*Everyday Chatter

The Lucky Cheng's building has had a wonderfully weird history--so what's moving in next? "the darn best ribs, brisket, pulled pork, and wings you've ever had." [EVG]

The sad, sad, miserable reality of what has come to replace H&H Bagels. [WSR]

In Williamsburg, brand-spanking newcomers complain about a pair of 50-year-old record stores: "owners of the shops...insisted they have done nothing wrong and that they never received complaints until a recent batch of new young people started arriving on the street. 'How would you feel if somebody came to your block and started telling you what to do?" [DNA]

Enjoy this 1969 film of Kenneth Koch teaching poetry to kids at PS61 in Alphabet City. [OMFS]

Night on Orchard

Check out the latest Walker in the City. [WIC]

Enjoy the Brooklyn Holiday Book Fair this weekend. [FB]

1973 NYC on film. [Gothamist]

A new video game teaches girls how to become Upper East Side socialites: "prepare for a day out in the city or for a night out with your bffs looking chic and elegant like a true upper east side fashionista"! [DNA]

"Whether in 50 or 100 or 200 years, there’s a good chance that New York City will sink beneath the sea." [NYT]

"Hurricane Sandy ran roughly through cemeteries around New York City, but it devastated Green-Wood in Brooklyn." [NYT]

Checking in with Coney Island after Sandy. [ATZ]

Old Sign in Harlem

On a bus ride through Harlem (Manhattan Ave and 116th), a piece of the past glimpsed from the dusty window.

An awning wrecked and ripped to reveal a hidden sign for a forgotten grocery store. The rusted Coca-Cola logo. The clicky metal letters.

Underneath the city, another city awaits.

Camera to the window--and gone.

17th and 10th: Then & Now

I've been thinking about Yvonne B's forlorn and ghostly shot of the corner of 17th Street and 10th Avenue in the 1980s. There's the abandoned High Line and a gritty little luncheonette, alone with a single-story garage. There are no people.

And here's my shot of the same corner today. The luncheonette is now a Comme des Garcons "concept store." The High Line is renovated and full of tourists enjoying the views from what they call "10th Avenue Square." The garage has been demolished for a luxury condo tower with an Equinox fitness center on the first floor.

The streets below are not unpopulated--there are a couple of people making cell-phone calls, two women pushing a shopping cart, and a Skyliner bus full of tourists.

The first scene brings to mind some lines from "Minority Report," a sort of love poem to America by John Updike:

But it is you,
really you I think of:
your nothing streetcorners
your ugly eateries
your dear barbarities and vacant lots

Updike could have been writing about New York City, in the late mid-century, amid the pleasures of urban decay. And I can't help but look at these two photos and wonder: What possible love poem could be written today about high-concept boutiques, high-tech gym goers, and High-Line tourists cramming the so-called 10th Avenue Square for a photo op?

W. 18th Then & Now

A little "then and now" on West 18th Street. Here is 461-463 West 18th Street, photographed by Berenice Abbott in 1938 (via NYPL).

And here is the same address today. The bar and restaurant is still a restaurant, now the back end of La Lunchonette. The junk shop has been replaced with a luxury condo.

The crummy little house is now a townhouse that rents for $6,400 a month. "Harry Potter should live here!" crows the listing--but the "super needy need not apply." It appears, in photos, to be combined with the loft space next door.

It's hard to say that the people are different, but we know they are. In each photo, there is a couple, a man and a woman. Imagine that they live in the little house, then and now.

In 1938, the wife follows her husband to the street. He's going out to work on the docks and he forgot his lunch pail. She will spend the day in the crummy house, with the wooden boards nailed across the first-floor window, and the grimy curtains, and the babies crying, and the filthy floor waiting to be scoured. She thinks about the things she needs: an ice box, decent shoes she doesn't have to stuff with cardboard, a roof that doesn't leak every time it rains. But it could be worse. At least there's a roof.

In 2012, the husband and wife walk out together, heading to the lot where they keep their cars. They both work. They don't bring their lunch. The house sits quiet and empty during the day, its floors gleaming, its upholsteries quietly off-gassing volatile organic chemicals. The man and woman pride themselves on not being "super needy," just like the real-estate listing requested--even though, as the wife takes her husband's arm, she thinks for a nanosecond, "I am a bottomless well of needs." But the awful thought vanishes quickly, the High Line rises reassuringly up ahead, and she settles her mind on something simpler to worry about.

Sarge's Deli

Sarge's Delicatessen has been ravaged by a three-alarm fire.

