#SaveNYC Mixer

#SaveNYC is having a meet and greet tomorrow, Wednesday night from 6:00 - 10:00 p.m., at the new Subway Inn, 1140 Second Ave.

You're invited to mix and mingle with New Yorkers who are working hard to raise awareness and protect small businesses and cultural institutions in the city. Share ideas. Drink. Make new friends. 

T-shirts will be available for purchase at $10 (which just covers the cost of making them).



Plus: In addition to our main site, #SaveNYC now has a new action blog: "Action City." It's packed with info about what we're doing, what we've done, and ways you can get involved. Check it out.


-View the mixer invite on Facebook
-Come to the #SaveNYC concert June 6 at Hank's Saloon

Which New York?

For the 50th anniversary of the Landmarks Law, Justin Davidson at New York Magazine talked with me and Nikolai Fedak, blogger of the pro-development NY YIMBY. While mostly polite, it was a spirited conversation, at times a grudge match.

An abbreviated version appears in the print edition of the current magazine, and a longer version appears online.



An excerpt:

NF: ...In East Harlem, you have a proposal for a 50-story tower on top of the Target, which is going to be fantastic. People in the neighborhood object, but they can’t do anything about it.

JD: So powerlessness leads to a good result?

JM: I want to go back to something Nikolai was saying earlier and question the idea that New York has to compete, that the city has to keep growing, that it has to be the best. That’s a very corporate notion, and it’s a foreign concept to me. If we just keep growing and competing and winning, where do we end up, ultimately? With a city filled, from borough to borough, with nothing but gleaming skyscrapers. And then the city will die. At what point do we say that’s enough?

NF: But how could that actually happen —?

JM: It already is happening. Julian Brash wrote the book Bloomberg’s New York, in which he described how Bloomberg changed the way we think of the city. He talked about it as a luxury product and about himself as CEO. He treated New Yorkers like consumers rather than citizens. That is a very different way of thinking about people. Citizens speak up and fight for their rights. Consumers don’t.

JD: Fighting for your rights and interests is obviously an important part of citizenship, but it also creates the adversarial situation that Nikolai was describing, in which the wealthy will always have the upper hand. A lot of planning takes place through litigation, which can be democratic without being fair.

JM: Sure, in an ideal world, everyone would have equal access and power, but if they don’t, that just means they have to fight for it.

NF: There’s room here for everyone if you build adequate housing for them. Prewar neighborhoods like the Upper West Side have buildings that don’t meet the standards of 2015. Why should the poor live in such places in order to preserve the architecture?

JD: There are plenty of wealthy people living in old buildings with creaky plumbing, too.

JM: So, Nikolai, do you have a fantasy that if you tore down and rebuilt all those buildings, the people who live there would be able to move back in?

NF: My fantasy is a New York where everyone has access to comfortable housing.

JM: Well, yeah, how can I disagree with that? My apartment is a shithole. But I have to hold on to my shithole. I have to fight for my shithole.

NF: That mentality is what makes it impossible for the city to accommodate more people.

JM: I don’t want to accommodate more people. There are too many fucking people here already.

NF: There! That’s the difference between us. I think the city needs to evolve, and Jeremiah’s nostalgic for the city of the past.

JM: What I’m nostalgic for is the city of the present...


Click here for the full discussion

Lydia Lunch

The legendary No Wave performer Lydia Lunch returns to New York with a photo exhibition and installation. Chris Nutter interviewed her for HuffPo.


1980

An excerpt:

CLN: Why did you decide to come back to New York now?

LL: I left New York in 1990 before it turned into Disney. I'm here now for the people who still remain who know what this place once was. That's in part what I wanted to do with So Real It Hurts. Coming back now just feels right.

CLN: Who is your New York audience today?

LL: To sum up an audience is to insult the individuals who are there. Anyone who comes to me comes for the comfort that I can bring them. My work is for people who aren't afraid to go into the deepest corner of their obsessions, who need to understand and exorcize their demons, and the horror of it all. To break it down it's almost always the most sensitive, the shy boys, the weirdoes, the non mono-gender, the outsiders who come to me.

CLN: You mean the archetypal old school New Yorker.

LL: Absofuckininglutely.

...

CLN: Do you feel the need to live in New York again?

LL: I wouldn't say I need New York, but I would say New York needs me.


Visit HuffPo for the whole story.

No Your City

Nicolas Heller is the creator of "No Your City," an episodic documentary film project that captures the special characters that keep New York City's street life, well, alive.

In this post-Bloombergian age of sterilized sidewalks and fussily manicured parks, the street character is a vitally important citizen--and a vanishing breed. We used to see them everywhere. Today, less and less. But a few remain. From Larry the Birdman to colorful Ms. Colombia, they're getting their close-up in Heller's lens.



I asked Nic a few questions:

Q: First off, why the NO in "No Your City"?

A: Ah, the first question everyone asks… There is no deep meaning behind it, I just wanted to keep the NYC acronym so I could use the subway token as a logo.

Q: You grew up in New York. What characters do you remember from way back?

A: I grew up on 16th and 5th in Manhattan. Union Square was my backyard, so most of the people I remember were from there. Te’Devan the 6’ 7” Freestyling Jew (who at the time was a spiritual healer), Wendell the homeless Fashion designer, the asshole with the cat on his head, the little man who sold hot dogs, Roman the pervert. The list goes on.

Q: What made you want to capture the characters of New York on film?

