Look out Rockaway: "The boardwalk is the new Bedford Avenue." [NYT]
Now they're making artisanal saltwater taffy. When is saltwater taffy not artisanal? [Grub]
The old lady who planned to firebomb the former Nikos if a Starbucks moved in, won't need to take such a drastic measure--the new tenant is a pizza joint run by Neapolitans. [WSR]
Former shelter for homeless youth now another glittering playground for the 1%. [Eater]
Check out this summer's line-up of free movies in Tompkins Square Park. [EVG]
Bed bug bandits want to break into your apartment! [Gothamist]
Taking a pee at the Old Town. [LC]
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
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
I think Old Town must be the only place on earth where the men's room is way more spectacular than the women's (which isn't at all). I want to see the urinals, too!
ReplyDeleteWOW. That Rockaway scene is worse than I ever could have imagined. If the article wasn't from the Times, its descriptions of those scenesters would have read like over-the-top mockery to me, like something from the Onion. Appropriate that it's from the "Fashion and Style" section- there's nothing deeper going on in that scene.
ReplyDeleteThe pizza I ate at Fratelli la Bufala in Miami a few years ago was probably the best I ever had outside Italy. (I also ate pizza at the Niko's on my first visit to New York in '99 and it wasn't bad either.)
ReplyDeleteAs for Rockaway Beach, I'm sure that's not what Dee Dee Ramone had in mind...
i've noticed the hipsters last year at rockaway beach.
ReplyDeletei started going to the rockaways ~ 10 yrs. ago, ever since the hipsters have been coming to coney island, manhattan, and brighton beach.
they are hardly around the long island beaches (e.g., jones, long beach), since one has to pay the train fare and entrance fees (which, of course, the ironic nature of the hipsters -- they can afford the one-day getaway fares, but would prefer to suffer and take a long train ride to a free beach), but one has to be with the manhattanite fauxentious who would normally or rather be in the hamptons, but for some reason they can't. there is no escape if one does not have a car and have to rely on mass transit. but weekdays are always the best to go to the beaches: minimal hipsters and fauxhattanites.
1) I vowed never go go back to Cafe Loup after I got food poisoning there from some tuna sushi I ate. That was one of the worst nights of my life. It felt like someone was hitting the back of my head with a bat. I don't think their C is anything to be proud of.
ReplyDelete2) I doubt that there were many women in the Old Town a century ago. Maybe they didn't even let them in (a la McSorley's.) In fact, my recollection is that the Women's Room is on the second floor, and is new.
I see the term "hipster" has spread from Gothamist here. What exactly is a hipster? I have never figured it out. It seems to be used to described some sort of post-graduate yunnie, but I am not sure.
ReplyDeleteWow who knew Cafe Loup was still open. I went there for a company Christmas party circa 1989. My boss gave me a leather Coach address/date book that I still use to this day. He fired me a couple months later for accidentally faxing a document to the wrong person, revealing to the wrong person a scheme he was trying to put together that somehow involved stealing an idea from scary people in Las Vegas and giving it to other scary people in Las Vegas (hence the wrong fax number - I didn't know there was more than one scary Las Vegas gangster that I had a fax number for.) A few years later I heard he went to jail for mail fraud.
ReplyDeleteJust over-sharing here, sorry for the intrusion. (Your site so often brings back memories I didn't remember.)
I have mixed emotions about the pizza place going in to Nikos. Happy it's a family owned authentic place, but sad because I really wanted to see that old woman firebomb a Starbucks!
ReplyDeleteCafe Loup is worth patronizing, despite its perhaps dubious food handling, by virtue of having the great and marvelously mature pianist Junior Mance in residence every Sunday night.
ReplyDeleteApropos to the NYT article on Rockaway; I went to Ft.Tilden beach on Memorial Day -- it was absolutely overrun with the young & the oblivious set. So sad to see it's been discovered and shocked that the dunes are no longer protected -- as they have been for almost 25 years-- for the endangered piping plover's nests. They didn't have a chance against that onslaught!
ReplyDelete