Generation O

Everywhere, on payphones and stuck onto sidewalks, we're being forced to "Meet Generation O," the "trenders, spenders, and recommenders." O stands for the Oxygen Network as it aims for the demographic of young women "who consume heavily and influence others' spending patterns."

Look at this image of young womanhood: She's on the cell phone, preoccupied, tuned out. She's got a giant handbag and a giant shopping bag. She is walking. She is about to walk straight into you. She is about to hit you with one of her bags. She is about to hit you with her cell-phone elbow. She will call you a jerk after she hits you. Or she will just ignore you.



Hating this image makes me feel like a misogynist and I hate that it makes me feel that way. But I do hate this image. I don't think this was the idea post-feminism had in mind.

I can hardly express how much it makes me miss the brainy young women of New York City. The ones with funky glasses and clunky shoes. The ones who read books. The ones who think of other things, and talk of other things, besides shopping and real estate. The ones who were pushed to the margins, then pushed out. My heart aches for the return of those nerdy girls.

*Everyday Chatter

A grim look at the future LES, where super-high rents are "buoyed by the arrival of high-profile newcomers like the men’s wear designer John Varvatos." As one luxury shop begets another... [Times]

Landmarks Preservation Committee says the Provincetown Playhouse isn't worth saving, so let's feed it to NYU. [Curbed] ...And the new playhouse is revealed. [Curbed]

Here we go again--how many of us will be pushed to Philadelphia after the next round of rent hikes? [Gothamist]

"Park Slope has so much juice, just like Manhattan. It's got a lot of pizzazz and energy." And that means it's about to be put through the Darren Star machine. For all who believe the boroughs are safe from being SATC'd, here is the future. [Gothamist]

The saga of 49 E. Houston and Steve Stollman continues. [Voice]

Take a peek at our dear, old redbirds at the bottom of the sea. [City Room]

When you're super-rich and you run out of room, what's there to do except buy a passel of townhouses and stick 'em all together in one big mother of a McMansion? [Times]

Mansion (of Death) Sold?

I recently reported that the Stuyvesant Polyclinic on 2nd Ave between 8th and 9th returned to the market as a single family. Today, the “Buy This Mansion” signs have been taken down from where they were (illegally) bolted to the landmarked, 124-year-old, carved terra cotta façade, and demolition men are hard at work on the interior.

Unless it's been rented out for another TV show, apparently, someone heeded the signs and bought this mansion. The demolition guy I talked with believed it had sold and said, "I don't know what they're gonna do with it, but they can't do much--it's a landmark." So who bought it?



The broker's listing hoped a rock star like Lenny Kravitz would buy the building for $13 million and install an “indoor/outdoor saltwater swimming pool exiting to your gigantic organic garden” along with other whimsies. I got very curious about what’s inside and while the place was being shown last week, I sneaked in to take a few interior shots.





It does look impressive. But I don’t know where Lenny's swimming pool and garden is going to go, because there is no backyard. A quick peek through the windows of the neighboring Ottendorfer Library reveals a weird outbuilding connected by a passageway taking up the entire rear space.



Maybe this was the electroshock therapy room. Or the leeching room. As a century-old medical clinic, this building’s got some very special amenities--though the broker failed to mention the full-service mortuary (they've since ripped down this sign). Forget Kravitz. My money says Marilyn Manson's moving in.

Show World Center

Show World Center, the last of that bastion of all things nasty, is gasping its last breath on 8th Avenue. Today, Curbed and Gawker both picked up on the Post's report: "The Times Square area's once-raunchiest location is up for lease or sale, possibly spelling an end to what's left of porn king Richard Basciano's Show World Center at Eighth Avenue and 42nd Street."



I am stricken by the news. Though Show World mostly disappeared a few years ago, it still retained a neon-lit rabbit warren of backroom and underground porn-tastic hideaways filled with video peeps, DVDs, magazines, and toys. You enter on 8th Avenue, but follow the many doorways and stairways, and you'll find yourself cast down and back, emerging after your adventure into daylight on 42nd, next to the entrance to a hotel that sports a gold glittering lobby.

(You will also find a treasure-trove of vintage Penthouse magazines, dating back to the 60s and 70s, on sale for a few bucks.)

It seems odd that Basciano would be selling the L-shaped building that also houses, in addition to Show World Center, his Times Square Arts Center, because he just signed a deal to develop more "wholesome" entertainment for the location. And last month he put up this flashy sign outside Show World's 42nd Street entrance/exit:



Just as the family-friendly Laugh Factory disguises a backroom packed with smut, I suspect this news is not what it appears and perhaps we haven't seen the last of Show World. It is still, even in its vanishing, the best show left in town. Especially now that the Playpen has been reduced to this sacrificial mudhole:

• Inside the Playpen demolition
• The Playpen and Funny Store
• Gaiety Burlesk
• Show World
  

Sucelt's Replacement

While, in this case, I can honestly say, "at least it's not a bank or a Starbucks," still...



...for this we lost Sucelt?

P.S. How many "portable devices" can you find in this picture?

• Sucelt Coffee Shop
• Ken Friedman at Sucelt
  
• Say Goodbye to Sucelt

• Old Sign, Defiant Doodle
  

Minetta May Day

This post originally appeared on Eater, but I repeat it here because I think it bears repeating.

Very soon the venerable Minetta Tavern will close and fall into the hands of Keith McNally, the man behind Pastis and Balthazar, often blamed/credited with turning the Meatpacking District into "MePa." Last week I went into Minetta for a final meal and cocktail and talked with owner Taka Becovic who told me he plans to close "May 1...or maybe a couple days later." That's not May 6, as a bartender told Grub Street, so if you want to be sure you get a chance to say goodbye, you'd better go by May Day.



Originally from Montenegro, near Albania, Taka first worked as a busboy at the Minetta Tavern. Thirteen years ago, he bought the place and kept every inch of it intact, including the Italian menu, which will change to French bistro food under McNally.

“I like old-fashioned places,” Taka said, “family-style Italian.” The music he had playing was Frank Sinatra, Keely Smith, Eydie Gorme, the music that must have been loved by the first owner, Eddie “Minetta” Sieveri, a fan of boxers, wrestlers, and starlets.

Sieveri returned to the Tavern every year for his birthday until his death. When the landlord raised the rent too high for Taka, Sieveri’s son tried to buy the place, but it was out of his reach too.


taka becovic looks out to the street

“I’ve got a regular customer in his 80s,” Taka told me, “When he heard I was selling he asked, How much do you need? A million? Two million? He was ready to give it to me.” Taka didn't disclose the rent his landlord was asking for, but he did bemoan the fact that rents around there are "all $50,000 a month and up," so we can just imagine the sum.

When I asked Taka what his hopes are for the future of the Minetta Tavern, he looked off into the distance. “It’s very hard,” he said, to think of saying goodbye. He hopes McNally won’t change the place too much. The wooden bar, with its stained-glass shelving, dates back to the Tavern’s opening in 1937. The walls are covered with priceless art and photographs. Taka’s favorite is the painting of Village legend Joe Gould, but he won’t be taking it with him. McNally bought the whole lot, every last item, down to the hand-cut silhouettes, made by a German artist, that trim the top of the bar.



McNally claims he’s not going to change much, but Taka told me he’s keeping the tavern shut down from May until October, which means he’ll probably be doing a thorough renovation. Let’s hope he doesn’t turn this Village landmark into another Pastis, attracting flocks of glittery, screeching MePaphiles to its door.

• More Minetta on flickr

*Everyday Chatter

Dutch Kills gets killed by glassy, spaceship hotels--14 are going up in just an 8-block area. Locals watch their neighborhood vanish before their eyes. [NYT]

I've been wondering what's happening to the Hotel Breslin residents now that their home is going boutique hotel with developers whose philosophy is "all about taking historic buildings to the next level." Which means booting existing tenants. [Chelsea Now]

View the trailer for Nick Schlyer's film: Voices of the Breslin.

