Only a block long, it nonetheless manages to sustain not one, but two record shops--Record Runner and Strider Records--both since 1979 and not vanishing yet.
Caffe Vivaldi is here, a nicely rundown-looking, old-school restaurant serving mostly Italian food and jazz, dating back to the 1980s and boasting patrons like Woody Allen, Al Pacino, and Joseph Brodsky.
And finally there's the Florence Prime Meat Market, a beautiful old butcher shop with sawdust on the floor and a cat licking its paws beneath the cutting table. What could be more perfect that that?
Plus, as blogger Teri Tynes pointed out, the street also features on the cover of Bob Dylan's Freewheelin' of 1963.
I like Jones Street a lot, just to get away from the crowds. Friends from out of town ask me to take them there, because it's the street depicted in the photo on the cover of The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963), the one with Dylan walking down the street with his girlfriend Suze Rotolo. Dylan then lived nearby on W. 4th Street (positively). The street hasn't changed that much, as I noted: http://www.walkingoffthebigapple.com/2009/03/freewheelin-jones-street.html
ReplyDeleteYou know... I'm just not sure I know where you come down on this stuff.
ReplyDeleteBack on Bergen Street, Pintchik was the local hardware store when I moved to Park Slope 25 years ago. They're not Lowe's or Home Depot, both of which have moved in. They're still there, still selling plungers -- a local small business that also owns some nearby property. Isn't that EXACTLY what we value about NYC?
In contrast, you laud a block that has two -- TWO -- record stores. Talk about butt plugs! Who, but a fetishist, buys vinyl? I mean, really? Is that not the essence of hipster retro-something-or-other? Is that in ANY way better than a store that sells ice cream cones?
Well, no, it's not.
Ultimately, what makes NY be NY in the way that you mean it is street-level commerce, and that is all about what people are willing to pay for. In a wealthy neighborhood where people have disposable income, they buy vinyl ("so much warmer than CDs! and MP3s, don't get me started!") or pregnancy jeans, and in a poor neighborhood, they shop in bodegas and botanicas. That's it. It's just money and taste.
Cranky is okay, and it's even authentically NYer -- but hypocrisy is unbecoming.
In the Vivaldi pic is someone laying on the ground? Looks like NYC the way it used to be.
ReplyDeletethe block also boasts some beautiful building facades
ReplyDeletebeautiful jeremiah. thanks.
ReplyDeleteplease don't confuse/conflate ambivalence and contradiction with hypocrisy. these issues are not simply: Indie = Good, Corporate Chain = Bad. what i'm trying to do, and maybe i'm not always as successful as i'd like to be, is to explore some of the complexities.
ReplyDeleteand, yes, i am also cranky.
Teri, thanks for the link and the info. i need to do my research more thoroughly!
ReplyDeleteThere's also a little wine shop, winesby.com.
ReplyDeleteI buy vinyl, thank you!
ReplyDeleteI'm not a hipster...I'm the furthest thing imagineable. I'll be 56 this month. A born and bred New Yorker, now living across the river. I have a turntable that has been in constant use since my 20's. I don't fetishize vinyl. I buy the things that, amazingly enough, still are not available on CD, let alone as MP3's. I listen to music in all available formats.
New York used to be filled with record stores, and I would spend my weekends in them. It's nice to know that one or two of them still exist. And I prefer them to ice cream and butt plugs.
Most buyers of vinyl are not hipsters but old jazz, r&b, and blues-heads like me. The menace from hipsters for vinyl-buyers is much the same as it is for bookstore habitues - people buying up old records for the cool/ironic decorative use of their covers.
ReplyDeleteBronx Native, well said, but don't bother. Whenever anyone points out that Jeremiah's editorializing is wildly inconsistent *within the terms that he himself defines*, his response is that you are missing the subtlety of the issue, that things aren't black and white, etc. It's a genius dodge, because the criticism at its core is that his worldview is the opposite of subtle. I have never seen him praise *anything* new. There are certain kinds of consumption that he likes (book stores, record stores, old bakeries etc.) and others that he doesn't (frozen yogurt, bubble tea, new bakeries.)
