Another Backside

You've heard from the backside of the Coop. You've heard from the backside of the Thompson LES. Now, we've got another. Our source in the Thompson writes:

"tonight, i was sitting in my apartment and i heard britney spears as if she was singing right next door (how are people still listening to her?) so i went on the roof thinking it was the thompson les and alas! it's THOR.

...i can't believe the hotel is four blocks away and i can hear all their crappy music and people cheering to the crappy music. from what i've read, it's their new event space on the rooftop and it looks like they are giving the thompson a run for their money... i think this might be the next annoying hotel story."



Here's a photo of The Hotel on Rivington's Sunday afternoon penthouse party, the roof precariously overflowing with guests. Are they rivaling Thompson? A Yelper sure thinks so:

"possibly the best party in town these days, and In my opinion the best come back of one establishment this year. Rivington is giving Thompson's drab Above Allen a real run for their money. I found the scene - It's at Rivington, and I suspect it'll stay here, because they have some of the best guys manning the door keeping the area upstairs a douche-free zone."

Somehow, I doubt that last line. The penthouse party-zone just opened this summer--brought to you by the same guy who did exclusive faux-bookshop, The Eldridge. Here's what it looks like up there:


photo: Guest of a Guest--see more here!

*Everyday Chatter

The owner of the Cafe Edison--aka the Polish Tearoom--has died. What will be the future for this venerable Times Square coffee shop? It is likely the last of its kind in that neighborhood. [CR] ...Broadway lights dim in memory. [AB]

The Edison has long been a favorite--post to come--check out my photos of the Edison here on Flickr.



Grieve suggests one way upscale sushi joint Koi can convince the EV to let them takeover the Salvation Army shelter--nudity. [EVG]

"Sevey" to be the next annoyingly ubiquitous chain to hate. [Gothamist]

Menus of the living dead. [FP]

LES artist and muralist Antony Zito to exhibit. [BB]

Wow--a Furry meets Liberace is this crazy "hoop" car. [HG]

14th & 3rd

Sometimes, an entire block disappears. Like the west side of Third Avenue between 13th and 14th Streets. In the following two screenshots from Taxi Driver, we see the nondescript southern corner and then the lovely pink neon of the Variety Photo Plays theater.



The Variety was demolished to make room for the Toll Brothers' monster 110 Third and it was certainly the most tragic loss on this block. The nickelodeon opened in 1914 and that marquee was added in 1923--wrote the Times, "The lights buzzing on the underside of the marquee, when they were on, enveloped the passerby in a warm, glowing field. People going past the theater, even in the daytime, got a whiff of vintage celluloid, and at night it was intoxicating."

In the 1980s it showed gay porn then turned into an off-Broadway theater.



At the northern end of the block, on the 14th St. end, was Disco Donut, seen here in these screenshots from the film Downtown 81.



Above Disco Donut was a place called Carmelita's Reception House (click for pic). Lori Horvitz recalls Carmelita's as "a second floor establishment above Disco Donut on the corner of Fourteenth Street and Third Avenue. For some reason, I thought Carmelita's was a massage parlor that doubled as a house of prostitution. Only years later did I find out it was a legitimate bar that frequently held parties for gay women."



And climbing into the way, way back machine, here's another look at the same corner in 1934:



Of course, the city changes. A pawn shop becomes a 99-cent store, a taxi dance hall becomes a lesbian club, an ice-cream parlor becomes a donut shop. These are fluid alterations. And then there are irrevocable annihilations.



More on 14th and 3rd:
Little Jam
Robin Raj
Grace & Hope

*Everyday Chatter

Add ghost-signed Dapper Dan to the list of empty storefronts turning into temporary art galleries--the vacant shop is curated by Mighty Tanaka.

Williamsburg becomes squat city, with shooting galleries. [EVG]

More interview with the great and curmudgeonly Jim Knipfel. [WWIB]

There used to be a place in Brooklyn Heights called "Mammy's Pantry." [PMFA]

Why yuns love cupcakes--says one psych, it's about the "'We're all special' mentality...'we find more people saying, 'I want to have my cake—cake that is individualized, reflects the special person that I am, and is packaged for one—and eat it, too.'" [Voice]

Patsy's in East Harlem turns 76. [Gothamist]

Why'd this kid blow up Starbucks? Literature inspired him. Or maybe it was Brad Pitt. [Gothamist]

A look back at Meatpacking. [GVDP]

Get mugged in luxury at StuyTown. [STLL]

