*Everyday Chatter

After being rescued once, the Cheyenne Diner is back on the market again. Somebody re-save it! Too big to cross the East River, writes Michael Perlman, the Cheyenne is for sale "on the condition that it be transported off the property ASAP, or the diner will be demolished within the next few weeks." Interested? Contact the committee: unlockthevault@hotmail.com

The demolition of the Manhattanville section of Harlem is about to begin, as Columbia University gets ready to destroy, destroy, destroy. [QCrap]

Last November I wrote about the closing of Five Roses Pizza. Last week, a daughter of the original owner wrote in to The Villager to correct information. I thought her voice should also be heard here. She writes in her letter: "The fact is that the store’s current owner informed us that she was not going to continue running the store and that she would be closing. Since there was no discussion about future rent, her rent was not increased! She just decided to close." Upon the shop's closure, her family also displayed historic, personal photos in the window, as reported by EV Grieve.

Pupkin's Payphones

Awhile ago, a reader alerted me to the fact that the bank of payphones on the back of the NYPD station in Times Square has vanished.


from flashsear's flickr & another shot here

I finally got up there and, indeed, a peek behind the station reveals a definite lack of payphones, the old orange tiles from the mosaic paved over in white:


from my flickr

Since the advent of cell phones, pay phones all over the city are beginning to vanish and will probably continue to do so until they are gone completely. But this particular bunch of phones was special because it's been featured in film, including a scene in Scorsese's brilliant and prescient King of Comedy.

Robert DeNiro, playing Rupert Pupkin, uses a phone here as his "office." Having one of the only functioning phones, Pupkin is forced to defend it from an angry group of Times Square characters, all of them anxious to make their calls. (Notice Souvlaki King in the background; Playland arcade was to the left, offscreen in this shot.)


film still

In the DVD extras, Sandra Bernhard discusses the use of such characters in the film, saying, "New York has become so gentrified, I think you don't see as many marginalized characters that you would have 10, 15, 20 years ago... They're real New York characters that couldn't exist anywhere else. Nobody expected those kinds of characters to disappear from the landscape of New York City...nobody expected Times Square to become Disneyland."

We're not only becoming payphoneless--much sadder, someday we will also be utterly Pupkinless.


film still

*Everyday Chatter

BaHa hits the heights. Jackson Heights, that is. [SE]

While you're enjoying your real estate schadenfreude, here's some more. [RS]

And more: Frankie & Johnnie's has been saved--what does this mean for the massive Zuckerman tower plans? [Eater]

And Coney Island continues to succumb--here's another sad look at the remains of life along that boardwalk. [FNY]

Then get up close with the fallen Astroland rocket. [Flickr]

Action Care

Reggie Fitzgerald Triangle, right off Jackson Square, has lost yet another small neighborhood business. We knew this was coming for a while--the place has had a For Lease sign on it since the summer. But now Action Care Pharmacy, "The best kept secret in the Village," has shuttered.

The plate-glass window is filled with copies of a heartfelt goodbye sign: "Thank you for over 12 years of kindness, friendship and support."



In 2005, Crumpler moved in to this little corner, where Horatio meets West 4th, along with Pasita Wine Bar in 2006 and then an upscale boutique. Then Nick's Hairstylists became a Freeman's. Now all that's left is Miles Tinsmith and Mrs. R. Reese Spiritual Healer & Psychic--and that building has the wan pallor of doom all over it.

It's astounding how this little corner of the city has been so quickly disemboweled. It's almost like voodoo magic.

Horatio, we hardly know you.


pictures on my flickr

*Everyday Chatter

Another miserable day at Coney, as the Astroland rocket is removed from the roof of Gregory & Paul's fantastic snack bar. [Curbed]

Is the Chelsea Hotel kicking out Storme DeLarverie, one of the first drag kings and pioneer of the LGBT movement? [LWL]

"Bitter Buyers" more common than bitter renters these days. [Curbed]

Downtown Music Gallery is leaving the Bowery. [EVG]

"After intense criticism, the Bloomberg administration has given up a perk it worked fervently to secure: a free luxury suite at the new Yankee Stadium." [NYT]

Boogie explores one of my favorite spots--the Chinese mall under the Manhattan Bridge. [BBoogie]

This week "the well-heeled LES Business Improvement District" requested a revision of the south of Houston rezoning with "a full 50% more commercial bulk." [SLES]

Credit Crunch: Now with electrolytes!

Ghosts of 8th Ave

This past summer, we started saying goodbye to a chunk of the West 40s.

Ken bid farewell to Frankie & Johnnie's and Lost City said "so long" to 45th Street where buildings had already started falling for the massive tower to come, a million-square-footer that will span the block from 45th to 46th, shouldering its way into Platinum territory, where the marvelous McHale's used to stand.

Today, the big Broadway Inn is gone. Here, glittering detritus of New Year's Eve clings to the chain-link fence surrounding the lot where not even a single brick of the old hotel remains.



Here's the corner last spring, where bricks and lintels are overshadowed by glass and chrome, the Platinum's Randian hero flexing his muscles as if readying himself for destruction (click for more photos of this block):



And still more buildings are yet to fall. Curbed covered the initial demolitions last year. The footprint for the coming monster is massive, crumbling how many old buildings? Count 'em:


image and story from NY Post

Just a block south, after knocking down the beloved Playpen (nee Cameo Theater), the Tishman hotel has begun its rise, furthering the massive transformation of what has been seedy Times Square's last holdout blocks:



Looking at select bits of 8th Avenue, like this chunk at 45th, you'd never know the city was crumbling and rising as glass. Winter sunlight shines on the weary bricks to reveal a pair of ghost signs, one on top of the other, artifacts from the age being wiped out today. A cigar box fades beneath a scrim of advertising for ROOMS complete with steam heat, hot & cold water, luxuries of the last Great Depression.

*Everyday Chatter

Z ya later: A St. Marks tipster says, "i'm looking out my window and seeing movers packing up the recently opened David Z across the street. one small victory against the banal will not make up for the many other losses in the EV."

What's happening with that Karl Fischer glass hotel going up on 13th Street? Absolutely nothing--it's been sitting like this since the big demolition last April:


The economic bust has saved another one! The Emerald Inn will live to see us through the Depression. [EVG]

Art deco Metro Theater to become an Urban Outfitters. [CR]

Bleecker to get its nine-millionth Marc Jacobs store. [Racked]