Left Bank & Cherry

Left Bank Books has set a date to leave quiet, little, Marc Jacobs-filled 4th Street for 8th Avenue between 12th and Jane.


Left Bank

Until January 31, they are having a big sale: 70% off many of their books. I hear the new spot will be larger and more organized, which means no more kooky, cluttered used-bookshop ambiance, so soak it in quick.



The spot they are moving to, next to Chocolate Bar, is currently occupied by the Cherry Boutique, described by Betsey Berne at Mr. Beller's Neighborhood as "a vintage store in the West Village, known for its Fashion Meets Twilight Zone window displays that make Christmas at Barney’s look like Sesame Street."


Cherry

The Cherry gates were shut when I went by, so I didn't get that effect, but a silver glitter-covered creeper did make me curious. I've never been inside Cherry and what I didn't know is that it houses the Joseph LaRose Shoe Collection, which (like me) you may never have heard about, but can read about from Betsey and see here at the Cherry website, if you're into crazy lady's shoes.

I'm not so into crazy lady's shoes, but this LaRose is interesting if only because "He once convinced Betty Grable to wear a different colored boot on each foot" and his shoes were worn by Joan Crawford and Jayne Mansfield.


Cherry's goodbye sign

Cherry is moving on up--to the Showplace Antiques Center on West 25th Street.

Metro 1997

While cleaning out my bookshelves, I came upon a yellowed copy of the New York Times Metro Section from December 31, 1997. It provides a perfectly condensed snapshot of what the city was going through at the time, when Giuliani was prepping Manhattan for its metamorphosis into today's luxury product, a city under a dome of affluence and shine.

I am sure that I saved these pages for the article about the Selwyn Theater's collapse. The 42nd Street end of the Selwyn was scheduled for destruction the following spring, but with so much demolition on the block, the old bricks could not hold out and they tumbled on the morning of December 30.

I loved the Selwyn mostly for the ghost sign on the side of the building--"Cooped up? Feelin' low? Enjoy a movie today!" This photo of it crumbling to pieces is beyond heartbreaking.


Click to enlarge for close-up

Also in this Metro Section is a story about how people on the Lower East Side were protesting against the destruction of their community gardens, while more protesters tried to fight Giuliani's implementation of pedestrian barriers in Midtown. "Pedestrians are not cattle," their signs argued, to no avail.



Today, the barriers still stand. The community gardens are mostly gone. And Times Square has been completely turned into a tourist-safe shopping mecca.



The cover story to this Metro Section is by Dan Barry, entitled "Times Square Grit Peeps Through Glitz." He wrote, "When the illuminated ball drops like a gigantic coin on Times Square at midnight tonight, it will land in the midst of an urban metamorphosis. Entertainment and media corporations continue to vie for choice locations in a once-seedy swath of New York City that the heartland now sees as a jazzy alternative to Busch Gardens and Disney World."

The Times Square captured in this Metro Section still had The Original Peepland and, in Barry's words, "the green neon lights of McHale's Bar" and "happy hour at Howard Johnson's." All of that, and much more, has vanished. In just a dozen years. When the illuminated ball dropped last week, it landed in a Times Square swept clean of all its guts and grit.



"Times Square has always changed every 20 years,'' said writer Nik Cohn in the article. ''But this time it's changed to a corporate, generic American city that doesn't particularly express the uniqueness of New York.''

It was only 1997. Today you could apply that quote to most of the city.


Also see:
Times Square 1990s
Grand Luncheonette
Show World

*Everyday Chatter

The Blimpie rumored to come to 7th Ave and Perry St. is actually yet another Subway:


The much beloved Ray's Candy is in imminent danger of being padlocked and seized. [NMNL]

Check out "Downtown Pics" at the Grey Art Gallery. [Stupe]

Ghost town on 13th Street. [EVG]

The Bowery goes from sinister to cheerful--94 years ago. [BB]

Cathryn Swan, blogger behind Washington Square Park blog, is writing a book. Check out her book blog for ways you can help her get it published. [CW]

Cat found on 5th Ave and 11th St--"Is she yours? Or would you like her to be?" Call Maury:

Shiki Kitchen

VANISHED

About a week ago Shiki Kitchen, the sushi place on 1st Avenue between 8th and 9th, shuttered for good.



The pizza guy next door confirms, "They're gone." The interior is being pulled apart and there's a note on the door, courtesy of "Everybody at Juicy Lucy"--"Good luck," it says, "We will miss you Shiki!"



