Wednesday, June 18, 2008

*Everyday Chatter

Red Hook locals waited "in horror" for the "big yellow blob" of Ikea to inevitably open, because, in the end, "Rich people--they get what they want." [Gothamist]

Owner of Bowery Wine Co. offers to serve pizza to "moron protestors" at the next Die Hard event. Hey, free pizza! [NYO]

Fulton Fish Market to be replaced with a 42-story (!), Brooklyn-Bridge-dwarfing, totally out of context, apartment and hotel tower that will cantilever over the river (!) and generally go about "dominating many vistas of the East River waterfront." [Times] & [Curbed]


"Hell has found its way into the peaceful town of Red Hook," says a local as Ikea opens its doors with a lot of screaming and yelling. [Racked]

Even in Canada, they know New York is vanishing, "diseased now with velvet ropes." [Globe & Mail]

Thursday, June 19, 7:30 pm: Freebird Books in Red Hook hosts a "post-apocalyptic discussion" with Richard Matheson's I Am Legend. Mmm...post-apocalypse fun!

It's 1984 all over again: Revisit the first sightings of alligator shirts in the EV. [Grieve]

Psychedelic Solution, that odd place above the new Elletaria on W. 8th, the place I've been meaning to get to and check out before it vanished, has vanished. [Flaming P]

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Last week, I dropped in for a late-night snack with a friend. As we left around 2 a.m., we wandered up Hudson Street, where we took in the sight of an aggressively beautiful young woman in a tight dress and six-inch heels, stalking the patio of The Inn at Little West 12th Street looking angry about something and stabbing the buttons of her cellphone.

^
^
^
^
^

I really HATE this decade!!!!
I wish I could go back to 1977.

Anonymous said...

I can't believe Psychedelic Solution is gone. I first visited as a teenager in the mid-1980s and it blew my mind! I really hope they relocate, because the loss would be devestating.

L'Emmerdeur said...

knicksbasketballny: That, my friend, was almost certainly a hooker.

Anonymous said...

Psychedelic Solution was such a great place. I remember buying a bunch of Robert Williams paintings and drawings there late 80's. The guy was mostly into selling vintage Filmore posters but showed artist such as Robert Williams, R Crumb, S Clay Wilson and Mark Mothersbaugh. I aslo bought some stuff from The Church of the Subgenius show. Some of the best shows were held ther in the 80's.

I love this blog but hate what has happened to NYC. You need to do a blog on the sex clubs that used to be in the city such as The Anvil,Platos and The Trapeeze ( I think the Trapeeze is still there)
Good Times Good Times

Anonymous said...

we don't need his frackin pizza

Anonymous said...

This South Street project is disgusting and a perfect example of the loss of any culture this city has left.
Nobody cares about preserving history in this city, its all about malls and money.

This mayor is the worst mayor we have ever had.
its true, the city let's everything rot until they claim its unsafe and then tear it down.

Anonymous said...

Regarding KnicksBasketballNY's sighting, I'm afraid I must disagree with L’Emmerdeur. I think KnicksBasketballNY saw an ordinary yunnie. After all, after dark all the yunnie females start to look that way, though I admit it has occurred to me that, female dress being what it is today, it can be difficult to tell which are the hookers and which are the executives.
I see them all the time. If you’re outside after 10pm, weekday or weekend, you start to notice that little yunnie girls in tight dresses and four-inch heels suddenly seem to become the majority population out on the streets. They scream and giggle and cry incessantly; bobbing and weaving and blocking the sidewalk as they play out their infantile dramas.
I’ve noticed that if one makes an effort to listen to their baby-voiced banter, many surprising facts can come to light. For example, the one screaming at her friends, “I SO did not fuck Chad!!!!,” outside a bar while inadvertently pissing herself is apparently a psychiatrist at some prestigious university who’s actually in charge of patients! The one puking her guts out on the side of a building while leaning forward far enough to show that she has no panties is apparently a lawyer for some Fortune 500 company, though when she turns to her friends and says something like, “Oh my god, a Porsche is like, so totally NOT un-sexy! ”, it’s hard to fathom how she survives in that career. The occupations of the rest are always a bit hard to pin down, though they might offer cryptically that, “oh, I’m like, in fashion”, or “I’m in like, publishing?” Whatever they actually “do”, it’s obvious that they all make a very large amount of money for no particular reason (other than maybe, “I deserve it.”).

Oh also, about the free pizza! I see no reason not to partake of Bowery Wine Co's kind offer, so long as it is done "properly", if you get my meaning. Personally, I recommend going in, jamming up the place, being loud, and aggressively demanding as much pizza as the whole group can eat (extra cheese remember–none of that gourmet crap). If some stuff gets broken, well...you know, that’s what happens in crowds. Remember, we can play the irony game as well as they can.

Jill said...

I'm not sure the concept of rich people getting what they want with the Ikea store is the right point. While putting this store in Red Hook will surely make some Swedish people richer, cheap furniture you put together yourself with an included tool is not generally what I would associate with the New York elite.

On that note, the unpainted furniture stores like Gotham Cabinetcraft are a much better alternative. It's about the same quality and price as Ikea, and if it hasn't changed in recent years, the furniture is made in New York (maybe NJ?). And, except for installing shelves, the furniture comes in one piece, no tools required. For an extra charge they will stain it.

Anonymous said...

Hey Jerry, I just went and read the times article about the Fulton Fish Market Condo, and I just realized--they want to tear down Pier 17!!! Their reason being, apparently, that now that "people" go there, it spoils whatever ambiance they expect that un-fabulous people lurk in the area buying "tee-shirts and bonzai trees" (actual quote). Cripes, I've had A LOT of fun in that mall (the deck chairs outside on the third floor, at night--there really is no more romantic place), and not to mention the Christmas Store, the joke shop (I forget the name), and all the others...
Dammit, I hate these little pricks.

Anonymous said...

I used to go to NYC several times a year, but there's no point to it anymore, as NYC isn't NYC anymore. I can't say I'm sorry about what happened to Times Square, as it was getting pretty dangerous the first time I lived in NYC, and it's conversion into a family-oriented tourist trap for people from Nebraska who could never understand, much less appreciate, the real NYC is its well-deserved fate.

What I really miss is:

Chumley's

Psychedelic Solution

That little punk club on Bleeker just shy of CBGB's that was run by the Yippies, where I first saw Sonic Youth indoors (I first saw them at a benefit concert at the Central Park bandshell in 1982)

The Hellfire Club (a heterosexual version of a gay sex club which convened certain nights of the week on the premises of the famous gay club "The Mineshaft")

A little German restaurant on E 86th called "The Ideal", where you could get mashed potatoes and nice TANGY red cabbage with Koenigsburger Klopse )German meatballs), where your little beer glass was filled from a pipe that ran the whole length of the lunch counter with spigots at various places along its length!

***

Please note that I'm not crying over the loss of my youth; I'm crying for the loss of a city that I once loved, but which has ceased being lovely.

hartford said...

response to josh: why would you believe that girl is a doctor? no way. or the other one is a lawyer? maybe they are secretaries? or a lab tech & paralegal. people lie & blow up who they are, especially losers. maybe manhattan is just not the kind of place to expect anything different. there HAS to be places to go. i cant believe it completely OVER????? why dont some people comment more often on places they LIKE?? sometimes JN does a post, & its really nice to read it. if anything these comments are keeping fabulous people like me away. too bad.