Support Jim's: Tomorrow

The fourth-generation family business Jim's Shoe Repair is set to shutter in September, after 82 years on E. 59th, because Walgreens' Duane Reade needs more space. Because 5,500 square feet is not enough. Because the landlord, SL Green, won't give Jim's a break. Because the Landmarks Commission said no. Because in the new New York, mega-chains win and mom-and-pops lose.

Two petitions have gathered thousands of signatures (sign here), but it hasn't stopped the process.



I received the following information about how you can help Jim's tomorrow:

"Jim’s recently filed a petition against the Landmarks Commission, asking the court to review the Commission’s decision to deny Jim’s a landmark designation. This is where you can help. This Wednesday, June 11, 2014, at 9:30 a.m., Jim’s will take part in a public hearing to seek a review of the Commission’s decision. Through this hearing, Jim’s can demonstrate to the court and the Commission that the shop is an iconic and historic New York City landmark."

The hearing is open to the public. If you value Jim's Shoe Repair, if you value small businesses and diversity on the streets, or if you're just sick and tired of corporations taking over every inch of our city, please go and make yourself heard:

Wednesday, June 11, 9:30 AM
60 Center Street, Room 130
Manhattan

Previously:
Jim's Shoe Repair
Save Jim's

Liquor to Gelato

Last October, the Home of Cheers liquor store on 8th Avenue and 18th Street shuttered.



It moved further up the avenue, to a smaller space, leaving behind its vintage neon signage.





So what's coming next to the spot? What else but a luxury, artisanal frozen treat shop? Not fro-yo this time, but gelato. The Amorino international franchise has its banner up, complete with a giant vulval gelato in a cone and the words "Natural Love."

They also sell macarons, those ubiquitous little cookie things that seem to be replacing cupcakes in the hearts of people who get weird about cupcakes.

Old Italian, New Italian

Since 1968 this little brick building on Grand Street was home to the De Lorenzo metalworking shop, a business that went back to 1907. It survived and thrived through three generations of the same family. They sold the building in 2008 for a large, undisclosed sum to a "developer seeking to put up a luxury condominium building."


2009

The new building has yet to come, but the luxury has arrived. Occupying De Lorenzo's space today is something called Voce Di, "a unique space that is an equal parts furniture showroom, contemporary art gallery, interior design center and cultural events venue."



Here's what Voce Di has to say about the space:

"In 1907, the De Lorenzo family opened a metal workshop in lower Manhattan in what is now a fashionable area called Soho. The neighborhood was much grittier then, and the shop lent its service to many local companies.

A few decades later, Soho began attracting a new, creative class including emerging artists and designers. With many of them on low budgets, they would come into the shop with sketches and requests for De Lorenzo to build what they needed. According to three former employees, the workshop helped many artisans and designers in Soho launch their careers. On the last day of work, some of these grateful clients stopped in to pay their respects to Thomas De Lorenzo Sr. and thank him for all that he did.

The original sign - John De Lorenzo and Bro. Iron and Sheet Metal Contractor, which is painted blue and white over brick, is fashionably retro. Upon adding art by street artist JR to the right corner, Voce Di intentionally kept the original sign as a reminder of the inspirational story of this space."



And now you can buy a futuristic exercise bicycle for $40,000.

Plaza Doorknobs

I used to like to wander through the Plaza Hotel, when it was still a hotel and not a condo where no one lives, where women get trapped in the garbage room screaming for their lives and bloodying their fingers trying to scratch their way out because no one can hear them, because no one is there, because everyone is a Russian billionaire and never in residence.

Anyway, yes, it was better before. It was lively, beloved, and also dowdy in the right way, a little worn around the edges. Now the place is like a crypt glossed in lacquer, with the Oak Room shuttered and the basement turned into an upscale shopping mall stuffed to the gills with precious little macarons.



There is one item worth noting down there, however. The Plaza Boutique, the gift shop, sells old Plaza Hotel doorknobs.



Removed when the Plaza was renovated and converted to condos, they're antiques and not cheap, running from $350 - $550. They'd look insane on my crappy, hollow-core doors, but I was tempted. Maybe you have a nicer door in which one could proudly perch. Sitting on their display tray, they seem to vibrate with the past, with the hands of so many ghosts.

Century-Old Ghost Sign Revealed

With the demolition of the Mayfair building, we also lost the Pig 'N Whistle Pub on West 47th Street (since 1969). Its whole little building has come down. With those bricks gone, a pristine ghost sign has been revealed on the side of Night Hotel.



