*Everyday Chatter

Not to be a grabby blogger, but I have to say, I started the whole "East Village Wines is now taking Euros" thing. I just saw it today on Yahoo/Reuters. It no doubt traveled there by way of City Room 1/14, who admittedly got it from The Villager 1/9, who probably (though not definitively) got it from my post on 1/4. And such is the way small bits of news travel through the world wide webbernets.

On a warm day, the ledge of condo 300 18th is all aflutter with high-school kids, dogwalkers, disabled people--and I can't wait til spring. I wonder when the old crime-scene-tape fence will make its delightful reappearance...


How do those condo builders really think and feel? What goes on inside their heads? For insight, read this eye-opening interview with wonderboy builder Ben Shaoul as he discusses his important role in the decimation of the East Village. [Observer via Curbed]

Moishe's celebrates 35 years on 2nd Avenue and shows no sign of stopping (good news!) as Mr. Perl remembers a time when "You were able to get any sized store for $75 a month — landlords were begging you.” Can you even imagine such a thing? [Villager]

Meatpacking original Florent fights the fight against an insane rent increase of, like, 9 bazillion percent. [Eater]

A nice 90-year-old stationery store that brings to mind Paul Auster's blue notebook. [Brooklynometry]

A million cartoon shoppers are heading for the "gateway to Williamsburg"! [Gowanus L]

There's a disturbance in the Force: Bed-Stuy gets some Darth Vader architecture. [NY Shitty]

Stop the construction of Karl Fischer's 13th Street monstrosity! These flyers just popped up around the neighborhood. No mention of an organized protest, but a plea to contact Landmarks:

Water Sampling Revealed

I have often wondered what is inside those water sampling stations all over the city. But, like Julius Knipl Real Estate photographer, I never got the chance to see one in use.

As imagined by artist Ben Katchor, there are men who go from station to station, tasting the water with a little cup.


art by ben katchor

I like this fantasy, but sadly, the truth of water sampling stations is not so romantic. In reality, there is no little cup. There are men who go from station to station (and probably women, too), but they don't taste the water. They pump it through a tube into some instruments in the back of their truck and, apparently, take some measurements which they write on a clipboard.

Another city mystery demystified.



Now that I've got you in a Ben Katchor mood, go see his latest musical, The Slug Bearers of Kayrol Island (click link for discount) -- opening at the Vineyard Theater near Union Square, February 12.

*Everyday Chatter

The Sophie's Bar fan blog speculated about it and now it's official: Sophie's and Mona's have been saved! Let the drunken celebration begin. [Grub Street]

Speaking of curtain-free condo lives, an architect imagines a fantasy couple of successful sophisticates who don't mind (nay, enjoy) having a "floor-to-ceiling single pane that acts as one of the shower walls." This unfrosted glass "makes fun of prim notions of privacy" and reveals the nude showerer to the roof of a neighboring building, but who cares, because, "who’s going to be up there?” Hey, there are no other people in the world but us, right sweetie? and so the panopticon metropolis continues turning... [NY Times]

Nathaniel Rich reveals a city filled with dorms for adults, "special-interest housing, but for professionals," where it feels like it's freshman year all over again. "It was as if a new city had erupted overnight, devouring the old one in a panic of hunger." So he's glad to live in Brooklyn, which seems immune to going supermall. Of course, that's not true. Brooklyn is the next tasty morsel for that hungry new city across the river. Just wait. [NY Times]

The first review of Lipstick Jungle is in and it's not nice. It also has something to say about the city we live in: "Now New York is a frenetic but slightly bland city ... Yet the need to mythologize the place goes on, even if nothing much is happening ... the characters themselves behave like the human equivalents of the latest gimcrack designer condos." He's talking about the TV show characters, but that does apply to many people in the real post-SATC NYC. [NY Sun]

Billy & Angelo

This past Saturday, Reverend Billy and his Stop Shopping Gospel Choir made a poignant plea outside Angelo Fontana's closing shoe repair shop, which I wrote about here in December with lots of pictures. Anyway, I missed the protest, but a tipster turned me on to Billy's website where pictures and a video of the entire event can be found.


photo: rev billy

During the first part of the video, Angelo stands in the doorway looking somewhat inscrutably bemused as Billy and the choir do their thing, preaching and singing the story of Mr. Fontana's demise. Billy explains how Angelo's original landlord had two buildings, he was the local pharmacist, and undoubtedly knew all the people he rented to. His son, now Angelo's leaseholder, owns 150 buildings and is raising Angelo's rent. “That is the story of New York City," Billy says, "that soulless absence of human scale... The demon monoculture is surrounding us!"

Then, towards the end of the video, Billy and the choir are invited into Angelo's shop and a woman serenades him in Italian. The song is sad and lovely and it might bring tears to your eyes, as Billy and Angelo embrace. It's a touching moment in this hideous time of ongoing condoschmerz and wholesale loicide.

