Reader Simone sent in this photo of Downtown Stationers -- everything must go, they're out of business.
That leaves the great Stevdan Stationers, one block south. For now.
Monday, December 19, 2016
Downtown Stationers
For many years (don't ask me how many) 6th Avenue between 11th and 13th Streets has supported two stationery stores. As a lover of stationery stores in a digitizing and gentrifying world, I consider this a small miracle. And now--miracle over.
Reader Simone sent in this photo of Downtown Stationers -- everything must go, they're out of business.
That leaves the great Stevdan Stationers, one block south. For now.
Reader Simone sent in this photo of Downtown Stationers -- everything must go, they're out of business.
That leaves the great Stevdan Stationers, one block south. For now.
Wednesday, December 14, 2016
McManus Update
After I shared the news that Peter McManus Cafe might soon be closing, fourth-generation owner Justin McManus reports that negotiations with the new owners are progressing.
"We are close to a year extension," he told me, adding that the lease will hopefully be signed after the holidays.
One year, of course, is only a short-term solution. The Renatus Group, the building's new owners and a real estate development company, have had plans to redevelop and possibly demolish the building.
Neighbors have told me that only two holdout rent-regulated tenants remain upstairs. As we've seen before, it's often the holdouts who keep old buildings standing--and their ground-floor commercial tenants in place.
We'll watch this one carefully over the next year. The city can't afford to lose Peter McManus.
"We are close to a year extension," he told me, adding that the lease will hopefully be signed after the holidays.
One year, of course, is only a short-term solution. The Renatus Group, the building's new owners and a real estate development company, have had plans to redevelop and possibly demolish the building.
Neighbors have told me that only two holdout rent-regulated tenants remain upstairs. As we've seen before, it's often the holdouts who keep old buildings standing--and their ground-floor commercial tenants in place.
We'll watch this one carefully over the next year. The city can't afford to lose Peter McManus.
Tuesday, December 13, 2016
La Lunchonette for Rent
Two years ago I shared the sad news that La Lunchonette would be vanishing. Its owner, Melva Max, rightly blamed the nearby High Line and its rampant luxury development.
“The neighborhood is so gross now,” she said. “It’s all tourists coming for the High Line. People always say, ‘But wasn’t it great for you?’ The High Line has been the cause of my demise.”
The beloved 28-year-old restaurant closed last New Year's Eve. Said Max, "A ten-story building will be erected, another 'starchitect' flexing their creative muscle along the old rail line."
That was the plan. A handful of buildings would be demolished, including a former horse stable built in the 1880s, for a tax-supported luxury condo from SHoP, architects of the Barclays Center.
But now the Real Deal reports that the Lunchonette building just sold for $10.6 million, and is "adjacent to a planned residential building along West 18th Street that SHoP TRData LogoTINY is designing."
So it's not being demolished? In fact, the restaurant's space is being offered for rent. Was it really necessary for La Lunchonette to lose its space? And what will happen to the little horse stable?
photo: Richie Goldstein, via Twitter
Bonus shot! Right outside La Lunchonette, middle-aged guy in CBGB's t-shirt gives the double finger to the Google Maps camera, summing up a collective sentiment:
photo via Google Maps
“The neighborhood is so gross now,” she said. “It’s all tourists coming for the High Line. People always say, ‘But wasn’t it great for you?’ The High Line has been the cause of my demise.”
The beloved 28-year-old restaurant closed last New Year's Eve. Said Max, "A ten-story building will be erected, another 'starchitect' flexing their creative muscle along the old rail line."
That was the plan. A handful of buildings would be demolished, including a former horse stable built in the 1880s, for a tax-supported luxury condo from SHoP, architects of the Barclays Center.
But now the Real Deal reports that the Lunchonette building just sold for $10.6 million, and is "adjacent to a planned residential building along West 18th Street that SHoP TRData LogoTINY is designing."
So it's not being demolished? In fact, the restaurant's space is being offered for rent. Was it really necessary for La Lunchonette to lose its space? And what will happen to the little horse stable?
photo: Richie Goldstein, via Twitter
Bonus shot! Right outside La Lunchonette, middle-aged guy in CBGB's t-shirt gives the double finger to the Google Maps camera, summing up a collective sentiment:
photo via Google Maps
Monday, December 12, 2016
Peter McManus
VANISHING?
*Update: A Facebook group has formed to help Save McManus.*
The great and beloved Peter McManus pub has been at 7th Avenue and 19th Street in Chelsea since 1932. Now we hear it may not have much longer.
