The Fight for Willets Point

If you really want to see how the Bloomberg administration operates, look at what they're doing to the people of Willets Point in Queens. Blighting through neglect, land grabbing, baiting and switching. Lies and more lies. In the end, dozens of working class people, mostly Latinos, are about to lose their thriving businesses--and not for the affordable housing once promised. What is the City putting in? The biggest shopping mall in town.

Watch the whole story in this new short film:



The final vote on the Willets Point plan will be this week, on October 9. Please don't let these people be ignored. Call or email Council Member Julissa Ferreras at (718) 651-1917 and tell her to vote no on Bloomberg's inhumane project that hundreds of locals are protesting against.

I first visited the Iron Triangle, as the section of auto body shops is called, years ago, when a friend introduced me to it. We were seeing the Mets at Shea and wanted to get something to eat before the game. We went to the one of the little places that serve the auto workers and their customers, and filled up on big plates of chicken, rice, and beans.

I went back in 2007 to interview the Bonos, makers of sawdust for three generations. Since then, every now and then, I try to get up to Willets Point and went recently. When you arrive at the edge of the Iron Triangle, just across the street from the slick new Citibank baseball stadium, you feel like you're passing through a portal, from one world to another, starkly different.

It looks like a post-apocalyptic landscape, its roads ruined and filled with dirty water, ever since the City stopped providing maintenance services in a blatant act of blighting. The wind blows differently here. You feel how faraway you are from the city proper, like you're on the edge of the known continent.

You walk past tremendous pillars made of rubber tires, dozens of car doors stacked like upright files, walls hung with hundreds of shiny hubcaps. From the open garages come the sounds of salsa music and barking dogs. People from all over town bring their cars for new tires, new brake lights, new mufflers.

The Iron Triangle supports thousands of people, and not just the mechanics and their families. It sustains a sub-economy within it. People set up grills on the street, cooking meat to sell with beans and rice. One woman goes around hawking bootleg DVDs. A man pulls a rickety shopping cart, filling it with scrap donated by the mechanics. A Mr. Softee truck circles endlessly.

You might not like the Iron Triangle. It's dirty and cluttered, and it feels Third World. But it's a real place, where people own their own businesses and do what they need to support themselves and their families. Don't let Bloomberg just steal it away. Don't let him put up yet another glassy "neighborhood." Call or email Council Member Julissa Ferreras at (718) 651-1917 and tell her to vote no.

Previously:
The Iron Triangle
Bono Sawdust

Ray Beauty Supply

Ray Beauty Supply has got to be one of the last old-school businesses left on 8th Avenue off Times Square. I've long admired their vintage sign, and their title, "King of Beauty," but I'd never gone inside until recently.



Ray has been here for over 50 years and their claim to fame is being "New York's Oldest Beauty Supply." Owned by the Mastrangelo family, who bought it from the Rays, it's a favorite of hairdressers, but they also sell to consumers. They've got everything--shampoos and cosmetics, wigs, hairdryers, clippers--everything.

At first glance, the staff looks a little intimidating, Bronx-style beauty supply guys posing in muscle shirts with baseball bats on their website, but I found them to be sweet as pie, helpful, and generous. Before making a sale, they'll give you free tips on how to deal with hair troubles and even print out recipes for DIY products you can make at home.

I suspect the angry reviews on Yelp might be due to the fact that this place, and its staff, probably does not suffer princesses gladly. Ray is King, after all, and this is not Sephora.

They've even got a "you break it, you bought it" sign--I haven't seen one of those in years. Hanging on chains from the ceiling it reads, "You open, you buy! You break, you buy!" Definitely not Sephora.



As a bonus, in the front window and in back, the store has a small collection of antique barber furnishings--a chair and a towel warmer, plus a handful of candy cane-striped poles, including one dating back to 1903. If you're in the market for an antique barber pole, inquire.

Otherwise, go in and buy some beauty supplies.

The Teddy Bear House

On a stately old block of West 11th Street there's an oddly modern townhouse that for years was known as the Teddy Bear house for the Paddington in the window and his many costume changes. The building is also famous for replacing the townhouse that was destroyed in a 1970 explosion by the Weather Underground when a pipe bomb prematurely detonated.

With one last costume change (a t-shirt from the Corcoran Real Estate Group), Paddington vanished soon after his owner, Norma Langworthy, passed away last year. The house was put on the market and sold for over $9 million. Now we hear the quirky landmark might be vanishing, too.



A reader sent in the following e-mail message circulated by a West Village block association member:

"The new owner of 18 West 11th Street has filed with the Department of Buildings to demolish the existing building and build anew. The plans were rejected by DOB as incomplete but it is safe to assume that the application will be corrected and re-filed. The new owner has retained the architectural firm where a principal, Hugh Hardy, who designed and argued successfully for the current design in front of the LPC several decades ago, is drawing up plans for the new townhouse. To date those plans have not be revealed to the public and no application has yet to be made to the Landmarks Preservation Commission. When such application if made and filed, the public process, including public hearings and opportunity for testimony, will begin.

