Pen & Brush Club

I was walking past the Pen & Brush Club and noticed this For Sale sign on their townhouse at 16 East 10th Street.

In this building since 1923, they've been offering services, networking, and camaraderie to women in the arts for over a century. They also host several cultural events per year that are open and free to the public.



The building is listed with Prudential for $13,525,000. Says the ad: "You have a chance to own a piece of history. This 25' wide townhouse...was originally built in 1848 and has original detail throughout with 14' ceilings, parquet floors, elaborate crown moldings, rounded arch ways, original staircase and 11 marble fireplaces."

The New Yorker Book Bench blog has more info, saying the sale is due to the high cost of heating oil. Blogger Vicky Raab mourns the loss, writing, "it’s a unique historic asset for women in arts and letters to lose... Where else can women rent studio space for reasonable rates on one of the best blocks in Greenwich Village? Or curl up in a library overlooking a sculpture garden, which boasts works by its members Eleanor Roosevelt and Pearl Buck? Or wander through elegant galleries that host member and juried art shows and readings by fiction writers and playwrights?"

Yet again, another meaningful, historic space that once was available for the benefit of the public will be given over into private hands. I'm sure it will make a lovely mansion for some lucky couple.


Photo: Brian Dube at NY Daily Photo

*Everyday Chatter

"It’s November 2008. A young Pakistani Muslim is watching television and sees that this man—Barack Hussein Obama—is the new face of America. In one simple image, America’s soft power has been ratcheted up not a notch, but a logarithm. A brown-skinned man whose father was an African, who grew up in Indonesia and Hawaii, who attended a majority-Muslim school as a boy, is now the alleged enemy. If you wanted the crudest but most effective weapon against the demonization of America that fuels Islamist ideology, Obama’s face gets close. It proves them wrong about what America is in ways no words can." --Andrew Sullivan

Get your victory dogs at Crif today. [Eater]

Celebrating hipsters jailed for loving Obama too much. [Gothamist]

Brooklyn celebrates Barack. [GL]

Paper isn't dead--crowds clamor for the NY Times. [Gothamist]

Daniel Squadron, the "extremely anti-club, anti-licensing, bad, bad man," who's coming to clean house was also elected last night. Hope overflows... [Grub]

California, however, is still living in the Dark Ages, as they ban gay marriage. [AP]

Bloomberg fixes financial hole he helped dig by making cuts to police, firefighters, child protection, and sanitation. Hello, Bloomberg? It's the 1970s calling. They want to burn down your house, attack your family, and bury you in piles of uncollected garbage. [EVG]

President Obama

It's 2:30 AM. Obama is the President of the United States. (Pretty much.)


who was that masked man?

In the streets of New York, crowds are still cheering, shouting "Yes, we can!" Cars honk their horns. People bang pots and pans. They cannot stop. Don't want to stop. When the announcement came over the television that he had been elected, cheers erupted from the streets. A crowd gathered on 8th Street and 1st Avenue, taking over the intersection. Police pushed them back here and there, but otherwise left the celebration alone.

People in cars stopped and the crowd rushed to shake their hands and kiss them through open windows.

Garbage men riding the backs of honking trucks waved and pumped their fists.

City bus drivers honked and slowed down so passengers could stick their hands from the windows and high-five the people on the street.



At Union Square, the park was packed. People climbed lamp posts and hoisted flags atop. We sang God Bless America. We chanted "U-S-A" and "Yes, We Can" and "O-Ba-Ma!" Strangers hugged and kissed strangers.

The celebration went on and on, a wave that rose and fell, then rose again, for hours and hours. Down side streets and avenues, in pockets of jubilant people.

After joining them for hours of that jubilation, I'm putting in my earplugs and going to bed.



Earlier tonight, this stranger in an Obama Halloween mask appeared in the crowd at Union Square and people fell upon him with adoration. As if he were the real thing. Acting the part, uninhibited behind that face, the stranger opened his arms and enveloped us.