Photographer Jill Freedman returns to the city she documented in the gritty 70s and 80s. She captured ambivalent feelings about those times, saying: "There are days I walk down the street feeling its ugliness on my skin like a sunburn...other days when I can hardly catch my breath for the beauty of it." [NYT] Watch the great interview with Jill:

photo: Jill Freedman

24-year-old LES boutique leaves Ludlow because it's just too touristy. [Urbanite]

In other fabulous urban street photography, EV Grieve turns us on to the work of Matt Weber, whose images of the Garment District look like something from 50 years ago. [EVG]

photo: Matt Weber

But, wait, there's more: Check out a show of photographs by Barbara G. Mensch--she snapped the vanished working class men of the South Street Seaport and Fulton Fish Market, about which she said in a great interview, "Now I look at this place, and it’s like death to me. There’s nothing living." [City Room]

Andrew Berman is "leading the charge" against NYU's plan to demolish Provincetown Playhouse. [Curbed]

Heidelberg

Last week, New York magazine published a neighborhood guide to Yorkville, and once that happens you know the area will soon be vanished. The guide, with map, does provide a handy tour of Yorkville's oldest survivors. It's not a neighborhood I spend much time in, so I went up there to pay a visit before it's too late. I'll be posting more soon, but I thought I'd start off with the Heidelberg restaurant.


the Georgica condo rises next to and above Heidelberg

Dating back to 1936, it's the last of Yorkville's once-plentiful German restaurants. The Times aptly described it as "swathed in history, presenting its worn and faded face without touch-ups or apologies." Heidelberg is a comfortable place to be--and the place to be is most definitely the bar.

Presided over by a smiling, bespectacled, and gray-haired barmaid named Hilde, the bar is where red-faced men drink their beer from boots made of glass. The 2-liter boots require a credit card deposit and, while a sign states they are meant to be shared, not consumed by individuals, I saw at least three people huddling around their own, personal bootfuls of beer.



Enjoying my bratwurst and beer, I sat next to a friendly guy who grew up in Yorkville. He told stories about playing stickball in the streets, collecting lost Spaldeens from rooftops, working at Ruppert's Knickerbocker brewery, and playing pinochle with old men who only spoke German. I wondered if his family were descendants of those lost on the steamboat General Slocum.

Historically, Yorkville became a German neighborhood after New York's worst human disaster prior to 9/11, the burning of the General Slocum in 1904. At that time, today's East Village was known as Kleindeutschland, and most of the close to 1,300 who perished on the Slocum were Germans. The tragedy was so great, many residents of Kleindeutschland could no longer bear to live in a neighborhood that reminded them of their loss. So, perhaps ironically, they moved to Yorkville--whose shores had been washed in the bodies of their loved ones.



But for years now, the Germans have been leaving Yorkville. At uppereast.com, they cite rising rents as the primary cause. Luckily, the owners of Heidelberg own the building, which right now is practically shaking with the racket of their new neighbor's rising: Georgica, a family-friendly, 20-story, cantilevered condo tower is having its concrete poured, a noisy, noxious business that is killing Heidelberg's outdoor dining.


"I drink your milkshake!"

A century ago, it took a major disaster to drain an entire community from its neighborhood. Now all it takes is uber-gentrification.

• More photos of Heidelberg on my flickr

More Moonlighting

Here are the links from part two of my two-day stint as guest blogger on the Curbed network. Please visit the links to read the complete stories and view photos:

• Battle for 9th Ave Still Rages

• A Final Visit to Minetta Tavern

• 13th Street History Revealed

• Making Room for Costas Kondylis's Tumor

• EV Gets Spice
  

*Everyday Chatter

Only the elderly care to save the villages from the grip of NYU. Is that true? [Observer] via [Curbed]

Check out this review of the Bob Gruen opening at the old CBGB 313 space. Life (and art) goes on... [Stupefaction]

Grub Street reports the Minetta Tavern will close May 6, but Minetta's owner told me it's more like "May 1...or so." He's not sure himself, so you make sure to get there before May if you want to say goodbye to this Village landmark before it gets Balthazared. [Eater]

Is nothing sacred? In Bay Ridge a luxury developer has had 211 century-old corpses dug up and relocated from their places of "eternal" rest to make room for his condo. Even in death, we can never escape the creeping hands of eviction. [Gothamist] A Bay Ridger is on the scene.

Moonlighting on Curbed

For the next couple of days, I'll be guest blogging on Curbed. I will add links here to my posts there as they go live. Please click through to Curbed for the full stories and photos:

• NYU Is Demolishing the Provincetown Playhouse

• Imminent Peril at the Village Inn

• Manhattan Mall Ghost Town

• A Hoyda Rising Fast on Ludlow
  

• Pink 14th Street Destructoporn

Steal This Laptop

I’ve noticed more and more that New Yorkers have become rather cavalier about their possessions. Parents leave $500 strollers unattended on sidewalks. Girls leave bicycles unlocked on the street. Now here’s a guy with total confidence that his iBook will never get swiped.



At the weird "MePa Plaza"—that popular little patch of exhaust-choked potted plants on the 9th Avenue median strip—I watched a guy walk away from his laptop. He disappeared for a couple of minutes. Where did he go? Then I spotted him yards away flirting and bumming a smoke from a girl on the other side of the plaza. He never once turned to check and make sure his laptop was still there.



So what is this about? A sign of low crime, a new freedom in the city? No. It's a sign of people who are clueless, who can afford not to care if their stuff gets stolen. I mean, hey, this was right in front of the Apple store--if your iBook gets swiped there, you can just buy another one. It's a chance to upgrade. No biggie, right?

P.S. The NYPD agrees this is a stupid idea, as they post flyers stating the obvious: "Never leave your pocketbooks, wallets, laptop computers unattended, even for a brief period."

*Everyday Chatter

Tonight is NYU's Open House on Expansion and angry New Yorkers from all over town are planning to attend--they're calling it Angry Day at NYU. So go give the monster a piece of your mind. And enjoy some free cookies. 5 - 7 pm, 100 Washington Square East. [SLES]

I just posted on Steve Stollman's place on Houston, wondering where he went and why. Looks like, thanks to a buyback, he might be coming back in 2 years--but the bike activists may not be coming with him. [Voice]

Of course, Steve would have to move back into a hideous, tumorous, monster of a building made by someone called "Sultan's DaVinci." [Curbed]

At long last, the subway barber photographer is back in action. [Subway Barbers]

The "Iron Triangle Freeze Out" is already killing the small businesses of Willets Point. [NYDN]

Join the anti-gentrification romp in Tompkins Square Park this Saturday and celebrate through your pain. [SLES]

Michael Perlman, savior of diners, is profiled in the Observer. [NYO]

And it's another boutique hotel for rapidly dying Chinatown. [NYO]

Poseidon Bakery

Ninth Avenue is fading fast, so I'm highlighting some of the businesses along that vanishing thoroughfare before they go. I recently covered the soon-to-perish block between 17th and 18th, along with Manganaro's (not vanishing) and the Cheyenne Diner (moving to Red Hook).



Still alive and kicking between 44th and 45th, don't miss the Poseidon Bakery. As far as I know, it is not vanishing. Yet.



The Poseidon has been in town since 1923 and is the last bakery in the city where they still make their own phyllo dough by hand. Opened by Demetrios Anagnostou, a baker from the island of Corfu, the Poseidon is run by family, including Lili Fable, third-generation baker and one of the founders (in 1973) of the Ninth Avenue International Food Festival, which is coming up in May.



The inside of the Poseidon, with its blue and white paint job, feels not unlike walking onto a fishing vessel. There's something very "seaside" about it. It also looks like it hasn't changed in several decades. Let's hope it keeps its New York Character in this sea of radical change.

Varvatos Reimagined

After my night outside the grand opening of Varvatos' new Bowery store, I went into the shop for the first time. Walking in, I got a confusing mix of emotions. It feels almost authentic. The vinyl, the scabby walls, the ragged clothing. I found myself feeling "not bad" about it. But then you look closer: The records are preciously pricey, the walls are preserved under Plexiglas, and the ragged clothing is beyond pricey--a moth-eaten Cheap Trick t-shirt (scavenged from a Church basement thrift shop?) goes for $250.


photo: hardcore shutterbug

While I expect many pro-Vongerichtifiers to support Varvatos' move into the CBGB space, I keep thinking about the surprising pro-Varvatos outcry from punks and other neighborhood people. That night, and in the media, they kept saying, "It's better than a Starbucks or a bank."

