As with Bill's Gay 90s, the trendy new owner of Lenox Lounge thought he was getting the interior fixtures--but the true owner took his decor with him. Said the new guy, "It’s like buying a car, and you come back and the seats are gone, the tires are gone." Oh fucking well. [NYT]
Great article on the travelers, aka "crusties," of the East Village. [Villager]
What do you miss most about Soho in the 1970s? [SMP]
1980s NYC on Super-8. [FP]
Enjoy Grieve's round-up of Out and About interviews. [EVG]
A last-remaining low-rise strip of Delancey has sold. [BB]
What's happening to our libraries? [OMFS]
Check out the Downtown Literary Festival. [MJ]
Zamperla actually believes: "We are saving Coney Island. And we are preserving Coney Island. But we’ve renewed it." [CO]
Looking back at Harlem's Lafayette theater. [GLF]
The Emerald Inn will rise again--as the 70-year-old original becomes a Kate Spade boutique. [WSR]
Watch Dustin Cohen's beautiful short film about a Bensonhurst cobbler:
The Shoemaker from Dustin Cohen on Vimeo.
Great roundup, and good news about the Emerald Inn!
ReplyDeleteLove old NYC...but the nostalgia over "old" Coney Island confuses me.
ReplyDeleteConey Island hasn't been glorious in over 50 years, so the idea that the
"old" Coney Island is dying is silly. In fact, what's dying is the dead and
depressing Coney Island, the CI of The Warriors, of crimes, urban decay, and
the shame of a city that lets its treasures rot. The CI of rat-infested streets,
crumbling buildings, and sad reminders of what once was.
Sort of like the "old" 42nd Street of 20 years...a super-depressing, rotted
reminder of what the city used to be like.
If the choice is between evil developers and corporations pouring A LOT of
$$$ into the area, actually creating SOME jobs, actually drawing people to the area to yes, spend $$$...and between a depressing, dilapidated, rotting
hulk of former glory from 1908...it's really no choice at all for the folks running things.
Does anyone REALLY miss Shoot The Freak?
The real estate PR $hill$ aren't even trying anymore...no subtlety, no originality. They seem to be as tired of spewing willfully contrarian bullshit all over the comment sections of local NYC blogs as we are of reading it.
ReplyDeleteIronically, many of them are unpaid interns.
I ate at Food on Prince in Soho in the 70's, good chunky soups and stews, with a great piece of bread, you could actually afford to eat in a restaurant. Also good was The Orange Tree on Houston, I loved their omelettes.
ReplyDeletei miss old soho when it had nothing but factories in the 60s. but even more than that i miss it when it had galleries, cafes & also factories artists families. i worked in soho in 1977,8. (soho weekly news). every few weeks i would walk there from 13st& 5th, to drop off my film. then have something to eat @ "food". or go further down to chinatown. when the chain stores moved to west broadway it was over. that was somewhere in the late 80s. i worked @ a corporate gallery in 1989, & it was beginning to really change. the high end private boutiques closed, crap came in. antique stores closed. new york is just thick w/people ugly stores ugly crowds. thats the way of the world today. it does say something about how big money can afford you the joy of never having to see this. now i get what they were saying about "getting out of the city", going to westchester.
ReplyDeleteLove the Brooklyn Cobbler- I think I need to seek him out- anyone know where his shop is?
ReplyDelete11:29, speak for yourself- corporate mallification and chain stores is not Coney Island, it's another land grab by developer's, a gift from Bloomberg to his people (the rich and entitled). Coney Island has been a place for the weird and the strange for decades and is the everyman's getaway. I have Shot the Freak and loved the ridiculousness of it.
ReplyDeletePS, remember when Bloomberg said we shouldn't build up the waterfronts too much after Sandy? So nice that he's putting more lives in danger by doing the exact opposite (Greenpoint towers, Manhattan Bridge towers, Coney Island etc. etc.)