Save New York

For the past dozen years, more than ever, New York City has been dying. It's getting murdered by rising rents, suburbanization, rampant development, and an unrestrained flood of chain businesses. Bloomberg actively encouraged this. Bill de Blasio promised to heal the tale of two cities, but nothing has yet been done to protect our small businesses from the filthy, bottomless greed of landlords.

New York's small businesses have been dropping like flies. We are losing the city block by block. The stunning loss of Cafe Edison, after a major fight from community members and politicians, including the mayor, shows us that we are powerless without legislation to back us up. If we can lose Cafe Edison, we can lose everything. And we are losing everything.

Shopping local only goes so far when landlords routinely double, triple, and quadruple commercial rents, or simply deny a lease to their long-term business tenants. We can buy all the books, booze, and bowls of matzo ball soup we want, but without legislation and regulation we are powerless against the landlords. And forget about appealing to their "humanity." It does not exist.

We must start organizing--not just to save one small business, one at a time, but to protect them all at once. We must demand that the City fix this problem immediately. No more waiting around for it to get better. No more denial. No more asking nicely. No more bullshit.


Stereotype Design

Here are a handful of steps that I believe will help:

1. Pass the Small Business Jobs Survival Act to create fair negotiations of commercial lease renewals, so landlords can’t use insane rent hikes to evict dependable and beloved business people.

-Read more about the bill here
-Click here to find your local council members -- call and write, tell them to pass this bill NOW
-Tweet your local council member, @NYCCouncil, and @MMViverito every day telling them to pass SBJSA

2. Start a Cultural Landmarks program. While general commercial rent control may be unworkable, we can protect what little remains of the city’s oldest and most beloved small businesses by creating a selective rent control program. Rent control can be gifted to businesses that qualify for Cultural Landmarking. Local communities can nominate the businesses they want to protect. San Francisco is leading the charge in this department--see SF Heritage for how they're doing it.

3. Control the spread of chain businesses. Again, City Hall must follow the example of San Francisco, where the city controls “formula retail." If Giuliani could keep adult businesses from operating near one another, then de Blasio can keep national chains from doing the same. A few chains are not a problem, but New York is strangling in them. They drive up rents, contributing to the eviction of small businesses, as they destroy the unique character of the urban landscape, turning the city into Anywhere, USA.

-See what San Francisco is doing here.

4. Take the million-dollar tax breaks away from Big Business and give them to Mom and Pop — and to Grandma and Grandpa.

Businesses that own their buildings, like 110-year-old DeRobertis Pasticceria, are not safe either. Let's stop fooling ourselves with that one. They struggle with sky-high water bills and a Kafkaesque Department of Health that is lousy with corruption. They often don't know how to market themselves in the new age of social media, and they're being bled alive by encroaching chains. Tax breaks, lower fees for violations, and help with creative marketing would go a long way.

On the DOH issue: Why are small businesses penalized at the same rate as multinational corporate chains? Penalties should not be one size fits all. The system is rigged. Fix it.

5. And give fines or increased taxes to landlords who leave commercial spaces vacant, creating blight and blocking out small business people while they wait for the right sky-high price.

- In London, as an incentive to keep shops in use, tax relief was taken away from businesses that keep properties empty for longer than 6 months.



In 2008, writing on the death of bohemian Greenwich Village, author Christopher Hitchens put it well: “On the day when everywhere looks like everywhere else we shall all be very much impoverished, and not only that but — more impoverishingly still — we will be unable to express or even understand or depict what we have lost.”

It is time to take action and to demand action from our city government. Save New York!

Start now:
1. Copy and paste the text from this post, edit it to your liking, and then mail it, email it, tweet it to Mayor Bill de Blasio and your local councilmember. Send it to Council Speaker Melissa Mark Viverito and to Public Advocate Letitia James. 

Councilmember Corey Johnson, State Senator Brad Hoylman, Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, and Assemblymember Richard Gottfried are strong allies in this fight. Contact them and let them know you want these changes NOW and you will give them your support in this fight.

2. Join the Save New York Facebook page to start organizing with other New Yorkers today.

3. Use the hashtag #‎SaveNYC‬ when you tweet. Change your Twitter and Facebook profile pic to the image below.

4. Get angry!


(ripped from a Time Out New York cover)

Hooters

Hooters has arrived where Peep World once was.



In 2012, good old Peep World shuttered right across from Penn Station. We soon learned it would be replaced by a Hooters.

Now the big neon signs are up on 7th Avenue and 33rd, the green-shingled Peep World facade (formerly a Burger King, and before that an Automat) has been replaced with glass, and the Help Wanted signs are in the window, announcing "Everyone Looks Good in Orange."



There is a large Hootie the Owl inside, its wide eyes a pair of not-so subliminal boobs gawking out at the street.