This sentiment echoes throughout the debate. From the Times' report, Jesse Malin of D Generation said, “I’d rather see this than a Dunkin’ Donuts or a Starbucks,” and Blondie's Clem Burke said, “It’s better than if it was a Starbucks or a bank." Bobby Steele repeats it in his account of the evening on his myspace page, "this was gonna become either a Starbucks or a Chase bank."


photo: semi-automatic gwen

Where did the notion come from that Varvatos saved the Bowery from another bank or Starbucks? From Varvatos himself. In this interview with MTV, he says, "it won't become a bank or a Starbucks or whatever." New York points out that Varvatos believed he rescued the space from becoming a bank, saying "You’re not going to put a bank in here."

So the enemy has been clearly defined: Starbanks. Easy to hate. And in black-and-white thinking, that leaves Varvatos as the hero.

The monotonous repetition of "It's better than a bank" is hypnotic and serves to distract us from reality. It's a totally false dichotomy. George Bush uses this tactic--make terrorism the enemy and Bush the hero, so if you're against Bush then you must support terrorism. In this case, if you're against Varvatos, you must be on the side of evil Starbanks.


photo: bill shatto

I don't disagree that it could have become a bank, but let's think more critically. Are these really our only choices? Why can we not imagine anything other than a bank, a chain, or a super-luxury store for our city?

What if we used more creativity? What if, instead of an insanely high-end shop that caters only to the very wealthy few, Varvatos had preserved the space as beautifully as he did, then installed his wares in one section of the space, leasing the rest at reasonable rents to local small businesspeople? He could have a real thrift store, record store, and others represented. He could make a deal with BRC and have homeless men and women working the shop, instead of the sneering kids he has there now.

This would have created a truly democratic mix of high, low, and middle range experiences, all in support of each other. The rich could still choose to buy Varvatos-labeled $250 Cheap Trick shirts while others could buy the same items for far less money. This is what New York City used to be. A mixture. A variety.


photo: Victoria Will/NY Post

Luxury shops don't save our city. Let's not be fooled by the rhetoric. We do have other alternatives. True, what Varvatos did with the space is "not all bad," but it's not all good either. It's not too late for him to do better.

More coverage of Varvatos' opening night:

• Neither More Nor Less
• Page 6 via EV Grieve
• Stupefaction
  

Cheyenne Saved

Michael Perlman sent me a press release with the good news: The Cheyenne Diner is staying close to home!

"The architecturally & culturally significant Cheyenne Diner has been purchased, and will gain a new lease on life when transported to Red Hook, Brooklyn. A contract has been signed between property owner George Papas and its new owner, Mike O'Connell of O’C Construction, son of influential Red Hook developer, Greg O’Connell."

Greg O'Connell has been called "the real Goliath in Red Hook" for being its biggest property owner, but he actually sounds like a decent guy--"a socialist developer," according to this interview, in which he worries about the loss of artists and mom-and-pops.

If he truly is this conscientious and if his son takes after him, then the Cheyenne might really be in good hands.

• Moondance Update
• Cheyenne Diner
  

*Everyday Chatter

May 3, 1:00-3:00, 9th Ave and 17th St: Chelsea activists Miguel Acevedo and Gloria Sukenick are putting together a protest to help save the mom-and-pop shops of 9th Avenue. For more info about the committee, call Miguel at 646-671-0310 or Gloria at 212-741-3562:


The Post mocks: "boohoo, it's unfair, etc., etc." that CBGB is now a high-end clothing store. [EVG]

Bob Arihood posts his excellent pics and account of the Varvatos opening night on Bowery, with insight into the fights that ensued. [NMNL]

Bobby Steele recounts his Varvatos night fight: "They were telling me what 'PUNK' is. 'It's not punk'. So, I finally had enough, and said 'This is PUNK!' and spit on them." [The Undead] via [Can't Stop The Bleeding]

A festive Record Store Day was had by all. [Stupefaction] [Flaming P]

NYU waving the white flag and surrendering Met Foods to the people of the East Village? A miracle! [Curbed]

But now NYU may be turning its claws on the Provincetown Playhouse. According to a tipster who heard it from "a reliable source," they want to tear down the 100-year-old theater. Can anyone confirm this rumor?

The NYPL has a show coming up on the use of eminent domain in the city. [Urbanite]

The Nuyorican Poets Cafe turns 35 on May 3 with a big bash. [NYDN]

Celebrate the 125th Anniversary of the Chelsea Hotel, May 9 - 11, with "Chelsea Hotel Through the Eyes of Photographers." Curated by Linda Troeller and David Elder:

photo: Linda Troeller

Marciante's New York

It was on flickr that I became acquainted with the work of Tony Marciante. I was searching for images of Ratner’s Second Avenue when I found his collection covering a fire at 2nd and 5th in 1969. Impressed with his evocative work, I asked him to join the Vanishing New York flickr group and I interviewed him for this blog.


woman with rescued parrot

Tony Marciante has been taking photographs “off and on” for the past 40 years. Born on the Lower East Side and raised in Brooklyn, in the 1960s he moved back to the neighborhood where his grandmother had immigrated in 1906 and where she stayed to the end of her life.

He lived throughout the 60s on 7th Street, in an East Village he recalls as “magical and full of life,” filled with “immigrants, Beats and Hippies. It continued to be a modern-day melting pot. Outside of St. Mark's Place, the old shops and the streets looked like they did since they were settled by my grandmother's generation.”


ladies at Schrafft's

He began taking pictures in 1964 and “fell in love with the way things looked photographed, to borrow a phrase from the great Garry Winogrand.” Walker Evans became an influence and, looking at his photographs, you can see the resemblance.

Though he lives in California now, when he visits his family in Brooklyn he always makes a point to see his old neighborhood. He told me, “It is still energizing to me, but different. The wonderful edges are gone. It's not working class any more. You really do need to have money to enjoy the City, where as back then, a basic salary would get you an apartment, money to eat out every night, and great music to listen to whenever you wanted.”


fat men's shop, 3rd and 10th

Tony is one of the many great street photographers of the city who has never published and the only photograph he ever sold was in 1971 to the Museum of Modern Art for $25. He was recently featured in the Sonoma Valley Art Museum's biennial and you can find his images on the website tonymarciante.com as well as his flickr stream. Maybe one of these days the city he memorializes so beautifully will find a place for his work.

More photographers of vanishing New York:

• Jeff Sheehan
• Robert Otter

• Join the VNY Flickr group

the gayety, now village east, 2nd and 12th

Varvatos: Birthplace of Punk

Last night I stood outside the grand opening of the John Varvatos store on Bowery, watching and listening to the battle for New York's soul rage on. When I arrived Varvatos was on the sidewalk being interviewed for a film about CBGB's by rock documentarian (and part-time Martha Stewart director) Ernie Fritz. Varvatos talked about all the good he believes he's doing for rock 'n' roll and the neighborhood.


Varvatos and Sid Vicious

Soon, the fashionistas and tired, old punks started rolling through the labyrinth of ropes guarded by big, burly bouncers and girls with clipboards dressed in "Varvatos 315 Bowery: Birthplace of Punk" t-shirts. I was not on their list and could not get inside.



I waited for Rebecca Moore and her protesters to arrive. Reverend Billy was in the group. I asked him why he came out for the protest. He told me, "I'm dismayed by the blasphemy of CBGB's being overtaken by what looks like Soho. Are we going to get Soho'd all the way to Alphabet City? Where do we draw the line? Punk was an egalitarian movement, it was about low prices, and it resulted in this very culture that these moneyed people are now enjoying."


more protester pics

Rebecca, Billy, and their posse chanted "Down with $800 pants!" Not everyone agreed. Heated exchanges ensued. Arturo Vega, Ramones artistic director and designer of their logo, got into the fray. He had just been telling documentarian Fritz, "It's natural. Everything dies and transforms. The excitement is still here. The tourists will come. In there, you're closer than ever to rock 'n' roll."

