Sweetheart Coffee Bakery

For awhile I've been worried about the few remaining scrappy little businesses on the block of 8th Ave between 13th and Greenwich. Now that the undulating 1 Jackson Square is coming, it seems only a matter of time before the Fresh Farm bodega, Village Pizza shop, and Sweetheart Coffee Bakery vanish.



Yesterday, I walked by to find the Sweetheart boarded up with plywood.



I went into Village Pizza to ask about it and the guy assured me the facade of the building is just being restored and the businesses, including the bakery, which has been here for about 15 years, will be returning.

But why am I still filled with a sense of foreboding? Maybe because workmen were going at it inside with a circular saw. That's not facade restoration--which was done already in 2005, by the same company. And Racked says "the fate of the bakery is up in the air," though the luxy stores will be returning. (And nobody's touched the colorfully named "Shoegasm.")



Let's face it, that bakery is not coming back. Say goodbye to vegan and dietetic baked snacks, to giant chocolate muffins and little butter cookies, and to empanadas from "Daniel the king of empanadas"--after Sucelt closed, Sweetheart's Argentinian empanadas were a good alternative.

Isn't it then inevitable that Village Pizza and the neighboring bodega will also shutter?

M&G Diner

*Update: Urbanite followed up and all M&G's saying is "we're on vacation," but who knows, because, as we all know, "One day you're up and another you're down." Hopefully, they'll be back up soon.

Eating in Translation (via Eater) has the sad news about Harlem's M&G Diner from a longtime employee, who writes, "I am sorry to say that now it is officially over the diner has been sold we left for vacation on june 29 2008 we will not be back."

This was another one of those places on my backlist I've been wanting to get to before it was too late. Like many of the places on my list, it's too late.


photo credit: uptown flavor

The reviews of the M&G are glowing: Best soul food without tourists, best cornbread, best jukebox, and it had one of the greatest combinations of vintage signage, too: "old fashion' BUT Good!" (the "i" dotted with a neon star!). Lonely Planet described it as a place "where chefs fry chicken like it's an Olympic event and braise their meats more tenderly than most people cradle a child."

Harlem OneStop called it "the reigning 'counter culture' dining establishment in Harlem where one can still perch on a stool and satisfy their hunger for home-style soul food and the current Harlem news!... the regulars here are as plugged in to Harlem gossip as any local politician or neighborhood church sister."

Newsweek said, "The M&G Diner in Harlem is a modest spot, but in the world of hip-hop, it is a landmark. Puff Daddy shot a CD cover here, and rappers come in for the soul food and oldies jukebox."

So marks yet another tragic death on 125th Street--one, no doubt, among many more soon to come.


photo: eating in translation

*Everyday Chatter

Some of Harlem's affluent new residents are not happy with an African drumming circle that's been in the area since 1969. One suggests, “Why don’t we just get nooses for everyone of those lowlifes and hang them from a tree? ...the best thing that has happened to Harlem is gentrification. Let’s get rid of these ‘people’ and improve the neighborhood once and for all.” [NYTimes]

"Kid noise" and accompanying complaints on the rise. [NYTimes]

Whole Foods follows the big money: Average income downtown? $242,000. And then more big money follows Whole Foods: "You had the old Gristede's and the Food Emporium, but nothing that addressed the yuppies...Whole Foods is not for everyone. They're not going to go into a housing project or a low-income area; not because they're expensive, but because that's not their image... When they went into the Bowery, other retailers followed." [NYSun]

Could there be a more fitting metaphor for what's happening on the LES than the way the Cooper Square Hotel (today, glass, white, monstrous) is swallowing the home of poet Hettie Jones (yesterday, brick, color, human)? Except it's not a metaphor. It's real. [Curbed]

Theatre Condos

I've been wondering why the old building on the corner of St. Marks and 2nd Ave recently received a swanky, brown-and-blue, Jonathan-Adleresque awning and renovated entrance. Now we know: This building has become The Theatre Condominiums.