And the place is enormous. It didn't just take up the entire 33rd Street Peep World space, it looks like it runs straight through the neighboring building, across a whole floor, with windows on the avenue. It is making its presence known.



In 2012, I wrote about the shift from Peep World to Hooters.



Previously:
Peep World Closing
Peep World to Hooters
Peep World Remnants
Paper Magazine

Dear Taylor

In today's Daily News, I've written an open letter to Taylor Swift, New York City's Global Welcome Ambassador:



Dear Taylor,

Since you were named New York City’s “Global Welcome Ambassador,” you’ve been widely mocked, including by this paper. Sure, haters gonna hate. They say you’re not qualified for the job because you’ve only been in New York for a few months, you live in the luxury bubble of a $20 million penthouse and you don’t eat dirty-water hot dogs.

I disagree. For those reasons and more, you are absolutely qualified to welcome bright-eyed visitors to the new New York, a city that has been made over into a sterilized playground for suburbanites, tourists and oligarchs...

Please read the whole thing here

*Note: In the print edition, the News added a subhead saying I'm a native. I am not.

Update: The New York Post's editorial board responded quickly to the Swift backlash. They quote me as a snarky "snob":

"No sooner had Taylor Swift been named Global Welcome Ambassador for New York than the snobs opened fire. One complains she’s a 'whitebread out-of-towner' only recently moved here. Another snarks how the seven-time Grammy winner is the perfect choice for a city 'made over into a sterilized playground for suburbanites, tourists and oligarchs.'"

Colonized by Bears

After much anticipation, after two years of temporary schlockfests in the old Colony Music space, including Halloween stores and Christmas shops, it looks like landlord Stonehenge Properties finally found someone to commit to the reported $5 million rent.

Reader Ken Jacowitz did some snooping around and sent in the following shots. Is that a teddy bear peeking from behind Colony's door?


photos by Ken Jacowitz

Why, yes, it is. But not just any bear. Signs say it's the Build-a-Bear Workshop bear, native to Overland, Missouri, and conqueror of suburban shopping malls across the nation, with over 400 stores worldwide, including three already in New York City.



Colony Music had been here for over 60 years, since 1948. They were forced out after Stonehenge bought the Brill Building and quintupled the legendary record and music store's rent.

Add this one to the ever-growing list. Where once was a New York original, a one of a kind, there's now another piece of bland, middle-American ubiquity.

Unchain the City

From my most recent Op-Ed in the Daily News this weekend:

Soon there will be no New York left in New York. The city is becoming, for the first time in its long and illustrious history of exceptionalism, just another Anywhere, U.S.A. What has de Blasio done to protect New York’s small businesses and control the virulent spread of national chains? Nothing much.



Before he was elected, I asked him in an online Q&A what he planned to do. In his answer, he called small businesses “incredibly important to the character and strength of our neighborhoods” and said he wanted to follow the example of the Upper West Side’s “mom-and-pop” rezoning, designed to protect small shops from being forced out for chains. That’s actually a fairly weak rezoning, but it’s a start — one that de Blasio has yet to follow through on. It’s time for the mayor to step up and take action against the destruction of the city’s character.

Read the rest here.

Daily Beast

Journalist and author Tim Teeman just did an interview with me over at The Daily Beast. In "The End of New York," we talk about chain stores, cellphones, suburbanization, hyper-gentrification, and polar bears.  

Read it here.



P.S. You can buy Tim's book, In Bed with Gore Vidal, at Three Lives bookshop in Greenwich Village.

From Vinyl to Dunkin'

Recently we saw the former Bleecker St. Records turn into a Starbucks. This week, the former Norman's Sound and Vision record shop has become a Dunkin' Donuts. Monday was their grand opening.



Located on Third Avenue between 7th and St. Mark's, Norman's closed in 2012. The rent was too damn high. "The landlords pushed us out here," said the owner in a video interview, referring to Williamsburg, where Norman's has since moved.

According to the Center for an Urban Future's 2013 "State of the Chains" report, Dunkin Donuts is New York's most plentiful:

"For the sixth consecutive year, Dunkin Donuts tops our list as the largest national retailer in New York City, with a total of 515 stores. Over the past year, Dunkin Donuts had a net increase of 39 stores in the city (an 8 percent gain)."

Add one more to the growing pile.

From Vinyl to Starbucks

The Starbucks that took the place of Bleecker Street Records has got its signage up, sans Mermaid, according to Richard Morgan who shared this shot:



Luckily, the record shop successfully relocated to 188 West 4th Street, along with their big kitties, Skuzzball and Creeper. But still. They lost their last spot after 20 years when the landlord jacked up the rent to $27,000 a month.