Now he got up in Rebecca's face. (I had amazing film footage of this throwdown, but mistakenly erased it in a panic when my video card filled up.) Basically, the screaming match consisted of Vega shouting that Varvatos is a great guy and this store is the best thing that could happen to the CB's space and what would have been better, a fucking bank? a fucking Starbucks?


Monte Melnick and Arturo Vega

Rebecca shouted back, "Can you understand the connection between a music venue where anybody could get in and this? This is a whitewash!" They changed their chant to "Who cares if John's a nice guy!"

They got a similar argument (Varvatos is keeping the music alive, etc.) from an unidentified former member of The Misfits who pushed at the protesters in rage and finished his diatribe by shouting, "I am on the side of New York City fucking rock 'n' roll!" before spitting on Rebecca's sign. (More coverage of the loogie hocking here.)


Former Misfit

The bouncers did not step in during either of these altercations, which at times seemed about to erupt into physical violence, but they did manage to push a few homeless panhandlers down the street and away from the fashionistas. Other homeless men shouted from the shelter above, "Why don't you shut up, we're sleeping here!"

I went around to Extra Place, roped off as the backstage area, where a "talent trailer" was parked among luxury cars. I watched Joan Jett climb out of a black Cadillac. This gave me an adolescent thrill and I stuck around on the sidewalk long enough to hear her do "Bad Reputation" from deep inside the bowels of Varvatos.


Joan Jett


Randy Jones and Pattie Boyd

Aside from Randy Jones, the cowboy member of the Village People, Jett was my most exciting celebrity sighting--and the 12-year-old in me who once roller-skated like crazy to her anthem "I Love Rock 'n' Roll" was almost, for a moment, taken in by the fairy tale being spun by Varvatos, a fairy tale that so many of the older New Yorkers on the scene wanted desperately to believe.

"The Lower East Side is dead anyway, at least the music is still here," they said, like weary citizens of a defeated town occupied by an enemy army. I can't tell you how many I heard say, "It's not so bad. It could be worse. It could have been a bank or a Starbucks."

Is this really all we have left to hope for--to be thankful for? If that's the case, then I wanna be sedated. Indeed, after four hours of the Varvatos circus, I went home, popped a benzodiazepene, and fell into dreamless sleep.


Sid and girls on cell phones

• Many more photos on my flickr
• Remains of CBGB's
• Extra Place
  

• And don't forget, as Stupefaction reminds us, tomorrow is Record Store Day. So find a real indie record store (if you can) and buy some records.

Vanishing City Bloggers

Patrick Hedlund of The Villager interviews "savvy bloggers" me and Brooks of Lost City for their Mixed Use column this week. Check out the complete article here and here's an excerpt:

The brains behind Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York and Lost City consistently update their metro-centric Web sites with original news about neighborhood openings and closings, and commentary on the city’s ongoing evolution, with an overriding sense of mourning for the New York of yore.

"Unfortunately, there’s always stuff to write about,” said Lost City blogger Brooks of Sheffield, who, as a working journalist by day, uses a pen name for his site. “These places are treasures, and once they’re gone, they’re irreplaceable.” Lost City, which recently chronicled the changes — or, as Brooks found, lack thereof — on the Lower East Side’s Ludlow St. over the past decades, often breaks news that feeds some of the city’s larger real estate media, such as Curbed.com and the big dailies.

The same goes for Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York, whose proprietor Jeremiah Moss — also using a nom de plume — offers “a bitterly nostalgic look at a city in the process of going extinct,” according to the banner atop his site.

“When you have a blog that just accumulates so much, you realize just how truly overwhelming it is,” Moss noted of his aggregated posts, which number more than 300 since the site’s launching less than a year ago.

Moss first reported the recent closing of the Cheyenne Diner, which later appeared in the pages of the New York Post and The Villager’s sister paper, Chelsea Now, as well as on a handful of other Web sites. J.V.N.Y. was also first to break the news about the likely loss of eight businesses on Ninth Ave. following a large real estate deal.... “I’d like to see a city in which everybody can have a niche and survive,” he said. “I don’t want everything to be the same, and I feel like that’s what we’re moving to."

*For more savvy NYC bloggers, please take a visit down my links list--we're all helping each other by sharing info, tips, and eye-opening posts on the state of our vanishing city.*

Get a Pretend Life

This week's New York Magazine takes a look at the high-end fakery behind selling "authenticity" in condos today.


all images from DistrictNY

To sell a property, realtors used to remove "all the individuating elements so buyers can imagine living there with their stuff," but times have changed. Buyers who need to borrow their identity from the outside world might feel alienated and anxious looking at a prospective home stripped bare of other people's selves. It only reflects the narcissist's internal sense of terrifying emptiness. So realtors stuff their model condos with lifestyle markers to say, "This is who you could be."



This trend began with the William Beaver House. Closets stuffed with someone else's wardrobe, cartoon images of sexy model-people, "lifestyle consultants"--all of it serves as a narcissistic parent figure, stuffing the buyers full of false selfhood, like their own parents did throughout their lives. Narcissists were not allowed to develop true selves--they were forced to adopt their parents' wished-for styles, tastes, and personalities. This creates a yawning, painful gap between true self and impossible ideal.

The condo-makers fill that gap--or, at least, they pretend to. It's like feeding pictures of food to a person dying of starvation. Delusional from severe hunger, they only think they're eating.

"I wonder if nowadays people just want to be in a hotel all day,” said architect Annabelle Selldorf in the article, “But if you’re young and you’re not from New York and you have a lot of money and work really hard, maybe it appeals to have a life that’s catered-to and ready-made.”



Take a look at District's marketing film. It bears a strong resemblance to American Psycho. I wrote about this before, but I do believe that Bateman embodies the narcissistic rage that lies deep within yunnies, a rage born from that agonizing gap between true and false self--it's a matricidal/patricidal rage that is barely below the surface in a culture that destroys everything that went before it, replacing it with its own glossy fake-self images.

*Everyday Chatter

Protest at Varvatos on Bowery tonight! There's nothing we can do but at least it feels like something. [Bk Vegan] via [Curbed]

Varvatos preserving the aggression, excitement, passion of CBGB's? He says his shop is "made for this neighborhood." [Observer]

Rocco, the barber of Spring Street, is cutting his hours. Ethan Hauser, I have two suggestions for you: The New Barber Shop on 9th Ave and The Clover in Park Slope. But you better go soon. [NYT]

Elettaria, the first of 8th Street's trendy-luxe new wavers, is a favorite of "rowdy bankers and...striking blondes debating the merits of launching their own reality show." [TONY] via [Curbed]

The new New York: Where even the city buses are lux-lux-luxury! But do they come with diplomat plates? [City Room]

The EV is pissed at Frank's flood of 20-somethings "on their cell phones, flinging around their elbows." [Eater]

Many more citizens bristle in the company of crowded, noisy, annoying restaurants. [NYT]

NYC gets SATC'd. Again. [Racked]

Last week, AMNY featured a story on Bloomtown: "You can sum up the Bloomberg legacy in two words: luxury city." Reed of New York Lost got creative with their cover and added a few more of Bloomberg's "gifts" to our city. Can you name them all?


In last night's debate, Clinton and Obama both favor taxing the super-rich. Bloomberg does NOT like that idea one bit, especially not for the uber-affluent of NYC. [Sun] via [Curbed]

Say it ain't so--my old butcher, Kurowycky Meats, long vacant, may become a celebrity chef's latest trendy restaurant. [Eater]

Priced out of Brooklyn, priced-out-of-Manhattan Manhattanites are now fleeing to the Bronx. [Gothamist]

...Probably a good idea, because look what they're doing in Queens: Decimating lovely old houses, erecting pieces of crap, then pissing all over that new crap. [Queens Crap]

Met Foods vs. NYU

Tipster Sally fills us in on last night's very successful CB3 meeting where NYU and the East Village community gathered to discuss the fate of Met Foods. She writes:

"NYU has met their match. The room was packed with the community--young, old, in between. A young, fashionable NYU student who shops at Met Foods came to say she was outraged at NYU, the school she'd dreamed about going to since she was a child. People, many NYU graduates over the years, spoke eloquently and intelligently about what NYU is doing to the neighborhood. NYU is a not-for-profit organization that took in the neighborhood of 1.6 billion dollars last year tax-free!



