Hotel 17

VANISHED?

A sort of little Chelsea Hotel, the famous Gramercy lodging spot Hotel 17 has closed down, Town & Village reports.



They have "stopped taking reservations and has been cleared of guests. According to the general property manager of the business, Eyal Siri, this is not due to lack of business but due to the city’s crackdown on illegal hotels, which Siri said he’s been unfairly ensnared in." A few permanent residents remain.

A notice on the hotel's website reads: “We thank you for your patronage and it has been our honor to serve you during the last 67 years that Hotel 17 has been in operation. Unfortunately the city of New York has decided to close down this generations old family business and we therefore can no longer accept any reservations. Our family and employees thank you and all wish you safe travels.”



Over the years, many artists and club kids stayed at Hotel 17. It was a popular place for drag queens and other transgender folks. Madonna reportedly lived there before she was famous. And Woody Allen shot scenes from Manhattan Murder Mystery there.


Lola at Hotel 17, 1994, by Linda Simpson

I asked artist John Toth to share a few memories of his time at the place--the rest of this post is all Toth:


via sexgoddeathandus

My stay at Hotel 17 was during an interesting chapter in my early New York City experience. It was 1992/93 and I was working at (stylist) Patricia Field's store on 8th St., as well as her short-lived location on 6th Ave. I remember I was a bit desperate and frantic the night I moved in, as the girl I had been staying with in the East Village, who also worked at Pat's for a brief time, had kicked me out rather suddenly to make room for her boyfriend. It may have been her who told me to try Hotel 17.

When I phoned the hotel I received a lot of attitude from the manager, who very curtly asked me "who I was" and "where I worked." As soon as I told him I worked at Pat's (aka: The House of Field) his tone changed and he told me yes, he had a room and to come by immediately. My working for Pat, as one "downtown legend" said to me a decade later, "meant something" then. A job in her store was a coveted position because of the "scene" (which for the most part meant "nightlife") that orbited around it. "Downtown" Manhattan was still an adjective then and the manager of Hotel 17 understood that.

I remember him describing his criteria for selecting who was allowed to live there long-term, which was similar to how (notoriously selective) NYC doorpeople used to vet the crowd at various nightclubs: how you looked, how you dressed, and sometimes what you did, all of which had to be "unique" and/or "artistic."

One of the regular fixtures at Hotel 17 was, and still is, the famous transsexual and nightlife personality, Amanda Lepore, whose room, when I was living there, I remember was all red, including the lightbulbs. I also remember stepping into the elevator one night and encountering London-based fashion designer and performance artist, Leigh Bowery (who stayed there frequently), who was heading out to a nightclub with a plastic vagina glued to his face.

The place definitely had a Chelsea Hotel sort of vibe, as it housed a mish-mosh of people and had an easy-going community spirit (including shared bathrooms). Billy, the manager, was very kind to me and helped me out a lot, as I was basically subsisting on the 50-cent hot dogs from Gray's Papaya next to Pat's 6th Avenue location.

That's why places like Hotel 17 are important. It allowed me, and many others, to exist in Manhattan, in between a permanent residence, fairly inexpensively. Something which is pretty much impossible now. New York City was very much about experience then, and the kind of experiences it offered required little money and were incredibly thrilling. The disappearance of places such as Hotel 17, as well as astronomical rents, make it harder and harder for the next generation to come to New York City and live a (chosen) non-traditional life.


Amanda Lepore at Hotel 17--where will she go?

Rodeo Sign

After nearly 30 years in business, Rodeo Bar closed in 2014 due to rising rents and encroaching chain stores.

This summer, Kips Bay Corner reported that the Gem Saloon would be moving in, a bar and restaurant by the owner of Phebe's and Penny Farthing. They're doing a "complete makeover."

So, as of today, there's goes the old neon sign.


Heidi MacDonald, via her Instagram

The Lyric to Tivoli

Reader Pat lets us know:

"a new diner finally replaced the old Lyric," in Gramercy. "Don't know much else, I only used to get breakfast in the Lyric, so not sure how the prices compare. Anyway, it is a diner, the new Tivoli."