Village Voice

At the time, on 1010 WINS, Chris Simunek (of High Times) predicted, “what’s going to go in there is a Starbucks or something, or just something that we already have plenty of.” I thought it would be a frozen yogurt or candy shop, but Mr. Simunek wins the prize.

This is the city's 9,000,000,000th Starbucks location. 

Fucking FroYo

Someone has started a Twitter feed and a Tumblr page called "Now It's a Fucking FroYo Place."

"Tracking New York's downfall," one froyo place at a time, the site puts together Google Streetview images of city locations before and after they were taken over by frozen yogurt shops.



"It was a photo shop," reads one entry, "and now it’s a fucking fro-yo place!" "It was a local bar," reads another, "and now it’s a fucking fro-yo place!" "It was a bodega...and now it’s a fucking fro-yo place!"

You get the gist. To quote from Manhattan, "It's pithy yet degenerate."

The lost places aren't all winners, but that's not the point. The point is that the streets of the city are being taken over by monoculture--chain stores, banks, condos--and the froyo place has come to exemplify a certain strain of this banality, one that is multiplying like a virus.

So here's to "Fucking FroYo," keep up the good work!

Carmine's IHOP

VANISHING!(?)

After setting off a panic when it opened in 2012, and "Effectively Stabbing Village in Heart," it appears that the IHOP on Carmine Street has one foot in the grave. Still open for business, a FOR LEASE sign recently appeared on its front.



Originally, IHOP signed a 49-year lease for this corner of Carmine and Varick, paying $300,000 per year. The real estate agent who brokered the deal told the Wall Street Journal that Carmine, "was a dumpy street. Now it's top-notch." IHOP is "a big brand, and it'll help me convince other big brands to follow. People don't even know where Carmine Street is--yet. We'll fix that."

Not so fast.

As a bonus, this news comes just after a self-professed "New Yorker from Elsewhere" waxed nostalgic in Downtown for this very IHOP, recalling a recent snowy night on Carmine when "tourists and locals alike gathered at clean, florescent-lit, flavored-syrup laden tables" for a taste of Ye Olde Suburbia. She explained why Manhattan's glut of chains appeals so much to the newest newcomers to the city: "We go to IHOP or Denny’s or Applebee’s because when you walk into a place like that, a place that speaks of other-state suburbia with every wheeze of the vinyl padded booths, every crack of the egg-yolk spattered menus, it reminds you that you are from Somewhere Else, and for a half hour you can settle back into your accent and some mediocre but utterly familiar food."

It is utterly depressing to think of young people coming to New York and dragging their suburban worlds with them, like separation-anxious teenagers carrying their old teddy bears off to college. Manhattan is not Waukesha, or Toledo, or Walla Walla. Nor should it be.

While it's likely that a bank or another chain will take IHOP's place, I'd like to enjoy this For Lease sign as a hopeful sign that the revanchist onslaught of suburbanization is failing. The controversial 7-Eleven on St. Mark's Place closed last month, now this--what's next? Will we go through a process of de-suburbanization?


Previously:
Carmine's IHOP
Before IHOP
Chain Stores in the City

Master List: 2001 - 2013

At the end of each year, I usually do a round-up of that year's vanished places. But this year is special. This year means the end to the evil Bloomberg era, so I offer this "Master List" of Vanished New York from 2001 to 2013. It's been 12 merciless years of destruction and loss, from "significant" losses to countless "smaller" ones--neighborhood laundromats, shoe repair shops, drugstores--far more than I have compiled here.

If you look only at this list and add up all the years in business represented, we lost approximately 6,926 years of New York City history in only a dozen years. And we know the real number is much higher than that.

Clearly, we need strong protections for the city's small businesses. Many of the closures were due to the impact of gentrification, either through rising rents, demolition for luxury development, or a decrease in business due to their neighborhood's up-shifting of demographics and values. A few closed for unrelated reasons, like the owner's death or retirement, but I included them all. I'm sure I've missed many--in part because I didn't start the blog until 2007. Please add them in the comments, and include the date and reason for closure if you can. Also, if you see any mistakes, please offer corrections. Thank you.

This list is a living document. I plan to add to it over time. Here's a nice quote about it from Kristin Iverson at Brooklyn Magazine: "For those of us who have lived in New York for a long time, perusing the list was not unlike looking through a high school yearbook, only finding out that practically everyone had died."