Over 2500 signatures were gathered on a petition, and 300 more on an online petition in less than 2 weeks, and NYU was told if they don't work with Michael (Met Foods manager) and his brother, we'll get 10,000 more. NYU was told by the audience that they need to be 'punished' and investigated. People called for the withdrawal of their not-for-profit-status. We asked as a community that the lease should be renewed for a long time--Michael wants his son to eventually be able to run the store--with no rent hike, that it should be a give-back to the community for all the damage they've done.



The community-relations person that was sent from NYU stated at the beginning of the meeting that Michael was not working with them, etc., etc. (the Villager article reported on what she said), and she started with this again. By the end of the meeting she was saying that a deal would be worked out with Met Foods."

Let's keep our fingers crossed that the people win this battle in the ongoing war against our neighborhood. You can sign the online petition or go to Met Foods and sign in person.

• History of the Met Foods building
• Sign the petition
• The Emir of NYU--here come the petrodollars
  

Steve Stollman's Place

Yesterday Curbed reported that a former bike shop at 49 East Houston is to become a giant, 14-story, tumorous, cantilevered, residential building. Awful to contemplate, especially considering that the bike shop was not just a bike shop.


photo: Richard Perry/New York Times

The building, built in the 19th century, was owned by Steve Stollman who used the space to sell antique bars as well as original Automat machines. It was always fun to go inside and see Steve's Automats, along with a strange collection of people, posters, and other unusual things. He originally had 85 Automat machines--Abe Lebewohl even put one in the entrance of the Second Avenue Deli.

As they say on Passover, "It would have been enough," but 49 E. Houston was about even more than those lovely Automats.



Stollman used the space to provide a refuge for bicycle activists, including Time's Up and Critical Mass. And, as a former newsstand vendor himself, he also gave "aid and comfort to news dealers who are fighting the city's plan to replace their stands with little more than tricked-up billboards," according to an extensive New York Times article, aid and comfort that was--and still is--much needed as the city continues, like the big bad wolf, to blow down those houses of sticks and replace them with condo-style glass boxes.

Said Stollman to the Voice, "There is a kind of mall pall, a horrible gray uniformity," those glass boxes bring to our streets.

Steve sold the building earlier this year. I don't know why. According to the Times article, he had promised his partner, Melissa Miller, he'd someday sell and move upstate. Maybe that's what he did.


today, #49 ready for demolition

Said Miller, "It used to be you could walk around the city and see these little stores and you wondered what they did inside...It was curious. It was whimsical. Now there is no whimsy. There is only hard-edged business. Steve's is one of the last places of whimsy that I know of. It's a dying breed, places of whimsy."

Now Steve's place, too, must be counted among the city's bitterly regrettable dead.

Rhinelander Remains

New York is filled with hidden pieces of its own vanished history. One of those pieces is tucked away behind the big yellow public school on 11th Street and 6th Avenue. There you will find, built into the back wall of the school's cafeteria, an impressive set of Gothic-revival wrought-iron railings. These are all that remain of Rhinelander Gardens.


Berenice Abbott photo


my flickr

Built in 1854 and designed by James Renwick, architect of Grace Church and St. Patrick's Cathedral, Rhinelander Gardens featured decorated balconies and front gardens. Looking at it now, you might think it was for the very wealthy, but its rental apartments harbored many artists. John Cheever lived there. So did Robert Motherwell. Theodor Dreiser wrote An American Tragedy here.



Rhinelander Gardens stood on 11th Street for a century before it was demolished. In the 1950s, the city wanted a school and the choice was between Rhinelander or Patchin Place. (Back in the day when writers and artists could survive and produce in the city.)

Poet Harvey Shapiro tells the story of the battle in Dan Wakefield's excellent book New York in the 50s, saying that the Patchin Place people (himself, e.e. cummings, Djuna Barnes) must have worked harder with their petitions and protests because Patchin Place still stands and all that's left of Rhinelander Gardens is that salvaged section adorning the school that replaced it.



It is mostly forgotten now and the railings have achieved a sort of invisibility. Only people attached to the school can enjoy them, but they might not even see them. I snuck back there to snap these pictures, accompanied by a mother who was pleasantly surprised to see something she'd never seen before. "I never noticed that," she said. "God, they're beautiful."

Moulded Shoes

The Moulded Shoe shop has been on 39th Street since 1942 and it looks like they haven't changed their fantastic signage since--they still spell "moulded" with a U. Run by Maurice Mousserie, who was a New Yorker of the month a few years back, Moulded not only sells shoes (including Aldens, from one of the oldest and last remaining American shoe manufacturers in the country), they also make custom shoes and orthotic inserts.

And they will balance your feet. I'm not sure what that means, but it sounds great.



Tucked away on this lightly trafficked block, the shop's walls are stacked with yellowed shoeboxes straight up to the ceiling. It's like walking into an archival library of shoes. In the back, they've got a 120-year-old, very rare bunion-pressing machine. I couldn't help but think of Ben Katchor when I stood amid the crowd of odd, specialized, and little-known shoes, stamped with words that felt both old and invented: conformal, cantilever.



Let's hope the speculators don't ever find this place. Mr. Mousserie expects to stay in business for another 30 years. He told Ask a New Yorker, "New York needs to keep this kind of small business. We can't just give everything to malls and big shopping centers and all that nonsense. People need a personal touch, which we really give them. We give them real personal attention, to their feet. It's their feet that are important!"

I Dream of Fontana

Last night I dreamed A. Fontana Shoe Repair reopened. Angelo was there. Overjoyed, he showed me his new lease--12 more years with no rent increase! Although it had been gutted, most of the interior had somehow been saved and replaced. Only now, instead of a shoe repair shop, it was a barber shop with a single red chair. The walls were pistachio faux-wood paneling, the ceiling strung with Christmas lights.



Angelo felt like celebrating. He poured us each a tall shot glass filled with spicy orange-flavored liquer. I drank mine fast, he sipped his, and I felt embarrassed for drinking mine the wrong way. I told Angelo that I would write about the reopening on my blog and "let everybody know to come back." He smiled but didn't seem to understand what I was saying.

He had a new television and a VCR, and he put in a Marcello Mastroianni movie. The mood shifted. Angelo became quiet and retreated into the back of the shop, through a door, into a decrepit room that looked like a defunct tavern from another age.



I took out my camera to take pictures of the shop for my blog, but the batteries were low and I couldn't get the flash to work. I became anxious, worrying that I would not be the first blogger to announce "Fontana Reopens!"

People started coming in to get their hair cut. Angelo forgot about me. I went outside. The shop windows were foggy and I couldn't see in. I soon realized that Fontana's had not reopened after all. I went into a Chinese hand laundry next door and through their back door connected to the defunct tavern, through that, and into Fontana's. It was gutted and empty.

I looked out the window and saw that that buildings on the corner had been demolished. I thought, "I'm next."



Post Script: While I dream of evicted New Yorkers, other people are dreaming about the presidential candidates. Check out these blogs for those dreams:

• I Dream of Barack
• I Dream of Hillary

*Everyday Chatter

8th Street comic shop suddenly shutters...as the street continues its death rattle. [Flaming P]

Protest at Varvatos shop: "One small loss of a music space, one large step for pants." [Gothamist]

Take a look back at the 1884 gala opening of the Stuyvesant Polyclinic, devoted then to the "relief of the sick and suffering," now a future rockstar mansion in the East Village. [Times Archive]

As the market goes down, the ultra-rich are stacking condos to create their own supersized urban McMansions and combination "mega-pads." [Post]

Go to Streit's Matzo Factory on 4/13 to tell your Streit's story and be in their documentary (click photo to enlarge for details):


Sharon Florin, who paints New York in all its vanishing glory, will be having a show at the Ansonia Pharmacy Windows--that funny little gallery space on 10th Street and 6th Avenue that often has great stuff. So go check her out.

