Yes, Patricia Field did exist before Carrie Bradshaw.
Back in the Gays just unearthed this mid-1980s video of the Patricia Field shop, long before it moved to the Bowery. (Their site has more info on who's who.)
Check out all the '80s "Attitude," as New York magazine called it in 1982, when Patricia Field's shop was outfitting youth culture in "high-topped black sneakers, prom jackets, tutus, polyester suits, pointed vinyl shoes, and Hawaiian shirts." (At the same time, "Fern bars and sushi have spread to the East Village [where] gentrification is sending rents skyrocketing, despite the local Hell's Angels coven and the legion of Bowery Bums.")
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
Monday, August 6, 2012
*Everyday Chatter
Meet the B-girls, pimps, and high-class prostitutes of 1950s NYC--in a used bookstore find. [PRD]
Another East Village record shop succumbs to high rent. [EVG]
Mom and pops survive on Court Street--because they own the buildings. [Crain's]
“I talked to a corporate group cruising Broadway with a map of planned 7-Elevens throughout Tribeca. ‘It’s coming,’ was all they had to say. So many 7-Eleven sites on their map! I was talking to another reader the other day and she said how she and her husband shop at 7-Eleven all the time, because it’s so convenient. 'Don’t do it!' I fairly yelled at her. 'Move to the suburbs if that’s what you want!'" [TC]
Shiny upscale boutique opens in the former space of a Clean Well-Lighted Place, one of western Bleecker's last small businesses. [Racked]
Reflecting on the "plague year" at the Chelsea Hotel. [LWL]
An ode to the loss of the DOMA Cafe--now some kind of surf shop. [JT]
Saving bookstores with the power of crowds. [PP]
Have your life's regrets turned into street art--the regretproject:
Another East Village record shop succumbs to high rent. [EVG]
Mom and pops survive on Court Street--because they own the buildings. [Crain's]
“I talked to a corporate group cruising Broadway with a map of planned 7-Elevens throughout Tribeca. ‘It’s coming,’ was all they had to say. So many 7-Eleven sites on their map! I was talking to another reader the other day and she said how she and her husband shop at 7-Eleven all the time, because it’s so convenient. 'Don’t do it!' I fairly yelled at her. 'Move to the suburbs if that’s what you want!'" [TC]
Shiny upscale boutique opens in the former space of a Clean Well-Lighted Place, one of western Bleecker's last small businesses. [Racked]
Reflecting on the "plague year" at the Chelsea Hotel. [LWL]
An ode to the loss of the DOMA Cafe--now some kind of surf shop. [JT]
Saving bookstores with the power of crowds. [PP]
Have your life's regrets turned into street art--the regretproject:
NYPL Underground
Photographer Ourit Ben-Haim started the Underground New York Public Library in 2008, snapping pics of people reading books while riding the subway and waiting on its platforms. As a lover of real books and the city, I love her project. I caught up with Ourit on Facebook where we had the following chat.
photo by Ourit Ben-Haim
JVNY: I'm most intrigued by the shots of the book readers seated next to screen scrollers. Do you seek out that juxtaposition in your photos, or does it just happen a lot?
OBH: It happens a lot that the eReaders are there, and I most often incorporate them into the frame. I like the juxtaposition of course, as it tells the story in an immediate way. There's a shift happening, people are switching over from print books to digital readers, and things will look different because of that. When a person with an eReader sits next to a person with a print book, the picture becomes a picture of this shift.
JVNY: So the story is "Real books are vanishing." What do you think is lost from the subway experience when we lose real books to e-readers?
OBH: That's a risky way of putting it, as it might sound like Literature is vanishing. The story I'm telling is about the reader. One aspect of this story is that eReaders are changing the reader. The devices, as they are designed right now, are nondistinct and impersonal to literature. This makes the reader less vulnerable. Riding the subway is a great opportunity in our day to look around and connect in spirit with various people. One of the more direct ways of doing this is seeing what others are reading while riding. Books tell us where the reader is, in mind and in relation to the world. If we look around and see only eReaders, we see only the activity of reading, but we don't see glimpses of our own past and present and heart.
