More Bleecker Retail

Bleecker Street needs more luxury shopping mall chains!

Retail space on the western "Gold Coast" end of Bleecker is not unlimited, but you can make more by converting the first floor of your townhouse into retail. That's what's happening to 397 Bleecker. This lovely little townhouse was sold (asking price $5.3 million) and the new owners are knocking out the first floor.

(This was done in another townhouse two years ago to make room for Jimmy Choo.)



The sales listing reads: "this historic townhouse is one of a privileged few homes with access to gorgeous Bleecker Gardens with its beautifully landscaped plants, trees and a fountain pool." (Check out the listing for photos of those hidden gardens.)

Did you know that Bleecker "has now surpassed London's Bond Street and Los Angeles' Rodeo Drive in retail price per sq. ft."?

Here's the rental listing if you'd like to open a store here--maybe a used bookstore or a record shop?

Every Bodega

Gail Victoria Braddock Quagliata is a photographer in Brooklyn who has taken on the task of capturing every bodega in Manhattan. Her photos, along with a map, are featured on a webpage with the same name: Every Bodega in Manhattan.

I asked Gail a few questions about her project.



Q: Why photograph every bodega--what's important about the city's bodegas?

A: When I moved here from Chicago a decade or so ago, the bodegas were among the first features I appreciated as unique to this city. We don't really have them where I come from, it seems to be either chain convenience stores or grocers. The bodega seems to cater specifically to its own neighborhood in addition to carrying basics.

I've seen home-cooked Dominican food for sale in a largely Dominican neighborhood, religious tracts on prominent display near an Islamic center, and caviar advertised off ritzy 5th Ave, all crammed in next to cigarettes, flowers, diapers, beer, tiny overpriced bottles of aspirin. Plus, many of these shops are open 24 hours, so you've sort of got a perfect mini-metaphor for New York--the bodega never sleeps and is its own melting pot of cultural influences.

Watching these unique places get shuttered as 7-11 stores spread is, in my mind, like watching every random corner pizza shop turn into a Sbarro. Another piece of New York's specific identity is blotted out, to what end? So we can be a boring, homogenous strip mall like anywhere else? Why would anyone want that?

Q: What interests you visually about the New York bodega?

A: Visually, I'm fascinated by how differently each bodega presents itself in spite of essentially selling the same thing. Right now, you'll typically see that Arizona Tea ad, "I heart big cans," which has somehow inserted itself onto the exterior of an absurd majority of bodegas, and probably the NY Lotto logo, but other than that it's a completely unique collage of ads and products crammed into or onto the windows. They're usually quite colorful just because all of the advertisements are competing for your eye at once, or the packages of the products in the window make an interesting pattern, or there are flowers just...being flowers.

I'm also interested in the signs, the surprising lists of goods printed on the awnings, the names of the shops themselves. I realized I'd spent much of my time here not realizing what my own neighborhood bodegas have been called because they're just THE shop on the corner, period. Many of them have quite curious names. Then you'll hit a neighborhood where nearly every shop will have some permutation of the same name. Up near Columbia Presbyterian you practically can't walk a block without hitting a Presbyterian Deli of some stripe. And yet they're completely different in stock, signage, and just general tone. All these display choices are visually compelling to me.



Q: How do you tell the difference between a bodega and a grocer's?

A: Initially, I adopted the very loose Potter Stewart "I know it when I see it" type approach, which lasted for about a day of shooting in January after staring at one market for 15 minutes, freezing for no good reason, trying to decide if it fit. My criteria is that a bodega sells lotto tickets, beer, or cigarettes (preferably all three). Anything that advertises specials in the window not involving a deli counter is probably not a bodega--you don't need to have sales when your customers are desperate and it's 3am!

If it's a gray area beyond that, which is rare, I go inside the shop. More than a deli counter, say, a meat counter, no dice. If they have a printed circular with coupons, it's a grocer. I've found the cigarette requirement really helps in these cases, most bodegas sell cigarettes and most grocers or ambiguous-looking health food markets, in my experience, do not. Newspapers could probably fit in, here, too. Bodegas tend to sell newspapers where grocers may not. But cigarettes usually work as my deciding factor.

