Moishe's Is Not for Rent

A reader sent in a real estate listing that gave me quite a shock. It says that the space that holds the great Moishe's Kosher Bake Shop is for rent and possession can be "immediate."



I called the bakery and spoke to Moishe Perl, who also owns the building. He laughed and said, "People always put up these things." He assured me that he did not put up the listing and that he is not closing. He might be doing some renovating over the summer, but that's it.

When I told him the listing said his place will rent for $27,000, he laughed even louder.

The listing was recently updated, but it was originally posted a few years ago. It didn't close then and (hopefully) it isn't closing now. Charles Beyda and Judah Sutton of JUD Leasing are listed as the realtors, but their phone numbers go nowhere. What is this about?

Moishe's has been here since 1974. It is much beloved and if it ever closes, the East Village will rise up screaming. Seems like as good a time as any to go get yourself something nice.

Capitalism Killed This Cinema

Last night, Lincoln Plaza Cinemas closed its doors for good, shuttered by the landlord, Milstein Properties, who refused to renew the lease, despite pleas from local politicians and thousands of New Yorkers.

The cinema held a memorial last night--for the place and for the man who began it, Dan Talbot, who died just a few weeks ago. Michael Moore was there, along with Wallace Shawn, Philip Lopate, and other speakers.



Deadline Hollywood reports today on Moore's speech at the event:

“Capitalism killed this cinema," he told the audience, "this evil, greedy, 20th century form of capitalism. The multi-billionaires known as [landlord Milstein Properties] have done this.”

The Milsteins, Moore said, “are part and parcel of what this city and liberals have done for a long time — and that’s just to sit back and take it. It’s so strange that this neighborhood, the capital of the left in America, would allow this theater to close. It’s shameful — it should be embarrassing.”

"You understand though that each time we let another thing like this happen, they become empowered. It’s like in horror films when the beast gets fed another morsel and it becomes stronger and stronger.”

“I don’t know what to do about this situation,” Moore concluded. “I can say, I’ll be there for anything you want to do — anything you can do to out the Milsteins for what they have done here... At some point, people say, ‘I’ve had enough.’ And the revolt begins. I encourage you and all of us.”

With that in mind, here are three easy things you can do right now:
1. Sign and share the petition and give the Milsteins a piece of your mind.
2. Take one minute to send a ready-made letter to the mayor and Council Speaker telling them to pass the Small Business Jobs Survival Act.
3. Join #SaveNYC on Facebook, meet people, and organize an action.

Sapporo

VANISHING

Ed writes in: "I’m sad to report that while having dinner this evening at Sapporo between 6th and 7th, I found out they’re closing at the end of the month. I’ve been going there for years and the staff is exceptionally close and dedicated. They were told a few days ago they’ll all be out of work in a few weeks. I spoke with the cashier and she didn’t have a clear idea of what was going on. She knows that all the restaurants in the adjacent buildings are being closed down. Maybe the owner is selling the buildings? Sapporo is always packed and a great affordable place to eat. I’m so sad."

A phone call to the restaurant confirms that today is their last day--they will close for good at 5:00 p.m.


photo: Manhattan Sideways

Sapporo Restaurant opened on West 49th Street in 1975. On their website they say they were "the first to bring Japanese ramen to New York City."

Robert Sietsema wrote about it for Eater, calling it "a kind of diner for Japanese ex-pats, specializing in homely luncheon fare that included gyoza, fried chicken, katsudon, curry, udon, and, most particularly, ramen. In fact, it was one of the few places in New York City that offered the Chinese-inspired wheat noodles at a time when they had not yet been fetishized to the extent they are now."

JAM Paper & Envelope

As E.V. Grieve reported earlier this month, JAM Paper & Envelope is closing on Third Avenue near 14th Street. They started business in 1954 and opened their first shop in 1983. Today is the last day.


all photos by Katrina del Mar

This week, some interesting signs went up in the windows that might tell us something about the closure.

Reads one: "So my wife of 40 years says... Honey, no one shops retail anymore. That's why we are online. Fine, I say. She then says, Now we can go to Florida."



The next is a list of "Facts I Remember," including "People saying please and thank you," "Talking instead of texting," and "Shopping in stores."