JVNY: So true. E-readers are these blank slabs that tell us nothing about the reader, except that they prefer to read off a screen. A connection, or potential connection, is lost. When I look at your photos, especially those that pair a book reader with an e-reader, I get the feeling that the people reading books are rebels in an electronic world. How do you think there might be something radical in reading a book made of paper today?
OBH: I suppose it's reached that point. There's a change underway, and suddenly the printed book expresses what that change is affecting. Reading a book made of paper and providing that visual connection can be an affirmation now. It's an affirmation towards who we are. They're applying themselves to story and discourse, and that affirms our inner reality.
JVNY: Because of the visual connection?
OBH: The visual connection let's me see this. My project wouldn't be possible with eReaders. It would no longer be photographs showing people reading. It would be photographs showing people with devices, on which the people could be reading.
photo by Ourit Ben-Haim
JVNY: Right. The project either would not exist, or would be very dull to look at. No offense to your weekly e-reader shot. What made you include that?
OBH: I start the week off with a Bible reader, I end it with an eReader. It's a narrative of some sort, a story ultimately about our journey.
JVNY: So...Bible as origin, the first printed book by Gutenberg, then moving through a diversity of physical books, to the...what...of e-readers?
OBH: It would just be a question. The eReader as a big question mark. The bible, it's the ultimate book in terms of connection. We've all heard of it, it’s a part of our known world, in one way or another. Then everything branches out, story and discourse that separates into niche territory then: The Device.
photo by Ourit Ben-Haim
JVNY: The "book reader on the subway" is a wonderful subject for getting us to wonder, and your photos give the viewer that feeling, that process. You know, "This guy is reading this book, so who is he? Why this book? What is he about?" And we can go into a fantasy, which cannot happen when looking at a person with an e-reader. Do you ever find yourself falling in love with your subjects?
OBH: Ha ha, I love how that great paragraph ended up with that last question.
JVNY: It is a funny question. Do you know what I mean? That kind of momentary falling in love that happens when you see a person on the train with a book.
OBH: Yes, I do. In general, I look at people and I see a story, and just how I am is that I may care about strangers with their stories that I see on them. The reader, though, they have their story, and they have the story that they are holding, and sometimes it's the fit of those stories, or the contrast, or the evident fantasy of it, that elicits a great feeling towards them. A feeling of love.
JVNY: Yes, you're talking about a simple but profound sense of connectivity. About the possibility for one stranger to feel connected to another in between subway stops. How have people reacted to you "connecting" with them via your camera?
OBH: I like how you say that I'm talking about the simple but profound sense of connectivity. Precisely, that is what my photographs are about. Anyway, people, when they are in the moment (which is where I catch them), they are marvelous. Surprised for a little moment. Then they are just curious. It's just been amazing to see the distinction, between how people imagine they or others would react to what I'm doing, and how it actually is.
photo by Ourit Ben-Haim
JVNY: What happens when they get curious?
OBH: They look at me. That look is a question, so I answer it. Sometimes I get into it. I tell them about the project. Other times, I just tell them that indeed I did photograph them. It’s complex, though. Describing it is difficult. The moments are exciting. I get bored often with things, but I have yet to get bored of shooting street.
JVNY: Is the Underground NYPL getting boring yet?
OBH: I love my library. It's like a place. I tend to it and build it. I love it, I guess, so I don't feel bored. I want to see it through to what I envisioned for it.
JVNY: What did you envision for it that you want to see through?
OBH: I set out to build a visual library. I said I'd make 1,000 photographs, so that patterns can emerge, and so that it would be enough for it to be a place. A little world. A visual library.
photo by Ourit Ben-Haim
JVNY: I'm very curious to see what it will tell us about the reading psyche of New York City. Any clues yet?
OBH: Well, my first responsibility for this topic is to remind everyone that I'm out there selecting my moments and my photographs.
JVNY: True. So it's mediated through your own desire. Which you could say about all libraries. Different librarians make different decisions about what books to put on the shelves.
