Evicting Gowanus

Artists have had their studios in Gowanus since at least the 1970s. For decades, the industrial no man's land between Park Slope and Carroll Gardens was otherwise "undiscovered," known intimately only by the working class people who lived there, the working class people who worked there, and a handful of artists.

All of that has changed in just the past few years, as Brooklyn has become an unaffordable, international brand of luxury and hipness--making every inch of the borough potentially "the next Williamsburg."

Developers have descended on the shit-filled canal.



This past weekend, during Gowanus Open Studios, a group of artists protested their upcoming eviction. More than 250 painters, sculptors, and others are getting the boot from their studio buildings, some of the longest-running artist spaces in the area.

Reported the Daily News: "Developer Eli Hamway, who is involved in condominium projects in Williamsburg and Prospect Heights, leased the three buildings for $21.2 million in April 2015."



But this end of Gowanus is not zoned for residential -- yet. The artists I've talked to suspect the new tenant will be some sort of "maker space." (What is it with New York today that we've got "makers," "artisans," and "creatives," but none of them are artists -- and they're getting all the prime real estate?)

So where will these Gowanus artists go? Many say they'll migrate to Sunset Park, which is also experiencing the first touches of hyper-gentrification. (The Brooklyn Flea gentrification machine has arrived.) I'm also hearing chatter about artists moving to Bay Ridge, one of the last non-gentrifying neighborhoods in the entire city. Ultima Thule.

Meanwhile, at the other end of Gowanus, the Lightstone Group is bringing a bland-looking, utterly massive mega-complex of 700 units, along with amenities like yoga and valet parking, plus a waterfront “esplanade park” complete with boat launch and “water access point.” You know, so you can access that shit-filled water.



In the developer’s renderings of the site, the canal is wreathed in green vegetation. Shiny happy people walk along the verdant paths and ply the blue waters in kayaks. The developers are banking on a clean-up of the canal.



But it's not clean yet. The Superfund site is full of human feces, dead animals, and an array of toxins and diseases, including gonorrhea. A brown goo periodically bubbles up through the sinks, toilets, and shower drains of buildings here.

Christopher Swain knows that goo well. This weekend, while the artists protested, the environmental activist swam the entire length of the canal. 



He wrapped himself in layers of waterproofing, plugged his orifices with wax, and took the plunge. He did it to raise awareness and call for the clean-up of the canal. Which, by the way, he said tasted like metal, gasoline, detergent, and shit.



Gowanus now has a souvenir shop (where you can buy coffee cups that say "Some asshole developer"), a wildly popular ice-cream shop called Ample Hills, bars, restaurants, and a shuffleboard club that seems to cater to hipsters and young investment bankers.

Editors at the Daily News took issue with those who oppose luxury development here, those who "seem to think that a few vacant casket factories are worth going to the barricades for." (For the record, South Brooklyn Casket is not vacant--it's doing a brisk business. People keep dying in Brooklyn.) The editors wrote, "We respectfully send this message the enemies of Gowanus gentrification: You’ve already lost."

Well, they're right about that.


More on Gowanus:
Whole Foods Gowanus
Eagle Clothes
Kentile
Gowanus Wilderness

Cafe Borgia II

VANISHED

A few people have written in to say that Cafe Borgia II has closed.

Opened in 1975 by Philip Cardaci, the cafe was located on Prince Street, in that hot-pink building across from what used to be Vesuvio and what used to be Milady's. After more recently losing Caffe Dante and Cafe Figaro, all we had left of the classic Italian Village cafes were Cafe Borgia II and Caffe Reggio.

And then there was one. (Am I missing any?)


photo via Complete Performer

The first Cafe Borgia was opened by Mr. Cardaci's parents in 1959 on the corner of Macdougal and Bleecker Streets. It was forced to close in 2001 after losing its lease.

At the time, the Times wrote, "In the 1960's and 1970's, Cafe Borgia was a bohemian's dream. Styled like an Old World cafe with medieval decor, it drew Beat poets like Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. Edward Albee and Andy Warhol also spent hours there, as did Joan Baez, Joe Gould and James Dean."

A regular of the first Cafe Borgia noted that "gentrification had outpriced many of his favorite neighborhood haunts. (Mr. Cardaci, who was paying $4,100 a month, was not offered a new lease when his old one expired.) ... 'All those places with texture and character have disappeared.'"

Has the same fate befallen Cafe Borgia II? According to Soho Strut, it has. They've lost their lease.

When is City Hall going to step in and protect our culturally relevant small businesses? Before we lose another one. I don't want to be writing a post like this for Caffe Reggio. It can be done. #SaveNYC.

Academy Records

In a city rapidly losing its record shops, Academy Records is alive and well on West 18th Street. It's actually crowded on Saturday afternoons with giddy music collectors.

(I've been holding this post, unpublished, for quite some time because I'm afraid to jinx the place. But I don't have that kind of power, right? So here goes.)



Inside, it feels like New York. Like the real New York we used to know, not so long ago. And it should. Academy's been around since 1977.

Here you will find actual New Yorkers. It's as if some giant sifter has panned across the shopping mall of Fifth Avenue, weeded out the tourists and the dullest newbies, and deposited the gold right here. You can tell these people are New Yorkers because they feel like New Yorkers, even if they don't live in New York. They've got an edge to them. An energy.

How to describe this? If you don't know what I mean, well, you either know or you don't.



I'm telling you, it's like walking into the pre-Bloomberg city. If you're feeling sick and sad and fed up with it all, with everything this city has become, go into Academy Records and you'll feel better.

You might even feel hopeful as you listen to the frantic click, click, click of CD jewel cases snapping as fingers flip through the selections in their bins.



Shoppers walk through the crowd with armloads.

These people are passionate. They're not fooling around.