Why theatre? Probably because, years ago, the independent, way-off Broadway St. Marks Playhouse was here. It was the one-time home of the Negro Ensemble Company and later became the St. Marks Cinema.

Many will remember the St. Marks Cinema for its cheap double features. Jim Jarmusch was an usher there and shot scenes from his student film, Permanent Vacation, in the lobby. Later, it became a Gap and now it's Pizzanini (with wine bar, sort of). Kim's video used to be on the second floor. I got my videos there.

Here, a new resident enjoys her view of BBQ:




In this lengthy article worth reading from the Times, they visit the changing St. Marks of the early 1990s and ask some important questions:

"It was an odd day when, in March 1988, a Gap store opened up in space once occupied by the St. Marks Cinema. People on St. Marks Place laughed. What, they wondered, did the Gap have to say to the anarchistic spirit of St. Marks Place? What was next, Bloomingdale's?"

Mili Quality Cleaners

My goal for this holiday week was to keep from having to announce any new vanishings. It's been a rough month, after all, and I was hoping for a break. But today, a tipster sent in the following bad news.

After the closing of Fontana Shoe Repair, it was only a matter of time before the next-door tailor closed up shop too. Now it's happening. According to this story in The Villager, Michael Alter's lease is up and he is packing it in. “I don’t want to work anymore,” he said. “I don’t want to work for the landlord. I can’t pay with my fingers so much money."

This is my tailor, the man who hems all my pants.



The Villager writes:

The landlord, Mark Scharfman, is asking $3,330 per month, and “who knows what the real estate taxes will be?” said Alter. “Bloomberg is killing small businesses.”

...He is considering putting in one more month, working through July, and then in the future might work a few days a week for someone else, just to keep busy. But he is ready to go.

Alter’s shop adjoins the now shuttered vacant space that shoemaker Angelo Fontana had to give up on Feb. 29 because of a steep rent increase from the same landlord...Now that both small spaces will be available, what next?

• Thankfully, we still have Gino

B&B Carousell Sign

We recently got some shots of Coney Island's B&B Carousell in the Vanishing New York flickr pool. One from 2007:


photo: jack szwergold

Another from 1976, complete with graffitied subway going by:


photo: tony marciante

And here's a fantastic shot of the interior from the 1950s. As I recall, the decor was exactly the same when the B&B closed. Same clowns on the wall. Same Popeye. Same basket for catching brass rings and same wooden arm that sent the rings out to the carousel riders.


photo: egulvision

Today, the sign has been painted over. The photographer of the pic below says on the Coney Island message boards that the inside has been painted over, too--no more clowns, no more Popeye. I wonder what happened to all those rings. It was from these carousel arms that we get the phrase "grab the brass ring."

Though we lost the sign, the horses were saved this spring when the city bought the carousel and sent them galloping off to Ohio for restoration.


photo: capt_nemo

*Everyday Chatter

On the Clone Wars, these advertising zombies fit right in. Welcome to the 1984 world of flash-mob shills. [Curbed]

Greetings from gentrified Ludlow: "a crumbling eyesore, a haven for rats, and a traffic nightmare." Rodent feces 4 inches deep! [Voice] via HG

It's time to get those vaginas in shape! In a world in which everything must be exercised and prettied up, here comes a spa just for vaginas. Says its founder, “It’s the dental floss of feminine fitness.” [Times] via [Racked]

I just saw Wall-E and highly recommend it. Here's a reviewer who hated it, but his description sums up just how smart and subversively dark the movie is: "Wall-E...supposes that the human race of the future will become a flabby mass of peabrained idiots who are literally too fat to walk. Instead they zip around in flying wheelchairs surfing the Web, chatting on phone lines and stuffing their faces with food meant to be sucked down like milkshakes while unquestioningly taking orders from the master corporation that controls all aspects of their existence." Yes, but they will also have impressively fit vaginas!

The corpse of Florent is open for business. [Eater]

"Starbucks has announced it's closing 600 stores in the U.S., bringing the total number down to approximately 9 gazillion, most of them located in Astor Place." [Gothamist]