OBH: Exactly. It's still a library that is a general reflection of the locale, but it’s also a result of the librarian.
photo by Ourit Ben-Haim
JVNY: When I see someone reading a device, they don't feel inward to me--or they feel inward in a different way than a book reader. I've not yet been able to put my finger on it. Do you know what I mean?
OBH: I hear what you mean. They may be inward, those so-called cell-phone zombies, they may be having one of the most inwardly gorgeous moments of their life when they’re staring at their phone, but that’s not the point. The point is our sense of collective self. The eReader is separated.
JVNY: What do you hope your readers, of the blog and the book, will take away from your project?
OBH: A sense of reconnection. Ourselves, others, story, truth…
See more of the Underground NYPL at:
- the blog
- the Facebook page
- the flickr set
photo by Ourit Ben-Haim
JVNY: I'm most intrigued by the shots of the book readers seated next to screen scrollers. Do you seek out that juxtaposition in your photos, or does it just happen a lot?
OBH: It happens a lot that the eReaders are there, and I most often incorporate them into the frame. I like the juxtaposition of course, as it tells the story in an immediate way. There's a shift happening, people are switching over from print books to digital readers, and things will look different because of that. When a person with an eReader sits next to a person with a print book, the picture becomes a picture of this shift.
JVNY: So the story is "Real books are vanishing." What do you think is lost from the subway experience when we lose real books to e-readers?
OBH: That's a risky way of putting it, as it might sound like Literature is vanishing. The story I'm telling is about the reader. One aspect of this story is that eReaders are changing the reader. The devices, as they are designed right now, are nondistinct and impersonal to literature. This makes the reader less vulnerable. Riding the subway is a great opportunity in our day to look around and connect in spirit with various people. One of the more direct ways of doing this is seeing what others are reading while riding. Books tell us where the reader is, in mind and in relation to the world. If we look around and see only eReaders, we see only the activity of reading, but we don't see glimpses of our own past and present and heart.
JVNY: So true. E-readers are these blank slabs that tell us nothing about the reader, except that they prefer to read off a screen. A connection, or potential connection, is lost. When I look at your photos, especially those that pair a book reader with an e-reader, I get the feeling that the people reading books are rebels in an electronic world. How do you think there might be something radical in reading a book made of paper today?
OBH: I suppose it's reached that point. There's a change underway, and suddenly the printed book expresses what that change is affecting. Reading a book made of paper and providing that visual connection can be an affirmation now. It's an affirmation towards who we are. They're applying themselves to story and discourse, and that affirms our inner reality.
JVNY: Because of the visual connection?
OBH: The visual connection let's me see this. My project wouldn't be possible with eReaders. It would no longer be photographs showing people reading. It would be photographs showing people with devices, on which the people could be reading.
photo by Ourit Ben-Haim
JVNY: Right. The project either would not exist, or would be very dull to look at. No offense to your weekly e-reader shot. What made you include that?
OBH: I start the week off with a Bible reader, I end it with an eReader. It's a narrative of some sort, a story ultimately about our journey.
JVNY: So...Bible as origin, the first printed book by Gutenberg, then moving through a diversity of physical books, to the...what...of e-readers?
OBH: It would just be a question. The eReader as a big question mark. The bible, it's the ultimate book in terms of connection. We've all heard of it, it’s a part of our known world, in one way or another. Then everything branches out, story and discourse that separates into niche territory then: The Device.
photo by Ourit Ben-Haim
JVNY: The "book reader on the subway" is a wonderful subject for getting us to wonder, and your photos give the viewer that feeling, that process. You know, "This guy is reading this book, so who is he? Why this book? What is he about?" And we can go into a fantasy, which cannot happen when looking at a person with an e-reader. Do you ever find yourself falling in love with your subjects?
OBH: Ha ha, I love how that great paragraph ended up with that last question.
JVNY: It is a funny question. Do you know what I mean? That kind of momentary falling in love that happens when you see a person on the train with a book.
OBH: Yes, I do. In general, I look at people and I see a story, and just how I am is that I may care about strangers with their stories that I see on them. The reader, though, they have their story, and they have the story that they are holding, and sometimes it's the fit of those stories, or the contrast, or the evident fantasy of it, that elicits a great feeling towards them. A feeling of love.
