*Everyday Chatter

Another fucking Starbucks for 1st Avenue in the East Village. [EVG]

And yet another fucking Starbucks comes to the Lower East Side. How many more...? [BB]



Romy revisits Jackie 60 and the Chelsea barbers. [WIC]

Talking to Taylor Mead in the vanishing East Village. [PRD]

Our friends at Grade-A Fancy present "Truly Greenwich Village," a guide to the neighborhood's surviving old haunts. Get it before they vanish. [GAF]

Spend some time with Tom's neon sign. [NYN]

On the return of Chinatown Fair (the chickens have been gone a long while). [NYT]

Crawford Jewelry, with the fantastic old clock in the window, is closing on Canal. [LC]

Remembering when Essex Street was the pickle district. [ENY]

New York Pizza Project

The New York Pizza Project is a new website and blog (later, a book) that explores the relationship between New York City and its quintessential pizza places. Created by "Corey, Gabe, Ian, Nick, and Tim...5 dudes born and raised in New York City," the New York Pizza Project includes interviews and photos of pizza places across the 5 boroughs of the city.

I asked the five guys some questions--they answered...


All photos from the NY Pizza Project blog

Q: Why pizza as the quintessential NYC food? Why not hot dogs or knishes or something else?

A: New York had a much richer street food culture around the turn of the century. These peddlers pushed immigrant food like knishes, halal, oysters, sausages, and even pizza. Legal changes would eventually force most of these vendors off the street. After World War II, GI’s that were stationed in Italy came home demanding pizza. While I couldn’t really imagine some of these older street foods reincarnating as permanent shops, pizza made perfect sense, since it required a large oven. There was pizza in New York before the war, but it is from the 50’s on that we see a huge growth in pizza consumption in the city.

Today, pizza fits New York’s pace. It is easy to grab on the go. It’s widely available. It’s affordable. There are vegetarian options. Most importantly, it’s delicious, and New Yorkers love delicious.

Go to a pizza place in Florida and it may very well be called New York Pizza Co. or something like that. There is something about the New York pizza parlor that everyone wants to imitate. We run into tourists from all over the world during our journeys. For many, eating a slice is more important than seeing the Statue of Liberty. When we ask New Yorkers what is so special about our parlors, they tell us it’s not the austere setting or crispy crust, but the relationship with the staff.



Q: What does a pizza joint need to qualify for inclusion in your project?

A: Our intent is to capture all the type of places that we grew up grabbing a slice. The loose criteria we ended up creating were the following: has been in the neighborhood awhile, is beloved by the neighborhood, sells slices (as opposed to whole pies), and fits an aesthetic that we would call “classic New York pizzeria.” What that really means is "no frills."



Q: What are your favorite pizza joints in each borough?

A: Funny you should ask. Whenever we tell people about the project, we stress that it’s really not about the food, but about the people and places. Regardless, we have some favorites:

Manhattan: Joe’s in Greenwich Village or Pizza Suprema on 8th Avenue near Penn Station.

Brooklyn: Carmines on Norman Ave in Greenpoint, My Little Pizzeria on Court Street near Atlantic Avenue, and Nino’s in Bay Ridge for their Grandmama slice.

Bronx: Pugsley’s (near Fordham), for Sal, the eccentric owner

Queens: VI Pizza in Bayside for maybe the best Sicilian in the city, and Amore in Flushing for a great slice and great owner, Andy.

Staten Island: Nonna’s Pizza in Great Kills



Q: What will the city lose when all these mom-and-pop pizza joints finally vanish--or do you think they never will?

A: I’m not smart enough to predict what retail will look like in the future, but the pressures these shops are facing are real. Owners tell us all the time that while business is steady and recession-proof, pizza is not the business it used to be. The margins have narrowed significantly amidst rising rents, food costs, and city regulations. There is a real sense of pride in the pizza business, and great appreciation for the customers. So a lot of these places continue to work hard and put out the same product even it means that they take home a little less loot.

