Solidarity for The Voice

The Village Voice, historically the alternative voice of New York City, is struggling to save its soul.



Two years ago the paper was purchased by Peter Barbey, a member of one of America's 50 richest families, according to Forbes. It looked good at first. The staff was hopeful. "The atmosphere at the Voice, though, quickly soured," Hamilton Nolan explains in his thorough piece on the story, "The Village Voice's Liberal Savior Owner Is Trying to Crush its Union."

An editor was hired and fired. The paper got a cosmetic overhaul. And Barbey "is no longer perceived as the hero who will save the day." Union negotiations have been especially tough. In his article, Nolan lays out the details of what could be lost, including Affirmative Action, child care leave, sick days, severance, and much more.

In response, earlier this week, a host of respected authors and journalists signed an Open Letter to Peter Barbey.

"We stand in solidarity with our colleagues in the Village Voice Union," they say. "We hope you will meet its members with a fair and reasonable contract, upholding their hard-won rights and benefits. If you do, our entire field will be much richer for it."

The letter is signed by Hilton Als, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Vivian Gornick, Colson Whitehead, Manohla Dargis, Michael Musto, and many more.

If you would like to support the Voice's union, consider a donation to their Strike Fund: "In the event of a strike, Voice employees who are members of the union will not be paid. Your donation will be used to help us survive, and will help show management that the community supports our struggle."

Francisco's Centro Vasco

VANISHED

On 23rd Street in Chelsea since 1979, Francisco's Centro Vasco has now closed.



Bedford & Bowery reports: "Yesterday, a sign on the door announced that it had 'closed permanently' and thanked customers for 'over 35 years' of patronage."

Last September, they suffered after the terrorist bomb explosion, but they managed to reopen. The reason for the permanent closure is not known. Francisco's was one of the last of a dwindling number of Spanish restaurants in the city, along with El Quijote in the nearby Chelsea Hotel and Spain, on 13th Street.

UPDATE: The owner had a change of heart--they're not closing. 

RE-UPDATE: They closed again.

Park Deli

VANISHING

"I stay here," says Krystyna Godawa. "I'm not moving."

For the past ten years, Krystyna has run the Park Delicatessen at the edge of McGolrick Park on Nassau Street in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. The deli has been here since the 1930s. But the landlord recently doubled the rent and Krystyna can't afford it. She's looking for another spot nearby and plans to stay put until she finds it.



Customers come in and out of the shop, ordering meals to go from the refrigerated case of home-cooked pierogi, potato salad, chicken cutlets, cole slaw, and beets. They stop to ask Krystyna, in Polish and in English, "Any news? When's the last day?" They promise, "I'll keep my fingers crossed."

And then they touch Krystyna--they all touch the woman they call Babcia Krysia, "Grandma Krystyna"--on the shoulder, the arm, the back of the neck. Their touches are tender and familial. They are family.



Krystyna holds their histories--the births of their children, the deaths of their parents--as she holds the history of the deli, still making German dishes that hearken back to the days when the place was Mullenbrock's delicatessen. Back in Poland, Krystyna worked as a librarian, another kind of preservationist, another holder of memory.

"I'm only ten years here and this is sentiment to me," Krystyna says, looking around the shop. "If you like your job, you put the heart." Losing the deli is like a death. "It is like you take out your heart from your body."

She feels powerless to stop the loss, "like kids who cannot do nothing, like tied my hands."



Her lease expired in April and she'd been on a month-to-month since. But once her landlord found a new tenant (rumored to be an ice-cream shop), she gave Krystyna until August 1 to vacate. It's too soon. Krystyna has no place to go--and she's having trouble finding an affordable rent in a neighborhood that is gentrifying.

"I will try to do everything to stay with my people," she says, referring to her customers, the people who give her "heart and happiness." Her blue-green eyes fill with tears. As she feels the grief of her own loss, she also feels her customers' grief.

"If I have to close, okay. But I see how much people want this place, how much people like me, and it's very tough to me. That is the worst. How can I live if I don't have my customers?"



