Young professional men who can't get laid are looking to hire "wing-women" to help them. [HG]
The experiment to luxurify W. 8th St. may be coming to a crashing halt. [Eater]
More public nudity hijinks--gone awry. [Gothamist]
Meet the Man in the Van in a short film by Sean P. Dunne. [EVG]
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a.k.a. The Book of Lamentations:
a bitterly nostalgic look at a city in the process of going extinct
- Jeremiah Moss
- THE BOOK:
"We should all buy Jeremiah Moss’s book, Vanishing New York." --Sarah Jessica Parker
“Essential reading for fans of Jane Jacobs, Joseph Mitchell, Patti Smith, Luc Sante, and cheap pierogi.” --Vanity Fair
"a vigorous, righteously indignant book that would do Jane Jacobs proud." --Kirkus Reviews
THE BLOG:
"the go-to hub for those who lament New York's loss of character." --Crain's
"No one takes stock of New York's changes with the same mixture of snark, sorrow, poeticism, and lyric wit as Jeremiah Moss." --Village Voice, Best of NY
“Jeremiah Moss…is the defender of all the undistinguished hunks of masonry that lend the streets their rhythm.” --Justin Davidson, New York Magazine
"One of the most thorough and pugnacious chroniclers of New York’s blandification." --The Atlantic, Citylab
"Hyperbolic and combative, tireless and passionate." --Salon
Of course Kenny Castaways is shut. The city is trying to get rid of the atmosphere of the West Village and trying to make it all luxury garbage.
ReplyDeleteThey want everything like Minetta Tavern. All fancy with a doorman and selective door policies.
I think the West village is all that's left of an area in Manhattan where "normal" people can go out at night, day laborers, construction workers, nypd, fdny, etc.
You don't see them at all in the east village. It's to much luxury over there.
continuous waves of gentrification over the last 15 years has created a deeply boring Downtown. every neighborhood below 23rd street has been ruined to varying degrees. that is what happens when high rents displaces all but the affluent. how can neighborhood character flourish when the people who largely create this character are no longer there? what you are left with are pockets of beautiful old buildings and very little else. an empty husk.
ReplyDeletewhere is the outrage over what Marc Jacobs has done to bleecker street? he is opening his..is it 7th or 8th...store in the biography book location. does he not realize the consequences of what he is doing? why is this, and other examples of total irresponsibilty completely overlooked in the media?
why do blogs like Curbed and it's sister Racked report on these types of things as if it is totally normal to have 8 offshoots of a chain on one stretch of one street?
why do blogs like Lost City contribute to Curbed?
the pursuit of "old new york" is a fruitless task, at least as far as downtown goes. i say look uptown..the UES and UWS still feel like New York. it's not trendy or self conscious up there. sure there are chains, but for the most part it feels like a city at least, and not one shoppers paradise after another like downtown is at this point.
the only positive change in my opinion is the emergence of the art galleries on the LES. some of them are obnoxious of course, but overall its a welcome change over "five points/taxidermy chic" bars and boutiques.
a bit of a ramble this...
nothing survives on 8th except the foam and futon place and Eva's. I bet there are Indian bones beneath the street that have cursed the entire strip... the Upper East Side feels like New York? Feels more like a graveyard to me
ReplyDeleteI agree. Nobody cares about saving the city from big chain stores.
ReplyDeleteIf the city could, they would easily create laws to stop it. Like for instance, what if they limited the major franchises on one block, so that a certain number of rent regulated places could have a section of that block?
I guess because the landlords wanna sell it and make big $$$ And if they passed laws to slow chain growth, landlords would sue the city.
This is what I think, New York was a tough city from the beginning. It was real tough. People came here from different countries to try and make it big time.
Crime was everywhere. Things were dangerous. Who would wanna be around it?
Then it got real safe. Low crime, so this means people from the suburbs could come. The type of people who are bored in their hometown.
So instead of being a place for people struggling to make it, it's a place for bored rich people, who wanna lot of convenience to bars, clubs, food, etc.
The thing we have to understand is that NY is a big company. It's run by a businessman, not a Mayor.
What does a businessman wanna do? Make crazy money.
So crazy money means getting places with big time money and that would be chain stores.
He runs the city solely on a money making basis, not on a basis of tradition. Preservation don't mean a damn thing in the business land
for developers.
