Three Lives & Co. Bookstore

This just came in to my mailbox. I would like to be more eloquent about this, but right now, I am not happy. I love this fucking bookstore.



Dear Three Lives & Company Customers,

I am writing to you about a possibly significant event for the bookshop in the upcoming months. The building in which Three Lives & Company occupies the corner retail space has been put up for sale. In preparation for this sale the owners did not renew the bookshop’s lease earlier this year and we are now on a month-to-month lease. As you are certainly aware, the white-hot real estate market in New York City means this could present some challenges for the bookshop.

Ideally, we would like to stay in our space, our address for thirty-three years, when a new owner for the building is found. 154 West Tenth Street has been a wonderful home for all of us, staff and customers alike, for all these many years. Jill, Jenny, and Helene, the founders and original owners of Three Lives, built an amazing bookshop and an incredible space in which to display books. We hope to work with the new owner when that time comes to keep this wonderful shop.

Should a lease not be offered to Three Lives then we will look for a new space to build our home. The shop has moved once since it originally opened on the corner of West Tenth and Seventh Avenue, and there’s always the possibility for a third life for Three Lives. It is our desire to stay in our neighborhood, the West Village, but we will need to find the right space at the right price, not an easy task considering the current commercial rental conditions in the area.

It is important to note that this is not about a small, independent bookshop being battered by chain retailers, or online retail conglomerates, or new electronic devices on which to read a book. Three Lives & Company is a thriving enterprise. We have had record years the last three years as the independent bookstore market in general has found its footing despite many challenges. A bookshop with an interesting selection of books and staffed by passionate, professional booksellers has a place in the book world.

This letter also allows us to recognize and thank the extended Levine family, owners of the building at 154 West Tenth, for the opportunity they gave Three Lives & Company when we moved into their building in 1983, their cooperation to ensure our long-term success, and their understanding of the importance of locally owned businesses to enrich a neighborhood.

Our dear customers, we want you to know we will do all we can to ensure a long and vibrant future for Three Lives & Company. We know how important this bookshop is to many of you, the history you share with Three Lives. It is your passion and support that keeps us going, that makes every day a joy. We all remark that it is still a thrill to slip the key into the lock every morning and open the door to Three Lives. We want to keep that experience going and we want you to be able to stop by, find some interesting books, chat about a recent favorite read, or to simply share the news of the day. Whether we continue to welcome you to our corner spot on West Tenth and Waverly or from a new location, we look forward to being your bookseller in the years ahead.

For now, it’s business as usual at Three Lives & Company. Books are arriving every day, special orders are still an important part of our business, we’re reviewing and ordering Fall ’16 titles (it’s going to be a good one, new books from Zadie Smith, Jonathan Safran Foer, Michael Chabon, Ann Patchett, Michael Lewis, Colson Whitehead, Anne Carson, Jay McInerney, George Saunders, and all those books we don’t even know about yet!). And, we’re reading and recommending some great new books for the summer.

On behalf of the staff, I would like to express our great appreciation for your patronage and our gratitude to have you as our customers. We will keep you updated with any news.

In the meantime, come on by and let’s talk books.

Sincerely,
Toby Cox

Caffe Vivaldi

Back in 2011, I reported that Caffe Vivaldi in the Village was being forced to close by a tripled rent hike from their landlord, the now infamous Steve Croman.

They survived, and got a new lease, but the struggles continued. Now, even while Croman has been hit with a 20-count indictment for harassing tenants, Vivaldi reports that their harassment continued.



The owner of the 35-year-old jazz cafe has posted a petition online. He tells the whole story there, and explains:

"Today, I, Ishrat Ansari, owner and operator of Caffe Vivaldi since opening our doors in 1983, reach out to you yet again to help us save our 'cultural institution.' We need your help, your support, your voice. We need you to sign our petition, and to comment if you will.

Our objective is simple: the more we can draw in community support, the more we can show to the Supreme Court judge, who will be deciding our case against Mr. Croman this June, that Caffe Vivaldi deserves to remain open."



Vivaldi has live music 7 days a week and no cover charge. They serve ravioli. They have been featured in films by Woody Allen and Al Pacino. Customers past and present include Andy Warhol and Bette Midler. They also have a fireplace.