Plus, they are becoming stuck in the middle of a new NY-pizza-verse of extremes, with 99 cent shops at one end and fancy Neapolitan places on the other. In a way, the places we’re going for in the project are special precisely because they are so ordinary. No price gimmicks, no 900-degree ovens, just a solid slice and a Coke for a few bucks. Lots of people we talk to have been going to the same pizza places for years or decades. For those people, these places offer up a feeling of consistency and a sense of home. We met a guy who grew up in Washington Heights and moved to England as a young man. Every single time he came home, the whole family went straight to George’s Pizza from the airport, a tradition that’s been going on for over 10 years.

Part of what we’re after is figuring out just how so many of these places have withstood the test of time in a city where tastes and trends are constantly shifting, especially in food. There really is no clear answer. The owners work hard, they put out good product, and they have loyal customers. If these places were to go, the city would lose part of what makes it special, part of its DNA.

New Barber Shop

After hearing the terrible news about the imminent closure of the New Barber Shop in Chelsea, and the loss of its neighbors along the block, I went over for a last haircut. Willie was in the doorway, smoking a brown cigarette and watching the rain. He told me they won't be closing until the end of June, so there's still some time to say goodbye.



I sat in the dilapidated red barber chair and Willie draped me with a candy-striped smock, other men's hairs poking out through the fabric. From a dusty boombox, filmed with talcum powder, the radio station played hits from the 1980s--Bon Jovi saying, "We gotta hold on to what we got" and Journey telling us "Don't stop believing." But it's hard.



As Willie went about selecting the proper tools, he told me he'd heard a rumor that the businesses coming to replace him and his neighbors will be a Duane Reade or a Walgreens and a bank.

How can a little barbershop compete with that? A little barbershop that opens its doors to the downtrodden and the lonely, that lets homeless men sleep on its floor at night, and holds the neighborhood together by providing a space for friendship and connection. Walgreens won't do any of that here.



When Willie cuts your hair, you can hear him breathing. This is work. You can smell his skin and his breath, and it's the smell of grandfathers, familiar and comforting. He takes his time with the cutting. Men come in and sit for haircuts from the other barbers. They talk softly in Spanish. Men come in and complain about the rain and the relentless humidity.



Willie talked about his search for a new spot to reopen his beloved barber shop, but it's hard to find an affordable space these days in Chelsea. Thanks to the High Line and hypergentrification, it might be impossible. We talked about the greed of landlords, the haves and the have-nots.

"My grandfather used to say," said Willie, "you can't eat ALL the sandwiches. Other people have to eat, too."

He's looking for a small space, just enough to fit three barber chairs, with a monthly rent between $2,000 and $3,000. If you know of somewhere, please give him a call at the shop: 212-243-0334.



Willie and his co-workers were featured recently on NY1 News. The shop's co-owner, Manuel Castillo, said it just so, "I blame the landlord but I blame the politicians too, because they no try to do something to protect small business. They want to convert Manhattan into Monaco, rich and famous. In five more years, no working people can live in this neighborhood. In five more, maybe less."



And this is how a block dies in today's New York City:
Death of a Block II
Death of a Block
Saving 9th Avenue
Sweet Banana Candy Store
Chelsea Liquors
New China

New China

VANISHED

In Chelsea, checking in with the long-surviving mom-and-pop block of 9th Avenue about to be completely revamped by its landlord, the Stonehenge Group, we hear that the New China take-out joint has been shuttered.



Brad sends in photos with the sad news: "It's been closed since last Friday, which was June 1. I had a wonton soup from Chelsea Golden Wok on 8th Ave and 21st today and the proprietor told me New China closed due to rent increase."



New China wasn't glamorous and it wasn't special. It was a typical Chinese take-out joint with color photos of the dishes glowing above the register, a few booths for dining, and greasy meals served in Styrofoam containers. But it was family-owned and had been there for a long time--and it was always busy, always packed with neighborhood people, especially teenagers from the nearby schools.

And the prices were cheap. As one Yelper put it, "considering the cheapo prices, it's actually damn good! I go here for lunch sometimes because the prices are about half as expensive as anything I can get at the nearby Chelsea Market."


