*Everyday Chatter

Billy's Antiques is raided and Billy is taken away in handcuffs by the NYPD--for selling subway signs. This smells like the city wants some juicy property on Houston. So it begins. [NYCB]


In the reality show Brighton Beach, Russki is "the Russian equivalent of ‘guido.’" [NYer]

What if the whole country was Brooklyn? [JMG]

NYU plans to expand--a lot. "In its Washington Square neighborhood, the university will be creating the equivalent in square footage of a little more than the total floor area of the Empire State Building." [NYT] ...And: One of their architects is Grimshaw, creators of the glass-box newsstands.

Will another church become another condo? [BB]

More glass and robots for Elizabeth Street. [EVG]

MOMA declares they have acquired the @ sign for their collection. [MOMA] via Consumed

Uncovering a lost tiki restaurant in Queens. [LC]

*Everyday Chatter

At Partners & Spade, where they sell "conceptual products" like a Harlem beach bag and exclusive $500 axes to Manhattanites, the window display asks East Village burglars to "please return our laptops and iPods to the 9th precinct." Thank you very much:


A brawl erupts on Avenue A. [NMNL]

Guss' Pickles leaves Orchard Street. [BB]

Meet Brooklyn's new poet laureate. [NYT]

More fratastic hijinks for the EV. [EVG]

Discovering an old theater in Washington Heights. [GLF]

The high crime of putting your feet on an empty subway seat. [NYT]

See Patti Smith and Jonathan Lethem in conversation. [Pen]

The old doorways of South Street Seaport. [GVDP]

Another Saturday night of thumbing noses at CB3 stipulations. [Blah]

*Everyday Chatter

Shows like this make me wish I had cable, just so I could enjoy hating it. [Curbed]

With High Line views, a historic rowhouse grows a $37,500-a-month rooftop tumor--and one blogger is not happy. [AT]

Have your bookshelves, and your brain, analyzed by the New Yorker magazine. [BBench]

Step inside Ideal Hosiery. [Boogie]

John Strong's Freak Museum--home of pickled freaks--gets an unprecedented 3-year lease at Coney. [ATZ]

Peeling paint at the 2nd Ave F station reveals a pair of ancient wheatpaste stickers from Adam Cost:


Look back at the ruins of the East River bandshell. [EVG]

Remembering the old Central Park zoo. [FP]

Ray gets his identity back from the U.S. government. [NMNL]

What to do with Hipster? [CR]

Gowanus Whole Foods site turns into a lake. [FIB]

Jack Gets Tagged

I haven't really checked in much with One Jackson Square since armed guards took up posts in the park outside its doors. So thanks to the tipster who took the following photos at the undulating condo.

One Jackson has gotten its first tags.



Readers might recall the condo's billboard catch-phrase, "The Spirit of Greenwich Village Is Alive and Well." The anonymous tagger begs to differ, saying the condo is, "Destroying the Village."

The solution?

"Eat the Rich
Feed the Poor."

*Everyday Chatter

Help Mosaic Man get to PBS. Vote today. [EVG]

Marzipan lambs stuck with crucifixes and flags. [LC]

Enjoy a Passover "Nosh and Stroll." [TLD]

It's also a good time to take a tour of Crown Heights, complete with matzoh factory.

Two Hirams: Taped up around the East Village:


Harlem's gutted 125th slow to become corporate mall. [Curbed]

The story of Kensington Stables. [Gothamist]

Irish bars watch the changing of their neighborhoods. [CR]

A leprechaun in Yonkers. [P&W]

Gay and Irish? Forget those homophobic Hibernian paraders, Julius' Bar has some specials today:

Before the Village 7

Often, those of us who enjoy urban archaeology discover a building that used to be a movie theater, or we search out the ghosts of old cinemas. What happens when it's the other way around?

Before the Loews Village 7 stood on the corner of 11th St. and 3rd Ave. (before the Village Pour House was across the street, giving refuge to East Village pub-crawling frat-kids), there was this odd and lovely structure:


NY Times, via Microfilm

It was demolished in 1989 and, according an article in the New York Times, it was built in 1869 for the headquarters of the New York City Department of Public Charities and Corrections.

Wrote the Times, "The building was designed by James Renwick, of Renwick & Sands, already famous for his design of Grace Church of 1843 and St. Patrick's Cathedral of 1858... [It has] a typically ebullient, Parisian mansard roof. But the body of the structure, although richly ornamented, also has something of the restlessness of the neo-Grec style. It had chamfered pilasters that interrupted the wall plane, and there was visual conflict between the irregular, horizontal banding and vertical elements."

It was converted into a barn/garage in 1917, with its mansard roof taken off. It stood for a total of 120 years before being replaced by the Loews.

The only other photo I could find of it comes from the NYPL's Digital Gallery. Here's the view looking east on 11th toward 3rd. It's the little parking garage to the right of Webster Hall's very ornate marquee--and its "ebullient, Parisian mansard roof" has already been removed:


NYPL

*Everyday Chatter

Somebody's running around town in a horse-drawn Hummer. [ANY]

When hipster foodies use food stamps for gourmet grub, people get angry. [Salon]

Meanwhile, one local lady sees her dream of weighing 1,000 pounds fizzle. [Gothamist]

The Voice asks us all to stop using the word "hipster." [VV]

Go inside New York’s “women only” Barbizon Hotel [VF]

Getting some lentils at Dual Specialty. [Blah]

Squat the Condos--most timely name for a band--stickers the EV: