Jake Mooney revisits the lost Mooney's Pub of Flatbush Ave and finds a new bar--with a decent mix of old and new. [NYT]
Buildings destabilized by fire to fall--a chunk of Chinatown gone. [BB]
Grieve talks to the director of the East Village History Project. [EVG]
New blog in town, Amusing the Zillion, visits Coney to find Thor's promises fallen through. [ATZ]
Attend the Save Coney meeting Tuesday at 7:00. Click for info.
Reminisce about the old Lower East Side at the Tenement Museum 5/27.
Hipsters now wearing "I'm a Fucking Hipster" sweatshirts. [NYS]
Monday, May 18, 2009
Howdy Do
VANISHING
After more than 15 years in the East Village, Howdy Do is closing. "Lost Our Lease" is the reason written in the window and signs went up yesterday announcing a big STORE CLOSING sale.
Opened in the early 1990s by ex-club kids and drag divas Michael Torres and Ryan Lance, the tchotchke store moved into a space on 7th Street formerly occupied by an egg shop. Since then, they've expressed their creative touch and love of kitsch with thoughtful window displays filled with vintage goods.
Michael and Ryan opened the place because, as they told The Villager in 2006, "We were tired of working for large companies and having them make money off our ideas and creativity and wanted to work for ourselves in an environment where we could make our own hours, dress code, and rules."
Since they moved to the neighborhood, they have weathered its evolution toward mediocrity. As they said in the Villager, "The East Village has changed dramatically. We originally moved to the East Village because we wanted difference. Now, New York University has acquired so much property for housing due to their popularity... Hotels have opened up left and right, including a Howard Johnson Hotel on Houston Street. There are more and more chains like Starbucks opening up..."
After the closure of Love Saves the Day and the ongoing assault of 7th Street (recently dubbed an upscale culinary hub by the Times), it is distressing to lose yet another piece of what once made the East Village different. As more of that lost neighborhood slips away, be sure to hurry by and pick up a Charlie's Angels lunch box or a Culture Club t-shirt--and bid adieu to Howdy Do.
After more than 15 years in the East Village, Howdy Do is closing. "Lost Our Lease" is the reason written in the window and signs went up yesterday announcing a big STORE CLOSING sale.
Opened in the early 1990s by ex-club kids and drag divas Michael Torres and Ryan Lance, the tchotchke store moved into a space on 7th Street formerly occupied by an egg shop. Since then, they've expressed their creative touch and love of kitsch with thoughtful window displays filled with vintage goods.
Michael and Ryan opened the place because, as they told The Villager in 2006, "We were tired of working for large companies and having them make money off our ideas and creativity and wanted to work for ourselves in an environment where we could make our own hours, dress code, and rules."
Since they moved to the neighborhood, they have weathered its evolution toward mediocrity. As they said in the Villager, "The East Village has changed dramatically. We originally moved to the East Village because we wanted difference. Now, New York University has acquired so much property for housing due to their popularity... Hotels have opened up left and right, including a Howard Johnson Hotel on Houston Street. There are more and more chains like Starbucks opening up..."
After the closure of Love Saves the Day and the ongoing assault of 7th Street (recently dubbed an upscale culinary hub by the Times), it is distressing to lose yet another piece of what once made the East Village different. As more of that lost neighborhood slips away, be sure to hurry by and pick up a Charlie's Angels lunch box or a Culture Club t-shirt--and bid adieu to Howdy Do.
Friday, May 15, 2009
*Everyday Chatter
Striking a blow against rampant Vongerichtification, Village neighbors vandalize Beatrice Inn--tired of loudmouth "Eurotrash"! [Eater]
eater photo
More on the Tompkins Square Park beatings that no mainstream media journalist has yet to acknowledge. [NMNL]
Eater points us to the LES Forum, where the sentiment about loudmouth bars and "crazy no-bar people" is: "Looks like the peace and quiet crowd has mobilized. Now is the time for those who represent the future to do so, shouting them down at every turn. Let fun rule." Disagree? Join the Forum.
That smoke you smelled last night? It was a fire in Chinatown. The intrepid Bowery Boogie has the scoop and the morning aftermath. [BB]
...and the Hong Kong Supermarket that burned--BaHa was there last year, "noodling around." [SE]
The new P&G has opened. As for the neon sign, Adam Sandler, put away your million--"'We hope to have the corner crown of the old P&G sign up in the new location," said the senior Mr. Chahalis... As for the beloved neon martini glass on the old sign, Steve Chahalis said, 'We may mount it on the wall inside the bar--presented like a work of art.'" [DJ]
As another XXX DVD shop closes, a tally of Times Square's adult survivors. [EVG]
Brooklyn 11211 gives a rebuttal to my Franklin Street post, and offers a Jane Jacobs vision. [B11211]
Another Manhattan Starbucks has fallen! [Eater]
Watch the Dance Parade tomorrow.
eater photo
More on the Tompkins Square Park beatings that no mainstream media journalist has yet to acknowledge. [NMNL]
Eater points us to the LES Forum, where the sentiment about loudmouth bars and "crazy no-bar people" is: "Looks like the peace and quiet crowd has mobilized. Now is the time for those who represent the future to do so, shouting them down at every turn. Let fun rule." Disagree? Join the Forum.
That smoke you smelled last night? It was a fire in Chinatown. The intrepid Bowery Boogie has the scoop and the morning aftermath. [BB]
...and the Hong Kong Supermarket that burned--BaHa was there last year, "noodling around." [SE]
The new P&G has opened. As for the neon sign, Adam Sandler, put away your million--"'We hope to have the corner crown of the old P&G sign up in the new location," said the senior Mr. Chahalis... As for the beloved neon martini glass on the old sign, Steve Chahalis said, 'We may mount it on the wall inside the bar--presented like a work of art.'" [DJ]
As another XXX DVD shop closes, a tally of Times Square's adult survivors. [EVG]
Brooklyn 11211 gives a rebuttal to my Franklin Street post, and offers a Jane Jacobs vision. [B11211]
Another Manhattan Starbucks has fallen! [Eater]
Watch the Dance Parade tomorrow.
Google Streets
One of the tools people like me use when we want to see the vanished city is Google Maps' "Street View." As today's New York changes at lightspeed, Google inevitably falls behind. Until they catch up, we can still find buildings that have since fallen, businesses that once were, empty lots that are now condos. EV Grieve illustrated this beautifully in a post just yesterday.
But Google being Google, it's always working to catch up and soon those images will vanish, too, replaced by the new.
Earlier this week, I spotted the Google cam car in Chelsea, one of the fastest changing parts of town. If you ever wondered how they do it, here it is. The device holds 9 cameras, all looking in different directions, including straight up at the clouds--for reasons only Google knows. The driver just drives while the cameras do the work, always watching, never blinking.
Right now, those images of the lost city are vanishing, wiped out by this roving eye in the sky, replaced by the new blocks with their condos, brasseries, and boutiques. Enjoy them while they last.
Meanwhile, driving the Google cam car is not a bad gig. His next stop? Dubai.
But Google being Google, it's always working to catch up and soon those images will vanish, too, replaced by the new.
Earlier this week, I spotted the Google cam car in Chelsea, one of the fastest changing parts of town. If you ever wondered how they do it, here it is. The device holds 9 cameras, all looking in different directions, including straight up at the clouds--for reasons only Google knows. The driver just drives while the cameras do the work, always watching, never blinking.
Right now, those images of the lost city are vanishing, wiped out by this roving eye in the sky, replaced by the new blocks with their condos, brasseries, and boutiques. Enjoy them while they last.
Meanwhile, driving the Google cam car is not a bad gig. His next stop? Dubai.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
*Everyday Chatter
1975 mural vanishes from Delancey Street. [BB]
Take a walk down Memory Lane, back when the East Village still had certain cobbler shops and butcher shops, CBGB was not Varvatos, and condos were yet to come--way, way back in the distant bygone year of...2007. [EVG]
Gaze at the stars on Manny's walls. [GVDP]
A "living museum of sad stories" remains on the Bowery--but this flophouse's owner, hotelier Sam Chang, asks the city for a "hardship provision." [NYT]
In this age of "bleakonomics," is the suit dead? "What has landed on the slag heap of style is the old three-button power suit: slickly conservative, oversize and overpriced." [NYT]
Check out Joel Kotkin's, "The Luxury City vs. The Middle Class." [via Bstoner]
In Bloom York City (run like a corporation), Lehman investment banker now in charge of housing the poor. [Gothamist]
Take a walk down Memory Lane, back when the East Village still had certain cobbler shops and butcher shops, CBGB was not Varvatos, and condos were yet to come--way, way back in the distant bygone year of...2007. [EVG]
Gaze at the stars on Manny's walls. [GVDP]
A "living museum of sad stories" remains on the Bowery--but this flophouse's owner, hotelier Sam Chang, asks the city for a "hardship provision." [NYT]
In this age of "bleakonomics," is the suit dead? "What has landed on the slag heap of style is the old three-button power suit: slickly conservative, oversize and overpriced." [NYT]
Check out Joel Kotkin's, "The Luxury City vs. The Middle Class." [via Bstoner]
In Bloom York City (run like a corporation), Lehman investment banker now in charge of housing the poor. [Gothamist]
Greenpoint: Post-Apoc
As in many parts of the city, in Greenpoint, it's in the industrial section where many condos are being built. The affluent are being drawn to the edge of the world, where the air smells like slaughterhouse and bricks tumble from crumbling walls. Viewed from Franklin, it is artful decrepitude (a boutique here even has the Terminal Warehouse printed on an American Apparel t-shirt). From the riverside, and up close, it's a bombed-out, dystopian setting where violence feels utterly possible.
Around the corner, a group of guys are drinking 40s, radios blaring from tricked-out cars. They watch a pair of artists spray-paint a memorial mural, an urban gravestone for two dead young men of color: Rest in Peace, it says, for D'Nice and Chunk. A grim reminder that not everyone here expects to survive to middle age.
The poor and the people of color exist on this edge--renters, unlike the Polish, they are being pushed out.
But can luxurification really happen in the shadow of burnt-out warehouses, in the deep hole of the New Depression? A hasty handwritten note replaces permits in a plexiglass box on the much-hyped Pencil Factory lofts: "Job site shut down 5/5/09."
There is a rat problem on gentrifying Franklin Street. Next to an outdoor cafe filled with baby strollers and lap dogs, flyers taped to lightpoles assert, "This is dangerous and unhealthy."
And, as anyone who's read New York Shitty knows, the place is dotted with dog shit.
But if you like the post-apocalyptic allure of the industrial landscape, where homeless men gather in dark corners down dead-end streets and pit bulls cavort off-leash, you'll enjoy this edge of Greenpoint. There is always interesting signage--Syrup of Figs refers to an ancient laxative. While you drink your latte, just close your eyes to the signs of despair.
What makes the three Greenpoints briefly touched on here (Manhattan Ave, Franklin St, and the industrial) so interesting is that, together, they illustrate a New York neighborhood in the midst of hyper-gentrification.
On Manhattan, you find the old neighborhood, a close community of Polish immigrants and small businesses. On Franklin, you find the pioneers of gentrification, the artists and intellectuals seeking affordable housing and a community of their own. You also find some of the neighborhood's poor, black, and Latino. Here, cropping up through the poverty, in the industrial despair, alongside those hipster pioneers, you find luxury condos that herald the future.
The drive of big development is to merge all three Greenpoints into one uniform culture--and it won't have spray-painted memorials, or quirky thrift shops, and it won't serve pierogis, unless they are "artisanal."
It happens so quickly now, that evolution to hyper-gentrification. It decimated the Meatpacking District and the Bowery in just five years. It has dramatically altered the sensibility of the East Village and made major inroads into Harlem. Williamsburg was gone in the blink of an eye.
If you want to see hyper-gentrification in action, go to Greenpoint. Get off the G train at Manhattan Ave, walk up the street, have a meal. Cross to Franklin and do the same. Then walk on West St. Don't talk on the cell phone or listen to your iPod. Really pay attention. You can't miss it.
Around the corner, a group of guys are drinking 40s, radios blaring from tricked-out cars. They watch a pair of artists spray-paint a memorial mural, an urban gravestone for two dead young men of color: Rest in Peace, it says, for D'Nice and Chunk. A grim reminder that not everyone here expects to survive to middle age.
The poor and the people of color exist on this edge--renters, unlike the Polish, they are being pushed out.
But can luxurification really happen in the shadow of burnt-out warehouses, in the deep hole of the New Depression? A hasty handwritten note replaces permits in a plexiglass box on the much-hyped Pencil Factory lofts: "Job site shut down 5/5/09."
There is a rat problem on gentrifying Franklin Street. Next to an outdoor cafe filled with baby strollers and lap dogs, flyers taped to lightpoles assert, "This is dangerous and unhealthy."
And, as anyone who's read New York Shitty knows, the place is dotted with dog shit.
But if you like the post-apocalyptic allure of the industrial landscape, where homeless men gather in dark corners down dead-end streets and pit bulls cavort off-leash, you'll enjoy this edge of Greenpoint. There is always interesting signage--Syrup of Figs refers to an ancient laxative. While you drink your latte, just close your eyes to the signs of despair.
What makes the three Greenpoints briefly touched on here (Manhattan Ave, Franklin St, and the industrial) so interesting is that, together, they illustrate a New York neighborhood in the midst of hyper-gentrification.
On Manhattan, you find the old neighborhood, a close community of Polish immigrants and small businesses. On Franklin, you find the pioneers of gentrification, the artists and intellectuals seeking affordable housing and a community of their own. You also find some of the neighborhood's poor, black, and Latino. Here, cropping up through the poverty, in the industrial despair, alongside those hipster pioneers, you find luxury condos that herald the future.
The drive of big development is to merge all three Greenpoints into one uniform culture--and it won't have spray-painted memorials, or quirky thrift shops, and it won't serve pierogis, unless they are "artisanal."
It happens so quickly now, that evolution to hyper-gentrification. It decimated the Meatpacking District and the Bowery in just five years. It has dramatically altered the sensibility of the East Village and made major inroads into Harlem. Williamsburg was gone in the blink of an eye.
If you want to see hyper-gentrification in action, go to Greenpoint. Get off the G train at Manhattan Ave, walk up the street, have a meal. Cross to Franklin and do the same. Then walk on West St. Don't talk on the cell phone or listen to your iPod. Really pay attention. You can't miss it.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
*Everyday Chatter
Under the scaffolding of the still-climbing, window-blocking Chang hotel on 4th Ave and 13th St, huge wraparound Armani Exchange ads...
...attract a graffitied message from a passerby: "Luxury is killing mankind."
From the department of crazy fascinating comments, a reader writes about the P&G neon sign: "a staff person told me the neon exists and that adam sandler offered them 1 million for it."
New East Villager moves above McDonald's, gets upset about french fry smell, commenters suggest litigation. [AT]
Bloomberg's henchmen in Willets Point harassing the guys at Bono Sawdust? [QC]
A note on the name of Boulud's Bowery restaurant, DBGB: "the early-on matter of a cease-and-desist from the owner of the CBGB name has been resolved, and Boulud negotiated full rights to the name." [Grub]
Provincetown Playhouse demolition update. [BB]
In The Lost Synagogues of Brooklyn, Ellen Levitt looks at what became of the borough's ex-shuls, some of which became synagondos.
At Elite Shoe Repair on 10th, closed by fire, you may now pick up your shoes:
...attract a graffitied message from a passerby: "Luxury is killing mankind."
From the department of crazy fascinating comments, a reader writes about the P&G neon sign: "a staff person told me the neon exists and that adam sandler offered them 1 million for it."
New East Villager moves above McDonald's, gets upset about french fry smell, commenters suggest litigation. [AT]
Bloomberg's henchmen in Willets Point harassing the guys at Bono Sawdust? [QC]
A note on the name of Boulud's Bowery restaurant, DBGB: "the early-on matter of a cease-and-desist from the owner of the CBGB name has been resolved, and Boulud negotiated full rights to the name." [Grub]
Provincetown Playhouse demolition update. [BB]
In The Lost Synagogues of Brooklyn, Ellen Levitt looks at what became of the borough's ex-shuls, some of which became synagondos.
At Elite Shoe Repair on 10th, closed by fire, you may now pick up your shoes:
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