Q: How do you plan to get to every single one? There must be a lot of them!

A: Oh, man, there are thousands! I'm just walking the entire island block by block and marking off where I've been on a map. I started at the top and I'm working my way down, with the occasional interruption if I'm somewhere random with my camera. [Click here to see a map of Gail's progress so far.]

I think walking through the entire city is the only way to do it. I'm certain the entire list will have changed by the time I've finished. I know several of the shops I've shot in the past few months have closed already, I see new ones opening, and 7-11 stores keep popping up like weeds. My project is sort of a moment frozen in time, I guess.

1970s Stock Footage

Reader Philip Shelley turns us on to a great find--from the NBC/Universal Film Archives, originally shot for NBC News, it's a whole bunch of 1970s stock footage of the city.



Click here to watch Part One--it includes Times Square, a quiet part of town compared to today. The silent, shuffling crowds go by, only the sound of their feet making noise. The streets are more subdued, and they're also sexier with their 1,001 Danish Delights, porn houses that offer a "box lunch," sidewalk barkers drumming up customers for the "anything goes" psychedelic burlesque.



The footage moves along. Sixth Avenue is desolate. No crowds. The whole city seems a bit hushed. Until you get to total pandemonium at what looks like Bethesda fountain in Central Park--people riding bikes and rowing boats in the water. You'll also find rare scenes in the old Children's Zoo.



Click here to watch Part Two , which goes from Harlem to Brownsville to the South Bronx, desolate scenes of children playing in the wreckage, footage of buildings in flames.

At 43 minutes in, we go to Coney Island, the beach packed like it never is today, bodies overlapping on the sand. And there's the forgotten Tornado rollercoaster, eventually lit on fire and demolished in 1978.

 

Finally we see city buses covered in graffiti, subways messily tagged, not with the exuberant artworks that would come in the 80s. Weary riders, bereft without uninvented electronic devices, have no choice but to think and feel as they plunge below the streets of this other, lost city.

Stan Mack's Real Life Funnies

In 1974, the Village Voice hired Stan Mack to write "Real Life Funnies," a brilliant, observational comic strip that eavesdropped on the city, collecting the voices of the streets, the jazz joints and cafes, the consciousness-raising groups and cocktail parties. The strip ran until 1995, and Stan moved on to other projects.

"Real Life Funnies" remains as an invaluable time capsule of two decades when New York City was still a wild, weird, creative place filled with people who, at the very least, had something interesting to say.

Recently, I got the chance to talk to Stan about his work.


from "An Evening with a Male Liberationist"

Q: Your work beautifully captures the culture of the city in the 70s and 80s. The language people used, and the way they spoke, the topics they spoke about, are familiar from the films of Woody Allen--neurosis and art and sex. It's a different city now. What do you find yourself overhearing these days?

A: Mostly what I hear is cell phone talk: "I’m on Bleecker and 10th, where are you?" Less often words I once would have written down, but, as you suggest, the time of the wonderful self-revealing comments, situations, and events (at least the kind I could get at) is past.



Q: What do you think is the difference between the "voice" of the city then and now?

A: It was late ’74 when I started my documentary comic strip about New York City in the Village Voice, which was a kind of town square of the counterculture. It was a period when many of the ‘60s political and social activists were turning inward, searching for the meaning of life—spiritual, sexual, self-actualizing.

That period was followed, in the ‘80s, by the New York invasion of yuppies with Rolexes. During those two decades I wandered the city hearing wonderfully pithy and revealing epiphanies: in bars and restaurants, rap sessions, self-help seminars (offering every sort of revelation), elevators, movie lines.