Will there be t-shirts for NYC's vanishing? If you like these, check out Sally Young's stuff. [Curbed]

Mourn the vanishing of a New York society that cared for more than just money. [AMNY]

Take another visit to that sad little block of 9th Ave between 17th and 18th that I covered here and here. [AMNY]

And read a little more on the New Barbershop through the eyes of Romy Ashby and her dog Pilar. [Goodie]

...Speaking of which, yesterday the city planted a tree on the corner of 9th and 18th and I thought, "Here we go--where there are new trees, there will be new gentrification." Then I thought, "But trees are good, so don't worry about it." Then I saw this: The tree was planted by Bloomberg and Tyra Banks. Actually, a bunch of workmen did the planting, but Bloomie and Tyra posed for the photo op. (And who could forget Tyra in homeless chic?) This block is so freaking doomed. [Urbanite]

Starbucks' Vagina Dentata

This week, Starbucks unveiled its new Pike Place roast and held a love fest in Bryant Park to celebrate the massive chain store's attempt to get back to its roots, celebrate their "history and heritage," and capitalize on nostalgia.

To boost sales, they've brought back their original mermaid logo, a move that the Wall Street Journal says should disrupt people and get them talking. I don't know how disrupted I feel, but I do want to talk about this new old logo, which has an interesting history and a fascinating subliminal meaning.



One of my favorite online essays is "The Mermaid," by writer Heinz Insu Fenkl, which tells the story of the Starbucks logo. In it, Fenkl gives a brief history of the image, which began as you see it today on the Pike Place cups: A topless mermaid spreads her fins to the viewer. These double-tailed mermaids, also known as Baubos, are sirens related to Sheela-Na-Gig, the ancient Celtic figure who terrifies and seduces men by spreading her legs to show her powerful vagina.


Sheela-Na-Gig

Disruptive indeed. So much so that, Fenkl writes, "Starbucks had to change their corporate logo because some consumers found the suggestive split tail of their topless siren too lurid and sexually suggestive. A simplified logo was introduced, hiding the siren's breasts under waves of hair, and that in turn was cropped and enlarged so the split in the siren's tail would no longer show."

Today, the split tail has returned--though it's still a cleaned-up version of the original 15th-century image.


The logo midway to today

Fenkl doesn't mention the vagina dentata, but that image is very tied up in mermaids, sirens, and Sheela-Na-Gig. According to Erich Neumann, "a meat-eating fish inhabits the vagina of the Terrible Mother." One could argue that the Starbucks siren is two-tailed Echidna--"Mother of all Monsters," the half-woman/half-serpent of Greek mythology who spawned an army of destructive beasts (not unlike a spawn of chainstores?)--she is an original "terrible mother."



So why is Starbucks bringing its vagina dentata out of hiding and into plain sight right now? Maybe they were inspired by the hilarious and brilliant film Teeth. Maybe they hope consumers are more comfortable with exhibitionism than they used to be. Maybe they're thinking sex sells.

But more likely, they're frightened and in need of protection.

Images of women exposing their genitals were used by primitive peoples to drive away evil spirits, calm rough seas, and scare away enemies with the threat of castration. In the face of a recession, Starbucks is banking on the power of the vagina dentata to work its ancient magic and keep the wolf from their door.


Chast, from The New Yorker

*Everyday Chatter

Here's that repugnant "Buy This Mansion" sign on the Stuyvesant Polyclinic building, which has been on sale for quite awhile now. Plans for its redevelopment included an NYU dorm and a condo--it stood in as a TV police precinct for a time--but now I guess they're going the single-family-of-multimillionaires route. Note the small type: "Beautiful neighbors included." Ick.

...Also, the developer had been Hirsch, but the poster says Moss (not me--any relation to the Cooper Sq Hotel Moss?)--a "hotshot broker" who quotes Deepak Chopra on his company website--where the Stuyvesant Polyclinic is listed at $13 million with "a grand staircase even Lenny Kravitz would envy" and "do I hear indoor/outdoor saltwater swimming pool exiting to your gigantic organic garden?" So here's the new developer's hope for this longtime community-service center: "someone with rock star attitude will transform this coolest of village landmarks into the most extraordinary eco-mansion New York has ever seen." Does that mean we'll all be invited for a healing saltwater soak?


And here's a painterly ode to this future rockstar mansion. [SJFNY]

Sign the petition to save Met Foods in the East Village.

More evidence shows the new New Yorkers are anti-urban--they just want to live in the suburbs. So why don't they? [Curbed]

East Villagers roast Bruce Willis on a spit for opening a right-wing yuppie bar on the Bowery. [EVGrieve]

I love the photographs of Rudy Burckhardt--and so do the Bowery Boys.

Tonight, go hear stories from New York's garment industry veterans--at the Gotham Center--before they're vanished forever.

Boro Hotel

The Boro Hotel, long condemned at 125th and 5th, appears to be coming down. I passed by yesterday and found it shrouded in demolition netting, its cornice wrecked. I was unable to get a picture, so these images from my visit to 125th last fall will have to do. (If you've got a shot, please add it to the VNY Flickr pool with any info you might have about this building...and here's a pic of the shrouded hotel.)


pics: my flickr



I'm not sure what's coming to this corner--covered above by a car advertisement showing the city's prickly, sleek vision for this neighborhood--but a possible suspect is this luxury hotel:



I love the Boro Hotel's yellow sign with its 1970s(?)-style typeface, but sadly can't find any information about the place.

However, on the first floor, on the 5th Ave side, there was a well-known, locally owned restaurant called La Famille, opened in 1958 by two sisters, Willette Craine Murray and Viola James, with their husbands, Oswald and Ben. According to Ms. Murray's obituary, she was one of the first African-American women to work on 125th Street, a position she fought for by marching in picket lines. She washed dishes in a dime-store and later helped to build La Famille into a Harlem favorite.



La Famille is gone and all traces of it will soon vanish, too, under the crush of Harlem's rezoning. This weekend, you can join The Coalition to Save Harlem in a human chain that will stretch the length of 125th Street, from river to river, and back through generations, back to Ms. Murray and all the people who fought for the right to make a dime, to build and nurture businesses of their own--businesses that are now being taken away by the new shapers of the city, people like "blue-blooded Upper East Side A-lister" Amanda Burden who was blasted last month by Harlem historian and author Michael Henry Adams. His angry words to her are well worth repeating:

"You're a rich, rich, rich horrible person. You're destroying our communities. You're a rich, rich socialite. You're a rich, rich socialite. How dare you! You're destroying Harlem. You're getting rid of all the black people."

*Everyday Chatter

Forgotten NY takes a trip to the gone-but-not-forgotten Cheyenne Diner. [ForgottenNY]

Working to save the Cheyenne, Kyle Supley visits with video. [YouTube]

Another last look at the Cheyenne, which closed on Sunday. [Gothamist]

A piece of the past revealed! The Sucelt sign comes down and unveils a long-forgotten dumpling house from three decades ago:


More great pics of the Ratner/Brooklyn Museum protest from a VNY reader. [Kingston L]

The CBGB site reopened this weekend as a John Varvatos shop--complete with history under glass. [Racked]

The death of Meatpacking continues as the Hog Pit announces its closing--probably to be replaced by a Ralph Lauren store. [Eater] The Pit has only been there since 1995, but in this neighborhood, that's old-school. So how much will the new rent be? A year ago the owner said $40,000 a month.

A look at Page 6's coverage of the new kids on the Bowery and what would Hilly think. [EV Grieve]

"From laptops to lapdances, this high class piece of ass is gonna show you her lower east side!" Meet Sarah Jessica Porkher. [Gothamist]

Saving Cheyenne

At age 25, Michael Perlman has become a veteran preservationist in New York City. Who said "Don't trust anyone under 30?" I did. Well, I take it back--Michael gives me hope for the future. After succeeding in rescuing the Moondance Diner from destruction, he is now turning his powers of preservation to the threatened Cheyenne. I interviewed Michael over email and asked him about his work with the Moondance and his hopes for the Cheyenne.