2013 (836 years)
Stile's Market: 26 years
Pushed out by landlord, to be demolished for luxury development

5Pointz, formerly Phun Phactory: 20 years
White-washed by owner, to be demolished for luxury condo towers

Famous Roio’s/Ray’s Pizza: 40 years
Building sold

Ray Beauty Supply: 50 years
Property seized by landlord

Vercesi Hardware: 101 years
Building sold to be demolished for luxury condos

D’Auito’s Bakery: 89 years
Unknown

Odessa Restaurant: 48 years
Building sold, gastropub to move in, now for rent

Splash gay bar: 22 years
Lack of business

Paradise Café: 20 years
Rent hike

Big Nick’s Burger and Pizza Joint: 51 years
Rent increase from $42,000 to $60,000 a month

Max Fish: 24 years
Rent increase

Joe’s Dairy: 60 years
Cost of doing business

Bleecker Bob’s Records: 46 years
Rent hike

Blarney Cove: 50+ years
Evicted for new development

Sofia’s Italian restaurant: 35 years
Lost their lease

9th Street Bakery: 87 years
38% rent hike, replaced by juice-cleanse and smoothie shop

Capucine’s Italian restaurant: 33 years
Rent hike

Rawhide gay bar: 34 years
Rent hike, to be turned into a pizza chain from California



2012 (1302 years)
Rocco Ristorante: 90 years
Lost lease to trendy restaurateurs, gutted and upscaled

The Holiday Cocktail Lounge: 47 years
Sold and gutted for a gastropub

Kenny’s Castaway’s: 45 years
Rising cost of business

McCullough’s Kiddie Park, Coney Island: 50 years
Lost their lease

Manganaro's Grosseria: 119 years
Sold and gutted for a more upscale restaurant

A Clean Well-Lighted Place: 36 years
Now an upscale boutique

World of Video: 29 years
Lost its lease

Chelsea Gallery Diner: 30 years
Forced out of Chelsea

Bill's Gay 90s: 88 years
Lost its lease to a trendy restaurateur, gutted and upscaled

Atlas Barber School: 64 years
Lost lease due to hiked rent, now a UPS

Prime Burger: 47 years
Lost lease when building sold

Lascoff Pharmacy: 113 years
Closed and gutted

Colony Records: 60 years
Closed when the new landlord quintupled the rent to $5 million

Movie Star News: 73 years
Rent hiked, turned into a luxury bathroom fixture store

Lafayette French Bakery: 30+ years
Evicted

Partners & Crime Bookshop: 18 years
Closed due to lack of business

University Diner: 60 years
Evicted

El Faro: 85 years
Possibly evicted?

Village Chess Shop: 40 years
Closed due to lack of business

The Stage Deli: 75 years
Rent increase

Lenox Lounge: 63 years
Landlord doubled the rent, given to upscale restaurateur

H&H Bagels: 40 years
Last location evicted



2011 (575 years)
Gansevoort Pumping Station, Premier Veal plant: 105 years
Evicted and demolished for new Whitney Museum and High Line headquarters

Polonia: 22 years
Probable rent hike

Auggie’s Coffee shop: 45 years
Could not afford the rent

The Original Ray's Pizza: 52 years
Legal dispute with landlord

Mars Bar: 26 years
Demolished to build luxury condos, to become a bank

Brownfeld Auto: 120 years
Evicted when landlord decided to sell for luxury High Line development

Chelsea Hotel: 127 years
Sold and closed to guests

Life Café: 30 years
Dispute with landlord over repairs

Elaine’s: 48 years
Death of owner



2010 (886 years)
Skyline Books: 20 years
Probable rent hike, replaced with a body waxing salon

JJ’s Navy Yard bar: 103 years
Evicted, sold, and demolished, replaced by hipster coffee

Telephone Bar and Grill: 22 years
Sold and replaced with a frat bar

Gino: 65 years
Closed when landlord raised rent $8,000 per month, turned into a cupcake bakery chain

Empire Diner: 34 years
Lost their lease

Guss’ Pickles: 100 years
Left the Lower East Side due to rising neighborhood rents

Shore Hotel: 107 years
Coney Island hotel, demolished by Thor Equities to make room for new construction

Fedora: 58 years
Closed by owner in old age, taken over by a trendy restaurateur, gutted and upscaled

Carmine's at the Seaport: 107 years
Closed when landlord raised the rent to $13,000 a month

St. Vincent's Hospital: 161 years
Closed and demolished for a billion-dollar luxury condo project

New York Doll Hospital: 109 years
Death of owner, no successor



2009 (613 years)
Arnold Hatters: 50 years
Unable to make rent after original location taken by eminent domain to build New York Times tower, replaced by 7-Eleven

Joe Jr.'s diner: 35 years
Lost their lease, now upscale coffee

P&G Bar: 67 years
Lost lease, gutted and replaced by upscale cafe

Amato Opera House: 61 years
Closed by the owner in old age, building sold

Love Saves the Day: 43 years
Closed in part due to high rent

Tavern on the Green: 75 years
Bankruptcy

Café Des Artistes: 92 years
Bankruptcy

Manny’s Music: 74 years
Bought out by Sam Ash, also later shuttered

Provincetown Playhouse: 91 years
Demolished by NYU

Biography Bookshop: 25 years
Rent hike, owners relocated as BookBook



2008 (821 years)
Jefferson Market: 79 years
Money trouble, now sales office for billion-dollar luxury condo project at St. Vincent's