In his plea and petition, Mr. Ansari adds, "I am not making any claim for special allowances. We all have personal views about gentrification, about the speed of development versus the integrity and nostalgia of old neighborhoods. I totally understand this and am not one to stand in the way of modernization. But I have had over 20,000 creatives, artists, intellectuals, come through my doors at Caffe Vivaldi to blow us all away with their talents, and I want to keep my doors open, paying a reasonable rent, and operating without the harassment and threats of a landlord, whom I leave to the court of public and legislative opinion to judge."


Read his petition, sign and share it, and #SaveNYC

Replacing Milady's

Tonight, the Liquor Committee of local Community Board 2 will hear an application for the space that held Milady's bar for 81 years.

Sean Sweeney, Director of the SoHo Alliance, writes in to say that "two restaurateurs have approached the SoHo Alliance to notify us that they are applying for a liquor license for a 65-seat restaurant and bar" in the space. But the space has sat empty for so long--two years--it is no longer zoned for bar/restaurant use. Also, writes Sean, "the area is already saturated, with more than its share of licensed premises."

He says, "there are about ten licensed premises already within 500 feet of Milady’s. New York State Liquor Authority laws require that an applicant for a liquor license must demonstrate that providing an additional liquor license would 'serve the public interest' in any area that is already saturated with licensed premises. It is highly unlikely the applicant would be able to demonstrate that."



One of the applicants for the space is Karim Raoul, son of Mr. Raoul, owner of the 40-year-old celebrity hangout Raoul's.

The other applicant is Brian McGrory, a partner in the Highlands Restaurant Group, which has run several popular gastropubs in the city, including Highlands, Whitehall, and Mary Queen of Scots, in addition to Surf Lodge, a trendy late-night hot spot in Montauk that racked up several violations--over $100,000 in fines--for "the business’s site plan, illegal clearing of wetlands, overcrowding and other categories," like noise and parking.

Sean Sweeney is concerned that the bar and restaurant Raoul and McGrory will bring to Milady's space will be another loud and crowded trendy spot to drive the neighbors crazy. He adds, "Although Milady’s was a popular neighborhood bar and kitchen, this new place is not going to be the Return of Milady’s. It will be another late-night, trendy restaurant. Is that what we want?"

If you'd like to tell them what you want, go to the hearing tonight at 6:30 at St. Anthony’s, 151-155 Sullivan Street, Lower Hall.

On Queer Space

Over the past several years, as I've chronicled the vanishing city, many of the places we've lost to hyper-gentrification have been queer spaces. Bookstores, bars, cafes, shops. Even entire neighborhoods. Along the way, I've heard again and again that queer spaces don't matter anymore, that they're not necessary in an age of supposed LGBTQ acceptance and assimilation.

But as we saw in the horrifying and heartbreaking news from Florida, queer spaces do matter. They matter in small towns and cities, and they matter in major metropolises.


At the Stonewall vigil. Photo: Charles Eckart, AMNY

Writing on gay bars, Richard Kim put it eloquently yesterday in The Nation online when he said: "Gay bars are therapy for people who can’t afford therapy; temples for people who lost their religion, or whose religion lost them; vacations for people who can’t go on vacation; homes for folk without families; sanctuaries against aggression."

The same can be said for other queer spaces--bookstores like the the Oscar Wilde, restaurants like Fedora, shops like Rainbows & Triangles. They were all sanctuaries.

Queer spaces are also vulnerable. Historically, they've been the targets of violence. In the city today they are most often the targets of economic displacement, another kind of violence. As state-sanctioned rezonings, eminent domain grabs, and luxury developments encroach into every urban space, we're losing our sanctuaries.


photo: Pat Morgan

Gun violence and economic violence share a common thread. In our neoliberal age of unfettered cowboy capitalism, the pro-gun lobby (NRA) holds the power, with its anti-regulation, anti-"big government" stance and its greed for money. In our neoliberal age, the real estate development lobby (REBNY) has the power, with its anti-regulation, anti-"big government" stance and its greed for money.

As George Monbiot pointed out recently in The Guardian, neoliberalism is "the ideology at the root of all our problems."

It fuels the conflicts in the Middle East, the rise of domestic gun violence, and the hyper-gentrification of our cities. It assimilates gays and lesbians away from radical queerness and into homonormativity, breaking bonds with the poor and working class, with immigrants, many people of color, and other queers who cannot or will not assimilate into the mainstream.