Today I hear one-sided cell phone prattle on street corners, read what Facebook friends like, what links Twitter people recommend. Recently I heard a woman say her department is full of freaks, they don’t like her, and she doesn’t have a life, but that sounded more like a whine than an epiphany. I’m no sociologist so I don’t know if this era is less interesting. You’d think people would be as tormented by sex, self-fulfillment, and relationships (and babies) as ever, but I’m not hearing it on any movie lines I’ve been on lately. Maybe I should ask the NSA.


from "Oh Men, Oh Women"

Q: In your wanderings to overhear, did you go out in search of interesting conversations or did they just happen wherever you were? Reading through your Real Life Funnies, I kept wondering what you were doing in all those singles groups and psychics meetings.

A: There were a number of ways I got my words and stories. Wonderful lines did drop into my lap when going for milk. Still, my weekly deadline was always rushing towards me, so I regularly left home to troll for lines in bars, parks and museums, at gatherings of psychics, UFO abductees, and pigeon fanciers, by following political protests, by hanging out with a dominatrix...intrepid boy reporter/voyeur.

In order to hear people speaking naturally, I sometimes needed to be accepted as just another participant--a sincere searcher for my soul mate at the Universalist Church on the Upper West Side, or whomever. And that required a little method acting, including being a very boring searcher for my soul mate. I was there to listen to, and secretly write down, the words of other searchers, not have them be interested in mine.

As time went on, I found I liked cutting an individual from the herd and having a conversation where I didn’t have to write in tiny, crabbed shorthand on the corner of a napkin while pretending I wasn’t. One subject was an enforcer (knee breaker), a very effective bad debt collector, who was also an elegant calligrapher and guest lecturer on calligraphy at the New School.

There was another way I picked up dialogue, and I didn’t have to pretend to be someone else. I did a weekly documentary comic strip for Adweek magazine. It was called Out-Takes and was an inside look at the secretive and mad New York advertising scene. I hung out with art directors, copywriters, and photographers, and their creative angst also made its way into my Voice strip.

I came to trust that it took a New Yorker to express feelings that the rest of the country had but usually couldn’t articulate.


from "Cocktails at the Ramrod"

Q: Now you're doing comics on American history. How did that switch happen--from contemporary New York to the country's deep past?

My Real Life Funnies comic strip started as collections of snippets of real-life dialogue, which I usually gathered by overhearing self-involved boomers at work and play. Gradually, I began to organize the many voices into stories with beginnings, middles, and endings.

Looking back, I can see that I kept trying to dig deeper into people's lives. My stories were finally growing too long and complex for the size of the comic strip. I wonder if I was somehow anticipating today’s graphic novel boom and the willingness of readers to tackle serious comics.

Among my lengthier strips were those covering the protests in the East Village. Those stories would lead to my first book. An editor who lived on St. Mark’s asked if I’d be interested in doing a book related to the Tompkins Square Park riots. Out of that conversation came my comics history of the American Revolution--using a sort of Real Life Funnies "street" approach. Great fun giving George Washington a New York attitude.

When the Village Voice (facing their own shrinking future) dumped a lot of features in 1995, including my comic strip, I began a second book (the Story of the Jews) with the same idea of covering history Real Life Funnies-style. I looked forward to giving God a New York City street voice.

And then, sadly, I got a chance to dig as deeply as I wanted into the lives of two Greenwich Village writers/artists. My partner, Janet, a great character and wise-ass (who’d appeared many times in my strip), was diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer. I became her caregiver. The voices of the street became muted, the voices of the two trapped people were magnified. We coped with the indignities of every day New York City life when one is ill. (Like the ambulette driver on speed who took us on a circuitous ride through pothole-filled streets to get to Beth Israel with the wheelchair-bound patient painfully bouncing around in back.) After Janet died, I wrote a memoir about it all, with lots of my drawings. That book was Janet & Me. One more New York City story.


From "Janet and Me"

Q: Did you find yourself missing those voices of the street during that time of struggle and loss? And do you think you'll go back to hearing them again, to putting the city's voice onto paper, or is that chapter over?

A: Over the past few days I’ve gone on long walks through the East Village and the Upper West Side and Central Park. For me, every few blocks of the city or areas of the parks are filled with voices from my strips. (Covering the city for 20 years will do that.)

