotte used to sit and "trawl for men," writes ivillage, they would "play the one in a hundred game for urban singles. You watch the men coming your direction and see how many men in 100 you would sleep with."

Buon Viaggio Fontana Shoes

Friday was the last official day for Fontana Shoes, but Angelo was in the shop on Saturday, greeting the many well-wishers who came to say goodbye. His door never stopped. Some brought flowers, others hugs and kisses. He'll be there today, too.

Not ready for retirement, Angelo wishes the shop could go on for a few more years. Though he lives in Staten Island, he says, "This is where I live. With these people, this place. I only sleep in Staten Island."



In a spark of hope, there's a chance the landlord may be negotiating. But who knows? Today at 3:00, the Block Association is throwing a farewell party in the shop. Go if you can. Angelo is bringing the cannoli.

• A. Fontana Shoe Repair
  
• Pick Up Your Shoes
• Billy & Angelo