2 weeks ago

But family-owned and "inexpensive" is not permitted anywhere near the High Line, not in Chelsea, vanished.


2008

Of 8 long-term businesses that existed 4 years ago, only 4 remain today (Sweet Banana Candy is not in the photo), and these 4 have only weeks left to live.


today

Previously:
Death of a Block
Death of a Block II

Chain Stores in the City

Lately, I've been thinking more and more about chain stores, their history in the city, and my own conflicted relationship to them.


7-11 on St. Mark's

It seems there's been a big push from chains in the past few months--and a big push back from people.

Looking just at recent developments in the East Village and Lower East Side: After a controversial 7-11 appeared on St. Mark's Place, the windows were smashed by anarchists, and New York magazine reported on 7-11's plans to put our local bodegas out of business. When Starbucks crept too far east, taking the former spot of Little Rickie, disgruntled locals pasted up anti-Starbucks posters and later egged the windows. As for Subway sandwich outposts, they're proliferating like bedbugs in summertime.

On Grand Street, neighbors are petitioning to keep 7-11 and Dunkin Donuts out, and there's a petition to stop more chains from moving into the East Village, which ranked third on the list of most-chained neighborhoods in New York City on the Center for an Urban Future's massive report on the state of chains in New York City. The Upper West Side is also fighting back, advocating for new zoning to put a stop to chains.


A lonely East Village McDonald's in the 1980s


Same McDonald's today--with Subway and Dunkin

The flood of chain stores to New York City happened in the past 10 years--just like all the other waves of hyper-gentrification and suburbanization, including the luxury tsunami on the Bowery, the high-end mallification of Bleecker Street, and the quick-change transformation of the Meatpacking District into glitzy MePa. (Interestingly, we don't see the high-end chains getting attacked, except for the recent paint-bombing of a Marc Jacobs store in SoHo.)

Just before the chain explosion of the 2000s, we heard the early rumblings of trouble throughout the 1990s. In 1996, Kmart opened on Astor Place, joining newcomers Barnes & Noble (1994) and Starbucks (1995). Politicians licked their chops while residents blanched. Said one local to the Times, "I hate the thought of stepping over Kmart shoppers on my the way to buy bagels on Sunday morning."

In the 1980s, a chain store in the East Village was still an anomaly, as when The Gap moved to St. Mark's Place in 1988, causing "there goes the neighborhood" panic.


Fifth Avenue Korvette, 1960s, source

The chains of the 1970s and earlier are perhaps far enough away to inspire nostalgia in some, and I doubt people got upset about them bringing gentrification or suburbanization to the city back then--except for those worried about property values going down.

According to the blog Pleasant Family Shopping, when the Korvette department store chain opened on Fifth Avenue and 47th in 1962, "the store became the subject of many jokes (and much genuine concern) within Fifth Avenue’s elite retail enclave... The basis of this was a fear that Korvette would open a stereotypically tacky discount store with barren walls, poor lighting, pipe garment racks and substandard goods, thus tarnishing the area’s image."



Still, there have long been chains in the city. Howard Johnson's was a popular chain whose loss we've grieved, and Chock Full O'Nuts is one whose reappearance we've celebrated. I still weep for Woolworth's.

Beloved Horn & Hardart automats once dominated the streets of New York City, with 40 locations in 1939. In the mid-1950s, if you walked west along 42nd Street, you'd pass an automat at Madison, another at Fifth, and another at Sixth, before you came to the mother of all automats just a few blocks north on Broadway in Times Square.

Somehow, I doubt people were egging the automats in protest. Maybe that's because 40 locations is nothing compared to the chain dominance of today, when multiple national and multi-national businesses plague every block of the city in numbers that continue to soar.



Of course, many people today want both low- and high-end chains in New York City.

The Apple stores are worshipped. When IKEA opened in Red Hook, it attracted overnight campers. When a Starbucks closes, it gets tearful notes from customers. On Grand Street, the petition against 7-11 and Dunkin Donuts has been met with a petition in favor. In the New York Post, op-eds defend the honor of chain stores.

