Sapporo

VANISHING

Ed writes in: "I’m sad to report that while having dinner this evening at Sapporo between 6th and 7th, I found out they’re closing at the end of the month. I’ve been going there for years and the staff is exceptionally close and dedicated. They were told a few days ago they’ll all be out of work in a few weeks. I spoke with the cashier and she didn’t have a clear idea of what was going on. She knows that all the restaurants in the adjacent buildings are being closed down. Maybe the owner is selling the buildings? Sapporo is always packed and a great affordable place to eat. I’m so sad."

A phone call to the restaurant confirms that today is their last day--they will close for good at 5:00 p.m.


photo: Manhattan Sideways

Sapporo Restaurant opened on West 49th Street in 1975. On their website they say they were "the first to bring Japanese ramen to New York City."

Robert Sietsema wrote about it for Eater, calling it "a kind of diner for Japanese ex-pats, specializing in homely luncheon fare that included gyoza, fried chicken, katsudon, curry, udon, and, most particularly, ramen. In fact, it was one of the few places in New York City that offered the Chinese-inspired wheat noodles at a time when they had not yet been fetishized to the extent they are now."

JAM Paper & Envelope

As E.V. Grieve reported earlier this month, JAM Paper & Envelope is closing on Third Avenue near 14th Street. They started business in 1954 and opened their first shop in 1983. Today is the last day.


all photos by Katrina del Mar

This week, some interesting signs went up in the windows that might tell us something about the closure.

Reads one: "So my wife of 40 years says... Honey, no one shops retail anymore. That's why we are online. Fine, I say. She then says, Now we can go to Florida."



The next is a list of "Facts I Remember," including "People saying please and thank you," "Talking instead of texting," and "Shopping in stores."

So maybe we chalk this one up to the changing demographic in the East Village, a new population that prefers to shop online, rather than engage with the local commercial culture. As many long-time residents have noted, the hallways of our buildings fill up with packages as new people move in.

Goodbye Lincoln Plaza Cinemas

As you already know, Lincoln Plaza Cinemas is vanishing. The lease was not renewed and its last day will be January 28. We tried to save it, but Milstein Properties apparently isn't listening.

Filmmaker Christopher Ming Ryan went to the movies to talk to folks about why Lincoln Plaza is so special--and why it should not vanish:



Ryan writes:

"We have a message to the landlord, Howard Milstein: make capital improvements on this space, but keep the people who run this theater by offering them an affordable lease. Toby Talbot deserves to stay. I want to enjoy the films they hand pick and continue to support the wonderful staff here--for a very long time. Do the right thing."

Over 11,000 people agree--and many more. Sign the petition and let the landlord know what's on your mind.

Benny's Un-Vanished

Three years ago, East Village favorite Benny's Burritos shuttered after 27 years in business. Last year, owner Mark Merker tried again with Che Cafe, a little joint on 7th Street that featured a rounded version of the empanada--but, sadly, no burritos.

Then, sometime during the deep freeze of a few weeks ago, Che Cafe suddenly vanished. The shutters were down. No sign said why.



Last night, the lights were on again in the shop, with Mark and his new business partner, Scott, behind the counter. Today, they reopen as Benny's Burritos & Empanadas. The place will be serving, yes, burritos and empanadas, along with tacos, chicken tortilla soup, and more.

Said Mark, "We're going to squeeze everything we can out of this little spot."

So take a walk by and reconnect with those burritos you thought you'd lost.

Hudson Diner

VANISHING?

A reader in the Village wrote in to say that he heard the Hudson Diner will be closing soon.

"I'm really sad about this one," he wrote. "It is not about the food (not so great) or the prices (as high as any in Manhattan). It is maybe the large windows. They've always made it easy to see who was sitting there, and wave hello or just stop in. I was talking to some of my favorite regulars early this morning -- I like to get a coffee to go, and yet I always get pulled into a conversation -- such a simple little part of my day, but such a wonderful way to interact with my neighbors. And the owners and staff were always welcoming to all folks."



Located on Hudson near Barrow, the Hudson Diner has been a local favorite possibly for as long as 43 years.

While I could not get a firm confirmation of the closure from the diner, neighbor Neil at Oscar's Place said he heard that Sunday will be the diner's last day, though they could go even sooner -- or not.

Neil will start opening his place earlier in the morning to accommodate Hudson's displaced regulars. He says, "I'll do my best to feed everyone with bagels and coffee, and just take care of everyone. Losing the diner will leave a big void."



The Hudson Diner was recently cited in Westview News as a survivor of the high-rent blight that is gutting the Village. They wrote:

"...even though The Hudson Diner has emerged a winner in the West Village diner survivor square-off, co-owner Rajiv 'Babu' Chowdhury is forced to work seven days a week. He has been facing a decline in business for each of the last three years. Babu says that even though he can pay rising rents and works very well with his landlord, his business suffered when the lunchtime corporate customer base left due to their high rents."

If you need more evidence of the unsustainability of commercial rents, reader Ora McCreary points us to the corner of Hudson and Perry, just a few blocks up from the Hudson Diner. The Le Pain Quotidien location there is closing on March 25. The reason? A realtor says the landlord raised the rent from $30,000 to $40,000 a month. Even the international corporate chains can't survive this New York.

Goodbye Sunshine

VANISHED

The Sunshine Cinema closed this weekend. It wasn't landmarked--though it should have been. Soon it will be a pile of bricks.


1930, via NYPL

It was built as a Dutch Reformed Church in the 1800s. In the early 1900s, it became the Houston Athletic Club, for boxing matches.