Reader Marjorie wrote in to say she'd heard the historic spot is closing soon. "The air rights above the deli and bar apparently have been bought," she wrote, "and the two remaining residents of that circa 1903 building above the bar will have to move. So once again, the historic makes way for new construction."
In April, The Real Deal reported that the real estate investment company Renatus Group bought the building and its neighbor, 152-154 7th Avenue, for $10.5 million. "According to Renatus’ website," says Real Deal, "it will redevelop the buildings to significantly improve cash flow."
I went by to confirm. A bartender told me it's all uncertain.
As Marjorie said, the deli next to the bar on 7th has been shuttered. So has the lingerie shop on the street side. Looking at the windows of the upstairs apartments, it appears that most have been emptied. What happened to the residents?
What will happen to Peter McManus?
There is much to love about this place. It's one of the last authentic New York spots left in Chelsea to get a meal or a drink in a warm and friendly atmosphere. It is still family owned. It makes one of New York's best burgers. The jukebox is good, filled with classics. The owners even host a day of stickball for the neighborhood every summer, with free beer and food and donations to pediatric cancer research.
Plus: They recently featured a Trump sandwich made of "white bread, full of boloney, with Russian dressing and small pickle."
If that's not enough, if you need more reason to love Peter McManus, the place itself is gorgeous, full of antique stained glass and ephemera.
As I described it in 2008, it has all the things that are good about a bar: wood worn smooth by countless elbows, a warm amber glow, crazy but friendly barflies who look as if they've been pickled in the place, which they have.
As a rare bonus, it also has a lovely pair of wooden phone booths that light up when you open their doors, welcoming you into them.
And people really use them, too.
Peter McManus made my (rapidly dwindling) list of "What to Worry About" back in 2014. Still, it seems we shouldn't have to worry about this one. It should be too beloved, too beautiful, too historic, too valuable to actually vanish. And yet we know how easy it is for greedy, short-sighted developers to come busting in and savagely gut our history--along with our hearts.
This one's worth fighting for.
Save Peter McManus. #SaveNYC.
*Update: A Facebook group has formed to help Save McManus.*
The great and beloved Peter McManus pub has been at 7th Avenue and 19th Street in Chelsea since 1932. Now we hear it may not have much longer.
Reader Marjorie wrote in to say she'd heard the historic spot is closing soon. "The air rights above the deli and bar apparently have been bought," she wrote, "and the two remaining residents of that circa 1903 building above the bar will have to move. So once again, the historic makes way for new construction."
In April, The Real Deal reported that the real estate investment company Renatus Group bought the building and its neighbor, 152-154 7th Avenue, for $10.5 million. "According to Renatus’ website," says Real Deal, "it will redevelop the buildings to significantly improve cash flow."
I went by to confirm. A bartender told me it's all uncertain.
As Marjorie said, the deli next to the bar on 7th has been shuttered. So has the lingerie shop on the street side. Looking at the windows of the upstairs apartments, it appears that most have been emptied. What happened to the residents?
What will happen to Peter McManus?
There is much to love about this place. It's one of the last authentic New York spots left in Chelsea to get a meal or a drink in a warm and friendly atmosphere. It is still family owned. It makes one of New York's best burgers. The jukebox is good, filled with classics. The owners even host a day of stickball for the neighborhood every summer, with free beer and food and donations to pediatric cancer research.
Plus: They recently featured a Trump sandwich made of "white bread, full of boloney, with Russian dressing and small pickle."
If that's not enough, if you need more reason to love Peter McManus, the place itself is gorgeous, full of antique stained glass and ephemera.
As I described it in 2008, it has all the things that are good about a bar: wood worn smooth by countless elbows, a warm amber glow, crazy but friendly barflies who look as if they've been pickled in the place, which they have.
As a rare bonus, it also has a lovely pair of wooden phone booths that light up when you open their doors, welcoming you into them.
And people really use them, too.
Peter McManus made my (rapidly dwindling) list of "What to Worry About" back in 2014. Still, it seems we shouldn't have to worry about this one. It should be too beloved, too beautiful, too historic, too valuable to actually vanish. And yet we know how easy it is for greedy, short-sighted developers to come busting in and savagely gut our history--along with our hearts.
This one's worth fighting for.
Save Peter McManus. #SaveNYC.
Tuesday, December 6, 2016
BookCourt
VANISHING
Publishers Weekly reports today that Brooklyn's beloved and excellent bookstore BookCourt will be closing at the end of this month.
They've been open since 1981. In a public statement, the owners announced their retirement--and sent their regrets.
