Wednesday, May 30, 2018

A Good Corner

The surviving peep shows at the margins around Times Square keep vanishing. Yesterday I reported on the demise of old Show World. There's a smaller, less storied spot a few blocks south on 8th Avenue at 39th Street--and it's vanishing, too.



Vihan's Video, with the ever-photogenic neon sign on the front, has a giant FOR LEASE banner on it.

"3-Floor Flagship," it says. "Restaurant/Bar."



Sadly, this whole corner is being destroyed--and it was a good corner, too, an old slice of the old city hanging on at the edge of the Garment District.

Last year, the marvelous Mayfair Barber Shop was replaced by the boring, useless Corvo Coffee. More recently, NYC Fried Chicken shuttered. It was always a good spot to watch the people seated at the windows. The Shoe Repairs place next door is still open, but for how long? And there's a liquor store with two antique neon signs--for some reason, it is shown in the realtor's listing.



Barber shop, cobbler/tailor shop, fried chicken joint, liquor store, peep joint. It was a rare corner, a scrappy survivor, and it's being chipped away.








5 comments:

ShatteredMonocle said...

Music building too
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Music_Building

Michael Penn Photography said...

Along with it goes some more neon. Once an art form, it's now seen as distracting and vulgar to the younger generations that prefer the safe sidewalk A-frame sign that easily blends into the background.

TrashBrain said...

Rudy currently spazzing about like a desperate ,decrepit puppet might mean final justice for the sleaze he assassinated.

Jeff K. said...

Ugh, that's a shame. A few years ago, when NYC Fried Chicken had pizza ovens, they turned out dollar slices that made Two Bros across the street taste like cardboard.
That's New York for you; they'll rip out unique, good things and replace them with generic schlock.

Unknown said...

But there's nothing wrong with a halal place rather than a fried chicken joint if both are small business ventures! That doesn't look like a chain to me, just one stand-up take-away being replaced with another.