In 1909 it transformed into the Houston Hippodrome, an affordable vaudeville and Yiddish movie house frequented by Jewish, Italian, and other immigrants of the Lower East Side.

In 1913, the Hippodrome was the site of a deadly stampede. During the movie "Daredevils Species," while robbers held up a western train, a flash came from the camera, causing someone to yell "Fire!" Panic ensued. People trampled each other as they clamored for the exit. Crushed to death were two women--Mrs. Margaret Corsa of Chrystie Street and an unidentified woman whose dark hair was "tinged with gray," and who wore on her finger a wedding ring with the initials P.M.

In 1917, the Hippodrome became the Sunshine until it closed sometime in the 1940s and became a warehouse for hardware supplies.


photo by Judith Thissen

In 2001, it was renovated and reopened as the Sunshine Cinema. Its crowds boosted sales at Yonah Schimmel's next door. Said the manager to the Times, "Now, I get a lot more people buying knish and sneaking them into movies. I bet that theater will soon smell all of knish. I bet nobody minds."

Last year, the building was sold to developers East End Capital and K Property Group. As The Real Deal reported at the time, "Landmark Theatres co-owner Mark Cuban initially planned to buy the building with his partner Todd Wagner and build a dine-in movie theater, but their plan fell through in 2012 after the local community board rejected their liquor license application."

The developers filed plans to demolish the building. They will build another soulless piece-of-shit office tower.

Said developer Jonathon Yormark to the Times, “We’re big fans of the Lower East Side. It really needs more 9-to-5 activity and it tends to be very active, obviously, on a night life basis. We believe there is a real demand for office space and for people to work there during the day.”

(There will be a developer victory dance party. We're all invited.)



So we're losing another beautiful building for something hideous and dead. We're losing history for emptiness. We're losing culture for corporate culture.

And don't let anyone tell you the Sunshine closed because "No one goes to the movies anymore." Don't let them tell you it's "Because of Netflix," like they say "It's all because of online shopping" and "No one buys books anymore. No one goes to diners anymore. No one eats hot dogs anymore." Don't let the creeps get away with dodging the rent issue.

The Sunshine closed because of hyper-gentrification. Because the rents are too high. The Sunshine closed because it wasn't protected.

As Tim Nye, the Sunshine's co-owner, told the Times this week, "the theater 'was doing incredible' financially. But they were paying $8,000 in monthly rent, which they expected would skyrocket at the end of their 25-year lease on Jan. 31. 'It’s the economics. We cannot pay market rent.'"

The Small Business Jobs Survival Act could have saved the Sunshine. The return of commercial rent control would have saved the Sunshine. Landmarking would have at least kept the historic building standing, instead of the soulless piece of shit that's to come.

And what will that soulless piece of shit do to Yonah Schimmel's? The knishery opened in 1910, one year after the opening of the Houston Hippodrome. Surely, it benefited from the crowds going in and out of the theater, just as it benefited from the crowds of the Sunshine. Will the new people who work in the soulless piece of shit want knishes? Will the presence of the glass box pressure a sale?

Will the creeps soon be saying, "Oh well, no one eats knishes anymore"?

Rally for Galicia

Yesterday, local organizers, politicians, and community members rallied to save Galicia restaurant on Broadway near 172nd Street in Washington Heights. After 30 years in business, they're being denied a lease renewal by the Edelsteins of Edel Family Management, owners of several buildings in the area.



As always, the restaurant was full of faithful customers, dining on delicious home-style meals.

Hand-lettered signs in the windows read "Save Galicia" and "Make the Small Business Job[s] Survival Act Law!!"



A large crowd of New Yorkers gathered on the sidewalk. Unlike at last week's rally for Coogan's bar and restaurant a few blocks south, the phalanx of major news cameras was not present. (NBC4 got some shots.) I saw no reporters from major papers. (Patch was there.) Congressman Adriano Espaillat, Public Advocate Letitia James, and City Comptroller Scott Stringer did not appear.

But dozens of others did--and they were passionate about small businesses in Washington Heights.


Lena Melendez

Rally organizer Lena Melendez spoke of the "favorite and authentic" restaurant, a survivor from the difficult days of the 1980s. She introduced Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, who promised to "Do what we can to pressure the Edelstein family to come to the table" and negotiate a fair lease renewal. "We expect our small businesses to be treated fairly," Brewer said. "Let's keep the pressure going."

David Eisenbach, former candidate for Public Advocate, made a push for the Small Business Jobs Survival Act (SBJSA). "We can't keep counting on politicians to save the day," he said. "This can't be done on a case by case basis." We need legislation, he argued, "to level the playing field." He called for a full public hearing and a City Council vote on the SBJSA. "Let democracy happen!"


David Eisenbach

Peter Walsh, co-owner of Coogan's, began, "As a child of Irish immigrants, I was saved by new immigrants--the Dominicans of Dominican Heights!" His bar has been sustained by Latinx locals--and was recently saved from a massive rent hike. He recalled the days of high crime, when Galicia opened and survived. And he spoke of gentrification's power to displace. "Now that the neighborhood has become attractive to everyone else, who do they want to kick out? The pathfinders. The Dominican immigrants who built this neighborhood."

Someone from the crowd shouted, "We are what's right with America!"


Peter Walsh

For well over an hour, several community members got up to speak, in English and in Spanish. City Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez ended his speech with a chant of "Si, se puede!" Yes, we can.


Ydanis Rodriguez

How can you help? Write to City Council Speaker Corey Johnson and tell him to bring the SBJSA to a vote. Write to your City Council members and tell them to pass the SBJSA. You can find their contact info here -- and sample emails here and here.

It can be done.