So maybe we chalk this one up to the changing demographic in the East Village, a new population that prefers to shop online, rather than engage with the local commercial culture. As many long-time residents have noted, the hallways of our buildings fill up with packages as new people move in.

Goodbye Lincoln Plaza Cinemas

As you already know, Lincoln Plaza Cinemas is vanishing. The lease was not renewed and its last day will be January 28. We tried to save it, but Milstein Properties apparently isn't listening.

Filmmaker Christopher Ming Ryan went to the movies to talk to folks about why Lincoln Plaza is so special--and why it should not vanish:



Ryan writes:

"We have a message to the landlord, Howard Milstein: make capital improvements on this space, but keep the people who run this theater by offering them an affordable lease. Toby Talbot deserves to stay. I want to enjoy the films they hand pick and continue to support the wonderful staff here--for a very long time. Do the right thing."

Over 11,000 people agree--and many more. Sign the petition and let the landlord know what's on your mind.

Benny's Un-Vanished

Three years ago, East Village favorite Benny's Burritos shuttered after 27 years in business. Last year, owner Mark Merker tried again with Che Cafe, a little joint on 7th Street that featured a rounded version of the empanada--but, sadly, no burritos.

Then, sometime during the deep freeze of a few weeks ago, Che Cafe suddenly vanished. The shutters were down. No sign said why.



Last night, the lights were on again in the shop, with Mark and his new business partner, Scott, behind the counter. Today, they reopen as Benny's Burritos & Empanadas. The place will be serving, yes, burritos and empanadas, along with tacos, chicken tortilla soup, and more.

Said Mark, "We're going to squeeze everything we can out of this little spot."

So take a walk by and reconnect with those burritos you thought you'd lost.

Hudson Diner

VANISHING?

A reader in the Village wrote in to say that he heard the Hudson Diner will be closing soon.

"I'm really sad about this one," he wrote. "It is not about the food (not so great) or the prices (as high as any in Manhattan). It is maybe the large windows. They've always made it easy to see who was sitting there, and wave hello or just stop in. I was talking to some of my favorite regulars early this morning -- I like to get a coffee to go, and yet I always get pulled into a conversation -- such a simple little part of my day, but such a wonderful way to interact with my neighbors. And the owners and staff were always welcoming to all folks."



Located on Hudson near Barrow, the Hudson Diner has been a local favorite possibly for as long as 43 years.

While I could not get a firm confirmation of the closure from the diner, neighbor Neil at Oscar's Place said he heard that Sunday will be the diner's last day, though they could go even sooner -- or not.

Neil will start opening his place earlier in the morning to accommodate Hudson's displaced regulars. He says, "I'll do my best to feed everyone with bagels and coffee, and just take care of everyone. Losing the diner will leave a big void."



The Hudson Diner was recently cited in Westview News as a survivor of the high-rent blight that is gutting the Village. They wrote:

"...even though The Hudson Diner has emerged a winner in the West Village diner survivor square-off, co-owner Rajiv 'Babu' Chowdhury is forced to work seven days a week. He has been facing a decline in business for each of the last three years. Babu says that even though he can pay rising rents and works very well with his landlord, his business suffered when the lunchtime corporate customer base left due to their high rents."

If you need more evidence of the unsustainability of commercial rents, reader Ora McCreary points us to the corner of Hudson and Perry, just a few blocks up from the Hudson Diner. The Le Pain Quotidien location there is closing on March 25. The reason? A realtor says the landlord raised the rent from $30,000 to $40,000 a month. Even the international corporate chains can't survive this New York.

Goodbye Sunshine

VANISHED

The Sunshine Cinema closed this weekend. It wasn't landmarked--though it should have been. Soon it will be a pile of bricks.


1930, via NYPL

It was built as a Dutch Reformed Church in the 1800s. In the early 1900s, it became the Houston Athletic Club, for boxing matches.

In 1909 it transformed into the Houston Hippodrome, an affordable vaudeville and Yiddish movie house frequented by Jewish, Italian, and other immigrants of the Lower East Side.

In 1913, the Hippodrome was the site of a deadly stampede. During the movie "Daredevils Species," while robbers held up a western train, a flash came from the camera, causing someone to yell "Fire!" Panic ensued. People trampled each other as they clamored for the exit. Crushed to death were two women--Mrs. Margaret Corsa of Chrystie Street and an unidentified woman whose dark hair was "tinged with gray," and who wore on her finger a wedding ring with the initials P.M.