Michael at the Moondance
photo credit: Mike Dabin

With the Moondance, he said, “I was aware that freestanding diners were pre-assembled and manufactured to move, so I figured ‘why not pick it up & move it?’” He then convinced Extell Development to donate the Moondance to the American Diner Museum in exchange for a tax write-off, and the rest is history—the Moondance is now beloved in Wyoming and should be opening its doors in June.

Could the same happen for the Cheyenne? It can if George Papas (owner of the Skylight Diner and landlord of the Cheyenne property) donates the moveable structure to the American Diner Museum instead of demolishing it. So far, Papas is open to that possibility. As he told Urbanite, "I would really love for somebody to take that away and put it somewhere." Michael happily confirmed that Papas supports the move, provided the diner is structurally sound.

Ironically, Papas is reopening the defunct Market Diner nearby and the Cheyenne used to be one in a chain of Market Diners, as seen here:


photo: John Baeder

The Cheyenne is a nostalgic gem and well worth saving, Michael says, as “the last streamlined railway car-inspired diner in Mid-Manhattan. It was pre-assembled by Paramount in 1940 and retains a majority of its original/distinctive elements. The facade features vertical and horizontal stainless steel securing bowed colorful enamel panels, wrap-around windows, a curved entryway with glass block, and a reverse channel illuminated neon sign. It was recently granted first prize on NYC-Architecture.com’s Top 10 New York Diners/Restaurants.”


photo: Michael's flickr: Still a favorite spot for cabs

Michael hopes that the diner will not go as far as the Moondance did (hopefully not all the way to the real Cheyenne), but might find a place somewhere in the outer boroughs of the city where New Yorkers can continue to enjoy it.


photo: my flickr

Every New Yorker can be a preservationist. Michael recommends that we all survey our neighborhoods “for places that hold the greatest sentimental value, initiate character, and preserve our city's diverse architecture and culture." Filling out the LPC's Request for Evaluation form is quick and easy. It’s up to us to “advocate for landmarking before more cherished sites fall victim to the wrecking ball and the unidealistic real estate craze. Once a site is endangered, it is often too late.”

But don’t be discouraged, Michael writes, “A landmark is (ideally) in the eyes of the majority. I encourage the public to share their landmarking/preservation concerns with me, and especially let me know if a diner or another meaningful type of establishment is at risk, or on their preservation wishlist. My e-mail is always open: unlockthevault@hotmail.com.”

In addition, Michael asks, "Does anyone know of someone who is hoping to purchase a classic diner if the current tenant, Spiros Kasimis, can't afford the rigging and lot acquisition costs?" Drop him a line today if you're in the market to adopt this imperiled souvenir of the real New York.

• Cheyenne: Vanishing
• Market Diner & Cheyenne
• Rolando bemoans the Cheyenne
• Bid to save Cheyenne
  

*Random Shots

Last night, inexplicably, Bruce Ratner was celebrated by the Brooklyn Museum. People protested. One of my tipsters got some great pics of creative signage: The Prince of Darkness says, "Fort Greene, I will turn your light into shadow. Prospect Heights, I will devour your homes. Park Slope, I will turn your streets into a parking lot." Here comes the vampire:


Another tipster sends in this gem of a DUMBO developer's ad corrected to read, "We bought the neighborhood..."


Yesterday a film crew was out at 2nd and 10th, shooting a Capital One commercial at the newly converted branch--what does it mean that they chose the East Village "hipster" branch (with the faux-graffiti and modernist interior) as their posterbank? ... I don't know, but East Village banks are good for some things--here the Commerce on 3rd and 10th lends its comfy, carpeted foyer to a weary homeless person:


Remember the condo flocked by kids at 18th and 8th? This spring the NYPD's already got a cop on guard to make sure no one disturbs the precious Valley National:


Don't look--a depressing peek into what's become of Fontana's once-beautiful interior. Stacks of plywood and 2x4's say somebody's renovations have already begun. So who's moving in so fast?


And the demolitions keep coming--they've gutted the former McKenna's/Tequila's on 14th and it's ready to come tumbling down for...condos?

*Everyday Chatter

You say aristocratization, I say Vongerichtification...it's an Onion joke, but not so far-flung from reality as the city moves closer to total oligarchy. [Observer]

This sounds like an Onion joke: Brooklyn Museum to give Bruce Ratner its highest honor while Marc Jacobs puts on a "Louis Vuitton performance...to bring attention to the serious issue of counterfeiting” handbags! That's right--let's make sure luxury goods are well protected. Go to the protest tonight. [Gothamist]

Sarah Jessica Parker warns: The Sex-and-the-Citification of the outer boroughs is coming. So watch out. (My words, not hers.) [Gothamist]

...But the girls in pink keep pouring into "not what it used to be" Manhattan--to the tune of $24,000 per 4-day trip. [Jezebel]

Woody Allen sues American Apparel--it's a psychoanalytic grudge match as the classic New York culture of neurosis fights back against the new New York culture of narcissism. Or, if you prefer, urban ethnicity vs. suburban assimilationism. Either way, I say, Go Woody! [Racked]

Old Homestead adds $81 burger to their menu--I guess that's because of rising oil prices on shipping now that they can no longer get their meat from directly across the street as in the Olden days. [Gothamist]

Cross your fingers, there's a chance the moms and pops of Harlem can fight back against the rezone--and that would be good news for all of us. [Times]

Ooh, good new word: Meta-Gentrification. Thanks NY Mag!

Check out this Hotel Chelsea event tonight. [LWL]

Another Barnes & Noble shutters because the behemoth can't pay the rent: "Is it possible? Have things taken such a turn in Manhattan that we are growing nostalgic for Barnes & Noble; the big bully that was once so easy to blame for the demise of the neighborhood bookshop?" [City Room]

Baby Dee is back--I'll never forget the sight of her, riding down my street on a giant tricycle and playing the accordion. [Chelsea Now]

"Manhattan is increasingly a borough of babies, and more and more of them are white and well-off...the median household income for this group of children was $280,000." [WPost]

Ratner's of 2nd Ave

I briefly reported recently that NYU may push the Met Foods grocery store out of its spot on 2nd Avenue between 6th and 7th Streets. A CB3 meeting will be held on April 15 to give the community a chance to speak out against this act of aggression. (Read The Villager for the full scoop and sign the petition here.)

In my post, I mentioned that Ratner's used to occupy the spot. A commenter wondered if there was, indeed, a Ratner's at 111 2nd Ave and if it was connected to the 97-year-old restaurant on Delancey. I began wondering about it myself and decided to do a little research--discovering a New York family mystery in the process.



Ratner's 2nd Ave was next to the Fillmore East (now a bank) and as such became a nighttime hangout for rock-n-roll legends like Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, and The Grateful Dead. The "R" is still embedded in Met Foods' floor.

It's hard to find images of this long-lost Ratner's, but if you search for the better-memorialized "Fillmore East" you will see its neon sign shining next door. In this photo, you can see Ratner's awning--and that's Block Drugs on the far left.


photo link

My search led me to street photographer Tony Marciante's amazing flickr page featuring many photos of New York in the 1960s and 70s, including a set from 1969 of a fire across the street from Ratner's. The fire is in a place called Hoagie's and So Forth, which is now the defunct Bamboo House (also check out the pet shop, Fish and Cheep's!).


photo link

The Met Foods/Ratner's site is located in the Saul Birns Building, seen in the photo below as the big, white building with many windows, bookended by Fillmore East and little Moishe's Bakery. Saul Birns, also known as Saul Birnzweig, ran the Atlantic Talking Machine Company where he sold record players, many in the shape of baby grand pianos.

He was indicted in 1915 as a "phonograph swindler" for running a fraudulent mail order scheme that, according to the Times, "promised foreigners an opportunity of hearing their native songs produced on a talking machine, which would be sent them on free trial." But after Mr. Birns got his deposit money, he would pull a switcheroo, sending a cheap phonograph to the foreigners instead of the quality machine he'd promised. The Saul Birns Building is now part of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and, as we have seen, NYU can also be a master of the swindle and the switcheroo.


photo link and click for close up

But back to Ratner's of 2nd Ave and the question of why it's been mostly forgotten and was it connected to the Delancey place.