Photographer Aylon Samson spotted the sign and sent in the above shot. While the top part is painted over, it clearly says: "ROOMS $1.00" and "WITH BATH $1.50."

A little digging shows that the building that bears the sign was Hotel Longacre. Opened in 1904, it was a stag hotel. In its advertising, it boasted being "exclusively bachelor" and "absolutely fireproof," with amenities like a library, billiard hall, and restaurant.

The prices are those posted on the sign.


1912 advertisement

On the hotel's postcard from the year 1910 is the motto: "A Room and a Bath a Dollar and a half."



Clearly, the ghost sign belongs to the hotel. The exact date of the sign is not so easy to determine. In the postcard image and other photos, we see that the Longacre had a small brick companion already by 1910. The townhouse was set back from the hotel, leaving an open strip of brick onto which a sign could be painted -- but wasn't yet.

The demolished Pig 'N Whistle building came further forward than the townhouse. Its facade stood even with the hotel's, thus covering the ghost sign that must have been painted sometime after the 1910 photo.



Either the townhouse was demolished and replaced, or it was added onto and expanded--in the outline on the hotel, you can see the lighter space where the original townhouse stood. When that happened, I can't figure. But with the sign's prices the same as advertised in 1910, I'm going to guess it's about 100 years old.

It will soon be covered up by a glass monstrosity, buried once more, for another hundred years or longer. Enjoy it while it lasts.

*UPDATE: Aylon just sent in another shot, this one with the hotel's name clearly spelled out, plus -- LUNCH 40 cents and DINNER 65 cents:


Aylon Samson

Joe's Mozzarella

When Joe's Dairy shuttered last year, New Yorkers wept. Lines snaked around the corner for a last taste of the fresh mozzarella. Television news crews did interviews, filmmakers made documentaries, and Calvin Trillin penned a eulogy in The New Yorker. (Unfortunately, he did not get word of the closure, showed up to a shuttered Joe's, and never got a final taste.)

Though Joe's closed their doors to customers, they have kept making mozzarella, selling it wholesale to restaurants around town. However, as I recently discovered, they also supply the cheese to one other place--right around the corner.



The M&O Market & Deli, at Thompson and Prince, carries the precious item in their deli case. You can walk right in and order it. You can have it in a sandwich. You can buy it whole. You can even get it delivered.

Just like at Joe's, it comes in fresh and smoked.



The M&O deli is the only place where you can get Joe's mozzarella as a retail customer. The experience isn't exactly the same, but it's good. Sinatra plays on the radio. You choose your bread from the bread cabinet. They'll even press your sandwich, making it warm.



I opted for a ball of the smoked stuff, and also had the fresh mozzarella in a sandwich, with tomatoes, which I then ate in front of Joe's darkened Dairy. Just because.

Someone, please, tell Mr. Trillin.



Previously:
Joe's Dairy Vanishing
Joe's Dairy Vanished

Village People's New York

In the Village People's video for "YMCA," a few glimpses of the vanished city.





The piers, the Ramrod, and the original McBurney Y.



In 2000, the Y -- where the Village People said you could go when you’re short on your dough -- moved to 14th Street and the old building went up for sale.

Across from the Chelsea Hotel since 1904, it sold for $8.5 million, and then sold again in 2003 for $12.5 million. The upper floors of the were converted into large “ultraluxury” condos, while the lower floors were given over to the David Barton gym. In the Times, the new building owner said the gym would be a "one of a kind luxury spa." "They are planning a Turkish Room," he said, "with indoor waterfalls and eucalyptus scrubs done by men in sarongs, combined with afternoon tea."

In the Voice, Michael Musto wrote about the grand opening. He reported, “scantily clad guys and gals sported the motto ‘Look better naked’ in body glitter or on T-shirts, and five wackos dressed like the Village People pranced around a steamy stage as ‘YMCA’ boomed out of the sound system.”



If the YMCA video doesn't satisfy your Village People needs, their movie Can't Stop the Music is streaming on Netflix. It's a 1980 extravaganza of glitter, tight jeans, and Bruce Jenner. It includes a few scenes of the Village streets, mostly along Bleecker and Christopher.



In one longer scene, the whole band, along with Valerie Perrine and Jenner (in crop top) walk along Bleecker from 10th Street, past a rug store called La Chambre Perse (now 7 For All Mankind), a number of antiques shops, and one Joe's Hand Laundry. Today they have all replaced by luxury shopping mall chain stores.