I love pictures of crazy sexy Latin cakes. [Blah]

*Everyday Chatter

This Thursday night, meet Koi, the folks who want to turn the 100-year-old Bowery Salvation Army shelter and center for foster-care children into an upscale sushi restaurant. Let them know your thoughts. Then bring those thoughts to their CB3 liquor license meeting on 7/20. [EVG]

Slacktivist John Penley is back in town--look out Koi. [NMNL]

The city honors Jane Jacobs with a street sign--the Pontani Sisters and friends show up dressed like Jane in glasses and wigs to protest the city's destruction of Coney Island:

Photo credit: Kevin Downs

Stanford White's Bronx Pantheon snubbed by CUNY. [AT]

On UES, neighbors beg for a supermarket: "Please do not put in another Bank or Cell Phone Company or another Drug store!" [EaterFlickr]

Says Reverend Jen about her book Reverend Jen's Really Cool Neighborhood, it's "a travel guide to the Lower East Side. It was a useful book until about three years ago when all of the cool places described in the book got bulldozed to make way for housing for the rich and overpriced bars for yuppies. But it's still interesting as an historical document." [HuffPo]

Here I am on Broke-Ass Stuart.

Governors Island

I visited Governors Island for the first time recently (not the newly opened Water Taxi Beach) and was immediately taken in by its odd and ghostly small-town charms. To get there, you ride the ferry from Manhattan, departing from the Battery Maritime Building, from under a pink roof dotted with golden stars.

Just a few minutes away, the island is green and lush, filled with architecture frozen in another time. Military forts built of red stone wrap around grassy fields. Houses, straight out of an Edward Hopper painting, hark back to some mid-century, middle-American dream.


All photos from my flickr

You expect to see mothers in aprons hanging laundry on a line, fathers watering the lawns, and kids in Daniel Boone caps riding their bikes through the lazy streets. But the houses are empty. Walk up on their ample porches, dusted with pine needles, and peer through smoky windows. In hollow living rooms, the floorboards are still gleaming.



At least one house has been turned into an art gallery for contemporary works from the Sculptors Guild. Strange abstractions wriggle through stately dining rooms, beneath chandeliers that once lit countless suppers. The ceiling is peeling.



It wasn't always this way. People lived here. People who, for some reason, have never (to my knowledge) written novels or made films about life on "The Rock." Looking at photos of these kids, I wonder what life was like on GI. Their experience remains a mystery to me. But not to each other. There's a Yahoo group called Governors Island Brats for people who grew up there from 1970-1985. There's also a website for former residents dating back to the 1940s.



Living strangely suburban lives just off the tip of Manhattan, they remember playing Atari and going to see The Goonies at the only movie theater on GI. They remember ice skating and riding their bikes to the country store. (Country store!) They remember going to school at PS 26--which is being, or already has been, demolished. They joined the Boy Scouts and the bowling league. They toasted marshmallows over a campfire.

Did they consider themselves New Yorkers? Or did they hew to this line from an old army brat poem: "I am an Army Brat. My hometown is nowhere..."? Either way, their ghosts haunt this island, drifting on the green breezes like laundry on a line.



Thanks to Jack Szwergold for helping to collect many of these links. Check out his GI photos here.

See also:
My GI photos on flickr
Governors Island Blog

*Everyday Chatter

Veloce Pizzeria, the second try at making a go of the old Teresa's spot on 1st Ave, looks like it's going mobile with a bike-driven cart under a big red umbrella. Pedaling pizzas? Look out icee man, here comes the upscale competition.


Charles Denson, the Coney Island historian (interviewed here), will be taking questions about Coney's preservation from readers of City Room this week. [CIHP]

Jane Jacobs' son is "appalled" by city's plans for Coney. [SCI]

"At some point, New York City will have to stop the long, slow, perpetual dying of Coney Island." [NYT]

Roy dubs the story of the manhole-tumbling, texting teen "a parable for our times." [RS]

Not all the tourists are happy with NYC's less-shiny nightlife: “You don’t open a bar in the meatpacking district and make it low key,” said Amanda Hunt, a high school English teacher visiting from Port St. Lucie, Fla., who was miffed one night last week after finding herself where the music was not deafening and where there were no drink specials for women. “Like you don’t go to Fort Lauderdale or Palm Beach on the strip and go low-key." [NYT]

A block of Ave A continues to empty out. [EVG]

The California invasion continues with shirtless lifeguards on Broadway. [Racked]

Reading the Metropolitan Diary. [NYT]