"One Track Mind" Screening

On October 7, at 6:30 p.m., the Transit Museum will be screening Jeremy Workman's award-winning documentary "One Track Mind," the story of Philip Ashforth Coppola's 30-year devotion to and obsession with "meticulously cataloging every subway station--and corresponding mosaic--in the New York City subway system."


Phil Copp

You might remember Jeremy and Phil from an interview I did with them on this blog back in 2011. An excerpt:

Q: One of the people in the film says you are "possessed" by your study of the subway, that you have a "certain kind of mind." How would you characterize that kind of "one track" mind?

PC: What kind of "possessed" mind do I have? There's two of me, after a fashion. The everyday me goes to work, goes to church, does all the special occasion and holiday stuff, does the house chores, et al. Just like any of you. Then there's the me who has filled 36 notebooks with sketches & transcriptions, journeyed on field trips, drawn the illustrations, wrote the texts, and got it all published, and so on. Sometimes I don't know how I've done it. This endeavor has been my abiding passion for about half of my years lived so far. I'm possessed in that I know I must finish this.

JW: People are often blown away by Phil's level of commitment even before they've seen his book. Then, when people see the multiple volumes of Silver Connections (which can pile waist-high), their jaws invariably drop to the floor. I've never met a person with this level of commitment to one particular subject. He's been working on this study for over 30 years and is totally undeterred by anyone's else interest (or lack of interest) in his study. It's incredible.



At the screening, both men will be on hand to answer questions about "preservation, documentation, and the artistic idiosyncrasies of the City." In addition, Phil's original drawings will be on view. Don't miss this rare opportunity. Buy tickets here.

NYC RIP

Photographer Miron Zownir has just published NYC RIP, a collection of photographs capturing the "day-to-day lunacy" of New York City in the 1980s--mostly images of sex workers and drug addicts--with an introduction by Lydia Lunch.



In talking to Dazed, Zownir recalled of his time in New York, “Rents were still cheap, crime was high, most of the Lower East Side, Harlem and the Bronx were dangerous slums, the establishment was uncomfortable and scared, and the police corrupt or helpless to guarantee any protection. But NYC was bursting with a sexual and creative energy that was overwhelming.”

His beat was Times Square, the Bowery, the piers along the Hudson River. All places that have been sterilized since. As Lydia Lunch writes in the intro, the city has been "white washed of all its kaleidoscopic perversions in order to make it safe for anyone who could afford the ridiculous rents charged for shoe box size apartments."


see full NSFW image here

Recently in the Times, Edmund White asked why so many of us are nostalgic for the gritty New York of the 1970s/80s. He explained that there's "a craving for the city that, while at its worst, was also more democratic: a place and a time in which, rich or poor, you were stuck together in the misery (and the freedom) of the place, where not even money could insulate you."

In New York magazine this week, Mark Jacobson writes about the 1970s New York nostalgia trend. He says, "Change is the genius of the city, what has always made New York what it is. But the whiplash rezoning of more than 40 percent of the five boroughs during Bloomberg’s tenure has produced a generational-based moral crisis. Longtime residents no longer feel the joy of the ever-altering landscape, the rapid clip of cosmopolitan turnover that creates continuity. They walk about gaslighted, as if suddenly set down in a drug dealer’s apartment, with everything new and shiny, bought at the same time."


Read more at Dazed. Get NYC RIP. And see Miron's work here.

Greenwich Village Ghost Town

Last week, blogger Travelerette posted a cornucopia of photos showing the ghost town that Greenwich Village has become, thanks to greedy landlords who kick out commercial tenants, and then warehouse the empty spaces while they wait for high-paying national chain stores to move in.

What happens? The spaces sit vacant for months and years.


all photos by Travelerette

This past spring, Tim Wu in The New Yorker online called this phenomenon "high-rent blight." It's a plague across hyper-gentrified parts of the city.

This summer, Tribeca Citizen found 100 empty spaces in their neighborhood and posted the photos.



Travelerette writes:

"I had gotten the general impression, while wandering around the Village, that there seemed to be an unseemly amount of hideous and depressing burned out storefronts where once there had been vintage clothing stores, Chinese restaurants that serve cold sesame noodles, and tea shops frequented by local drag queens. But was this just a vague impression, or could I back it up by careful research?

I decided to spend today roaming around the Village from Broadway to the east, Hudson to the west, Houston to the south, and 14th Street to the north. photographing all of the pathetically empty ghost buildings I could find. I was going to stop at 100, but at last count I had 103." And there's more.