The Lyric vanished, then returned, then vanished again last spring. This summer, DNA reported that Gus Kassimis, owner of the Gemini Diner on East 35th, planned to open the Tivoli. He calls it a "traditional diner with newer flair." Score one for Greek diners. And just in time, too.

Yesterday, George Blecher at the Times published an evocative piece about the city's vanishing diner culture:

"Losing New York diner culture would probably be a watershed in the city’s history. How will New Yorkers get along without these antidotes to urban loneliness?"

“The coffee shop orients us here, in this city and not another,” Jeremiah Moss, of the blog Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York, said. “If we are regulars, we become known, connected, to a network of people who remain over the span of years, even decades. In the anonymous city, these ties can be lifesavers, especially for the elderly, the poor, the marginal, but also for all of us. Without them, the city becomes evermore fragmented, disorienting and unrecognizable.”

Mariella Pizza

Joe writes in about the closure of Mariella's Pizza on 16th Street and 3rd Avenue:

"After 37 years, Mariella's bit the dust. I spoke to the owner and he was fuming over the long list of expenses, rent and rent tax being the biggest culprits.

He was so pissed as he explained it to me, you would have thought I was the one throwing him out. They had the best food hands down of any pizzeria around! They always hosted a brisk business no matter what time of the day I went there, but as he fumed, 'After a while, how much can I charge for a slice?'"



Back in February, I heard from Liz Solomon. She wrote:

"There is a pizza place on the corner of 16th Street and 3rd Avenue called Mariella's. It has been there since 1976. Everyone needs a place like Mariella's in their life or they need to go back to Iowa. Great slices, pies, and low-end Italian food.

Con-Ed workers came across the street in droves, kids from the extreme demographic divide of Friends Seminary and Washington Irving were after school slice regulars and there delivery business was enormous. I live in a medium sized building two blocks away and I could guarantee on any given night four or more Mariella's deliveries came through our building alone.

Then all of a sudden Mariella's shut down. This was about three weeks ago. They said it was due to a 'gas leak in the building' but nothing has happened and I don't see anyone working there. The metal gate has been down constantly. No one who generally knows everything that happens in the neighborhood knows anything.

If this is the end of Mariella's, it closes another door to MY New York and no doubt will open another for tourists and transplants and the kind of people who line up for farcical desecrations of the sacred bagel, the existence of which must be making my father spin in his grave."



Mariella's had reopened after the "gas leak," and then closed again for good, possibly in part to lost business during the forced closure.

Ever since the 2nd Avenue gas explosion, "gas leaks" have been killing small restaurants, shuttering them for months and requiring expensive upgrades. Is this necessary? Or is it the city asking too much of mom and pop? Why don't we ever see Starbucks shuttered due to a gas leak? Instead of the B&H Dairy, The Stage, La Taza de Oro, The Carnegie Deli, and other longtime locals? Someone needs to look into this. 

Duke's

Tonight is the last night of the original Duke's "roadhouse" bar in Gramercy.

Ken Pierce shares their goodbye email: “To our loyal Duke’s Customers, After 20 years in the Gramercy Neighborhood, we are closing our doors at the end of the summer. Thank you for all the great times throughout the years. Our Murray Hill location at 860 Third Avenue will remain open and we hope to see you there for more of your favorite food, drinks, staff and good times.”

Are we seeing a mass die-off of the urban faux-roadhouse and honky tonk? First Rodeo Bar was booted by a rent hike, then Hogs & Heifers by a massive rent hike, and now Duke's, for reasons as yet unknown. They were all in their 20s. When will Trailer Park succumb?



Can't say I was ever a big fan of Duke's. It was, for a brief time, an after-work spot when I worked near there. That's about it.

New York describes the place: "The kitschy touches at Duke's begin right at the door, where a large hotel-style neon sign advertises color television and vacancy. You'll find both inside, where the crowd is strictly J. Crew and the nine big-screen TVs, usually tuned to this day in sports." And "The per-capita percentage of curved-bill baseball caps is frat-basement high."

The Last Bagel

Yesterday was Ess-A-Bagel's last day of business in their space on First Avenue. They've been there since 1976. Their landlord is putting a Bank of America in the space.



The walls were covered with goodbye wishes.