In 1917, the Hippodrome became the Sunshine until it closed sometime in the 1940s and became a warehouse for hardware supplies.


photo by Judith Thissen

In 2001, it was renovated and reopened as the Sunshine Cinema. Its crowds boosted sales at Yonah Schimmel's next door. Said the manager to the Times, "Now, I get a lot more people buying knish and sneaking them into movies. I bet that theater will soon smell all of knish. I bet nobody minds."

Last year, the building was sold to developers East End Capital and K Property Group. As The Real Deal reported at the time, "Landmark Theatres co-owner Mark Cuban initially planned to buy the building with his partner Todd Wagner and build a dine-in movie theater, but their plan fell through in 2012 after the local community board rejected their liquor license application."

The developers filed plans to demolish the building. They will build another soulless piece-of-shit office tower.

Said developer Jonathon Yormark to the Times, “We’re big fans of the Lower East Side. It really needs more 9-to-5 activity and it tends to be very active, obviously, on a night life basis. We believe there is a real demand for office space and for people to work there during the day.”

(There will be a developer victory dance party. We're all invited.)



So we're losing another beautiful building for something hideous and dead. We're losing history for emptiness. We're losing culture for corporate culture.

And don't let anyone tell you the Sunshine closed because "No one goes to the movies anymore." Don't let them tell you it's "Because of Netflix," like they say "It's all because of online shopping" and "No one buys books anymore. No one goes to diners anymore. No one eats hot dogs anymore." Don't let the creeps get away with dodging the rent issue.

The Sunshine closed because of hyper-gentrification. Because the rents are too high. The Sunshine closed because it wasn't protected.

As Tim Nye, the Sunshine's co-owner, told the Times this week, "the theater 'was doing incredible' financially. But they were paying $8,000 in monthly rent, which they expected would skyrocket at the end of their 25-year lease on Jan. 31. 'It’s the economics. We cannot pay market rent.'"

The Small Business Jobs Survival Act could have saved the Sunshine. The return of commercial rent control would have saved the Sunshine. Landmarking would have at least kept the historic building standing, instead of the soulless piece of shit that's to come.

And what will that soulless piece of shit do to Yonah Schimmel's? The knishery opened in 1910, one year after the opening of the Houston Hippodrome. Surely, it benefited from the crowds going in and out of the theater, just as it benefited from the crowds of the Sunshine. Will the new people who work in the soulless piece of shit want knishes? Will the presence of the glass box pressure a sale?

Will the creeps soon be saying, "Oh well, no one eats knishes anymore"?

Rally for Galicia

Yesterday, local organizers, politicians, and community members rallied to save Galicia restaurant on Broadway near 172nd Street in Washington Heights. After 30 years in business, they're being denied a lease renewal by the Edelsteins of Edel Family Management, owners of several buildings in the area.



As always, the restaurant was full of faithful customers, dining on delicious home-style meals.

Hand-lettered signs in the windows read "Save Galicia" and "Make the Small Business Job[s] Survival Act Law!!"



A large crowd of New Yorkers gathered on the sidewalk. Unlike at last week's rally for Coogan's bar and restaurant a few blocks south, the phalanx of major news cameras was not present. (NBC4 got some shots.) I saw no reporters from major papers. (Patch was there.) Congressman Adriano Espaillat, Public Advocate Letitia James, and City Comptroller Scott Stringer did not appear.

But dozens of others did--and they were passionate about small businesses in Washington Heights.


Lena Melendez

Rally organizer Lena Melendez spoke of the "favorite and authentic" restaurant, a survivor from the difficult days of the 1980s. She introduced Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, who promised to "Do what we can to pressure the Edelstein family to come to the table" and negotiate a fair lease renewal. "We expect our small businesses to be treated fairly," Brewer said. "Let's keep the pressure going."

David Eisenbach, former candidate for Public Advocate, made a push for the Small Business Jobs Survival Act (SBJSA). "We can't keep counting on politicians to save the day," he said. "This can't be done on a case by case basis." We need legislation, he argued, "to level the playing field." He called for a full public hearing and a City Council vote on the SBJSA. "Let democracy happen!"