ReplyDeletehttp://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/02/03/49-vintage/
But instead of copping to what is essentially an aesthetic preference (I like chocolate ice cream and you like strawberry - doesn't mean I'm good and you're bad) he casts those with different aesthetic preferences as "narcissists" and just generally bad, rotten people.
Number one tell tale sign of being a hipster: denying that you're a hipster (then proceeding to list all the hipster stuff that you do, such as being into old, obscure music.)
ReplyDeleteFunny, the people I know who prefer vinyl are NOT wealthy in the least. They just have good taste. A couple of them are classical musicans, and worlds away from being 'hipsters'.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, it's analogous to the suburbanization NYC is experiencing-
"Musicologists have pointed out how the scrunched-up digital compression of MP3 files flattens out the see-sawing waves of sound that vinyl accommodates, in favour of a straight horizontal line. This means that subtle variations in the texture, tone and timbre of the recorded music are lost. What we're left with is homogenised splodgy gruel. Hearing a musical masterpiece in this format is, as one critic put it, like visiting Venice in fog."
Love the blog. Well, actually it depresses me thoroughly.
I love Caffe Vivaldi and I'm so relieved it's still around. My husband and I have shared a few of our first dates there. It's absolutely perfect on a rainy day.
ReplyDeleteThanks, yet again, Jeremiah. I love your blog and it depresses me thoroughly too. It also makes me laugh. Healthy cocktail.
I don't know where people get this idea that "hipster" means only someone with money and someone who only cares about how things look, without having any real interests. Sure, there are plenty of those. But just because you *actually* enjoy old obscure music, and you care about sound quality, and don't have a trust fund, doesn't necessarily mean you're not a hipster.
ReplyDeleteThere are plenty of broke ass hipsters out there. That's why they get priced out of Bushwick (!) and have to move to like, Sheepshead Bay.
i support the broke-ass hipsters who are in the city really trying to make art or do socially involved work or generally contribute something. i just wish there was a different name for them.
ReplyDeletei lived there in 1970 like january. i traded my east village apt w/a friend. she moved in mine & i took hers for double the rent. it was $120. for a one bedroom, renovated & a folk singer had lived in that building. my EV, place was also cheap as it was rent controlled, $60. a month. that was considered a deal! i loved the west village. back on second ave, the polish people in the building objected to my friends black boyfriend. they called the owner who was my MOTHERS socialist friend. i had to kick out the people asap & move back in. i had to beg to be get my old apt back. jones street was really nice. guess i was ready to leave the EV. left a few months later. never got a actually live in the west village for too long. glad to know its still a nice street.
ReplyDeleteActually, that's me on the ground in front of Caffe Vivaldi. I have since cleaned up and gone to rehab. It was a vinyl fetish that sent me there. I just couldn't stop!
ReplyDeleteOh, then there's this ditty from:
ReplyDeletehttp://tiny.cc/is5he
"Why are the King CDs better? Part of the reason is this: Last year, King had the wisdom and vision to reach out to Creed and Rudy Van Gelder, the original engineer on most of the CTI recordings, to remaster a series of original recordings for release in Japan. The results are so good they actually sound more remarkable than the original vinyl releases. Which is possible because tape captured more data than analog releases were able to display. When remastered warmly in the digital age and played through better stereo gear, a CD can release more music information into the air than its vinyl relative."
Now, I am really cranky.
Not sure why vinyl upsets the poster so much but I've been buying records since the late 1970's and plan to continue to do so without regard to any social trends or weak people who need to say 'hipster' in a desperate attempt to overcome lazy thinking and pretense to being an anonymous cyberbully. he's not alone, there seem to be 1000's of people on the internet who feel powerful by saying 'hipster' over and over. Its really how the Elite (try to)squash the power of youth.
ReplyDeleteSearch YouTube for Jones Diner. I posted a short video of it in its last 2002 days.
ReplyDelete