A member of the #SaveNYC group was there after the doors closed and shot this footage of long-time customer Jack (also since 1976) enjoying the last bagel, a mini everything with egg salad:


See more videos at savenyc.nyc

Customers hope that Ess-A-Bagel will successfully relocate somewhere in the neighborhood, but nothing has yet been set.


my last bagel, not the last bagel

City Opera Thrift

A typed letter in the window of the City Opera Thrift shop says they're working to negotiate a new lease with the landlord. They were sold after the opera was forced to declare bankruptcy. (This after Mayor Bloomberg told the beloved institution to drop dead.)

But even with that big, ominous "Retail for Lease" sign across the front, all is not lost.



I hear that the sign is just a formality and that the negotiations are going well, that the landlord is being patient, until the thrift shop is adopted by another organization, possibly another opera.



Nothing here should change and that's a relief. It's a wonderful thrift shop. The architecture of the interior alone makes it worth a visit, with its second-story gallery and its leaded windows in the back.



The book selection is suprisingly well curated, unlike in most thrift stores where all you find are mass-market detective novels and self-help books. City Opera Thrift knows their books, and they have a very contemporary selection of fiction.



It's also a great spot for people watching.

Another Newsstand Gone

For many years, by the northeast corner of 23rd and Park Avenue South, there stood a lovely little newsstand. It was bright blue. It remained, until very recently, an unlikely survivor of Bloomberg's Cemusa onslaught.


I wish I could find my other photos of it

Here it is (was) on Google maps, surviving defiantly in front of Pret A Manger, Bank of America, 7-Eleven, New York Sports Club, and Baked By Melissa cupcakes, across from Walgreens, Bath & Body Works, and the Vitamin Shoppe.

It was crooked and quirky, just like all our newsstands used to be. It had character. Really, it was the only bit of original New York character left on that chain-strangled corner.



I always admired it when I walked by, grateful to it for still standing against the dull tide of glass and chrome. But on a recent walk past, I found it was gone. Some construction is being done to the subway entrance.

"Where's the newsstand?" I asked a nearby construction worker. "Disappeared," he said. "They got rid of it."

I asked another, who told me, "The City took it away."



Then I asked a neighboring newsstand vendor.

"I don't know. Maybe they're putting in one of these," he said, gesturing to his generic Cemusa box. "They did it to me."

He explained how the City removed his newsstand and then took two years to get him a new one. During those two years, he had no business. It's important to understand that the city's newsstand vendors used to own their stands, some passed down for generations, but Bloomberg took them away and gave them to Cemusa, a Spanish corporation that now leases them to the vendors who used to be owners.

"I consider that stealing," I told him, paying for my peanut M&M's.

"Yes, well," he replied with a shrug, "the City doesn't see it that way."


See Also:
History of the New York Newsstand
More Newsstand Deaths
Newsstand Slaughter
Hojo's Lost Newsstand
Another Newsstand
Union Square Newsstand

Rodeo Bar

VANISHED

By now, most of you know that Rodeo Bar was closing. It shuttered yesterday, after nearly 30 years on 3rd Avenue.



In a farewell profile to the popular honky-tonk, the Times writes today that the closure came "after 27 years of holding out, Alamo style, against rising rents and marching chain stores."



I had never heard of Rodeo Bar until some readers wrote in, weeks ago, to tell me about the closure. I'm really not the Urban Cowboy type.

Recently, I went for the first time, for lunch, which is probably not exactly prime-time to go. It was quiet. I had a burger. While a western-style bar is not the sort of place I generally frequent, Rodeo was a survivor, a long-lasting small business standing since 1987 against the corporatization of the city, and that's something.

It is yet another casualty of New York's massive, homogenizing shift.



From the Times:

"The owner, Mitch Pollak, said changes in the neighborhood had made him decide to close. When he bought the Rodeo Bar in 1996, his monthly payments for rent and insurance averaged $10,000, he said; today they amount to almost $50,000. Chains occupied many of the neighboring storefronts, including 7-Eleven, Dunkin’ Donuts, Subway, Starbucks and Duane Reade Express, and they made the block feel sterile, Mr. Pollak said."