Author Emma Straub is working on a solution. She writes on her site:
"A neighborhood without an independent bookstore is a body without a heart. And so we’re building a new heart.
We’ve spent the last few months looking at spaces, getting our math together, and thinking about light fixtures. We have secured initial funding and crossed our fingers. And so, dear Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens, Boerum Hill, Brooklyn Heights, Columbia Waterfront, and beyond…you won’t be lonely for long. Books are magic, and we want to make sure that this neighborhood is positively coated in bookish fairydust for decades to come."
Fingers crossed. In the meantime, New York--you make me heartsick more and more every single day.
Publishers Weekly reports today that Brooklyn's beloved and excellent bookstore BookCourt will be closing at the end of this month.
They've been open since 1981. In a public statement, the owners announced their retirement--and sent their regrets.
Author Emma Straub is working on a solution. She writes on her site:
"A neighborhood without an independent bookstore is a body without a heart. And so we’re building a new heart.
We’ve spent the last few months looking at spaces, getting our math together, and thinking about light fixtures. We have secured initial funding and crossed our fingers. And so, dear Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens, Boerum Hill, Brooklyn Heights, Columbia Waterfront, and beyond…you won’t be lonely for long. Books are magic, and we want to make sure that this neighborhood is positively coated in bookish fairydust for decades to come."
Fingers crossed. In the meantime, New York--you make me heartsick more and more every single day.
Depression Sign
"Depression is a flaw in chemistry, not character," the gold and brown painted sign read. And then it was gone.
On a wall high above the Gray's Papaya at West 72nd and Amsterdam, the sign had greeted commuters, hot dog eaters, shoppers, homeless people, and other assorted New Yorkers since sometime in the 1990s. A few months ago, it was painted over, whitewashed and vanished.
"Through the years it’s clear the sign had become a comfort to people," West Side Rag noted in their report on the whitewashing.
No one knows why the building management decided to wipe it out. And at such a bad time, when so many New Yorkers are feeling the deep blues and could use a little comfort.
On a wall high above the Gray's Papaya at West 72nd and Amsterdam, the sign had greeted commuters, hot dog eaters, shoppers, homeless people, and other assorted New Yorkers since sometime in the 1990s. A few months ago, it was painted over, whitewashed and vanished.
"Through the years it’s clear the sign had become a comfort to people," West Side Rag noted in their report on the whitewashing.
No one knows why the building management decided to wipe it out. And at such a bad time, when so many New Yorkers are feeling the deep blues and could use a little comfort.
Monday, December 5, 2016
Finnegans Wake
VANISHING
Reader Steve wrote in awhile back to tell us of the demise of Finnegans Wake: "The corner has been sold for condos and it will be closed next July. It’s a tragedy."
So I went by for a drink. Or two.
In business since 1972 and located on First Avenue at 73rd Street, the place is just as Steve described, "a real neighborhood Irish pub filled with great locals that skew a bit older." Indeed, New York magazine says, "Those without an AARP card or a solid knowledge of the surrounding neighborhood may feel a bit out of place, but Finnegan's certainly offers a quaint alternative to the usually far-younger postgrad mob."
Perfection.
The bartender, a very friendly guy, informed me that a 33-story tower is coming. (The news originally came out in July. The Post lays the blame on the "Second Avenue Subway real estate boom"-- so say a prayer for Heidelberg and the rest of Yorkville's German soul.)
The bartender also noted that one business on the block is giving the developers a fight. Stay tuned.
(And here's an explanation of why James Joyce put no apostrophe in Finnegans Wake.)
Reader Steve wrote in awhile back to tell us of the demise of Finnegans Wake: "The corner has been sold for condos and it will be closed next July. It’s a tragedy."
So I went by for a drink. Or two.
In business since 1972 and located on First Avenue at 73rd Street, the place is just as Steve described, "a real neighborhood Irish pub filled with great locals that skew a bit older." Indeed, New York magazine says, "Those without an AARP card or a solid knowledge of the surrounding neighborhood may feel a bit out of place, but Finnegan's certainly offers a quaint alternative to the usually far-younger postgrad mob."
Perfection.
The bartender, a very friendly guy, informed me that a 33-story tower is coming. (The news originally came out in July. The Post lays the blame on the "Second Avenue Subway real estate boom"-- so say a prayer for Heidelberg and the rest of Yorkville's German soul.)
The bartender also noted that one business on the block is giving the developers a fight. Stay tuned.
(And here's an explanation of why James Joyce put no apostrophe in Finnegans Wake.)
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