There is no dis-incentive for creating high-rent blight. Leaving storefronts vacant is a big part of the hyper-gentrification process that is killing New York. Landlords hike the rents--doubling, tripling, quintupling--to essentially evict good commercial tenants. So we lose our beloved, long-standing mom and pops, and for what? Nothing, and then more nothing, followed by a Starbucks or Marc Jacobs. And the city isn't the city anymore.

It's time to fine landlords for leaving spaces vacant for extended periods of time. In San Francisco, landlords get fined. In London, it's done through taxes. Tell our City Hall to take action. Join #SaveNYC and fight for the life of this city.

Adam Purple Burial & Memorial

Earlier this month, Adam Purple, Lower East Side artist, activist, and creator of the Garden of Eden, died of a heart attack while riding his bike across the Williamburg Bridge. Since then, friends have been working hard to get him buried according to his wishes. Finances, however, are an issue.

The Adam Purple Burial and Memorial Fund is collecting donations to cover Purple's burial at the Greensprings Natural Burial Preserve in New York's Finger Lakes region, along with a memorial on the Lower East Side.

From the page: "He spent his life as an activist for sustainability, living sustainably himself. As such, he did not spend his life accumulating assets. It is up to us, his friends and those whose lives he enriched, to ensure that he has the final resting place that he wanted and believed in. We would also like to erect a permanent memorial on the Lower East Side where people can meditate, congregate, and remember Adam and what he stood for. On behalf of Adam, thank you for your generosity."

Please visit Give Forward to donate.


Adam Purple, by Harvey Wang

In addition, tomorrow from 4:00 - 8:00 p.m. at the LaPlaza Cultural Community Garden at Avenue C and East 9th Street, a memorial service will be held for Purple. It is open to the public.

Pizza Rat Plushie

By this point, you are all familiar with Pizza Rat, the little rodent that could, made world famous for his or her New York-style moxie in dragging a whole slice of pizza down a flight of subway stairs.

Now Tina Trachtenburg, a.k.a. "Mother Pigeon," creator of soft sculpture pigeons and other urban vermin that she sells in the parks, has revealed her Pizza Rat plushie. (In addition to the following photo, there is also an inspirational video on Tina's Facebook page, complete with dramatic accordion music.)



Rats, pizza, and the subway. It doesn't get more authentic New York than that. And in a time when authentic New York is vanishing fast, we need Pizza Rat more than ever.

Has Pizza Rat become a symbol of all that is being lost in the sanitized city? The filth and grit, the moxie, the unpredictability that is meant to be inherent in urban life?

On her Twitter page, Tina says you can see Pizza Rat in person in Union Square Park this Friday. She can often be found selling her critters on the west side of the park. (P.S. You might also know Tina from the wonderful Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players.)

I asked Tina how Pizza Rat came to be. She answered:

"I make urban soft sculptures. I already had a pizza and rats. My art collaborator Lippe saw the video of pizza rat. We made the video the next day since we had my props. You can buy/adopt them at my street exhibits. My rats are $80. My pizza is $20."

Rudy's For Rent

A reader sent in this shot of Rudy's Music Stop, now officially with a For Rent sign.

I first reported on the shop's closure in July, a penultimate nail in the coffin of West 48th Street as Music Row.



This little building and its neighbor are likely to be demolished, so why the "for rent" sign? And why only the upper floors? Is there a chance Rudy's will stay in some diminished form?

Little Lebowski

VANISHING

The Little Lebowski Shop on Thompson Street in the Village is closing, probably at the end of the month.

While I like the Coen Brothers' movies, I wasn't a big fan of The Big Lebowski, so I can't say I've done any shopping at the Little Lebowski Shop. Still, odd independent stores like this--especially those fueled by one eccentric individual's singular obsession--give the city streetscape a certain flavor. And when they close they're usually replaced by something flavorless, like a purveyor of acai bowls or dog sweaters--or acai bowls for dogs.

However, the For Rent sign does say "no food uses," so perhaps it'll just be the sweaters.


photo tip by Jessie Walsh-Rosenstock

I emailed owner Roy Preston, who mans the shop in his bathrobe, and asked for the scoop. He responded:

"The brick and mortar section of our business is closing. The website will remain active. Customers can shop at the new Little Lebowski Shop - http://new.littlelebowskishop.com - where we'll have a wider selection of merchandise and lower prices. So we're not vanishing but rather moving forward."

No comment about the rent, but Roy did add, "Running a business in New York City has become too expensive."

Visit the shop before it's gone--you might run into Jeff Bridges. You can also follow them on their Facebook page.