"Young customers have also drifted off in recent years to new, local bars that offer sports on flatscreens, rather than honky-tonk tunes and Texas beer. 'The neighborhood changed a lot,' said Mr. Pollak, 55. 'We didn’t change at all.'"

Jan Sun Laundry

Tom Birchard, owner of Veselka, sent in the news that Jan Sun Laundry on 17th Street and Irving Place is closing after 45 years in business.



Tom writes: "I moved to this street from the East Village eleven years ago and starting taking my shirts there. The gentleman who owns the business told me that when he immigrated here with his parents from Hong Kong the former residents of my brownstone took him under their wing and helped him acclimate to life in the US. They took him to the beach in the summer and helped him learn English. He eventually took over the laundry business and has been running it with his wife ever since. I know that New York is constantly changing but sometimes the loss of these neighborhood stores that make up the fabric of our daily lives really hurts. They will be gone at the end of the month."



I talked to the owner's wife. She told me they decided to retire, after so many years of laundering, to travel and spend time with grandchildren. She also told me about the wonderful sign in the window, which I've admired each time I've walked by.

The sign shows two men meeting on the street. One asks, "Sir, can you tell me where is the laundry that does good work?" And the other responds, "Why sure. Go to the Jan Sun Laundry. All work there is satisfactory."

The sign dates back to the 1940s, when it hung in the first Jan Sun over on Third Avenue. It came to the new place in the 1960s and has been here ever since, touched up to keep it fresh over the years.



I'll miss seeing that sign. Jan Sun is part of a quiet, almost untouched block of mom and pops--a barber shop, a shoe repair place, and a junk shop that recently closed. The lady at Jan Sun told me how the neighborhood has changed dramatically over the years, and how sad it's been to watch her old neighbors--all customers and friends--pass away.

"Now it's all young people," she said. "They're so busy, always on their phones, too busy to make friends."

Vercesi Hardware

VANISHING

Reports the pcvstBee, "After more than 100 years in business at the same address, Vercesi Hardware is closing at 152 East 23rd Street between Lexington and Third avenues. The building has been sold and is slated for demolition."



According to Flatiron BID, the shop began as a sheet music store in 1912, opened "by an enterprising teenager from Italy by the name of Paul Vercesi. Later, the young man added film development and a new-fangled invention called radio. At some point, hardware became part of the mix. Eventually, the sheet music and radio tubes and film all but vanished, but the hardware hung on."


"Don't Trust Your Films to a Butcher" (1936, NYPL)

In recent years, Vercesi became 23rd Street Hardware, with nothing more than a change of the name on the sign. I've always liked the look of it, signs piled high, the windows full of stuff--not much different, really, than it was decades ago.

One neighbor summed up the too-familiar situation to the pcvstBee: "Today, if it's old, it's got to go. And for what...condos and coffee shops?"

Gramercy Pawnbrokers

Recently, we had cause to worry about Gramercy Pawnbrokers. After surviving the luxury NYU dorm-condo that dropped on top of it (literally, on top of it), the little holdout pawn shop had a For Rent sign on its facade.



Fear not. The pawnbrokers were only renting out a sliver of their shop. A reader sent in the following shot of the new tenant--no cupcakes, no frozen yogurt, no 7-Eleven. Just a humble barber shop.



I would have missed the antique signage on the 24th St. side, and the strange, sad, lovely windows with their dusty violins, outdated calculators, and unpolished jewelry.

Capucine's Restaurant

VANISHING

I don't know Capucine's Restaurant on 2nd Avenue and 19th Street, but I passed by last night and saw this sign in the window:



Thirty-three years in business, but now the rent is too high to afford. It's the same old story all over again. And what kind of place is this? The kind of place that keeps getting the boot in Bloomberg's New York.

The description from New York Magazine makes it sound like a place I'd like to visit, with its shopworn tuxedos and dolled-up seniors:

"So enamored was he of Capucine, the French film beauty, that Gino Bossio named his old-school Italian restaurant for her in 1982. When Bossio passed away in 2005, wife Daryl assumed the reins, taking courtly two-decade veteran waiter Henry Julevic as partner. Aside from those personnel changes, a new TV at the bar, and a few coats of paint, Capucine’s hasn’t changed much since it was founded. It’s the kind of continental place you might take your parents, with middle-of-the-road Northern Italian staples delivered by deferential servers in slightly shopworn tuxedos. Iceberg lettuce dominates salads, olives taste canned, and entrees such as chicken cacciatore and shrimp scampi lack any kick. But pastas arrive perfectly al dente, and meats are cooked to buttery tenderness. In any case, diners return here for comfort, not culinary wizardry. Dolled-up seniors from nearby Peter Cooper Village and Stuy Town fill up the room on weekends, along with neighborhood families marking birthdays and anniversaries."

