Theatre Condos

I've been wondering why the old building on the corner of St. Marks and 2nd Ave recently received a swanky, brown-and-blue, Jonathan-Adleresque awning and renovated entrance. Now we know: This building has become The Theatre Condominiums.



Why theatre? Probably because, years ago, the independent, way-off Broadway St. Marks Playhouse was here. It was the one-time home of the Negro Ensemble Company and later became the St. Marks Cinema.

Many will remember the St. Marks Cinema for its cheap double features. Jim Jarmusch was an usher there and shot scenes from his student film, Permanent Vacation, in the lobby. Later, it became a Gap and now it's Pizzanini (with wine bar, sort of). Kim's video used to be on the second floor. I got my videos there.

Here, a new resident enjoys her view of BBQ:




In this lengthy article worth reading from the Times, they visit the changing St. Marks of the early 1990s and ask some important questions:

"It was an odd day when, in March 1988, a Gap store opened up in space once occupied by the St. Marks Cinema. People on St. Marks Place laughed. What, they wondered, did the Gap have to say to the anarchistic spirit of St. Marks Place? What was next, Bloomingdale's?"

Mili Quality Cleaners

My goal for this holiday week was to keep from having to announce any new vanishings. It's been a rough month, after all, and I was hoping for a break. But today, a tipster sent in the following bad news.

After the closing of Fontana Shoe Repair, it was only a matter of time before the next-door tailor closed up shop too. Now it's happening. According to this story in The Villager, Michael Alter's lease is up and he is packing it in. “I don’t want to work anymore,” he said. “I don’t want to work for the landlord. I can’t pay with my fingers so much money."

This is my tailor, the man who hems all my pants.



The Villager writes:

The landlord, Mark Scharfman, is asking $3,330 per month, and “who knows what the real estate taxes will be?” said Alter. “Bloomberg is killing small businesses.”

...He is considering putting in one more month, working through July, and then in the future might work a few days a week for someone else, just to keep busy. But he is ready to go.

Alter’s shop adjoins the now shuttered vacant space that shoemaker Angelo Fontana had to give up on Feb. 29 because of a steep rent increase from the same landlord...Now that both small spaces will be available, what next?

• Thankfully, we still have Gino

B&B Carousell Sign

We recently got some shots of Coney Island's B&B Carousell in the Vanishing New York flickr pool. One from 2007:


photo: jack szwergold

Another from 1976, complete with graffitied subway going by:


photo: tony marciante

And here's a fantastic shot of the interior from the 1950s. As I recall, the decor was exactly the same when the B&B closed. Same clowns on the wall. Same Popeye. Same basket for catching brass rings and same wooden arm that sent the rings out to the carousel riders.


photo: egulvision

Today, the sign has been painted over. The photographer of the pic below says on the Coney Island message boards that the inside has been painted over, too--no more clowns, no more Popeye. I wonder what happened to all those rings. It was from these carousel arms that we get the phrase "grab the brass ring."

Though we lost the sign, the horses were saved this spring when the city bought the carousel and sent them galloping off to Ohio for restoration.


photo: capt_nemo

*Everyday Chatter

On the Clone Wars, these advertising zombies fit right in. Welcome to the 1984 world of flash-mob shills. [Curbed]

Greetings from gentrified Ludlow: "a crumbling eyesore, a haven for rats, and a traffic nightmare." Rodent feces 4 inches deep! [Voice] via HG

It's time to get those vaginas in shape! In a world in which everything must be exercised and prettied up, here comes a spa just for vaginas. Says its founder, “It’s the dental floss of feminine fitness.” [Times] via [Racked]

I just saw Wall-E and highly recommend it. Here's a reviewer who hated it, but his description sums up just how smart and subversively dark the movie is: "Wall-E...supposes that the human race of the future will become a flabby mass of peabrained idiots who are literally too fat to walk. Instead they zip around in flying wheelchairs surfing the Web, chatting on phone lines and stuffing their faces with food meant to be sucked down like milkshakes while unquestioningly taking orders from the master corporation that controls all aspects of their existence." Yes, but they will also have impressively fit vaginas!