JVNY: Yes, you're talking about a simple but profound sense of connectivity. About the possibility for one stranger to feel connected to another in between subway stops. How have people reacted to you "connecting" with them via your camera?
OBH: I like how you say that I'm talking about the simple but profound sense of connectivity. Precisely, that is what my photographs are about. Anyway, people, when they are in the moment (which is where I catch them), they are marvelous. Surprised for a little moment. Then they are just curious. It's just been amazing to see the distinction, between how people imagine they or others would react to what I'm doing, and how it actually is.
photo by Ourit Ben-Haim
JVNY: What happens when they get curious?
OBH: They look at me. That look is a question, so I answer it. Sometimes I get into it. I tell them about the project. Other times, I just tell them that indeed I did photograph them. It’s complex, though. Describing it is difficult. The moments are exciting. I get bored often with things, but I have yet to get bored of shooting street.
JVNY: Is the Underground NYPL getting boring yet?
OBH: I love my library. It's like a place. I tend to it and build it. I love it, I guess, so I don't feel bored. I want to see it through to what I envisioned for it.
JVNY: What did you envision for it that you want to see through?
OBH: I set out to build a visual library. I said I'd make 1,000 photographs, so that patterns can emerge, and so that it would be enough for it to be a place. A little world. A visual library.
photo by Ourit Ben-Haim
JVNY: I'm very curious to see what it will tell us about the reading psyche of New York City. Any clues yet?
OBH: Well, my first responsibility for this topic is to remind everyone that I'm out there selecting my moments and my photographs.
JVNY: True. So it's mediated through your own desire. Which you could say about all libraries. Different librarians make different decisions about what books to put on the shelves.
OBH: Exactly. It's still a library that is a general reflection of the locale, but it’s also a result of the librarian.
photo by Ourit Ben-Haim
JVNY: When I see someone reading a device, they don't feel inward to me--or they feel inward in a different way than a book reader. I've not yet been able to put my finger on it. Do you know what I mean?
OBH: I hear what you mean. They may be inward, those so-called cell-phone zombies, they may be having one of the most inwardly gorgeous moments of their life when they’re staring at their phone, but that’s not the point. The point is our sense of collective self. The eReader is separated.
JVNY: What do you hope your readers, of the blog and the book, will take away from your project?
OBH: A sense of reconnection. Ourselves, others, story, truth…
See more of the Underground NYPL at:
- the blog
- the Facebook page
- the flickr set
Thursday, August 2, 2012
Partners & Crime Bookshop
VANISHING
We're losing another bookstore. It's an apocalypse.
A reader sends in the news that Partners & Crime, the bookstore dedicated to crime and mystery in Greenwich Village, is shuttering.
In 2010, the New York Times called the shop a "survivor in the shrinking world of independent bookstores." As Michael Wilson wrote, "One of the store’s owners, Maggie Griffin, 53, said the ability to make informed recommendations set Partners & Crime apart from bigger — and admittedly less expensive — chain stores. 'Someone comes in and says, I read a book where a guy dies on a boat in Boston Harbor. I can’t remember the title. Our staff does,' she said."
But two years of Kindle craziness makes a big difference.
"BOOKS without batteries," Credit: Piotr Redlinski for the Times
One of the store's stocked shelves serves as a secret entrance to a back room where the shop hosts monthly performances of "old-time radio plays." Says one Yelp reviewer, "It's like going back in time to 1940's New York City. This store is one of the reasons why I love living in NYC."
This can't happen on a Kindle.
Credit: Piotr Redlinski for The New York Times
The shop's website offers this goodbye:
"After 18 years in the shop on Greenwich Avenue, Partners & Crime Mystery Booksellers is closing its doors on September 20th. We've had a great run and have enjoyed helping a generation of readers find the books they love. We've had a lot of fun, learned a tremendous amount, and enjoyed our time with all of you - customers, authors and publishers.
Stop by, reminisce and check out our THANK YOU sale -- and maybe find that favorite title you really can't live without! Couldn't have done it without you!"