Fazil’s Times Square Studio: 73 years
Closed for building demolition

Astroland amusement park: 46 years
Sold to Thor Equities for redevelopment

Donnell Library: 53 years
Closed and demolished for a luxury hotel

The Minetta Tavern: 71 years
Landlord raised the rent, gave lease to upscale restaurateur

Bobby's Happy House: 61 years
Building sold for a big-box chain store

Chez Brigitte: 50 years
Rent doubled, replaced by frozen yogurt chain

Cafe Figaro: 39 years
Lost their lease, became fast-food burrito chain and bank

Yankee Stadium: 85 years
Demolished and replaced with an upscale ballpark

Shea Stadium: 44 years
Demolished and replaced with upscale, corporate-named Citi-Field

Florent: 24 years
Closed due to rent hike, from $6,000 to $50,000 per month

Vesuvio Bakery: 88 years
Sold

M&G Diner: 40 years
Sold and shuttered

Cheyenne Diner: 68 years
Lost its lease, moved away



2007 (783 years)
Limelight: 24 years
Shuttered by police, reopened, eventually closed and converted to luxury shopping mall

The Roxy: 29 years
Shut down for conversion to luxury condos

Dojo’s Restaurant, 33 years
Rent hike

Gertel's Bakery: 93 years old
Sold, demolished for condo development

The Playpen Theater: 100 years
Sold and demolished for luxury hotel tower and Shake Shack chain

Chumley's: 79 years old
Collapsed

Jade Mountain: 76 years old
Death of owner

Moondance Diner: 74 years
Closed for condo development, moved to Wyoming

Kurowycky Meats: 52 years old
Closed due to lack of business

Copeland's: 49 years old
Victim of gentrification

Donuts Coffee Shop: 32 years old
Evicted

Sucelt Coffee: 31 years old
Rent hike

Teresa's Polish restaurant: 22 years old
Rent hike

Rose’s Turn: 56 years
Family sold building for $3.5 million

Coliseum Books: 33 years
Rent too high



2006 (373 years)
Cedar Tavern: 140 years
Demolished for condos, replaced with a body waxing salon

Gotham Book Mart: 86 years
Evicted

McHale's Bar: 62 years
Demolished for luxury condo tower

The Second Avenue Deli: 52 years
Rent increase, replaced with a bank

CBGBs: 33 years
Rent dispute, replaced by John Varvatos upscale boutique


photo via Satan's Laundromat

2005 (278 years)
Variety Photoplays Theater: 108 years
Demolished by the Toll Brothers for a 21-story condo tower

Fulton Fish Market: 170 years
Moved to the Bronx due to “the creeping conversion of Manhattan into a monstrous mall” --NY Times



2004 (319 years)
A. Zito & Sons Bakery: 80 years
Rising cost of business

The Bottom Line: 30 years
NYU raised the rent

The original Kim’s Video: 17 years
?

Jon Vie Bakery: 42 years
“a victim of soaring rents in a neighborhood populated as much by bankers as by bohemians.” --NY Times

Domino Sugar Factory: 150 years
Declining business, to be converted to luxury condos


photo via: Intersection's Flickr

2002 (127 years)
Ratner’s: 97 years
Cost of doing business

Madison Avenue Bookshop: 30 years
Lack of business

2001 (13 years)
Wetlands: 13 years
Building sold for luxury condos

One 7-Eleven Down...

The 7-Eleven on St. Mark's Place has closed. EV Grieve was the first to report the thrilling news, noting that "Workers on the scene confirmed...that the store has closed."

I had to go look for myself. 



A peek inside the store reveals that the place is almost entirely emptied out. According to the Post's report on the closure, even the young people shunned it!

Immediately after opening, this 7-Eleven started threatening the future of Gem Spa across the street, a store that has been with us since at least the 1950s, and much beloved.



Meanwhile, the front window of this 7-Eleven was smashed--twice. Then the activist group "No 7-Eleven" formed, primarily fighting the 7-Eleven that opened further east on Avenue A. They held rallies, ran bodega tours, started petitions, and more--all to fight the invasion of this chain and others like it.

Years ago, Manhattanites defeated 7-Eleven. The chain tried to make it here, but no one shopped, so they failed, closing their last store in 1982. But then Manhattan changed. In the summer of 2005, the first 7-Eleven in 23 years returned, opening at 23rd and Park Avenue South. Many people were thrilled. They lined up to buy Slurpees. Since then, dozens (?) of 7-Elevens have followed.

Along the way, too many bodegas have fallen.



I don't know what the closing of this 7-Eleven means. I want to believe it's a watershed moment, a turning point, a sign that the people of this city are changing again--changing back to people who care more about local businesses than about "convenience."