*Everyday Chatter

What's with the day-glo DKNY bikes? I spotted one at St. Mark's and 2nd this weekend. This morning, it was gone. Then this one showed up outside the Meatpacking Apple store, the DKNY sticker ripped off. Racked has the answer:


Bob Arihood advises his readers to strip and steal these orange anathemas. [NMNL]

People seem to be moving in to the condo at 18th and 8th, and like other condo dwellers with giant exposing windows, they don't know how to hang curtains and have come up with creative non-curtain alternatives for gaining a modicum of privacy. In this case, they've erected a bunch of shoji screens. How's that working out for you?


Strippers are scaring the new residents around 23rd and 11th, especially the folks with a stake in this condoland. Will it really make it harder to sell to people so insulated from the world around them they'll drive their cars straight into their condos? Choice quote from the story: "It’s like putting a strip club in Disneyworld." Welcome to the new New York. [Chelsea Now]

Will Nathan's of Coney Island be torn down to become a giant wiener tower? Say it ain't so Nate! [Gothamist]

Meet Mr. Misery: Here's a guy who sells consulting services to landlords who want to evict subprime tenants quickly and efficiently. I guess he thinks of himself as an exterminator of sorts?

Into the Box has a new video about the skyrocketing real estate on the Bowery. Worth checking out for its historical images and the nauseating glimpse you will get into yunnie life on old skidrow. [ITB]

Baby Doll Lounge

VANISHED: 200?


still from In the Cut

The Baby Doll Lounge was situated, ironically I always thought, on the corner of Church and White in Tribeca. There used to be a lot of topless and lap-dancing places down there, tucked into back rooms and basements. The Baby Doll was probably the last of them. I can't remember the date it finally closed. Today, it's Petrarca wine bar, beloved by the moneyed and conservative crowd.


photo from NY Mag

Personal journal entry from February 22, 1997
I spent about an hour and a half sitting in the Baby Doll Lounge this afternoon, talking with the dancers about my job search and work troubles. It's quiet in there on a Saturday. Only maybe three or four guys in there. The girls--Jasmine, Vicki, and Viva--like to just sit and talk.

Vicki has been dancing for 22 years. She also used to work as a part-time contortionist. She's tired, she says, and depressed. I asked her what she'd really like to be doing. She said, "Taking care of a family." She just got an eviction notice and she likes T.S. Eliot. Viva hates it when guys look but don't tip. "If you're gonna look at it, you better pay for it." She plays bass guitar in a band and once had a job where she "beat up on a guy for money." Jasmine was the bartender. She makes $1,000 a week pouring drinks. She used to work as a stock girl in the shoe department of Caldor. I told her I was a poet. She started us playing a game she called "rhyming couplets" where you get a piece of paper and each person takes turns writing a couplet until there is a whole poem. She titled our poem, "Ode to the Baby Doll." She taped the finished poem up near the cash register, next to a sign that said, "NO TOUCHING."

In the photo below, the bar was on the right side. Where the banquette is, the stage used to be. I still see the dancing ghosts of Vicki, Viva, Jasmine, and Jill when I look at this picture:

photo from NY Mag

Personal journal entry from March 1, 1997
Listening to Chet Baker and feeling good because I got a new job, with a raise. I went back to the Baby Doll to celebrate. When I walked in, Viva said hello to me from her position on the stage. I ordered a double Southern Comfort and Jasmine congratulated me on getting the job. Then Jill was up, my favorite. Viva ran her hand across my back and said, "There's your girl," and sat down beside me at the bar. The music came on, Screamin Jay Hawkins doing "I Love Paris." Jill tap-danced and did a demure little burlesque in a tiny leopard-print g-string. She was wonderful. When she was done, she bowed, and everyone clapped wildly, very much in love with her.


still from In the Cut

More vanished XXX:

• Billy's Topless
• The Gaiety Burlesk
• The Playpen

*Everyday Chatter

"Fascist" Bleecker Streeters muzzle noisy tour buses--hooray! Maybe they can help the East Village end of the tour. [Curbed]

New York makes top 5 most miserable cities list--with 2008 promising more and more misery for all but the super-rich. [Gothamist]

A "good old-fashioned barber shop" is coming to Park Slope. I heard the same rumor about the corner of 10th St and 3rd Ave in the East Village, site of the former Galaxy bodega, now being gutted. Maybe there is hope. [Brownstoner]

Woo-hoo! Indie coffee shop trounces Starbucks! The news that Sbux is struggling fills me with a warm-honey feeling of glee. [NYT]

Please note: Starbucks bags are not statusy enough to re-use for carrying your lunch to work. Throw it out. [GothamCI]

One sight I've always enjoyed is to look across the East River and see the Domino sign. Soon, when I look across, all I will see are 40-story glass towers. [Brownstoner]