That's not going to happen at the next 7-Eleven.

Toll on 22

As another Toll Brothers' tower gets ready to rise on 22nd St. and 3rd Ave., a (presumed) local has responded with a bit of pointed graffiti.



What's Going On Here?

Armed with a Magic Marker, the graffitist has line-edited the explanation, and remarks, "you got a lot of nerve thinking people will believe your bullshit!"

 

The graffitist continues around the corner, remarking on affordability and inequality.



And here's what's coming--the thing that ate Gramercy, a mountain of glass enveloping a small brick tenement. It is celebrated, in the renderings, by striving, smiling people laden with shopping bags and briefcases. The people of New York. More familiar every day.

7-11 Strikes Again

A reader writes in to report: "The Gramercy Corner shop, news, candy, magazines, etc., has closed soon after a 7-11 opened up next door."


Anonymous reader

In April, the Daily News visited the little mom-and-pop. They wrote:

"Near the 7-Eleven that opened at 247 Third Ave. in Gramercy early last year, local stores have had a hard time. Omar Irfan, the 46-year-old co-owner of Gramercy Corner at 20th St. and Third Ave. estimates that 7-Eleven took away 25-30% of his business. 'We sell a lot of the same things — snacks, cigarettes, lotto,' Irfan said. 'It’s very hard. We try to put prices a little down. Still, people come here for me. They know me.'"



Mr. Irfan hasn't shut down completely. He has managed to move across 20th Street and down a couple doors, next to the Dunkin Donuts Baskin Robbins, into a much smaller space than his last one. The rent here is cheaper. And maybe being a hair's breadth away from 7-11's field of gravity will help him catch some customers. But will his $1 coffee outsell Dunkin?

Where can a shop owner move to today that isn't near a competing chain?


Previously:
7-11 Zombification
Chain Stores in the City
Death of a Deli
We Want Our Bodega

East 23rd Slaughter

We took a walk through Gramercy a few years ago as big changes started coming in. Now JVNY reader M.S. sends in the following report, with photos, from a midnight stroll around East 23rd Street, where blocks are being decimated.





She writes, "Five more spaces are up for lease or emptied between 2nd and 3rd Avenues on East 23rd. Somehow the 99-cent store survived, though one would be hard pressed to find anything under two dollars there. Add these to all the other closings in the past few years--the bakery, decades-old family businesses replaced by a massive nail salon, and the health food store moved two blocks uptown. Every day another one drops, and something higher priced or more corporate rises."





Meanwhile, "Tempo is picking up the pace" says the website for the new Tempo300 luxury condo box on 23rd Street and 2nd Avenue. The development "brings together the right place at the right time for those who know they have the right to expect the best of everything."

Cosmos to Orion

This past summer, we lost the Cosmos Diner, which had stood at 23rd and 2nd since 1978. Along with it, we lost another example of "Steaks Chops" signage--always a sad occurrence.


2011

When this happens, we tend to think the worst. A Subway. A 7-11. Another diner vanished for an artisanal pork-centric bistro. But sometimes the equilibrium is maintained.

Reader Pat sends in the news that Cosmos has simply become the Orion Diner & Grill. It opens today.



Pat says, "The ceilings are blue painted with white clouds, there is a mural on the wall, and the arrow of the archer on the sign outside has a moving light to suggest an arrow in motion... When I walked by they were having a party inside. The dessert trays in the window were loaded with huge gooey pieces of cake. A Greek Orthodox priest blessed everyone inside. He had a handful of some kind of leaves which he dipped in water and then bopped (I hope that word is not disrespectful) everyone on the forehead with it, uniformed wait staff too! A religious icon was in evidence on a table. So, I know where I am having lunch tomorrow."