Reports the Daily News this morning, "The blaze started in Sarge's Delicatessen Restaurant on Third Ave. between E. 36th and E. 37th Sts. around 6:50 p.m. and spread with vicious speed throughout the four-story building." There were minor injuries to firefighters, no deaths. "More than 150 firefighters battled the blaze for 90 minutes."

As for Sarge's, "The restaurant sustained some severe damage and will not be open for a while."

All photos: June 2012

Family-owned Sarge's Deli has been around since 1964. On their website, they proudly announce that they are "the only deli in New York that currently cures their own corned beef and pastrami on premises."

They don't get the attention that other survivors of the Great Delicatessen Die-off get, like Katz's or Carnegie. I didn't know they existed until this past spring, when I wandered by (I rarely go to Murray Hill) while walking up to Prime Burger for its last day on Earth.

I was dazzled by the old signage and the walls covered with celebrity headshots. I figured I'd go back one day.

Now I hope we all get the chance to visit Sarge's and enjoy that just-cured corned beef.

Willie's

Some good news has come out of the tragedy for the block of 9th Avenue between 17th and 18th--that collection of small, long-time businesses evicted by the Stonehenge Group to make room for what will probably be a combo Chase bank and frozen-yogurt joint or some other awfulness.

The New Barber Shop was forced to shutter last month, but barber Willie has survived to scissor again.

Willie has opened his own shop, under his own name. Thanks to reader Richie Cohen for sharing this photo and the good news. Willie's Barber Shop is now open at 235 West 18th Street, between 7th and 8th Avenues. Bonus: The business it replaced was a realtor's office.

Be sure to go in, get a haircut, and give your good wishes to Willie!

Previously:
New Barber Shop
Death of a Block 3
Death of a Block 2
Death of a Block
Saving 9th Avenue
Sweet Banana Candy Store
New China
Chelsea Liquors

Carmelita's Reception House

Some years ago, on the southwest corner of 14th St. and 3rd Ave., above Disco Donut, there was a place called Carmelita's Reception House.

Walter Grutchfield at 14to42 writes, "I'm not sure what it was, but Carmelita's Reception House dates from the late 1970s and derived from Carmelita for Bridal, Corp., (bridal gowns and such?) from the mid-1960s."

Lori Horvitz recalls in her non-fiction story "The Last Days of Disco Donut," "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."

Filling out the mystery, reader Yvonne B. sent in the above ad for "Girl + Girl" at Carmelita's, and we got an informative comment to my post on 14th and 3rd from "SF," who writes:

"If anyone cares to read more about Lite Lounge at Carmelita's contact me. I rented Carmelita's Reception House at 150 E.14th St., NYC from 1988-c. 1990 with my dear friend Miss A. We founded Lite Lounge together and made parties for our downtown friends with 'lite' music like Bacharach, Beatles muzak, and our 45's collections to heighten the crazy sensation of cocktails & dancing, mirrors and Christmas lights beneath a whipped cream ceiling. One claim to fame of LL@Carmelita's was that 1,000 people on a Monday night could walk through those doors and have a blast. Yes, it was a watering hole for Mr. Forbes, but he drank club soda, nothing else. I know the correct answer to bordello rumors, which celebrities came there, and how the night became a huge success. Including tidbits like James White came out of his remote/quiet phase to perform there twice, and opening night was attended by the Beastie Boys and Alan Vega. It was truly fun for all and came together because of many friends' input and camaraderie. The club received a ton of press and was first covered by WWD, then Paper Magazine, which remains a huge support for all things 'Downtown.' -SF"

SF has not responded to follow-up comments, and I hope she does. I have to assume that she is Stacy Fine, co-founder of Lite Lounge, held in what New York magazine called the velvet-and-mirrors room of Carmelita's.



At Sabotage Times, James Brown recalls with Bret Easton Ellis:

"J:...We met in Carmelita’s, in the light lounge (Bret laughs loudly), and it was my first night in New York, I was 22 and I went to interview Sonic Youth for the NME.

B: You’re telling me about that dive… but it was a cool dive. Up the stairs. Christmas lights all over the place.You had to know people to get in I think. My house was around the corner, it still is, I still have that apartment."

The New York article describes a scene featuring Rockets Redglare, along with Jay McInerney. Very 1980s Downtown, indeed.



If anyone else has memories or photos of Carmelita's to share, please leave a comment or email me at jeremoss[at]yahoo[dot]com. Thank you.