But I would not (yet) dare to be so hopeful.

Pushing Back 7-11

As the 7-11 convenience store chain continues its massive push, pressing forward with its clearly stated goal to consume New York City's bodegas with its "Business Conversion Plan," some East Villagers are taking action.


7-11 smashed on St. Mark's

Our friend Liberation reports the scene last night:

"There was a great turnout at the Father’s Heart Ministries to discuss the 7-11 coming to Avenue A and 11th Street. A really diverse crowd of 50 or so people showed up, all of them sick of the chain stores consuming the neighborhood and wanting to do their part to protect the local businesses with roots in the community. The meeting served as a jumping off point to brainstorm ideas and get more people involved. Because the group was diverse so are the skills they bring to table.

In the next few weeks people can expect a new website for the project and action steps people in the community can take to push back against 7-11 and, in the long term, possibly other chain stores looking to set up shop in the East Village. Reporters from the Times, Crains and DNAinfo were all there, so expect articles on the meeting in the next day or so. The general consensus was that people tolerated Starbucks, they tolerated Subway, but a 7-11 in the East Village is the last straw."




Read More:
7-11 Zombification
Chain Stores in the City
7-11 Strikes Again
& Please shop at Gem Spa instead--it's got gravitas

NYU: No Confidence

Last week, the faculty of NYU authorized a no-confidence vote, a move that could lead to President Sexton's termination. They write, "The NYU 2031 Sexton Plan, the administration’s ill advised multi-billion dollar plan to expand the university within Greenwich Village, was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back." And now, some key quotes from the must-read book While We Were Sleeping: NYU and the Destruction of New York.



"It's not just NYU. There are days when I feel like I'm stranded in some upscale mall in Pasadena. Don't even get me started on the insidious transformation of Bleecker Street!" --Jessica Hagedorn

"Those little garden plots on the corner of Bleecker and LaGuardia may not be on our way to anywhere. And yet we need them, we seek them out, to smell the wet earth, to remember the feel of soil drying on our hands, the smell of a fresh tomato, the wonder of a dogwood blooming. I'm sure NYU has computed the dimensions of this garden, but they are using the wrong units of measurements." --Peter Carey

"The tall buildings started to pop up all over the place. In the east village that used to groan when the fall came ('NYU' we'd hiss) and it meant that the east village was always our neighborhood but come fall all these kiddies would suddenly be streaming into the streets with their avidity and suburban fashion. But there were more of us than them so the problem was fortunately contained. They were actually still part of what there was. And there were many things here including students. Then by the 21st c. they were living in our buildings. Not like us, but like them. Their parents bought them apartments or else were paying the rent which was five times higher than ours. They were wandering (or running) through the halls of our building at night with their beers or also in their bathrobes between apartments with their cups of tea. They were incredibly loud. The way they were talking. Like no one was living here. Like they were living in a dorm. They were." --Eileen Myles

After NYU's expansion, "There will no NYU, no Village. Just another herd of de-zoned skyscrapers ready for another wrecking ball, another rage of 'development,' another detraction from New York City, that which makes it different from the featureless, dangerous inhuman depopulated streets of Downtowns USA across the country." --Kenneth Lonergan

"In the past, heartland whites with some kind of dream or desire left their towns for cities to become citified. They wanted to get away from religion, from their families, they wanted to come out, make art, have sex, have experiences. But this new crew was something we had never seen before. They were the first generation of suburban Americans. They came, not to be citified, but rather to change cities into places they could recognize and dominate." --Sarah Schulman

7-11 Zombification

7-11 has landed on Delancey Street near Norfolk.


Delancey 7-11, photo by Karen Gehres

This comes after another 7-11 opened earlier this month on East 14th Street. Dayenu! Before that, another opened on St. Mark's Place. Dayenu! And before that, another opened on Bowery. Dayenu!

And that's just the East Village/Lower East Side.

7-11 has made it clear that they've come to New York City to take over our local bodegas and corner grocery stores. They call it the Business Conversion Program. As New York magazine reported, the program's "stated goal is to entice mom-and-pop shops into becoming 7-Elevens."


8th and 25th, photo by Thomas Rinaldi

On 8th Avenue at 25th Street this week, yet another 7-11 has plunked itself down--this one right next to a mom-and-pop corner grocery store, Kyung's Gourmet Foods. The spot used to be something needed--a laundromat.

The sign in the window says: "Franchise This Store." It's a 7-11 without an owner. They're just sticking them on our streets and letting them sit empty until someone dials the number or texts the word "Franchise" to the head office.

Are they trying to lure Kyung into the Conversion Program?