David Eisenbach

Peter Walsh, co-owner of Coogan's, began, "As a child of Irish immigrants, I was saved by new immigrants--the Dominicans of Dominican Heights!" His bar has been sustained by Latinx locals--and was recently saved from a massive rent hike. He recalled the days of high crime, when Galicia opened and survived. And he spoke of gentrification's power to displace. "Now that the neighborhood has become attractive to everyone else, who do they want to kick out? The pathfinders. The Dominican immigrants who built this neighborhood."

Someone from the crowd shouted, "We are what's right with America!"


Peter Walsh

For well over an hour, several community members got up to speak, in English and in Spanish. City Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez ended his speech with a chant of "Si, se puede!" Yes, we can.


Ydanis Rodriguez

How can you help? Write to City Council Speaker Corey Johnson and tell him to bring the SBJSA to a vote. Write to your City Council members and tell them to pass the SBJSA. You can find their contact info here -- and sample emails here and here.

It can be done.

M&H Deli

VANISHED

It's the little places that make a neighborhood function like a neighborhood. Bodegas and other small, affordable markets are vanishing fast across the city. Here's another.

Mike writes in: "I thought you might be interested in the closing of the M&H Deli (bodega) on Dekalb Ave and Saint Felix Street in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. Closing after 35 years due to rising rent, per the sign. It was your pretty typical bodega serving the community and the Brooklyn Hospital across the street."



Once again, it's not due to lack of business. It's not the Internet. The sign makes the reason clear.

Broadway Restaurant

VANISHED

As New York City diners meet their collective demise (and then some), overwhelmingly due to skyrocketing rent and denied lease renewals, another one appears to have joined the list.

Christopher writes in to say that the Broadway Restaurant at 101st Street has shuttered. There's no sign to say goodbye, or give a reason why, but the shutters have been down for a week and the phone has been disconnected ("temporarily" says the recording--is there hope?).


photo from Christopher

Asks one Yelp reviewer (where the reviews are glowing), "could broadway restaurant be closed ?? -will be missed if true." Maybe they're just on vacation? Though it seems unlikely.

I went to the Broadway only once, happily stumbling upon it while I was wandering the neighborhood for reasons I can't remember. I loved it instantly.



I loved the sign outside with its "STEAKS CHOPS SEA FOOD," an indication of a certain vintage, and an increasingly rare sight.

I loved its interior with the U-shaped counter and the movie star posters. Brad Pitt appeared on the walls several times--maybe because he filmed there once.

I loved the hand-painted menu with its CORNED BEEF HASH and TASTY SANDWICHES.

The place was busy and beloved. If you know what happened here, please let us know.



*UPDATE: Harry points us to a recent article in West Side Rag, reporting that a fire closed the place on New Year's Day.

Hopefully, the 47-year-old diner will recover, but the damage looks bad.


photo via West Side Rag

Saving Coogan's

Yesterday, local politicians and community members gathered to rally for Coogan's Bar and Restaurant in Washington Heights. After hiking Coogan's rent by $40,000, the landlord, New York-Presbyterian Hospital, surrendered under public pressure this week and made a deal to keep Coogan's in place for the foreseeable future. (The details are being kept confidential.)



On the cold and sunny Sunday afternoon, in front of a large crowd, Congressman Adriano Espaillat, Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, Public Advocate Letitia James, and City Comptroller Scott Stringer made celebratory speeches, calling Coogan's "the United Nations of Washington Heights" and a "civic center" for the neighborhood. They also promised to save small businesses across the five boroughs.

"We spoke with one voice," said Brewer. "We want to do the same thing for other mom and pops. This is just the beginning."

"Our work must continue," said James. "Small businesses are suffering and we need to come to a resolution to protect small businesses in the city."

"Coogan's," said Stringer, "is the line in the sand."



But what do they plan to do? After questions from the press, the discussion got around to solutions, specifically the Small Business Jobs Survival Act (SBJSA), a bill that many activists have been pushing for years (see flyer below).

"We need a hearing on the SBJSA," said James. "We're going to be urging the City Council and Corey Johnson to put it forward."