Do not get in their way.

Hudson Yards Holdouts

A few holdouts have left the ever-expanding footprint of the Hudson Yards Luxury Zone. You can't blame them for taking the money and running from the nightmare to come.



Two guys living on 10th Avenue and West 35th just scored $25 million to leave their tenement. We've been following the fate of the two buildings here. They were only left standing because of these holdouts, stubbornly thwarting Tishman's plans for what once was called the "tallest tower in North America," a.k.a. "Hudson Spire," originally rendered at 1,800 feet -- 4 feet taller than One World Trade Center. With the men moved out, and Taxi Parts gone, the buildings are empty and set for demolition. Does this mean the Spire is back on?

A block south, a McDonald's has been acquired by Related--to be demolished and folded into a 3.3 million square foot mixed-use development. (I don't cry for McDonald's, but we're talking about a piece of low-rise property that was a lynch pin for a mega-development going through.)

Little by little, these developers are taking over a huge chunk of Manhattan. Across the street, Veterans Chair Caning (since 1899) and the little flat-fix shop will soon stand alone between multiple luxury developments. As the Hudson Yards Effect keeps steamrolling, what will become of Study Areas A, B, and C? How long will they hold out? And what about the two horse stables just north of here?



Let's face it. Nothing of the old world will be left standing. As the Times just reported, "Virtually all of the businesses that operated in the neighborhood — mostly light industrial and manufacturing shops — have been displaced. In their stead, developers plan to install fancy department stores, boutiques and restaurants."

Take a walk by Hudson Yards. You've never seen so many cranes in your life. They represent hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks--free gifts to developers from former Mayor Bloomberg--all for a glittering city within a city that will not be a welcoming place for most New Yorkers.

This Land Is Not For Sale

Opening October 15 at the Jonathan LeVine Gallery is Brett Amory's "This Land Is Not For Sale: Forgotten, Past and Foreseeable Futures."


Brett Amory, CBGB

From High Fructose: "Amory describes his latest series of works as a sort of protest against the transformation of New York’s Lower East Side into a 'gentrified wasteland,' which is changing the social character of the neighborhood."


Brett Amory, Bleecker Bob's

From Juxtapoz: "Amory will install a faux construction site underpass leading to the gallery to parody the constant sledgehammering of gentrification."

In addition, there will be a panel discussion on October 20 that will "bring together some of the legendary figures and activists of the Lower East Side to explore the gentrification and cultural attritioning of this historic district," according to the press release. "This discussion will be moderated by author Alan Kaufman. Sitting on the panel will be Brett Amory, artist; Lincoln Anderson, Editor-in-Chief of The Villager; Clayton Patterson, LES-based photographer and activist; Jose “Cochise” Quiles (author of the forthcoming Street Gangs of the Lower East Side), the founder and former leader of the notorious Satan's Sinner Nomads, the last gang to fly colors in LES. This event is free and open to the public."

The gallery is located at 557C West 23rd Street.

Bway and 88th in 1970

Some time ago I came upon this black and white film taken in 1971 (or, more likely, 1970) from a traffic island on Broadway near 88th Street. It was filmed by Nicholas West.



It's in slightly slow motion, so it feels underwaterish. Nothing much happens. People walk across the street or they sit and watch the traffic. Cars go by. The neon sign of the New Yorker cinema blinks off and then on again. On the marquee, a double bill: Pudovkin's "The End of St. Petersburg" with Hani's "Bwana Toshi," subject of a lukewarm 1970 review in the Times.

Wrote the reviewer, "In its emotional density and its cool compansion [sic], Hani's eroticism seems a good deal more humane than his humanism. It is also, of course, more erotic."

There is nothing apparently erotic about Broadway and 88th Street in the winter of--not 1971--but 1970. It is, however, loaded with humanity.

Elpine Revisited

For a while, I've had a thing for the Elpine drinks stand in Times Square. Long gone from its spot on 46th Street and 7th Avenue, it appears in the background of many old photos and had its big moment in the film Sweet Smell of Success.



There's really no information out there about Elpine. They served fruit drinks and hot dogs, among other items. They had two locations, but did not achieve the success of Papaya King and Gray's Papaya.

The story of the little stand remained a mystery. Then I got an email from a guy named Al Streit.


1943: John Vachon, via Shorpy

Mr. Streit writes:

"Elpine Drinks was a business owned by my wife's grandfather and his two brothers. Yes, Elpine: 'el pine' as in pineapple. The name has nothing to do with the Swiss Alps.

The Varons were a Spanish-speaking Sephardic family. Originally spelled with an accent mark over the 'o' (Varón), the pronunciation was anglicized to VAIR-un. Three brothers, Joe, Frank, and Morris came to NYC from Gallipoli before World War I.

One of the businesses they founded was Elpine Drinks. The signature drink was based on pineapple juice, and being Spanish, they decided to call the business 'el pine' as in 'the pineapple.' Yes, I am very much aware that the Spanish word for pineapple is 'la piña,' but that point was lost, I'm sure, on English-speaking Americans of the day. It was, I guess, an inside joke.

And given that pre-Castro Cuba was a popular vacation spot for east coast Americans back in the day, perhaps they hoped to conjure up images of relaxing under a palm tree while drinking the pineapple mix?"


1955


circa 1960s, Aaron Signs, via Lost City

The Varon brothers also went into the liquor business and had a large liquor store near Wall Street.

Mr. Streit sent along a photo of his wife's grandfather, Frank Varon, co-founder of Elpine. Here he is advertising the Schenley line of alcoholic beverages.



Elpine lasted at least into the 1970s, according to photo records. Below is a rare color shot of the spot in 1971.

It is the latest dated photo I have found yet. After that, Elpine just vanishes.


1971, Michael Jacobi