169 Bowery Suicide

Back to the Bowery, where I seem to be inadvertently collecting suicide tales. First, there was a hanging in the attic of 35 Cooper Square, aka 391 Bowery. Then there was Karl Hutter, inventor of the Lightning bottle-stopper and proprietor of 185 Bowery.

Now comes a Bowery suicide tale from #169. This time, it's a lovelorn Italian musician with a pistol back in 1886. He was "so poor that life had no longer any charm for him":


new york times

The address at which the musician died was on a Bowery filled with theaters, including many Italian and vaudeville theaters. He had played at Miner's Bowery Theater, which opened in this location, 165-169 Bowery, in 1878. It was known for its "questionable burlesque productions" and amateur nights (Eddie Cantor won many here), where bad performers were hauled offstage by a hook. Some claim this is where the expression "Get the hook!" was born.

In 1922, Miner's nearly burned down and later became a Chinese opera house.


miner's posters on bowery, new york wanderer

More recently, 169 was the home of Weiss Hardware, with the most excellent signage and can-do spirit--"If You Can't Find it. We have it"-- along with questionable punctuation and capitalization.


photo: Michael Dashkin


photo: my flickr

Last week, on my walk down the vanishing Bowery, I took a couple pictures of this creamy, pistachio-colored sign, afraid it might soon disappear. Last night, photographer and fellow sidewalk pounder RK Chin informed me it was gone.

Here's what might be coming, should the real-estate agents' dream come true. Unless, of course, they just tear it down and put up another glass box. Somebody, get the hook!


listing page

*Everyday Chatter

The next silvery box to land on the East Village is getting its robot skin--Cooper Union's "communal hive," which the Ukrainian community had no choice but to surrender to:


Remember the news that a high-end barbershop will go into the old Nick's Hair Stylists on Horatio? Well, it's part of the Freemans Sporting Club chain, a brand spun off from the restaurant in Freeman Alley on the LES. It's apparently a hipster thing. [MenStyle] via Racked

"Mike Schumacher, owner of Met Food Grocery Store at 107 Second Avenue, says NYSS Duane is working hard at lease renewal negotiations with NYU for his store. He expects a settlement early next week." But he needs your help. [SLES]

Coney Island is breaking the heart of one former urban planning student. [OneCity]

Noodle around the Hong Kong Supermarket with BaHa. [SENY]

Death Wish? And The Panic in Needle Park? It's a hot, gritty summer in NYC, thanks to Anthology Film Archives.

People really get upset when one Starbucks out of, like, one million closes--especially when the alternative is walking extra blocks--and some of them start petitions in protest. [Gothamist]

For the Tompkins Square Park riots anniversary, Abercrombie girls dance along to "Die Yuppie Scum." [AMNY]

Lighting District

The Bowery, when I think of it and when I walk on it, rarely means that stretch between Delancey and Canal. In my travels, I tend to turn on Delancey or sooner, but recently I decided to walk this stretch. In the Lighting District, after 6:00 pm, the sidewalks are empty of crowds and you can really take it in. Which you should do soon, because it is being decimated.

See all my photos here.

The vanishing begins at Houston with the Avalons, then the New Museum, followed by a hole in the row of tenements, ready for boutique hotel 250 Bowery. Condos are rising quietly, stealthily, among and behind the kitchen supply stores. The kids at "mega-club" BLVD and Crash Mansion are waiting on the sidewalk, eager to access the opulence, the decadence, the feeling of exclusivity promised there.



Across the way, Jay Maisel's Germania Bank building, covered in graffiti, stands like a solemn reminder of the ruined past, windows sealed with silver foil, reflecting.

At Delancey, the seeds of destruction have already been planted in 2 of the 4 buildings bought for demolition--the familiar skull and crossbones means the rodenticide is in place--the first step is always: Kill the rats.



At Grand, the accidental jewel of a shopkeeper's scale gleams gold in sunset. Here you might find Shao P. Chen's minicake stand, profiled beautifully in The New Yorker--is it still there, in the shadow of the Providence Hotel?

At Hester, a corner has come down. The Music Palace theater has been replaced by a poster for the glass tower to come and a message, it seems, from the gods of destruction: "On your knees..."



The Diamond Corner holds on to its vintage signage. Everywhere, shop windows still glitter with chandeliers for sale, a hundred windows filled with lamps.



And just before Canal, the amazing Kowloon Bay beckons, a scene straight out of Hong Kong, a market filled with Chinese herbs, soaps, inflatable creatures, folding fans, etc.

Above Kowloon is the Bowery Lodge, where you can still stay for $30 a night.



I predict the next genius developer will open a swank boutique hotel on this street and call it "Flophouse." It will come complete with cubicles, with bunkbeds wrapped in high-threadcount Egyptian cotton linens. It will have shared "social" bathrooms for group trysting. Every cubicle will come with Armand de Brignac served in a Mad Dog 20/20 bottle. It will be opened for you by a concierge dressed as a bum.

And the Flophouse hotel will not cost 30 bucks a night.

*Everyday Chatter

Curbed commenters make funny haikus about neighbors in neighborhoods. Read them here.

After 30+ years in business, The Travel People on Greenwich Ave have closed. Their cool neon airplane is gone and they're selling all the knick-knacks in their window, where they say, "We hate to leave our home in the Village":


On the racks now, Adbusters #79 has an amazing article about hipsterdom. It's not available online, and so much is worth quoting, but one deadly paragraph will have to suffice. Douglas Haddow writes, "the hipster represents the end of Western civilization--a culture lost in the superficiality of its past and unable to create any new meaning. Not only is it unsustainable, it is suicidal. While previous youth movements have challenged the dysfunction and decadence of their elders, today we have the 'hipster'--a youth subculture that mirrors the doomed shallowness of mainstream society."