Currently, most City Council members support the SBJSA. To pass, the new Speaker must bring it to a vote. This is essential. Only a broad-reaching policy like the SBJSA--or the return of commercial rent control--will save our small businesses. Like Espaillat said to the crowd, handling the problem of evicted mom and pops one by one is not a solution. "We're going to lose a lot of them," he said, "and we need legislation. We're going to stop hyper-gentrification."



After the rally, inside Coogan's, I talked with Lena Melendez, a local social worker and organizer with RENA (Riverside Edgecombe Neighborhood Association) and Dominicanos Pro Defensa Negocios Y Viviendas (DDNV).

Lena and I discussed hyper-gentrification in Washington Heights. "The landlords are being incentivized to push people out," she explained, pointing to the 20% vacancy bonus loophole in the rent regulation laws. "It's an erosion of the consumer base. And small businesses have no protections whatsoever."

Real-estate speculation has been pushed into overdrive by the city's rezoning of Inwood. Lena noted the spread of high-rent blight infecting upper Broadway, a rash of storefronts forcibly emptied and kept empty. "The landlords need to be punished," she said, with disincentives like a vacancy tax. But that won't fix every situation. "If a business is in a two-story building, they're a dead duck." With a demolition clause in the lease and no rent-regulated tenants to deal with, the developers can just kick out the business and demolish.



Why is this problem so hard to fight? "Because REBNY is so strong," Lena said, "and the politicians are like prostitutes being bought." She wants to see the neighborhood get organized. "The Latino community has to stand up. But they need to be informed. If this community knew what that rezoning will do to the neighborhood, they'd be marching in the streets."

"The politicians want us all to think the rezoning is a good thing." To that she says, "You're jerking me around. You're pissing on my head and calling it rain."

When we finished talking, Lena went back to gathering signatures on a petition to save Galicia, a restaurant just a few blocks up Broadway, getting forced out after 30 years in business.


flyer by Jenny Dubnau

Galicia Restaurant

VANISHING

At yesterday's rally for Coogan's, Congressman Espaillat pointed up Broadway and announced, "My next stop is Galicia restaurant." After 30 years in business, he explained, they're being denied a lease renewal by the Edelsteins of Edel Family Management, owners of several buildings in the area. "I spoke to the Edelsteins," Espaillat said, "and they seem to be over the top and heavy handed."



After the rally, I went for lunch at Galicia. The place is warm and welcoming--and busy. Customers converse from table to table. The counter fills up and empties, and then fills again. The food is good. So is the cafe con leche.



On my table I had the flyer announcing a rally to save Galicia, January 21 at 12:00 noon. A woman stopped to read it. She said, "I'll be there. Just because this neighborhood is changing, everybody has to get out? No. We've been here. This place is part of our community."

She went on to her table and I enjoyed my chicken, beans and rice, and plantains.



I got into a conversation with another woman, Mrs. Doris Giordano, who was born and raised in Washington Heights. She rescues cats and has been coming to Galicia since it opened.

She showed me a handful of family photographs--her father with his friends on the stoop, her mother on the rooftop they called Tar Beach.



"Tiny Tim was born in Washington Heights," she told me. "Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers came from here. Lewis Lymon and the Teenchords, too. George Raft was from here. My grandmother had a crush on him. They went to school together."

"It's heartbreaking," she said about the demise of small businesses in the neighborhood. "And it's all to do with real estate and landlords." We talked about the closure of the Reme diner and the high-rent blight that is sweeping upper Broadway. "It's like a ghost town. To see stores that've been here since I was a kid, all gone. It's heartbreaking."



She doesn't want to see Galicia go. "Everybody's like family here. I'm not Spanish, but I've been eating here for so long. People say hello. It's safe. You get homemade meals. They have the best coffee and it only costs a dollar-fifty." A rent-controlled tenant on a fixed income, she can't afford Starbucks.

"They're building upscale gourmet places," she said. "The bodega where I got my Italian bread? It's gone and now they're upscale. They cater to the wealthy now. The rent is outrageous all over New York City and people are being relocated. They're moving out all the people who were born and raised here."

We talked about the upcoming rally and the promises of the politicians. Mrs. Giordano shook her head. She said, "I'm not trusting the politicians anymore. They tell you one thing, but nothing's being done. They talk the talk, but they don't walk the walk."



Want to help? Sign the petition to save Galicia. And go to the rally on Sunday, January 21, at 12:00 noon, 4083 Broadway near 172nd St.