8th and 25th, photo by Thomas Rinaldi

Urban Etiquette Signage

This week, Capital New York published an article on "The golden era of the noble, ineffectual 'respect our neighbors' sign." I'm glad the author, Sarah Laskow, is bringing attention to the situation, but I need to add my two cents, because urban etiquette signage happens to be a passion (or perhaps obsession) of mine--I've been collecting samples for awhile.


coffee shop

Laskow focuses on the signs outside of drinking establishments, mostly in the East Village, where they do proliferate. But the signs are not limited to bars. You'll find them outside of cafes, dessert shops, and restaurants that are not booze-centric. So we can't just blame drunkenness for people's bad behavior.

She says the signs have "multiplied since New York banned smoking in bars," and traces the origin of the fight against noise and crowding to 2003 when the smoking ban began. The ban definitely increased the problem, but the story is more complex.


noodle shop

Laskow partly blames the increase in signs to an increase in complaining quality-of-lifers. She writes that the East Village "played host to the city’s nightlife aficionados for years, but through the '80s and '90s its residents were paying rents low enough that they could overlook nighttime noise. As rents increased, so did complaints." She quotes one bar owner who says, "When people start paying that sort of money, they expect more from the neighborhood."

But the complainers are not the high-rent newcomers--the most vocal and active complainers are the old-timers, most in rent-controlled and stabilized apartments for decades. And we didn't overlook noise prior to 2003--we remember when the East Village was much quieter and less crowded than the nightmare of screeching it is today.

If anyone is behaving badly and in need of corrective signage, it's the newcomers who are paying those high rents in glossy buildings made for adult dormitory life.


dessert shop, Momofuku Milk Bar

Finally, this whole behavioral problem began before the smoking ban of 2003.

I started noticing urban etiquette signs in the East Village a little more than a decade ago--mostly posted in long-standing mom-and-pop businesses. I wrote this in 2002: "the new signs keep cropping up every day: Absolutely no cell phones; Do not bring your dog in here; If you want to talk on your cell phone, do it outside; No roller blades; No scooters; and the simple, plaintive, Please be nice."

These early examples were the precursors to today's "please respect our neighbors" signs. And as the pleading requests make clear, by the turn of the century, the East Village was being taken over by assholes.


Fab 208 clothing

In the article, bar owner Sasha Petraske sums it up well when he says, "The idea that the sidewalk in front of an apartment building is public space is a suburban attitude, that has no place in a city."

That brings us back to the larger issue of New York's suburbanization, and the problematic people who bring their small-town visions with them, then force the city to conform. And, of course, as Laskow points out, they don't bother reading the signs.


See and read:
Shut Up Signs
Urban Etiquette Signs
Loudmouth Weather
How to Complain About Noisy Jerks

Wisco Nice

Yesterday, the Times took a look at the new Fedora and the expanding "Little Wisco" of Greenwich Village, a "self-perpetuating machine" in the words of the new Fedora's owner. We've discussed this Wisconsinization of the Village before and how it has come to exemplify the current trend of newcomers longing to recreate their hometowns in New York City.

Ever curious about this trend, I look to the Little Wisco phenomenon for answers. As we learned from The Feast, the new Fedora features a cocktail called the Black Squirrel Old Fashioned, an homage to the bartender's hometown of Reedsburg, Wisconsin, where the Black Squirrel Lounge is the "hip bar...where everybody goes and hangs out" at the America's Best Value Inn-Voyageur Inn and Conference Center.

I searched out the America's Best Value-Voyageur Inn and Conference Center to see if I could understand more about this whole phenomenon.


View from the parking lot

"Fun and excitement await you at America's Best Value Inn-Voyageur Inn and Conference Center," says the hotel's website. "Whether it's after a long day at work, a cocktail after dinner, or a night out on the town, come relax in the Black Squirrel Lounge or at our on-site Marty's Steakhouse."

They feature HBO in every room and are close to many recreational activities, such as the Antique Mall of Reedsburg, Christmas Mountain Golf Course, and something called Wizard Quest, "the leader in computer interactive games played in a live setting," a fantasy-themed labyrinth they call the quadrasphere.


The Black Squirrel Lounge

After a day of antiquing, golfing, and wizard-questing, you can also return to the America's Best Value Inn-Voyageur Inn and Conference Center to enjoy the indoor swimming pool, video games, and the hall of Norman Rockwell. Said one TripAdvisor reviewer of the permanent Rockwell exhibit, "I can't wait to get back and check it out. The restaurant was good, too. On Friday nights they have a seafood buffet that is really good... and everyone is really nice."

Reedsburg, Wisconsin, actually has (or had) a couple of Rockwell-related exhibits. It's a mystery as to why. Norman Rockwell was from New York City and lived later in Massachusetts, not Wisconsin. Maybe they just adopted him as their own, identifying with the wholesome niceness of his work.