We're losing another bookstore. It's an apocalypse.
A reader sends in the news that Partners & Crime, the bookstore dedicated to crime and mystery in Greenwich Village, is shuttering.
In 2010, the New York Times called the shop a "survivor in the shrinking world of independent bookstores." As Michael Wilson wrote, "One of the store’s owners, Maggie Griffin, 53, said the ability to make informed recommendations set Partners & Crime apart from bigger — and admittedly less expensive — chain stores. 'Someone comes in and says, I read a book where a guy dies on a boat in Boston Harbor. I can’t remember the title. Our staff does,' she said."
But two years of Kindle craziness makes a big difference.
"BOOKS without batteries," Credit: Piotr Redlinski for the Times
One of the store's stocked shelves serves as a secret entrance to a back room where the shop hosts monthly performances of "old-time radio plays." Says one Yelp reviewer, "It's like going back in time to 1940's New York City. This store is one of the reasons why I love living in NYC."
This can't happen on a Kindle.
Credit: Piotr Redlinski for The New York Times
The shop's website offers this goodbye:
"After 18 years in the shop on Greenwich Avenue, Partners & Crime Mystery Booksellers is closing its doors on September 20th. We've had a great run and have enjoyed helping a generation of readers find the books they love. We've had a lot of fun, learned a tremendous amount, and enjoyed our time with all of you - customers, authors and publishers.
Stop by, reminisce and check out our THANK YOU sale -- and maybe find that favorite title you really can't live without! Couldn't have done it without you!"
Death of a Deli
As 7-11 and the like aim to convert the city's bodegas and corner grocery stores, more of these mom-and-pop shops shutter, quietly, unnoticed except by their loyal customers who live nearby. JVNY reader Eddie sends in the following report and photos of his corner deli in Yorkville, recently closed.
before
He writes:
"Paris, Vienna, and Buenos Aires have their cafes. New York has delis. We don’t hang out and sip lattes for 3 hours. We buy a paper cup of coffee and a $13 pack of cigarettes and hang out on the sidewalk, shooting the shit with neighbors and drunks from the bar next door. This is all we have. And they are dying.
My corner deli has a photo of my daughter above the register. The flowers outside are the garden I wake up to every morning when I look out my kitchen window. Heck, I even check on the flower guy, who is out there all night, when I get up for a 2 a.m. pee.
The new building owners doubled the rent, so they are moving. The good news is that they will only be a block away. The bad news is whatever is coming next. My garden view will probably be that of a 7-11.
New York City is dynamic, and these things inevitably happen. But in my Yorkville neighborhood, where the creeping 2nd Avenue subway is already forcing rents and condos high into the sky, I stop and take a breath.
I might have to move."
after
before
He writes:
"Paris, Vienna, and Buenos Aires have their cafes. New York has delis. We don’t hang out and sip lattes for 3 hours. We buy a paper cup of coffee and a $13 pack of cigarettes and hang out on the sidewalk, shooting the shit with neighbors and drunks from the bar next door. This is all we have. And they are dying.
My corner deli has a photo of my daughter above the register. The flowers outside are the garden I wake up to every morning when I look out my kitchen window. Heck, I even check on the flower guy, who is out there all night, when I get up for a 2 a.m. pee.
The new building owners doubled the rent, so they are moving. The good news is that they will only be a block away. The bad news is whatever is coming next. My garden view will probably be that of a 7-11.
New York City is dynamic, and these things inevitably happen. But in my Yorkville neighborhood, where the creeping 2nd Avenue subway is already forcing rents and condos high into the sky, I stop and take a breath.
I might have to move."
after
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Les Desirs to Sullivan St.
In the spring of 2010, we saw Les Desirs Patisserie shutter on 9th Avenue in Chelsea after a decade in business. A favorite socializing spot for seniors from the Penn South housing cooperative, Les Desirs was a special place. When Penn South refused to renew the lease, a petition circulated to save it and neighbors fought to keep it, but the bakery vanished anyway.
The upscale mini-chain Sullivan Street Bakery was rumored to take its place and, recently, it did.
