Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Taxi Parts

Recently, a store called Taxi Parts, Inc., moved in to the East Village. It had been up on Tenth Avenue for the past 25 years, on the ground floor of an old tenement building near Hudson Yards.



But it had to leave that spot. "The buildings are coming down," a man at Taxi Parts told me the other day.

The buildings sit alone on the corner of 10th and 35th. Earlier this year, Sean at the 116-year-old Veterans Chair Caning shop, across the street, told me that those tenements were still standing thanks to a holdout, a man who lived upstairs. Who knows what happened to him? (Looks like someone tried but failed to prove last year that the building was rent-stabilized.)

And so the Hudson Yards Effect claims more victims -- and takes more space for its bloated glass construction.



Sean told me that developers want "to knock down those buildings and put up the tallest tower in North America."

That would be the gluttonous "Hudson Spire."

Last year, when it was more or less theoretical, the Hudson Spire was rendered at 1,800 feet -- 4 feet taller than One World Trade Center. Now, with the holdout removed, the businesses relocated, and these little tenements soon to be turned to rubble, there will be plenty of room for a colossal monstrosity to rise on the spot.



13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Bloomberg was Giuliani Lite and De Blasio is Bloomberg Lite. I will not vote for De Blasio in the next mayoral election.

New York needs a progressive, anti-developer, pro-any business but big business mayor.

De Blasio is so inept he can't even ban the horse carriages like he promised to. He has to be the New York mayor with the least amount of tv screen time. I call him "The Invisible Mayor".

Anonymous said...

Oh, please. Get a grip on yourself. Bloomberg wasn't "Giuliani Lite" although you think that sounds really witty of you. Bloomberg is to blame for this lock, stock and barrel. There's little that DeBlasio can do to stop the momentum that's already been gained. This situation is like a runaway train that has no brakes anymore.

It's no nothings like you who seem to think you can get a REAL PROGRESSIVE!! mayor in this city. Forget it. NYC has been fully captured by the 1% with the tacit help of Albany. This place is totally transformed and there's no reversing it. "Containment" should be the plan wherever possible.

As for the Mayor not being on tv, get your head out of wherever it is and try turning it on once in a while, you dope.

Scout said...

I really think that the chances of New York getting a "progressive, anti-developer, pro-any business but big business mayor" are less than nil.

City government has become addicted to the taxes (and other funds) that big business brings to it, and (as we all know) addiction is near-impossible to shake.

Anonymous said...

DeBlasio has done an enormous amount for the working class, poor families and the homeless, considering the amount of time he has been in office. People need to do research instead of listening to the tabloids and word of mouth.

Anonymous said...

No YOU get a grip on yourself. First off I wasn't being witty I was being dead serious. He was less brutal than Giuliani re: treatment of minorities and people in general hence "Giuliani Lite" who really got the ball rolling with making this city for the rich first screw everyone else. Maybe if you had actually lived in NYC 1994-2002 like I did you'd know what I'm talking about. Bloomberg took the ball from Giuliani and ran with it. Giuliani set the tone for the city being turned into what I just said it is now - see the Disneyfictation of Times Square.

De Blasio can do plenty: he can push to end tax breaks for developers, but he won't because he like Bloomberg is in bed with developers hence "Bloomberg Lite". His idea of affordable housing is a few crumbs to the lucky lottery few from a luxury development.

My you're a nasty little shit today, aren't you? Who peed in your Cheerios? No nothings like me? We can get a real progressive mayor if enough New Yorkers got off their asses and voted for one as much as they did for De Blasio. Albany has nothing to do with anything. We obviously need ones with stones and money of course, but that's possible.

So tough calling me names behind a computer screen. Post your email so I can post the one I will write you from here and we can make plans for you to run your keyboard mouth to my face and me to tell you to go fuck yourself to yours. De Blasio has been on tv far less than Giuliani and Bloomberg. In fact, I challenge you or anyone else to prove otherwise. This guy pops up when there's a tragedy only.

You are a punk plain and simple.

Anonymous said...

Not only has city government become addicted to the taxes; a great graft of the fine residents of this city depend on taxpayer-extracted welfare in the form of public housing and rent controlled / stablized housing along with inflated wages & benefits ala SEIU 1199 clerical jobs.

Oh, wait, its impolite to mention this?

Welcome to Dumbell NYC, where the 1% and the other end of the spectrum get bailouts and private middle class workers get screwed.

laura r. said...

welcome to dubai. im out the door.

laura r. said...

leftist politicans are progressive on the outside, corporatists in the inside. they are just shills for big brother.

Anonymous said...

No mayor is to blame for NYC pushing into an area that is mostly empty lots or parking lots. It was inevitable. I live in that neighborhood. There is NOTHING over there.

Anonymous said...

Scout and anan 5:15 are 100% correct. You scream for an anti developer anti business Mayor. If you really got one city revenues would plummet. What the budget this year? $78 billion? You would scream and protest budget cuts. Sorry you cant have it both ways. Typical is these points get ignored. Do you understand where the city gets its money from? I guess you dont pay taxes or run a business? The dumbbell NYC comment is verue. But these folks dont care. Someone else pwhy should they? The arro
nd sense of entitlement is mind boggling. Maybe some of you should move to Detroit or Oakland or Baltimore. Cheap housing, the grit and crime you claim to love, and 'space to destroy' if there is a problem with your EBT card. Coffee is for closers. NYC is for productive, successful, hard working people. Enough with the welfare public housing parasites and their generational crime and living off the dole. This block looks like something out of Taxu Driver. Build. Please.
There are things that need to Vanish. Lets start with the idea- espoused by the Mayors wife- that NYC in 1977 was great. Justnstop.

Anonymous said...

11:02am/5:15pm is a coward who won't run his keyboard mouth to someone's face. You had your chance to post your email and you blew it. Taxpayer-extracted welfare? You are a joke. Not everyone can make $75K or more a year, asshole. Rent-controlled/stablized apartment tenants paved the way for the rich, albeit unwillingly, so you can shut up about them, too. Those apartments and the so-called "projects" ensure this city isn't entirely made up of the rich where everyone else has to come into the city to serve them, dumbass. You're bummed poor black people live in NYC even though they're that from years of systematic racism which exists to this day (spare me "blacks have it better" - yeah better than 1965 but not by much.) No mayor is to blame for anything, right, idiot. Dubai you're gone? Good, don't let the door hit your ass on the way out. Go fake being the downtrodden middle class somewhere else you schizo ranting about the rich and the poor. The 1% LOVVVVE it when you blame the "other end of the spectrum" for the woes of the city. By the way learn to spell, Dumbbell, it's dumbbell not "dumbell".

Scout there's always a chance. The key is for someone progressive and rich who won't be beholden to big business or Albany to run for mayor.

5:52pm described De Blasio to a tee not a true leftist.

Anonymous said...

Keep running your keyboard mouth 7:51pm. That's all you can do. You are a racist, bigoted, hateful, spiteful little coward with your racist code language shit (EBT card, parasitical etc.)

Coffee is for closers? Fuck you you wannabe rich brokeass Glengarry Glen Ross alluding clown who wishes he lived on Fifth or Park Avenue.

No one want high crime or rents dipshit.

Self-entitlement? Sorry if I want more people to be able to spend less on rent so they can spend more on food, clothes etc. which drives the local economy not line the pockets of landlords.

Jeremiah will you please ban this virulent racist's IP address? He's stopping short of using the N word.

Jeremiah Moss said...

Ok, I'm closing this line of comments.