Save Coogan's

Earlier this week, the Times reported that Coogan's bar and restaurant will be forced to close at the end of May after being in business since 1985. The closure will happen, wrote Jim Dwyer, "for the usual horrible reasons, the end of a lease and impossible rent demands for a new one."

Coogan's space, at 169th and Broadway, is owned by New York-Presbyterian Hospital. “They want about $40,000 a month more,” said one of Coogan's partners. That's a lot of beer.

This loss is hitting home with many New Yorkers, including Broadway luminary and Inwood native Lin-Manuel Miranda, who tweeted the announcement, saying "My stomach hurts from this news":



Graham Ciraulo, an organizer with the Northern Manhattan Is Not For Sale coalition, started a petition to Save Coogan's. Over 10,000 have signed so far.

And there's a rally at Coogan's this Sunday, January 14, at 12:00 noon, organized by Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, Congressman Adriano Espaillat, and other community leaders.



Whether you know Coogan's or you don't know Coogan's, you know it's another brick in the wall of the sterilized, de-urbanized, hyper-gentrified zone that New York is becoming thanks to unregulated landlord greed.

If you're sick and tired of that, then be there. And tell our city's leaders to make a real change -- pass the Small Business Jobs Survival Act and let's talk about bringing back commercial rent control. It's time to #SaveNYC.

*UPDATE: Coogan's has been saved!

Nick's Barber Shop

Last week I wrote about the sudden vanishing of John's Barber Shop under Port Authority. I mentioned that his brother, Nick, is still going strong in his own little shop on West 44th St. If you want a good, old-school barber shop experience, go see Nick.

Now that John's is gone, along with the great Mayfair, he may be the last of his kind in that area. And you never know how long a place like this will be around.



It's a little spot down a set of stairs at 351 West 44th. The signs just say "Barber Shop," but the official name of the place is the Times One Barber Shop.



If you bend down from the sidewalk, you can see Nick at work. There's always someone sitting in his chair.



You take a seat and hang up your coat. The walls are covered with Broadway posters, many of them autographed by Nick's customers. Along a ceiling pipe hang New Year's Eve sunglasses. There are mementos from Greece, Nick's home country.



If you ask him about the old shop, the one he worked with his brother under 42nd Street in the subway arcade, he might take out some photographs--one of the corner where the shop used to be, and one of himself, a young barber with thick black hair, in the Times Square of the past.



He'll do a decent and quick job on your hair. The price will be cheap--12 bucks. And, like the sheet metal barber poles in the window say, you'll LOOK BETTER and FEEL BETTER.

Lincoln Plaza Cinemas Update

The online petition to save Lincoln Plaza Cinemas now has over 11,000 signatures. Paper petitions are also circulating and gathering names. Every day, customers ask what they can do to protest the closure. But the closure is coming--in just a couple of weeks. Milstein Properties has not offered a new lease.

Before the new year, Dan Talbot passed away. He'd been running Lincoln Plaza with his wife, Toby, since 1981.



This week, West Side Rag talked with Toby. As it stands, she will not be part of Howard Milstein's plans for the site, which reportedly include upgrades and a new movie theater, possibly something run by the Film Society of Lincoln Center. Possibly not.

On her wish to keep the theater going, Toby said:

“Of course I would like to continue running it. And one of the things that grieves me — grieves is hardly even a strong enough word — is that the people who’ve been working with us — and I say not ‘for’ us, but ‘with’ us, some for 35 years — are so devoted, I just hate to think of them suddenly being out of jobs. The people on our staff come from all over the globe. It’s a United Nations down there. It’s a harmonious place, run with a very hands-on perspective. I’ve been the one who has chosen everything at the confection stand. Almost every pastry comes from a different place.”



And on the chance of saving it?

“The only thing that could possibly be done,” Toby said, “is if significant political pressure is exerted by our elected officials, saying this isn’t a matter of just economics, but of a cinema culture that has been established for three-and-a-half decades in that spot, with people who are very bereft to be deprived of it.”


photo via West Side Rag

Please sign the petition and write to your local politicians, asking them to get involved. City Council Member Helen Rosenthal, Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, State Senator Brad Hoylman, and Assemblymember Richard Gottfried recently sent this letter to Milstein:


click to enlarge