He took me into his arms and we embraced. His hug was strong. Caught up in the mass delusion, the pleasant folie a plusieurs that this stranger had brought into our midst, I felt like I was being embraced by my new president, a man who could see me, who would include me in his vision for the country.

And it was good.

*Everyday Chatter

This statement from David Brooks makes me giddy: "Nov. 4, 2008, is a historic day because it marks the end of an economic era, a political era and a generational era all at once. Economically, it marks the end of the Long Boom, which began in 1983. Politically, it probably marks the end of conservative dominance, which began in 1980. Generationally, it marks the end of baby boomer supremacy, which began in 1968."

Have you voted today? Please use this illustration to guide you on where to place your X:


A plaintive sign outside the Strand, in case you didn't understand above illustration:


And, in case you need more instruction, visit the trio of Palins, aka Dumb, Dumber, and Dumbest, serenading the long line of voters near 13th and 7th:


...they are also sporting very expensive shoes:


Now back to the regular stuff:

The Cooper Square Hotel welcomes its well-heeled, unhuddled masses. Look out. [Curbed]

Say goodbye to the Pioneer Theater this Friday. [EVG]

Dine down at Eisenberg's, where you can't go much lower. [GVDP]

Check out New York's guide to living cheap. Is thrift really making a comeback? [NYM]

And if you did vote today, it's time to claim your free vibrating silver bullet egg from Babeland! [Racked]

Holland Bar

The Holland Bar has been on my list of classic dives to visit before they die. I am sad to report: It's too late. The Holland has been gutted, as the following tipster photo will attest. And somehow I don't think they're renovating.


photo & tip: Reed Korach

This just after Anthony Bourdain, mourning the loss of Siberia, praised the Holland, which he called: "A classic old-man bar." He also hailed the Distinguished Wakamba Lounge, a former after-work haunt of mine, and now I'm worried. What if Bourdain has reaper powers?

Josh Alan Friedman, author of Tales of Times Square, said of the Holland and other dives, "You need architecture that your grandfather once had dinner at. It’s important not to have everything torn down. It’s important to the human spirit."

The Holland was full of stories and memorabilia. TONY says the scripted sign above the bar dated back to 1937. And Shecky's gives a good description of the place: "Brick walls are coated with ragged sports pennants and Christmas lights. Oh, and don’t forget the ashes of a dead guy; regulars chipped in for cremation when one of their own passed in 1996."


Photo: Shanna Ravindra, NY Mag

Those are the ashes of Charlie O'Connor. You can read all about Mr. O'Connor here, and about how "the regulars voted to keep [his ashes] where they were--'until the Holland closes,' was the way they put it."

The Holland is now closed. So what will become of Charlie O'Connor's ashes?

• Visit the bar back in the 80s
• Update: Will Holland rise again?

*Everyday Chatter

The Pioneer Theater sadly shuttered this weekend. [Reeler]

A candidate to help neighborhoods fight the proliferation of "night life"? And his name is Squadron. [D. Squadron] via Eater

Threatened 9th Ave shopkeepers and advocates meet again to support small businesses. [CNow]

Take a look back at the city's forgotten clocks. [AMNY]

This morning "scores of witnesses crowded the ornate Blue Room at City Hall to testify against" and denounce Bloomberg and the extension of term limits... And a guy from the Rent Is Too Damn High movement turned his back on the mayor, who "looked on with an expression of mild amusement, a slight smile on his face." [CR]

Non-Digital Marquees

On Thursday nights, you can walk across town and, if you're lucky, get to see cinema employees climbing ladders to change the movie titles on the non-digital marquees, announcing the Friday openings.





Dark silhouettes against bright marquee lights. Letters piled on the sidewalk or in bins. The sound of plastic and metal sliding across the rails.

Personally, I prefer three-dimensional black letters, like the ones at Cinema Village, to the plastic sheets at Loews Village 7, but I like them all better than fast-moving digitized text.

Village East, too, still has 3-D physical letters. Jackson Triplex isn't digital. Neither is Park Slope's Pavilion or Cobble Hill Cinemas. Tell us, where else can we still catch this vanishing piece of New York?