The game room

So, is it niceness that newcomers want to bring to New York City from their small Midwestern towns? In the Little Wisco Times article, the author points out the "hyper-sincere" and "disarmingly friendly" nature of these restaurants. These are not traits usually identified with New York City, a town long known for its abrasiveness and aggression, its tough (usually ethnic) way of being warm--in short, its "edge."

As I wondered here before, "What will the city look like as Little Italy and Chinatown give way to Little Michigan and Ohiotown?" Maybe it will be a place where everyone is super nice. Maybe it'll be just like Minnesota Nice. However, says Minnesota playwright Syl Jones, this niceness "doesn't have all that much to do with being nice. It's more about keeping up appearances, about keeping the social order, about keeping people in their place."



According to a niceness study, the people of Wisconsin score very high on the niceness scale--they are sociable, extroverted, and friendly. Said one, "we don't like making waves. We are a very polite group of people." As for New York, concluded the report, people here were "found to be the most high strung, stressed out, and unfriendly." Also neurotic. You could say that, for many years, the city not only bred, but also attracted such personalities. It was a haven for the unsunny.

If we are in a niceness trend, thanks to Midwestern transplants who don't want to leave the Midwest behind (as past generations of transplants did gladly), we could be experiencing a powerful wave that will spread as quickly as the recent "tsunami of cute"--in fact, the two trends are likely related; for example, "cute" cupcakes could also be described as "nice."

What kind of New York will we have once it has been completely won over by the Midwest's brand of hyper-sincerity and disarming friendliness?

Little Wisconsin

Eater just interviewed the new owner of the beloved and shuttered Fedora, about his reaction to nostalgics' Fedora criticism and his vision for that slice of Greenwich Village.

He said: "...We want to rebrand this like little pocket, the three blocks from West 4th street down where Fedora is all the way down to like Christopher and Sixth Avenue. I’d like to rename this little area 'Little Wisco,' because we’ve got the oldest and most prominent, Kettle of Fish (a true Wisco bar), we’re here, Jeffrey’s is here, Fedora will have Wisconsin people and a friend of mine that I went to college with is opening up a clothing shop on Christopher and Gay so it’s a lot of Wisconsin. You know they’ve got a Little Italy, I think we should make a Little Wisco in the West Village."



Joking or not, in this last statement, equating a Little Wisconsin with Little Italy, he inadvertently illuminates a powerful phenomenon at work in the city. For generations, the fabric of New York was woven by poor immigrants from foreign countries. They brought their cultures and created ethnic neighborhoods where they felt safe. Americans who migrated to the city, on the other hand, gladly left their own small-town cultures behind and assimilated into the urban.

Today, that is no longer the case. Especially in Manhattan, we're seeing middle-class and affluent immigrants from America's Heartland coming to recreate their hometowns. What will the city look like as Little Italy and Chinatown give way to Little Michigan and Ohiotown?



Before long, Villagers, you'll be boiling fish, rooting for the Packers, and running around with foam wedges of cheese on your head. Don't doubt it. The Kettle of Fish, once a Beatnik bar favored by Jack Kerouac, is now "the Big Apple's number one spot for Packer backers."

Gated New York

This Observer article deserves its own post, belonging as it does in the Suburbanization of New York annals.

In it, you will read about the world of New York's suburbanized gated communities. It's an odd world, custom-made for The Joneses, personalities recently attracted to the city, harboring fantasies of total cleanliness, safety, convenience, and spaciousness.

It's a world peopled by 20-something interns who can somehow afford to split rents of $3000+ a month, who come to New York from the Midwest, eschewing things like walkups because living in a gated, fully loaded environment "is just so much better in so many ways. It's like living in a hotel. Everything's always convenient, always safe, always clean. You don't have to worry about gross things. Like mice! And creepy things like that."

If "Consume!" is New York's post-9/11 war cry, then "always convenient, always safe, always clean" could be the city's post-post-9/11 mantra.


photo: sunset flame's flickr

Says another 20-something resident of luxury housing, "It sometimes feels like I'm not in New York when I'm in the building... It's trying to have things that a suburban housing complex would--everything at your fingertips, where you don't have to leave [the building] much if you don't want. But it's not big enough. It's not big enough to do that. It needs a swimming pool."

This reminds me of another Observer article from last September, on New York's growing car culture, in which another young arrival chose to have a car in the city because it made her feel "not like such a city person."


photo: sunset flame's flickr

I've asked this before, and since I do tend to repeat myself, I might as well say it again: Why come to New York City if you are disgusted and frightened by city culture and don't want to live an urban life?

I like cleanliness, safety, and convenience, too. And I can understand wanting more of those qualities at 40--but at 20? How much is enough? And at what cost?

• The Joneses Are Here
• Suburbanization & Anti-Semitism
• Suburbanization of New York