Local and other preservation groups are considering what position they will take on this application to demolish an existing structurally sound townhouse which was twice found to be appropriate for the Landmark District and which has been part of the built environment for almost four decades. The underlying policy questions have significant implications for the landmarking process in general and the Greenwich Village Historic District in particular."


1970, after the explosion

What position to take, indeed.

Not everyone is crazy about the sharp-angled architecture of the current house. Said one local to the Observer in 2008, “Why did they do that? It doesn’t fit in the face of the neighborhood at all. That forceful geometric shape is too modern in a bad way.”





Thirty years ago, it wasn't an easy task to get this house approved for construction. The Langworthys bought the empty lot in 1976 and submitted their design to Landmarks. Reported the Times in 1981, "There followed a series of neighborhood and commission meetings of high dunder and dispute, as some neighbors insisted that the angles would disrupt the architectural coherence of the street. One older woman, crippled by a broken hip, rented an ambulance to deliver her in opposition to the plan."

Finally, the chairman of the commission asked Mrs. Langworthy, "what would you do if we told you you couldn't build that house?'' She said, ''I thought, 'Oh God, I don't know' -- and I started to cry."

Her house was approved, defying the dunder of West 11th Street. Now we'll see if those winds will blow in the opposite direction, to save what was once considered an eyesore--and came to be beloved because of a bear.


Paddington's last hurrah: Barbara Corcoran's corporate tee


Previously:
The Paddington Lady
Weathermen Easter

El Sombrero

VANISHING

As Bowery Boogie reported last week, El Sombrero, aka The Hat, will be closing for good very soon. But not as soon as we thought.



Regina Bartkoff, a long-time waitress at the restaurant, says they probably won't be closing until early December. "Everybody jumped because of the community board announcement," she told me. "I walked into the restaurant and was shocked to see people there! All telling me they thought we were closing Oct 7 and all telling me they haven't been there for 15 years or so."

Back in February, I reported that the Ludlow Street classic (since 1984) was on its last legs. Said Regina at the time, "We have been losing our regular customers steadily, due to them not being able to pay the rents on the LES and being forced out." In April, we tried a cash mob--with free margaritas--and no one showed up.

A Facebook page is coming to keep people up to date. And Regina notes, "Happy Hour is all the time, if you buy a large frozen Margarita, you get a small for free and all beers are $4."

So get to The Hat before it's gone.

Previously:
The Hat
Cash Mob

Colony Gets Halloweenied

Recently, I wrote about the gutting of the venerable Colony Music in Times Square, after their new landlord hiked the rent to astronomic proportions hoping to attract a big-box chain store to replace the 60-year-old independent business.

Well, now they have a tenant.

One of those ubiquitous, opportunistic Halloween shops has moved in, filling the place with Jason masks and slutty nurse costumes. It's an indignity that many of our vanished have been forced to suffer in the fall. Of course, it's just temporary. Undoubtedly, something far worse will come along.



Thanks to Marion who sent in the photo. She writes, "The landlords will make a quick buck on the depressing 'Spirit' Halloween pop-up from now until October 31. Will the space finally be taken over by a TD Bank? A Rite-Aid (Duane Reade is on the same block up Broadway)? Fucking New York 2013."

*Everyday Chatter

After being on its last legs for awhile, El Sombrero, aka The Hat, is leaving Ludlow Street. [BB]

Remembering the Ludlow Street Cafe. [FP]

Take a look at Ludlow Street 10 years ago and today. [J&KM]

The Back Fence shuttered before it's officially shuttered. [DNA]

Some guy is selling Brooklyn rocks as artisanal souvenirs. [DM]

On the vanishing of the Blarney Stone. [GAF]

10/10 at Bluestockings: Join Cathryn of the Washington Square Park blog for the official release of Tales of Washington Square Park and a discussion about the city's privatization of public spaces. [BSB]

23-year-old Stuyvesant Stationery Shop to close. [EVG]

Don't miss the latest installation of "Dirty Old New York"--a painstaking compilation of 1970s NYC movie scenes. [OOS]

Spirit of '76

I received the following note from reader Jim Duffy, along with photos from his friend Amy L. Anderson:



In Lower Manhattan, at the corner of Broad Street and South Street, is a wall about six feet high that faces out to New York Harbor. It's part of the office complex of 125 Broad Street. The wall is being repaired, and as the white facing material is being removed, we can now see a silvery, fiberglass-like building material that is covered with graffiti -- actually "scratchitti" -- from 1976.

On July 4, 1976, bicentennial day, as thousands of people crowded to watch the tall ships in the harbor, some of them, most likely teenagers, were carving hearts, names, zodiac signs, phone numbers, and messages.



"Grace + David," "Sophia 'N Harvey," "Happy Birthday America," "July 4, 1976," "I Love My Mother," "Diane '76," "Gerald Ford, Op Sail and Queen Liz Were Here."

It had all been covered up for 37 years, and once again, it is seeing the light of day, for a limited time.