Last summer, they were closed by the Department of Health, but managed to open again. This time, the permanent closure may have more to do with the owner's health. Chef Shiki, a former boxer and resident of Brazil, was a warm and friendly guy. If you went in there once, he recognized you the second time around and greeted you with a big hello.

When he wasn't cutting sushi, he was carving intricate creatures and human figures out of paper. These artworks hung all over the restaurant--from strings dangling from the ceiling, on shelves, walls, everywhere you looked. You could buy them and take them home.

He made Ninjas--



--with butterflies on their sleeves--



--and an occasional Roman soldier, among many, many other things.



Each figure is amazingly cut and folded from a single piece of paper. These three remain with me. Where did the rest of them go?

*Everyday Chatter

Remember when Equinox was once the Art Greenwich, dating back to the 1940s:


Looking back at the long history of Veselka--"a canteen for anarchists and artists as well as Ukrainians." [NYT]

There's a $25,000-per-month glass box on top of the old Dom. Who knew? [EVG]

BNE backlash goes from slashing stickers to "Big Nut Eater." [NYC]

Kerouac at the Kettle of Fish. [ENY]

Picturing the "luxury flood" of New York in the '00s. [Restless]

Adopt some rogue Greenpoint kittens. [NYS]

Birdbath Vesuvio

Recently, after City Bakery's Birdbath moved into the former Vesuvio Bakery space, Eater posed the "Vesuvio Conundrum" in response to an angry reader complaint: "It looks like they're doing business as Vesuvio Bakery to take advantage of tourists whose guidebooks haven't caught up to Vesuvio closing. It doesn't say Birdbath or anything anywhere?"


Photo by Femia, via Eater

It turns out, City Bakery does have its own sign on the facade: In a small frame hanging on the door it says "Birdbath." You could miss it if you're not really looking and, since the door is open in the photo above, it's not visible.

(By the way, is anything more apropos of today's city than a shot of a trendy bakery with a guy pushing a high-tech stroller and a texting lady with a dog in a bag?)


my flickr

Inside, Birdbath is also displaying photos of the original basement ovens (check out these great photos on Lost City), along with text about how "the classic green storefront, familiar to generations, is now an iconic image of the retail city."

All of this brings up the recurring issue of new businesses and entities moving into old, culturally significant spaces, and the question of keeping the old spaces mostly (kind of, sort of) intact, though the original meaning has been removed. Varvatos did it to CBGB, McNally did it to the Minetta Tavern, NYU did it to St. Ann's Church, and then there's the High Line.


my flickr

We're supposed to feel relieved, even grateful, that the newcomers have saved pieces of the city's history, its heirlooms and treasures. And we often do, in fact, feel relieved. I'm grateful that I can walk along Prince Street and still see that "classic green storefront," especially in what has truly become "Retail City."

But we also have to ask what happens when the city becomes a shell of its former self, when its interior is gutted and replaced with something more fashionable and expensive than what came before.

In the end, New York is becoming its own, self-referential museum, a simulacrum complete with wall text to explain where we are--what was here, what remains, what's been altered and revised. We recognize it, while at the same time, it is unfamiliar.

We know that this fate is far better than a bank or a Starbucks. And yet, denied the unadulterated righteous anger that comes when a bank or a Starbucks completely erases our favorite places, in the presence of these preservations and simulations, we're not quite sure what to feel.

*Everyday Chatter

As bowling goes luxury, an old player answers the question: Can bowling save the city? “Maybe that disco bowling can... But it’s not saving bowlers. It’s not saving me.” [NYT]

Following up on the sad demise of Frank's Deli: "People have been coming in in tears." [CN]

The 83-year-old Loews Canal, most recently a TV repair shop, could be a theater again--possibly with 12 stories of condos on top. [DE]

Is Le Souk still operating? [EVG]

Roiphe on sex and the American male novelist: "we are simply witnessing the flowering of a new narcissism: boys too busy gazing at themselves in the mirror to think much about girls, boys lost in the beautiful vanity of 'I was warm and wanted her to be warm'..." [NYT]

Now that the government has taken away our analog television (I still can't get reception) and many have invested in cable, the fees are going up, up, up. As predicted and no doubt planned. [NYT]

The Pink Teacup has been saved from certain death and will be moving. [VV] Here's how it looks today: