It's a sign of the times. Just as I was thinking, Jesus, there's an awful lot of Europeans around my neighborhood these days, I stepped into East Village Wines to find this sign. Euros Accepted:
Good news from the Pennsylvania Hotel: The Historic Districts Council has endorsed the recommendation to preserve the hotel. [Save the Hotel]
I bet this one would die for a Crackberry--here she is, taking up not one but three elderly/disabled seats on the crowded M14 bus. She only looked up once from texting--not when an old lady hobbled onto the bus with a cane, but when someone bumped her boot, which, as you can see, she kept sticking out in the aisle:
More evidence that the city is dying. Specifically, it's starving--for artists. [AMNY via Queens Crap]
Ghosts of New York--an abbreviated look at 2007's lost buildings. [NY Mag]
Find out what's in store for Coney Island at next week's public meetings. [Gowanus L]
East Village business owners are fighting back against chains. Cross your fingers their plans become a reality. [Villager via Curbed]
Papered windows, fixtures for sale, Sucelt is so very cerrado. What will take its place? It's too small for a bank. I predict a Pinkberry or a Red Mango is on its way:
Recently, Curbed broke the news that Streit's matzo factory, after a century on the Lower East Side, is selling their property on Rivington Street. They're asking for $25 million, but according to Jewish Week, "An offer above the asking price...is on the table." It seems the sky's the limit down here these days.
"We're doing this with a heavy heart," co-owner Aaron Gross told the AP. The move is an issue that the family has been debating for some time. Just in March, one of the co-owners told the NY Sun that Streit's would stay: "there's a lot of emotion tied to this factory, a lot of history. People come by and say, ‘My mother used to come here,' or ‘My grandmother used to come down here,' and that's always nice. So it's a touchy subject."
But in the pressure-cooker of the new LES economy, where glass towers sprout up overnight, the Streit's family has decided to build a new factory--probably in Jersey--and when it's done, in about a year, they'll be leaving us. What will take their place? It's not hard to imagine--oh, the luxury, the banality, the giddy out-of-town investors! The agent handling the sale, according to the AP, "expects a developer to convert it into pricey residential or commercial space." Here comes another bank.
Before that happens, go down and visit Streit's, a living brick machine that The Daily News ungenerously called a "hulking relic." The modest shop is stocked with matzos and more. They don't give factory tours anymore, not since an "incident" with a tourist, but from the shop you get a fantastic look into the bakery, where workers pull sheets of matzo from the oven, then break, stack, and load them onto floating racks for packaging. It's an elegant process and I could watch it all day.
I took several pictures on my visit and shot this short video, to which I added Tommy Dorsey's "I'm Getting Sentimental Over You" for reasons too obvious to mention:
Maybe the best thing about visiting Streit's is that you can ask the bakery workers for fresh matzo and they'll oblige, wordlessly handing you a couple, hot out of the oven. Once Streit's has gone to Jersey, the feel of hot matzo in your hand and the taste of hot matzo in your mouth will vanish with them, so hurry already.
When I heard the news that Sophie’s (and sister bar Mona’s) was going up for sale, I began revisiting the East Village bar where I used to hang out in younger days. On a quiet afternoon this week I had the good fortune to talk with owner Bob Corton. Personable and generous, he told me about the origins of Sophie’s — and his hopes for its future.
In the 1980s, Bob worked for bar owner Sophie Polny, a tough old lady who ran a pub on Avenue A. Bob became manager when Sophie moved her bar (known only as the Polny Restaurant Corp.) to its current location on 5th between A & B, into a space occupied by a joint called the Chic Choc, named for partners Virginia Chicarelli and someone called Chocolate. “Chic Choc” is still written on the doorstep of Sophie’s.
Sophie Polny didn’t like to spend money. Bob recalls, “She only got a jukebox because it came free with the pool table. But she mostly used it for sitting on. The jukebox was her perch.” When she moved to 5th Street, rather than buy new, she brought her old wooden bar with her. It’s still there today, with its stained-glass cabinet doors and cottage-roof motif, a popular style dating back to (from my best guess) the early 20th century.
The bar used to open at 10:00 in the morning for the old Ukrainian men who liked to sit all day over beer and shots of vodka. Said Bob, “If I showed up to open at 10:01, there’d be 8 guys waiting out front to get in and they’d hand me a bag of shit for being late.”
He remembers when the East Village had just a handful of tight-knit bars, mostly Ukrainian. “It was a community,” he said, “When one bar couldn’t pay the rent, they’d have rent parties. The word would go out and everyone went to drink there at the beginning of the month to make sure the bar could make it.”
Bob acquired Polny's bar in 1986. He never renovated and didn't officially name the place. “Everyone just called it Sophie’s, so I kept the name. It seemed lucky.” (Mona’s, bought in 1989, was named after his cat.)