A: At first it was an excuse for me to get to know these people I have seen around the neighborhood for years but too afraid to approach. In the second season, it turned into a form of preservation. You know as well as I do that NYC is losing a lot of its charm. And with it, the city is losing a lot of its characters. I wanted to tell the stories of New Yorkers who might not be around much longer. So that kids can see these videos 40 years from now and be exposed to what NYC was.

Q: What do you think of that word, "character"? Is that the right word?

A: I consider the word “character” a positive way to describe someone. I remember my parents describing friends, clients, etc., to me when I was a kid. They would describe them as “a real character.” It was because they had something very unique about them. A vibrant personality. All my subjects are these things and more, therefore they deserve the honor of being called a “character.” I don’t just throw that term around. It takes a special person.



Q: What do you think is valuable about these people, and others like them, to the urban fabric of the city?

A: Street culture is what makes a city unique. You can go anywhere in the United States and there will be similar restaurants, stores, parks, etc. But there is only one of every character. There is no one else like Wendell, Larry the Birdman, Mrs. Colombia, Clayton Patterson, etc. You have to come to NYC to experience them.

Q: How do you approach your subjects? Is everyone open to being filmed -- or have you had some misses?

A: It usually starts with a photograph. Then I will talk to them and tell them about my series. Most of these characters love the attention so they are eager to be filmed. I’ve had a few misses, mostly because there was no way of getting in touch with them. But for the most part everyone is appreciative of the message and wants to be involved.

Q: Looking just at your films, one might think New York is still a weird, vibrant place. Do you think it is?

A: Totally. I am only 26, so I can’t quite remember what NYC was like over 10 years ago, but luckily I have Clayton Patterson’s archive available to me. In a sense, I am doing what he was doing 30 years ago. Documenting a moment in time that will inevitably change in the coming years. I still think the city has tons of personality. More so than anywhere else I have been to. I think my films do a good job of providing evidence of that.

Q: Will there be more films? What characters are you still hoping to get on film?

A: I will always be filming. The city plays a huge role in everything I do. I just finished a series on Brooklyn Drag Queens called Queens of Kings which will be coming out shortly after No Your City season 2 ends, and I am in the process of making an animated short film which will be a part of No Your City. Making these docs costs next to nothing, so as long as I am physically able, I will continue to tell people’s stories.


- Watch "No Your City" online
- Like it on Facebook

Revolution Books

VANISHING

Revolution Books, opened in 1979, has lost their lease. They've called an "emergency meeting" for this Thursday at 7:00 pm at the shop.



On the Facebook invite, they write: "Friends! Revolution Books has lost its space and must move out of 26th Street store by May 30. We come to you -- the thousands of people who know and love this bookstore -- to help us re-locate right away.

As the planet burns up, as immigrants drown at sea fleeing countries ravaged by imperialism, as our youth are murdered by police in epidemic numbers, and as a beautiful new rising bursts from Ferguson to Baltimore to New York City, Revolution Books is needed more than ever. It is also a moment when Revolution Books could be lost... There is no bookstore like Revolution Books -- it cannot become one more in the string of important places forced to close."

Back in 2012, they nearly closed when their landlord issued a major rent increase. Prior to that, they lost their long-time space on 19th Street.

Dedicated to social justice and change, Revolution Books is a non-profit with an all-volunteer staff. They survive in part by donations (click here to donate). They are also one of an ever-dwindling number of bookstores in Manhattan.

#SaveNYC. Lend your help to Revolution Books. And please sign the petition to pass the Small Business Jobs Survival Act to protect our small businesses from massive rent hikes and lease renewal denials.

Caffe Capri

Amy Rose Spiegel writes in with some unsettling news:

"I have a really saddening tip to share: Mike, who runs Uncle Louie G's on Graham, exacerbated my suspicions that Caffe Capri is closed. It's been gated and locked for days, and he told me other neighborhood heads have told him independently that it's done for good. I'm heartbroken and hoping Sarah and Joe, the elderly brother- and sister-in-law who run it, are all right."



Here's hoping this one is just a rumor, and that the folks at Caffe Capri are simply on vacation, returning any day now.

The Williamsburg treasure has been here since 1974, but we know Graham Avenue is changing. The boutiques and upscale "specialty" coffee shops are moving in. Idiosyncratic Italian-American businesses like Grande Monuments are moving out. Simply put, the loss of Caffe Capri would break a lot of hearts.

For more on this beloved place, see my interview with filmmaker Casimir Nozkowski and his short documentary.

Penn Books

VANISHING

Just in March, I reported that Penn Books was struggling, but still managing to survive. Now we hear they've been forced to shutter.



Mindy writes: "Just stopped into Penn Books tonight on my way to the opera and found bare shelves... They'll be gone by the end of the week."

Penn Books was started three generations ago, in the original Penn Station, in 1962. They survived the destruction of Penn Station. They survived citywide fiscal crises. They even outlasted Borders. Business was still bustling. But they could not afford the rent hikes.



Landlord Vornado started pushing out businesses in 2014, according to Crain's. Now they're revamping Penn Station and the area around it.

In the Wall St. Journal, Vornado's Chief Executive said earlier this month, “There is no reason that we cannot achieve very, very substantial rising rents in Penn Plaza—very substantial, enormous--with a little TLC."

Tender. Loving. Care.



Previously:
Penn Books
Sign the petition to pass the SBJSA
#SaveNYC