In his book Warped: Gay Normality and Queer Anti-Capitalism, Peter Drucker calls for queers to protest the neoliberal order. He writes, "We need to give overturning neoliberalism and its gender and sexual dimensions pride of place in our conception of sexual freedom."

That's a big job, but its time has come.


photo: Pat Morgan

When we look at the faces and biographical sketches of the people murdered in Orlando, we see mostly young people of color, the children and grandchildren of immigrants, working class people who found a sanctuary in Pulse nightclub--until that sanctuary was shattered.

We might honor them by honoring our own local queer spaces. They are a vital part of our emotional ecosystem, a web that unites us not only across the city, but across the country and the globe.

Queer spaces matter.

They are also rebel spaces, where dissident ideas and acts are formed and performed. They make up a vast alternative network--as we saw in last night's coast-to-coast vigils for the people of Pulse--and networks are powerful. Acting together within that network, we can create great change.

Rebel Rebel Records

VANISHING

After 28 years in business, Rebel Rebel Records at 319 Bleecker Street is being forced to close by rising rent. It will shutter at the end of June.



Reader John Vairo, Jr., writes in:

Owner David Shebiro "told us that the owner of the building has raised the rent (what else is new) and they plan to put another basic 'high-end' clothing store in its place--because that's what the Village needs."

John adds, "To say that Rebel Rebel is an institution would be an understatement and to see a unique and sustainable business for nearly 28 years bite the dust like so many others that give this city soul is a fucking tragedy."


photo by Evan Kafka

The news about Rebel Rebel has been percolating these past weeks. Other readers have written in to tell me that "the clothing store next door" is going to be expanding into the record shop's space. If that's the case, that store is either Scotch & Soda to the east or St. James to the west.

UPDATE: Mr. Shebiro confirmed: "it's my very next door neighbors who are planning to break through the wall, and their name is Scotch & Soda."

I remember when St. James moved in. With its Hamptons chic, the "nautical brand" made me nervous for Rebel Rebel. This kind of gentrification is contagious. Scotch & Soda came next, replacing the local favorite Cafe Angelique when the landlord hiked the rent from $16,000 to $42,000 a month. Sandwiched between those two, it was clear that Rebel Rebel was next.



In 2014, the beloved record shop made the Vanishing New York "What to Worry About" list--a long list that is growing shorter by the day.

Only weeks ago, AMNY listed Rebel Rebel as one of Bleecker's few remaining icons, a rapidly vanishing breed on a street that is turning into a center for high-end luxury shopping mall brands and candy treats--and not much else.

What record stores remain in the Village? Bleecker Bob's shut down. Bleecker Street Records was pushed off Bleecker when the landlord raised the rent to $27,000 per month, but it's hanging in there on West 4th. There's House of Oldies over on Carmine, miraculously surviving.



Now the door is closing on another one--not because "it's natural," not because "that's the trend," or people are shopping online, or any of those other reasons too often given for the apocalyptic die-off of New York culture. It's because of the rent. Period.

And rebels are no longer welcome in this city.

Once again: #SaveNYC. You can help stop the bleeding.

Mitchell's Neon

A reader writes in to let us know that Mitchell's Wines & Liquors on West 86th has lost its antique neon sign--or is in the process of losing it.



"Losing" is not the right word. The owners have decided to remove it and replace it with something new. Perhaps a lovely sheet of plastic?



It's a gorgeous neon sign, dating back to the 1940s.

Sounds like they almost "lost" it a few years ago, too. But it remained.



Our tipster, Mr. E., says, "If only owners could see the value in the history of these signs as icons and how the distinctive designs set them apart from the competition, perhaps we could begin the trend towards preserving them."

He and some friends are "working on salvaging what we can, but its home on that store seems finito."

UPDATE: Reader Janice sends in a photo of the damage, as of today:

Manatus Plywooded

The beloved Manatus restaurant on Bleecker closed two years ago. At the time, I heard a rumor that a Calvin Klein store would be taking its place.

Instead, the spot sat empty, creating two years of high-rent blight.

Now the place is covered in green plywood. Something's coming.



Permits say only, "REPLACE EXISTING STOREFRONT."

Any guesses?