The corpse of Florent is open for business. [Eater]

"Starbucks has announced it's closing 600 stores in the U.S., bringing the total number down to approximately 9 gazillion, most of them located in Astor Place." [Gothamist]

Chinatown Sidestreets

As the city does it best to eradicate Chinatown and hand the property over to the luxury developers, much of it yet remains. Paying close attention on a slow walk through the neighborhood's sidestreets reveals an older, not-yet-vanished part of the city, a New York that still feels a lot like New York.



At the edge of the park, a man fixes wristwatches. Another mends shoes. It might be Mr. Zhong, who patches up to 50 pairs a day. From the shadows of a subterranean club comes the clicking cacophony of mah-jongg tiles. From a flower-heavy funeral car, the bereaved toss handfuls of Hell money to the street. A man walks by holding a pair of draped and twittering bird cages. Basement barber shops show off their poles.



Tiny, crooked Doyers Street is empty and otherworldly. It feels so real that it feels unreal, like a movie set. Known as the Bloody Angle for its violent history of gang warfare between 1870 and 1930, Doyers still has an entrance to a secret network of tunnels connecting it to Bowery. Tong soldiers used to attack in the dark then flee through the tunnels to safety.

In The Believer, Alec Wilkinson writes, "Near the Bloody Angle were gangster hangouts called the Doctor’s, the Plague, the Hell Hole, the Cripples’ Home, the Dump, the Inferno, the Cob Dock, the Workingman’s Friend, Mother Woods’, Chick Tricker’s Fleabag, and McGuirck’s Suicide Hall."


doyers street in 1909

The Nom Wah Tea Parlor, established in 1920, still stands on Doyers, displaying outside a table of zongzi, rice and meat wrapped in bamboo leaves and tied with string. On the step, men sit and smoke, enjoying the peace.

• See more photos from a walk in Chinatown on my flickr

*Everyday Chatter

Tomorrow, July 2, at 6pm: Rally in Union Square Park. Meet at the Abraham Lincoln Statue to "Demonstrate against the Parks Department and fight the growing privatization of our public parks."

Tom Ford, the man who made Gucci, is bringing his brand of luxury to Dubai with a line of designer dishdashas, the long robes worn by Arab men. And when New York has entirely become a clone of Dubai, they'll no doubt be wearing them on the Bowery. [Dubai C.]

Rubyfruit to close--the monthly rent has almost doubled and liberated lesbians have other things to do. [City Room]

Visit the pre-Ikea Red Hook of 1989. [HunterG]

The Gossip Girl gang has claimed Coney for their chic selves. [Curbed]

More clashes between Bowery Wine Co. and the yippies. [NMNL]

Iron Triangle

Last year, I visited Willets Point in Queens to talk with the owners of Bono Sawdust who are fighting against a city hellbent on stealing their third-generation family business. They're still fighting--and so are many of the business owners of the Iron Triangle. Last night they held a protest at the Community Board meeting. A couple hundred people showed up asking "What about us?" In the end, the vote went to Bloomberg.

Channel 7 News did a totally biased number on it last night, saying the place is basically a shit hole. It's a shit hole because the city WANTS it to be a shit hole, so they can claim it's blighted and needs to be bulldozed to make room for more luxury and more retail.



Blight, as we learned in the NYPL's recent Eminent Domain talk, is in the eye of the beholder. It is not definable. As this film by Robert LoScalzo shows, the Iron Triangle is not blighted. It is vital and alive:



One of the great adventures still left to be had in this docile city, is to take a walk through the Iron Triangle. It feels like the edge of the earth up there. Seagulls wheel overhead. You walk around vast puddles, stepping from island to island. Dogs roam the dirt roads. Men in blue coveralls shine hubcaps and direct the constant flow of traffic into their garages. The car parts hang together in sections--mufflers, rims, sideview mirrors, bumpers--creating beautiful geometries. There is order here amid the seeming chaos.



A tasty lunch can even be had among the iron. I enjoyed rice, beans, and empanadas at the Stadium Restaurant, a Spanish joint tucked in between the corrugated tin muffler shops. It's a great place to get a cheap bite before a Mets game.



When I finished my meal that day, the woman who ran the cafe stepped outside to sweep the front. Look at where she swept. In a mud puddle, on cracked and filthy concrete, she nonetheless swept up stray pieces of paper and other trash. Undeterred by the futility of her act, in the midst of ruin deliberately encouraged by the city, she swept.

This is not a blighted human being. This is not a blighted neighborhood. Pave the streets, install a drainage system, and let these people continue doing their work.