I think of a strip I did at the Village Vanguard in 1995, which was the 50th anniversary of that famous space. I sat in the empty room with Lorraine Gordon, the owner and guiding force, as she reminisced about all the brilliant musicians who’d played there. For her and for the many Vanguard fans, those long-ago sounds are still present. But so are the artists of today. The Vanguard is as alive as ever.

And of course, New York is as well. Today when I walk the city, I’m surrounded by all those funny, poignant, pithy words from my old strips. Maybe because I’ve moved on to other kinds of projects, today's voices seem duller or more faint by comparison (not to mention how many of them are in languages I don’t understand). But maybe they really aren’t. Maybe they’re just as lively, but different. I know there are plenty of young, talented artists around, I’ll leave it to them do the collecting.


from "The Village Vanguard"


Visit Stan Mack's website to read and buy Real Life Funnies and more

Flowers by Philip

In Bloomberg's New York, even the businesses that cater to the rich are being given the boot.



Reader Dan let us know about Flowers by Philip. After 45 years at 1141 Madison Avenue, plus another decade in business overall, the second-generation florist has lost their lease.

Luckily, they found a new spot over on Lexington.

As the Times reported in 2009, even luxury stores can't afford the sky-high rents of Madison Avenue. It's the same story that's happening everywhere--small, old businesses are being kicked out to make room for more and more global chain stores.



Flowers by Philip is real Upper East Side--old and posh. Says the website: "Flowers by Philip is owned and operated by Philip Mercedes continuing a family tradition begun by his own father and the founding of the shop 52 years ago. Flowers by Philip combines the elegance and style of Madison Avenue with the customer service and friendliness of your trusted neighborhood florist."

Designer Paul Martinez, once a poor kid from East Harlem, has worked at Flowers by Philip since 1992. He told the Times in 2010: "This is a family shop, second generation. Jackie Onassis was our client, although I always knew her as Mrs. Kennedy. She liked simple arrangements. Her favorite was lily of the valley; when she passed away, that was what we put on her casket... When Irving Berlin died, we did a casket blanket of white gardenias."

But what was good enough for Jackie O. and Irving Berlin, just isn't good enough for the new New York. It's not Ralph Lauren. It's not Juicy Couture. It's not Abercrombie & Fitch.

Blue-Collar High Line

The Highline Effect keeps knocking down Chelsea, and blue-collar businesses along the park have taken a few more hits, adding to the lightning-fast timeline of loss.


2012

At 19th St. on 10th Ave., Kamco Building Materials has been completely demolished. Nothing remains but a blue plywood wall.


today

Soon to take its place will be a pair of giant, $40-million condo towers, rising on both sides of the High Line. The condo project is called "The Highline." Because that name hasn't been used nearly enough. Here's a rendering of the double tower to come:


tomorrow

One block north, on 10th Ave. stretching across the entire block from 20th to 21st Streets, a GGMC parking garage is being demolished. Not much to look at, but part of the old low-rise neighborhood just the same. It sold for $47,900,000.



The address is 500 West 21st. Originally bought by hotelier Andre Balasz, the current developer, according to the Wall Street Journal, is "Sherwood, a New York City real-estate company that developed the Times Square buildings home to the Renaissance Hotel and the M&M Store."


today

The Times just did a story on the condo building to come: "As the area has become more family-friendly, the building will be made up primarily of larger apartments, many measuring more than 4,000 square feet. ...units could sell for 'somewhere in the neighborhood of $2,500 a square foot,' putting the price for a 4,000-square-foot three- or four-bedroom unit around $10 million."

It's only being called by its address, but shouldn't it have the word "Highline" in its name? Maybe Highline Modern or Highline 500 or HL500 or The Highliner or...how about M&M Highline?


tomorrow

On the next block up 10th Avenue, D&R Auto Parts is up for rent. In 2011, the owner of D&R told AMNY, "'The High Line sucks.' He said he would 'rather have my knees cut off' than take a stroll along the sylvan pathway, as his profits have dropped 35% to 40% since it opened." And now it's gone.