I don't understand any impassioned defense of today's massive chains--it seems insane, even sociopathic. Still, like most of us, I do not avoid shopping at chains 100% of the time. I have my own somewhat arbitrary list of the chains I'll patronize and the ones I'll avoid like the plague. I buy some of my clothing and home furnishings at chains, while my prescriptions, food/drink, and books come from independents. When in need, I will buy from a chain drugstore--and hate myself for it--though I'll never give my money to a 7-11 in the city.

Until, of course, they run all the bodegas out of town and I'm left with no other choice--which is part of what makes the massive proliferation of chains so enraging: More and more, they are taking away our freedom to choose.

Personally, I don't want them all to vanish--I just want most of them to vanish. I want balance. I want to go back to the days before the Great Chain Explosion, to the antediluvian era when we didn't worry so much about the power of chains to destroy the cultural fabric of the city. And when buying underpants didn't feel like a criminal act.

*Everyday Chatter

Tourists officially to blame for turning Manhattan into a suburban shopping mall: "as the [WSJ] article reminds, the existence of shows like Law & Order, Gossip Girl, and Sex & The City means 'many tourists make pilgrimages to visit their favorite locations.'" [Racked]

Welcome to 1940s NYC--in a map! [Gothamist]

Sullivan Street Bakery opening soon in ousted Les Desirs spot--what about the singing ladies? [Eater]

Where is Zabar's? Don't ask your idiot phone. [NYT]

Go see My Brooklyn at the Brooklyn Film Fest. [BFF]

Reader Marcus lets us know that the NYC municipal parking garage at Essex and Delancey is booting the bicycles that park there. He cites the city law: "Garages or lots that accommodate 100 or more vehicles must provide bicycle parking at a rate of at least one space for every ten vehicle spaces":


Fight for your neighborhood library as the city cuts them off at the knees. [HNY]

Greenwich Village tourists attract a scourge of doo-wop singers--and the neighbors are angry. [NYM]

Hotel Toshi takes over at 9th and 1st. [EVG]

Looking at eagle-winged neon signs. [NYN]

Remembering Hav-A-Pizza. [LC]

What does Coney Island look like these days? You won't recognize it. [ATZ]

Prime Burger

VANISHED

By now you all know that the great Prime Burger closed last week after 47 years in business (74 if you count its days as Hamburg Heaven). I went in on its final weekend for a last supper.



The place was bustling, with lots of people taking pictures and saying goodbye to the waiters and to the DiMiceli family, owners of the place. Many of the waiters have been there for decades. They expected to stay for decades longer. (Watch this lovely, heartbreaking film.)



I was lucky to get a booth with the signature swiveling, faux-bois table that always makes me feel like a kid in a high chair. Adding to that effect, the food comes on small, beige, unbreakable Melamine plates.



Admittedly, the burger and fries really aren't special--it's the place that's special. That was special.

It's the look of the place, unchanged since the early 1960s, the people, and the feeling you get from it all. The feeling you got--and won't get ever again. It was a feeling of permanence, of continuity through time, a sense of being part of the city's history, connected to the people of the past--and of the future. When a place has been around this long, it's natural to expect it will last forever.

I think of these lines from Walt Whitman's "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry":

"It avails not, neither time or place—distance avails not;
I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many generations hence;
I project myself--also I return--I am with you, and know how it is."



The wonderful clock, I was told by Mr. DiMiceli, is going with them when (if) they find a new spot, but the conical ceiling lamps have been sold, and the Times reported that those one-of-a-kind booths "may have been too well installed to allow removal. 'We’d like to take the seats,' Mr. DiMiceli said, 'but the guys I talked to said that taking them apart would probably destroy them.'"

It sounds like a metaphor for Prime Burger itself, and for so many places that have vanished from the city. Pushed out of their decades-long spots, they try to survive in a new location, only to falter. Too well installed to allow for removal, taking them apart simply destroys them.



Previously:
Prime Burger 2008