It was owned by Abraham Harmatz, who died on May 29, 1974, the very day after his landmark dairy restaurant closed. In the Times article it says that "Ratner's had been a Second Avenue fixture for more than 50 years, a gastronomic diadem in the crown of what years ago was called the Jewish Rialto." It also states that "it is not connected" with the one on Delancey, "although they share common ancestors and have been run by different branches of the same family."

The first Ratner's opened on Pitt Street in 1908 under brothers Jacob and Harry Harmatz and brother-in-law Alex Ratner. Ratner left the shop and "The brothers went their separate ways as the business expanded" -- Jacob opened the Delancey Ratner's in 1918 (yes, this year would have been its 100th birthday, had it survived hipsterification) and Harry went to 2nd Ave around the same time. Harry begat Abraham, cousin to Jacob's son Harold who continued to run the Delancey location and who considered reopening the 2nd Ave site after Abraham's death, but this did not come to fruition.


Ratner's Delancey, similar neon typeface

In the extensive 2004 obit for Harold Harmatz, there is no mention of uncle Harry, after whom Harold was clearly named. It says only that father Jacob opened the Delancey place with brother-in-law Alex Ratner. Even in a correction at the end, the Times says they omitted other co-owners, some Zankel brothers, but again where's uncle Harry? This Wikipedia article also omits him.

So there is a mystery within this mystery. What does it mean that Jacob and Harry went their separate ways? Why has Harry and Abraham's 2nd Ave Ratner's been, in some weird way, stricken from history? I have to wonder, did they have a rift much like the Manganaros? If it was a family feud, the Delancey branch definitely won the claim to Ratner's fame.

Other than photographs, the only concrete evidence we have of Harry and Abraham's 2nd Ave restaurant is that R embedded in the floor of Met Foods. If NYU gets their way, even this will be erased.

Manganaro's Grosseria

With so many vanishings in the city, it's comforting to know that some things never change. One of those changeless places is Manganaro's Grosseria on 9th Ave near 37th St. Opened in 1893 as Petrucci's, it became Manganaro's in the 1920s, and stepping into the shop today is like walking into your grandfather's New York.



The shop is dimly lit and sparsely stocked. Pepperoni and salami hang from above, beneath a ceiling of pressed tin and before a backdrop of empty green shelves. Keep walking, under the skylight, past the big Toledo scale, and you'll come to a small cafe furnished with chrome tables under cloths with chairs that must hail from the Nixon administration.



The walls of the trattoria are paneled, the lights are florescent, and the back-room ambiance makes you feel like you've stumbled in on a secret meeting-place. A flight of red-railed stairs goes up to a second-floor dining room, which is closed and dark, and strangely beckoning.



Proprietor and cook, Seline Dell'Orto (James Manganaro's grand-niece), leaves her kaffe klatsch to step behind the counter and say, "Come over here and tell me what you want." It's like being fed by your Italian aunt--warm, welcoming, and a little brusque. She heaps a plate with macaroni and when you say, "That's plenty," she ignores your request, heaping on another spoonful or two, for which you will be grateful. The food is good.

I asked her about the sign chalked out front: "M. Foods is not connected to Hero Boy; but that's old news!" She spoke bitterly of the rift between Manganaro's and the Hero Boy cafe next door as if the wound were fresh, the rift recently torn, as if Hero Boy were an upstart in the neighborhood. But it turns out that Hero Boy opened half a century ago and this feud has been going on for decades. That's authentically Italian, too--it's not an Italian family unless somebody's not speaking to somebody.

I asked how the grosseria was doing, with all the changes in the neighborhood, and she said they're not going anywhere, despite the disturbing influx of foreign investors and rising Con-Ed prices. "This summer," she said, "we're doing it European style." What does that mean? "No lights!"



I had just missed meeting her father, but Sal still works in the shop. On Manganaro's website it says, "Watch Sal at his espresso machine and imagine what he thinks of the Johny come latelies who think they understand coffee." This quote sums up the Manganaro's experience and reminds me of the conversation I had with Annie of DeRobertis' Pasticceria, who said, “People come in and tell me I don’t know how to make cappuccino. They tell me, 'Starbucks makes it this way.' I tell them, 'I’m here before Starbucks.'"

Manganaro's was here before Starbucks, too. So go in and tell them what you want--but don't tell them how to make it or serve it. Just eat it.

• See more pics of Manganaro's on my flickr

*Everyday Chatter: April Fool's

The Empire State Building is being gutted, revitalized, rebuilt, and converted into luxury condos...

...April Fool's! But, you have to admit, it could happen.

Bellevue Hospital's super-spooky, totally haunted psychiatric hospital is being converted into a luxury hotel...

photo credit
No fooling. [Observer]

Yesterday, I broke the news that the Cheyenne is closing. But now Jerry Lewis, whose autographed picture hangs on the wall of the diner with the "greatest egg cremies in the world," has pledged to save the Cheyenne from destruction...

April Fool's. Nothing can save the Cheyenne. Unless Michael Perlman comes to the rescue, according to Urbanite. Until then, its last day will be Sunday. Today, the Daily News pounced on the story and filled in the details: The diner was pushed out by another diner, the Skylight, and the same people who are reopening the Market Diner! Last night I went by for my last meal--see pics here.

When Congestion Pricing fails to dissuade the poor from entering Manhattan, Bloomberg will go to Plan B: He's personally hiring the National Guard to build a wall around Manhattan to keep out the riff-raff... April Fool's! But how long before the city becomes a gated community for the super-rich?

Madonna is bored out of her mind when she visits the new, super-gentrified, soul-sucked New York... No fooling. She says, "It's not the exciting place it used to be...it doesn't feel alive." [Gothamist]

Trump Soho, plagued by disaster, ghostly curses, and voodoo jinxes, will be abandoned by the Donald and converted to low- to middle-income artist housing... April Fool's. But you must read this article that chronicles the shitstorm that is Trump Soho. [NY Mag]

NYU is trying to kick Met Foods out of the East Village, where it is one of the only places for senior citizens and people on a budget to afford grocery shopping...

...No fucking fooling. Met's been there for decades, in the old Ratner's space, but NYU is hungry for more than just clam shell salads and green beans.

Let your voice be heard about this potential shutdown of Met Foods at the CB3 meeting Tuesday, April 15, 6:30 p.m., at Project Renewal, Kenton Hall, 333 Bowery (bet 2nd and 3rd). At last week's meeting with NYU, writes neighborhood advocate David Mulkins, "Some 75 or more residents filled to overflowing the space we were meeting in, and NYU heard loud and clear that 'this is just the beginning': we will not let the university make further destructive moves into our neighborhood's quality of life." ... They will also be discussing retail plans for Avalon Bay, so don't miss it.

Remains of CBGB's

Just checking in on what remains and what is vanishing still of CBGB's, I found the new John Varvatos store making headway, having installed what look like arched French windows in the old club's not-so-French-windowed space:


CBGB's back alley, Extra Place, is parked end-to-end with German engineering as it prepares to undergo its luxury transformation. The Ramones used to hang out back here--but this weekend, Marky Ramone was watching American Idol on HDTV instead:


The 313 Gallery is now the Morrison Hotel Gallery, a museum of rock-and-roll photography:


And, speaking of museums, the retail store on St. Mark's is shutting down on June 30. The sign says they are "sad to physically leave another legendary location." I'm not sure what they mean by "legendary"--the store just moved here about 5 minutes ago--unless they're referring to the fact that the totally renovated shopping mall in which they reside was once The Dom, The Electric Circus, and most recently, the All-Craft rehab center. Still, it's a mall store inside a shopping mall--let's not pretend otherwise.

There you will find one of the last remaining pieces of the club, a hunk of graffitied plywood scrawled with the word "bitch" that can be yours for $495:


If that price is too steep, you can bring home another artifact for just 5 bucks--a leftover, limited edition T-shirt from the defeated Save CBGB campaign of yore. I bought one myself, unable to resist the irony.


Gee, it's too bad CBGB's lawyers stopped Daniel Boulud from infringing on their trademark to sell his $29-dollar burgers on Bowery, or else we could still have the CBGB typeface in the neighborhood. How thin our gruel has become.