Decked in lots of rustic wood and high bar stools, and manned by an army of green-shirted baristas (or whatever they call bread bakery counterpersons), Sullivan Street Bakery is nothing like Les Desirs.
When I visited Les Desirs, it was filled with octogenarians and they were singing Tin Pan Alley tunes. Together, we sang "Ukulele Lady" while the Hawaiian woman among them got up to do a hula dance. Maybe this still happens here, I don't know.
I saw one elderly, frail woman enter the Sullivan Street Bakery and she was treated with great kindness by the green shirts. But mostly, the clientele consisted of young professional-looking people, carrying little dogs and interacting with their phones. They didn't go to Les Desirs, and I never saw them around this area, but now they are here. They seem to have a sixth sense for when these types of places open, because they came through the door in flocks.
Before
After
And they're too busy making phone calls to sing a group rendition of "Ukulele Lady."
Previously:
Les Desirs Vanishing
Les Desirs Plus
Desirs' Demise
Last Day at Desirs
The upscale mini-chain Sullivan Street Bakery was rumored to take its place and, recently, it did.
Decked in lots of rustic wood and high bar stools, and manned by an army of green-shirted baristas (or whatever they call bread bakery counterpersons), Sullivan Street Bakery is nothing like Les Desirs.
When I visited Les Desirs, it was filled with octogenarians and they were singing Tin Pan Alley tunes. Together, we sang "Ukulele Lady" while the Hawaiian woman among them got up to do a hula dance. Maybe this still happens here, I don't know.
I saw one elderly, frail woman enter the Sullivan Street Bakery and she was treated with great kindness by the green shirts. But mostly, the clientele consisted of young professional-looking people, carrying little dogs and interacting with their phones. They didn't go to Les Desirs, and I never saw them around this area, but now they are here. They seem to have a sixth sense for when these types of places open, because they came through the door in flocks.
Before
After
And they're too busy making phone calls to sing a group rendition of "Ukulele Lady."
Previously:
Les Desirs Vanishing
Les Desirs Plus
Desirs' Demise
Last Day at Desirs
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
*Everyday Chatter
New York Neon gives us a depressing look inside the once gorgeous, now gutted Lascoff pharmacy:
Mama's Food Shop shutters. Says the owner, "the community nature of the neighborhood has all but vanished, and it is over-run every weekend by a generation that has no vested interest in the East Village community." [EVG]
Avenue A is getting a "social club" for dogs--because the public dog run in the park is just too dirty for the pampered pooches of the new EV? [UNY]
Don't forget to donate to St. Mark's Books--and get yourself some goodies. [LA]
Harlem is losing its only bowling alley as Harlem Lanes announces its closure. [UTF]
Checking out the fabulous, antique signage of Borough Park. [OMFS]
Bloomberg won't steal Coney's Shore Theater from its owner--really? I bet he would if he got to turn it over to a condo developer. [ATZ]
...And it's not because we're getting old--New York City is louder and more obnoxious than it used to be, and so is the music that gets pumped in to every place you try to avoid but can't (because you have to eat and you need shoes). Science says, "We found evidence of a progressive homogenization of the musical discourse."
Mama's Food Shop shutters. Says the owner, "the community nature of the neighborhood has all but vanished, and it is over-run every weekend by a generation that has no vested interest in the East Village community." [EVG]
Avenue A is getting a "social club" for dogs--because the public dog run in the park is just too dirty for the pampered pooches of the new EV? [UNY]
Don't forget to donate to St. Mark's Books--and get yourself some goodies. [LA]
Harlem is losing its only bowling alley as Harlem Lanes announces its closure. [UTF]
Checking out the fabulous, antique signage of Borough Park. [OMFS]
Bloomberg won't steal Coney's Shore Theater from its owner--really? I bet he would if he got to turn it over to a condo developer. [ATZ]
...And it's not because we're getting old--New York City is louder and more obnoxious than it used to be, and so is the music that gets pumped in to every place you try to avoid but can't (because you have to eat and you need shoes). Science says, "We found evidence of a progressive homogenization of the musical discourse."
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