I started this timeline awhile back, showing the blue-collar businesses along the old tracks that have folded since the northern sector of the New Highline opened in June 2011. Time to add more to the list:

5/2013: D&R Auto Parts shuttered
5/2013: GGMC Parking Garage demolished
4/2013: Kamco Building Materials demolished for condo towers
2/2013: Evan Auto moved a block away
1/2013: Edge Auto Rental moved to Brooklyn
1/2013: Central Iron & Metal sold to Related for $65 million
12/2011: Brownfeld Auto pushed out by landlord
12/2011: Chelsea Mobil sold and shuttered for upscale retail
9/2011: Village Lukoil shuttered
9/2011: D&R Auto Parts reported 40% drop in profits since High Line opened
8/2011: Bear Auto forced out by landlord for upscale development
8/2011: Olympia Parking Garage closed when landlord quintupled the rent
6/2011: Poppy's Terminal Food Shop changed hands, later shuttered
6/2011: 10th Ave. Tire Shop pushed out for High Line development

Manatus

While chatting with a shopkeeper on Bleecker Street, I heard that the great Manatus diner is being pushed out. Said the shopkeeper, "Manatus has lost their lease. The space has already been rented out for a Calvin Klein store. Not sure how long they have left. Maybe a month."

Don't panic yet. That was a month ago now, and while I've tried to get something definitive, I have been unable to confirm the information. One person I spoke to at Manatus hesitated to answer, eventually saying, "Eh, well, not tomorrow, maybe in a year."



We've worried about Manatus for awhile. It's been around for decades--since at least 1985. They have long catered to a gay clientele, mostly older men, locals who eat in diners. It's also one of the last affordable places to dine in that part of town. (Read my previous post.)

At lunch the men come walking in, some limping and some using canes, singly or in couples. They're greeted by the hostess with kisses of hello. They are known. They have their favorite tables. One sits at the bar and takes a book out of his Strand shopping bag. He orders a cup of coffee and begins to read, to pass the time not alone. Now and then he gets up to stretch his legs. He helps himself to the mints. Another man sits by himself and sips a bowl of soup. A third butters his roll and reads the Post.

The radio plays Air Supply and Journey.

At dinnertime, a butch woman comes in to get her supper to go, dry cleaning slung over her shoulder, hanging out to chat a bit. An elderly man shuffles in and hands the manager some money, saying, "I owe you two dollars," before turning to leave.

It all feels steady and solid, but the tide of change is at the door. Small businesses on the block have begun to vanish.





The westernmost end of Bleecker Street has been hyper-gentrifying like wildfire for the past few years. In August 2011, I outlined the street's timeline of luxurification, and noted that this block, the western side of Bleecker between 10th and Christopher, "is looking very vulnerable." Then upscale perfumer Jo Malone moved in. That was, perhaps, the tipping point.

I went by recently and found that three more businesses on this side of the block have closed. From left to right: There's a For Lease sign in Pinky Otto (closed) and the Grand Cleaners (closed). The listing gives no asking rent, but you can bet it's in the tens of thousands. These spaces are, after all, "Situated on Manhattan’s hottest fashion corridor."

Your Neighborhood Office postal shop is safe, with a lease for the next 10 years. The Fabuless boutique has closed--the manager said the rent was hiked. Next, Verve looks okay, but they had a "Love NYC? Shop Small" sign in the window. Then it's Manatus, Marc and Max lingerie, and the Village Apothecary, which has been in business since 1983 and appears to be safe.

The shopkeeper I spoke to also claimed that, on the southwest corner of Bleecker and Christopher, the Spa Belles nail salon will become a Tiffany's. The nail salon did not confirm this information.



So, whether it's horrible truth or wild rumor, whether it's tomorrow or a year from now, go to Manatus. Because you never know. Their building is owned by Lloyd Goldman’s BLDG Management, who has been on a "pricey buying spree" lately.


Previously:
Lunch at Manatus
Bleecker Timeline
Bleecker's Luxe Blitz
Arleen Bowman Boutique