So we got a developer and a billionare money making deal maker for a mayor. Guiliani was basically
out to clean the filth up, he did, but he layed the foundation for bloomberg to take over business man style and kill anything original in New York.
I mean, Theres still a lot of places in NYC that are still real, but Manhattan especially has really went downhill as far as being unique and cool. It's freakin boring now. It's all these boring suburb people. They are all late 20's mid 30's, theres no families in the city anymore. It's all these single young working people.
You used to see families and kids playing stick ball down the block. You see it in Harlem, sometimes. Video games seem more popular than going outside nowadays. But at least Harlem and the Bronx you got real people.
Now I'm hoping these yuppies don't wanna move there, but they seem to wanna 'explore" and takeover everything. Like conquer things. Colonize them.
I mean, yeah, yeah, the lower east side this and that, but it sure as hell ain't the same as it used to be. I went once on a weekend night and it was like a big college thing. Thousands of college people everywhere looking for places to get drunk in.
Back in the day, the 80's, never existed on a weekend night. Even the 90's! I am serious, in the 90's all you really had was Mars Bar as far as nightlife goes around there, and some other dumps with the punk rockers.
It was actually pretty rough. But back then I wasn't thinking "this is so unique and cool" i was like, yeah, this is a crazy punk rock place with artist and homeless people. I had a little fear knowing I might get mugged or shot.
I'm not saying that's good. I'm not. But, back in the 40's and 50's you had rough stuff going down.
Not anymore.
Now it's like these lonely bored people occupy the whole downtown manhattan.
I mean, yeah, yeah, the lower east side this and that, but it sure as hell ain't the same as it used to be. I went once on a weekend night and it was like a big college thing. Thousands of college people everywhere looking for places to get drunk in.
ReplyDeleteWhy cant they get drunk back in the towns and cities that they are from?
Why do they all have to get drunk in Manhattan?
GO LOVE YOUR OWN CITY YOU ASSHOLES!!!!!!!!
A friend was visiting and we were walking down 8th Street and he said to me that there was a lot of witchcraft in the air on 8th Street..
ReplyDelete"Now it's like these lonely bored people occupy the whole downtown manhattan." and the bastards are everywhere...
ReplyDeleteI disagree with Ken about the UES. Both Madison and Lexington have a huge stronghold of indie businesses and mom and pop's. And furthermore I'll take old jewish NYers over the transient, trendy downtown crowd anyday. Its a matter of perspective really. The uptown neighborhoods (and i'd throw in Midtown also) just have certain qualities - the anonymous crowd, the diners, museums,central park,etc that have a sense of permanence and the epic about them whereas downtown often feels like a collection of college towns nowadays.
ReplyDeletelarvik makes some very good points.
ReplyDeleteYeah, the UES is actually one of the last neighborhoods that still somewhat resembles its former self. It was always an enclave of the stuffy, stodgy, monied elite and that was fine. The rich had their neighborhoods and working people had theirs, and they coexisted peacefully on the same island for decades. The Old Money people don't bother me in the least; I'll take them any day over the transplanted, gentrifying, nouveau-riche yuppie excrement that has since infested every corner of Manhattan with their repulsive, cancerous presence. Those old ladies strolling about on York Ave. in their fur coats and fancy jewelry never priced anybody out of their home or business. Everybody thinks we hate the rich and that couldn't be further from the truth. This is America - make as much money as your heart desires. Just don't let your quest for fortune become an imposition and a hardship upon others' lives.
ReplyDeleteOh boo hoo. We're losing the old tatty stores and bodegas that made Manhattan unique and the yuppy scum will only shop at Whole Foods and so my lovely (filthy, over-priced, rude) Gristedes and Fairway are getting pushed out! Wah, I want the "good old days" back, when the lawn in Central Park looked like Oklahoma during the Depression and you took your life in your hands to ride the subway. Get real, NYC is FINALLY catching up to the rest of the world in terms of amenities, convenience, choice, and safety. If I can thank the yuppies or Bloomberg (actually it was Giuliani) -- hats off to them! Don't like it? Move to Queens or better yet, Gary, Indiana, which has that certain stuck in time downtrodden "realness" you so desire.
ReplyDeleteI am often very sad when an old Village bar shuts it doors...however I will shed zero tears over Kenny's Castaway's...quite possibly the worst bar I have ever been to.
ReplyDelete