Sophie’s survived tough times in the East Village — when few dared to venture east of Avenue A, when the next-door bistro was a drug bodega (closed after a killing there), and Bob had to worry about squatters using his restrooms to steal not only toilet paper, but also faucets and other fixtures.
Bob doesn’t know what will happen to Sophie’s next. He hasn't yet communicated with any buyers and there is some talk from regulars about buying the place collectively and turning it into a community bar.
He would stay if he could and he has no interest in cashing in on the East Village's new wealth, but health problems keep him from doing the hard work that has to be done. He told me, “Sophie’s is my life. As much as I bitch and moan about it, it’s an extension of me and I hate to give it up.”
I couldn't ring in the new year without a dark gaze toward the future. Here is a list of vanishings to come -- either rumored, substantiated, or just prophesied.
Coney Island (as is): Granted another year's lease, we will still have Astroland in 2008. But no matter what, Coney as we know it (scrappy and strange) is doomed to croak.
The Sunshine Hotel: What is there, one guy living here now? And with the New Museum next door, no way this Bowery flop will last.
Katz's: The owner keeps going back and forth on this one--too bleak to contemplate? Certainly. Impossible to fathom? Not with all the giant glass towers going up all around the place. It may not close, but I won't be surprised if we get big news about Katz's in 2008.
From the very old to the very young, New York lost many good things this year. The leading cause of death was greed, though there were a few other causes, such as structural collapse or a family death. The majority just couldn't pay the rent in this city. My choices came from the pages of this blog, and I am sure I've missed many. Please add your own favorites in the Comments section.
Hilly Kristal is the only person I listed, but I think of the many others who've vanished, not only to death, but eviction. Like the residents of the Breslin Hotel and other victims of development, eminent domain, and rising rents. New York is hemhorraging creative people.
I added Chumley's because while they claim to be rebuilding, whatever rises will not be the same, and Chumley's, the original, is surely dead.
That's it for the notes. I think the list, with its links and tally of years, can speak for itself. Combined, we've seen close to 1,000 years of New York history vanish in 2007.
Unable to get to Park Slope on Friday, I sent one of my tipsters to the scene. She arrived in the afternoon and while there were still a handful of donuts in the window (including crullers cinnamon and frosted) and a couple of regulars at the counter, the owners waved her away as they stood counting their last dollars from the register.
She stood across the street and snapped a few pictures of the place, the sign already taken down, as people walked past, many of them waving in through the diner's window, saying goodbye as they headed into the Associated to do their grocery shopping.
The Associated will soon be expanding into the Donuts Coffee Shop space.
It is with great ambivalence that I report on the last day of the Astor Place Barnes & Noble. Tomorrow, the book behemoth will be gone. In the meantime, they are having the crappiest 50% off sale ever--unless you're in the market for military history pictorials, diet books, and calendars featuring golden retrievers.
I'm supposed to hate chains. For the record, I don't. I hate the chains' proliferation and domination of this city. I hate the way they're turning the city into a mall. A couple here and there would not be a problem.
About Barnes & Noble I am quite conflicted. I resent their awesome power in the book world (their buyers dictate what gets published and what doesn't), but I also love books. And I like them a lot more than gym rats, who will soon flock to the David Barton that is rumored to move in. Also, B&N is a public space of sorts--we can all go inside that beautiful old building and enjoy it. A gym is members-only space.
I admit, I will miss the place. But my hope is that, with B&N gone, the few independents it didn't kill will thrive and more will open.
The folks at St. Mark's Books are already freaking out a little. I'm freaking out a little--because the small shop is packed already with people who don't normally shop there. This means you can forget about a calm, pleasant browsing experience--expect to be pushed and shoved. The cashier told me they've been gearing up for the post-Barnes & Noble flood, pumping up their inventory.
I asked if they'd be changing to appeal to their new customers. Thankfully, he denied any plans to stock up on self-help books and puppy calendars.
THE BOOK:
"We should all buy Jeremiah Moss’s book, Vanishing New York." --Sarah Jessica Parker
“Essential reading for fans of Jane Jacobs, Joseph Mitchell, Patti Smith, Luc Sante, and cheap pierogi.” --Vanity Fair
"a vigorous, righteously indignant book that would do Jane Jacobs proud." --Kirkus Reviews
THE BLOG:
"the go-to hub for those who lament New York's loss of character." --Crain's
"No one takes stock of New York's changes with the same mixture of snark, sorrow, poeticism, and lyric wit as Jeremiah Moss." --Village Voice, Best of NY
“Jeremiah Moss…is the defender of all the undistinguished hunks of masonry that lend the streets their rhythm.” --Justin Davidson, New York Magazine
"One of the most thorough and pugnacious chroniclers of New York’s blandification." --The Atlantic, Citylab
"Hyperbolic and combative, tireless and passionate." --Salon
