Tuesday, July 31, 2012

*Everyday Chatter

New York Neon gives us a depressing look inside the once gorgeous, now gutted Lascoff pharmacy:


Mama's Food Shop shutters. Says the owner, "the community nature of the neighborhood has all but vanished, and it is over-run every weekend by a generation that has no vested interest in the East Village community." [EVG]

Avenue A is getting a "social club" for dogs
--because the public dog run in the park is just too dirty for the pampered pooches of the new EV? [UNY]

Don't forget to donate to St. Mark's Books--and get yourself some goodies. [LA]

Harlem is losing its only bowling alley
as Harlem Lanes announces its closure. [UTF]

Checking out the fabulous, antique signage of Borough Park. [OMFS]

Bloomberg won't steal Coney's Shore Theater
from its owner--really? I bet he would if he got to turn it over to a condo developer. [ATZ]

...And it's not because we're getting old--New York City is louder and more obnoxious than it used to be, and so is the music that gets pumped in to every place you try to avoid but can't (because you have to eat and you need shoes). Science says, "We found evidence of a progressive homogenization of the musical discourse."

3 comments:

Ms. said...

Wailing winds blow through the holes in my heart as I watch the old (like me) pushed out by the new (not like me). I don't know how you manage to post so regularly, and still stay vital. It is like bleeding out sometimes. But, better to know than not to know, though I often wish for memory erasure beyond the normal aging gift, yet not so dark as dementia. Sigh. Still, grateful for the surviving virtual community here Jeremiah...grateful.

Ed said...

Ms., thanks. That is what I is thinking.

On the last link, about the noise, the funny thing is that I can no longer call or take calls from my wife when I am out of the apartment but indoors in any sort of commercial establishment. She thinks its a discotheque (she is not from here) and asks what I am doing there by myself when I am married.

But when I was young, I wouldn't go to actual dance clubs (which in the meantime have mostly disappeared from the city) with a noise level that loud. At some point sound can be so loud that you can't hear the music, let alone talk over it.

Anonymous said...

Though I share your sadness over the changing NYC I must object to Mama's Food Shop. I have lived in NYC my whole life (born and raised, I'm 35) and in in the east village for 7 or 8 years. I always loved the idea of Mama's but in reality it was a nightmare. Every time I ate their food I would spent the next couple of hours glue to my toilet seat. At first I thought it was just me, but multiple friends have also had similar experiences. Every 6 months or so I would develop amnesia and go back to Mama's only to have similar results. It is true that the the village is changing, but in Mama's case I think it is a justified change.