America the beautiful: If you're physically suffering, your doctor will put you on hold and then stick you in a dumpy waiting room. If you're suffering for beauty, the same doctor will provide you with a valet, a concierge, and flowers. [Times]

Take a gander at these designer automatic weapons by Peter Gronquist--also found in Adbusters 79, which says these weapons "play with our throbbing, eroticized notions of materialism, violence, and power." Yes indeed:


Explore the Taming of Gansevoort--how a "glorious wide open space" became filled with "ugly and intrusive" concrete. [ForgottenNY]

The plywood around super-condo 200 11th gets a taste of the old west Chelsea:


Photographer Brian Rose is putting together a book of his beautiful LES before-and-after photos, from the 1980s and today. [BrianRose]

The Coney Island History Project presents vintage photos of old Astroland, Aug 2 - Sept 1.

And another Manhattan Apocalypse movie is coming to a theater near you. [TJV]

The ever-lovely Loews Jersey needs volunteers--free pizza is involved!

Glassing West Chelsea

Now and then, I like to take a walk through way west Chelsea and see how things are progressing in the massive condofication that's going on. Every time I go, they're more enormous, more glassy, more metallic, just more, more, more.


chelsea modern

The Chelsea Modern on 18th is completely glassed, with crazy windows that pop straight out on springy suspension devices--perfect for losing cats or small dogs who like to sit on windowsills. Its neighbor, 459 18th, which was but a little sprout until very recently, looks completed, too. They grow up so fast, don't they?

We talk about New York changing, and we all know that the city is always evolving, but today it mutates like a cockroach, its DNA radically altering itself from month to month. At this rate, how long will it take for every block to be encased in glass?


459 and modern

Nouvel Chelsea has taken shape, towering, undulating, and accompanied by a big swaying crane. The L-shaped 245 10th, with its wobbly-looking beams, has wrapped itself territorially around the Lukoil gas station, and now has a scant skin of pockmarked metal and glass on its ass, just where it kisses the Highline behind it. We'll see these finished by the fall, no doubt.


nouvel chelsea


245 10th

Finally, HL23 has birthed a sales office--well, they call it a "Sales Tin"--tucked under the Highline, complete with neon lights and bamboo shoots for enticing buyers.





It's not news that the whole neighborhood around the Highline is being hurriedly buffed and built up in a construction frenzy for uber-rich investors to enjoy, at least occasionally, when they come to town. But recent reports show there might be a bit of trouble in paradise. Seems some ruffians have been abusing Vespas and putting garbage onto the hoods of cars. Head for the hills!

• More pics of these condos
• Chelsea Towers West, 1/08
• The Condo Shall Inherit the Earth, 10/07

*Everyday Chatter

As New York enters its "worst fiscal crisis since the mid-1970s," fashionistas are decking themselves out in Depression-era duds. What's that line about fiddling as Rome burns? [EVG]

With doubling rent, Judy's Better Dresses, a shop with the personal touch, closes after 40 years in midtown. [Times]

Nice to see Ralph Blumenthal is back from Texas and writing very funny articles like this almost-parody in which Staten Islanders bid a tearful farewell to their beloved Starbucks. [Times]

Remember the Love Coffee truck, rolling around the city claiming to be related to Mud Coffee? Well, it looks like they're opening a brick-and-mortar location up on quiet little Pleasant Ave. in East Harlem:


When I read this story (check out those comments) about exclusive club the Eldridge, I thought, this has to be a satire. It was too perfect, too over the top, like this work-of-art condo parody. But the Eldridge is real (I think). Thankfully, the so-called Ko-Thario has released a satire of the Eldridge, describing his own super-secret club, where A-listers will be drinking the blood of Gretchen Mol. [Grub St.]

Ko-Thario, aka Seth Gordon, is also the inventor of the $12,000 knish. Glad to see someone smart is mocking this Vongerichtification madness.

Grub Street also alerts us to this pretty great video-walk with Florent Morellet through the Meatpacking District, where transgender sex workers once traversed the cobblestones steady on their stilettos, and where now "Sex and the City wannabe girls" fall off their Manolos. [Grub St.]

David's Bagels

A tipster sent in the news that David's Bagels on 1st Avenue and 14th Street will be closing at the end of August after 21 years of business. I spoke with the owner, Vilai Wangkeo, and she told me that since the landlord opened a Hot & Crusty franchise next door, "He doesn't want the competition," so her lease will not be renewed.



"When you work somewhere for 21 years," she said, "you get good customers, and when you have to move, it's really sad. This is like my second home. I've been here every day, 6 days a week, for 21 years."

When Ms. Wangkeo's children grew up and she needed work to do, she opened David's Bagels in 1987. I asked why a former nurse and a native of Thailand would decide to open a bagel shop. "We have no bagels in Thailand," she chuckled, "but my brother had a side job at Bagel Nosh and he learned how to make them there."

"Is your brother named David?" I asked.

"Nobody is David," she laughed, "But a lot of Jewish people have that name." So David just made sense for a bagel shop.



Ms. Wangkeo has a second bagel shop further uptown and she is searching for a new location for this one, but it's hard to find a spot for a small business in Manhattan. "Nothing is empty," she said, "nothing for less than $15,000 a month."

That's a lot of bagels.