Pickle Trucks

The Lower East Side has lost its classic pickle shops--as hipster Brooklyn keeps pickling artisanally--but the old pickle trucks keep coming.



There's Mr. Pickle in his bowler hat and spats. And Ba-Tampte, which "means tasty." Both date back to 1950s Brooklyn.



In the mornings, when you walk through the East Village, you might see their leavings--buckets of pickles, bagged in their brine, outside the still-shuttered fronts of diners and restaurants. Somehow, the pickles remain miraculously unmolested.

Bill's in Boardwalk

The great Bill's Gay 90s is vanished and gone, carted away in dumptrucks after 88 years in business. It's another tragedy, another ruined treasure of the city that we'll only know now in photos and film.

But if you're ready to take a look back, check out the extras on Disk 4, Season 1 of Boardwalk Empire.



On a "Speakeasy Tour," Boardwalk actors Michael Stuhlbarg and Vincent Piazza take viewers into Bill's.







From the downstairs bar to the upstairs bar, they sing the praises of Bill's in its last days on earth.

Broadway Danny Rose

Woody Allen's 1984 movie Broadway Danny Rose is a great film for looking at a vanished New York, the world of old vaudeville acts and second-story talent agents, a Times Square filled with starry-eyed ventriloquists, tap dancers, and players of the glass harp.

There's also a scene at the end where Woody Allen goes running up 7th Avenue, from 54th to 55th, chasing after Mia Farrow. We see the whole block, from Oyster Bar to Carnegie Deli.


all b&w pics from Broadway Danny Rose


all color pics from Google Streetview

I thought it might be fun to take a look at it, frame by frame, alongside today's images from Google Streetview.

The Oyster Bar still stands and it has expanded into what was once a record shop. While many of the shops have changed, they all still have a funky, beaten-down look about them. A very unusual case. The landlords here must be old-timers who haven't given in to greed.





Wilson's Cleaners and Ballantine Hairstylists became a Gift Shop and Electronics store. An empty storefront papered with flyers and a FOR SALE sign is today a David Z shoe store.



The Smiler's is still a Smiler's, though it has lost its neon signs, shining clock, and smiler in chef's hat for a duller version.





The Continental Coffee House is now the China Regency--scratch that, with a FOR RENT sign in the window, it may be something else by now.





And the Carnegie Deli, of course, is still the Carnegie Deli. (The place on the very end doesn't look much different, either.) After the filming of this movie, the deli named a big, fat pastrami and corned beef sandwich the "Woody Allen."





As a bonus, traveling a few blocks south at Broadway and 49th, we find a vanished Howard Johnson's resplendent in neon signage--and surrounded by people not on cell phones. (Take another look in color.)

In its place today is Ruby Foo's.

Watermelons Flying

On yet another miserably hot summer day, the simple joy of watching men unloading watermelons from a truck can make all the difference.



The heavy green globes sail through the air, one after another, tossed from man to man.



People stop to enjoy the urban spectacle of precision and grace, waiting for a melon to drop, to burst in an explosion of pink. But none fall.



The men are acrobats, somehow, on the corner of Second Avenue and Ninth Street. For a moment, they are magicians making watermelons fly.

Savannah's CBGB

From Savannah, Georgia, CBGB's lives--on a movie set for the 2013 film CBGB. (See EV Grieve for more.) Maya of Visualingual sends in this shot from a friend on the scene...



...and Will, a reader in Savannah, sends in the following. He writes, "1970s NYC, recreated next to Paula Deen's downtown restaurant. All cringing from that aside, I would say this looks pretty cool!"



Before we know it, the real New York will be a Synechdoche New York, existing only on sound stages and recreations in other cities. What will remain in the real New York? As our vanished culture reappears across middle America, middle America sets up camp in the city--pieces of Brooklyn become Nantucket, the Village turns into Wisconsin. With the suburbanized city looking more like Anywhere, USA, we'll have to leave the city to get a glimpse of New York.

*Everyday Chatter

Hue-Man bookstore in Harlem to shutter--and St. Mark's Books has decided to move out by end of the year. To all of you Kindle people--fuck you. [Crain's]

The gutting of Bill's Gay 90s. [LC]

Check out the big, queer Hot Festival right now. [HOT]

Where did the discarded wood from Coney Island's boardwalk end up? [NYT]

A look back at old Coney restaurants. [Eater]

At Eisenberg's--a good sign:


The East Village gets a big KISS. [EVG]

Upper West Siders win a skirmish against chain stores--what's next? [WSR]

And the Upper West Side loses a 40-year-old pharmacy, thanks to those chain stores. [WSR]

People need grocery stores, not yet another Walgreens. [Gothamist]

Enjoy some Tudor City neon. [NYN]

Movie Star News

VANISHING

Regretfully, I report that Movie Star News in Chelsea is closing down. Once owned by the infamous Irving Klaw, photographer of the legendary pin-up queen Bettie Page, Movie Star News has been a Manhattan original since 1939.



I went in to speak to owner Ira Kramer, nephew of Mr. Klaw, and he answered a few questions in person and over email. He told me that their reason for closing is an all too common one--the rent is going up. They'll be gone before the end of the month.

Originally on East 14th Street, Movie Star News moved to West 18th on Memorial Day weekend in 1983, Ira told me, "with 800 boxes and 90 file cabinets" filled with movie star photos, pin-ups, and posters. He remembers being a kid in the 14th Street shop, going to see movies for free at "the old Jeff," the demolished Jefferson Theater, when the adults got tired of him hanging around.



Ira estimates that the shop's deep and tall shelves held 3 million movie star photos--until he started packing them into cardboard boxes--and he still has Irving Klaw's original negatives on-site.

It's from these negatives that Movie Star News prints photos of vintage pin-ups like Bettie Page to order. However, says Ira, "We decided that the public would have trouble pronouncing her name, so we spelled it Betty."



I asked Ira where Movie Star News will go next. He said:

"I believe my situation changed with the world of digital photography. Many people choose to download photos from websites, free of charge, then have them made up at labs or on their own ink-jet printers. So while I continued to sell posters in the shop, the few photo sales I have are made primarily through my website. With this in mind, why take up over 2,000 square feet of New York City real estate, when only a small portion of this space is actually producing an income? If all goes as planned, I will re-locate to a warehouse in New Jersey, as yet undecided where exactly. I must decide by the end of July and will post this update on my website."


packing up the inventory

And so the city is spitting out another piece of its colorful history--and its soul. What will take its place?

Right now, Movie Star News has the high-end Michael Aram boutique on one side and a slick condo showroom on the other (one of the tiny people in their architectural model is walking while texting on a smartphone--she's a very important, self-involved 1/8"-scale person). Anyway, I'm sure we can expect more of the same.

• Read a full history of Movie Star News
• Visit the website to order photos

old shop on E. 14th