Heart and sentiment are important to Krystyna. It's the stuff that keeps people connected, that keeps neighborhood communities together. But she sees these positive forces diminishing in the world. The new generation, she says, is cold. The newcomers to her apartment building don't say hello, don't hold the door. They all seem disconnected and disinterested.

"Life is too tough," she says. "If we're not nice to each other, what kind of life is it? The sentiment is second now."

What's first?

"Money. Everything is about the money."


photo by Yulia Zinshtein

If you visit the Park Deli before it's gone, you'll find a neon sign in the window that reads: VANISHING. A few of the letters flicker.

It is the work of artists Troy Kreiner and Brian Broker of Shameless Enterprise, in collaboration with "Vanishing New York" and built by neon artist Patrick Nash. This is the second installation, after Cake Shop earlier this year.

People walking by see the sign and come in to talk to Krystyna. "It's a shame," they say. "Soon all the small businesses will be nothing."


photo by Yulia Zinshtein

French Roast Downtown

VANISHING

Today is the last day for French Roast in Greenwich Village. Located on 11th Street and 6th Avenue since I don't know when, the bistro will close its doors tonight. (H/T New York Foodscape.)



Employees were unable to say why the place is closing, but we can guess. The uptown location will remain open.

*Update: Many people in the comments are remembering a Blimpie here--yes, there was. Here's that story.

Pub Day

Today is the official publication day for Vanishing New York: How a Great City Lost Its Soul. You can now buy it wherever books are sold. (Like your local independent bookstore.)


At Spoonbill & Sugartown

You can also get a copy at the launch party this Thursday night at Housing Works Bookstore Cafe, or next Thursday night at the Brooklyn launch party at powerHouse Arena. For a full list of book events, click here.

In the meantime, check out two exclusive excerpts: the East Village chapter at Longreads and the tourism chapter at Vice.


At the Strand

Reviews:
“Essential reading for fans of Jane Jacobs, Joseph Mitchell, Patti Smith, Luc Sante, and cheap pierogi.” –David Kamp, Vanity Fair

“This is a very good, angrily passionate, and ultimately saddening book…. a brilliantly written and well-informed account.” –Booklist, starred review

“Vanishing New York is an urban-activist polemic in the tradition of Jane Jacobs’s Death and Life of Great American Cities: Every page is charged with Moss’s deep love of New York. It is both a vital and unequivocally depressing read.” –Molly Fitzpatrick, Village Voice

“a compelling and often necessary read…. One of the great accomplishments of this nearly 500-page polemic, is that even as I read through in a state of outrage and sadness, I was also reassured: I am not crazy. The city really has vanished…” –Glynnis MacNicol, Daily Beast

“a vigorous, righteously indignant book that would do Jane Jacobs proud.” –Kirkus

“This polemic is likely to stir a lot of emotions.”—Publishers Weekly

“A relevant lamentation of New York’s rebellious, nonconformist past and its path toward an inexpressive mélange of glass and steel big box stores and chain restaurants.”
–New York Journal of Books

More Hotels, Fewer Flowers

In the Flower District, along West 28th Street between 6th and 7th, the fragrant green jungle of the sidewalks continues to vanish.

Another hotel is coming.



It's a big one: 45 stories, 146,000 square feet, 522 rooms. Said architect Gene Kaufman, “The demand for hotel rooms in Chelsea continues to grow, with ever larger and ever-taller hotels being constructed to accommodate the number of tourists wishing to stay in this vibrant neighborhood."

This glass behemoth joins several more new tourist hotels here. In fact, the block is becoming nothing but hotels. I can't think of a worse death for what was a wonderful and unique little district.

Ten years ago, I talked to some of the plant sellers. One told me, “10 to 15 years ago, it was all flowers. Now it’s dead. They’re putting up 22 new hotels in a 5-block radius. Only those of us with a good lease will stay.” Another echoed the sentiment, “Some will leave, some will stay. All the city wants is big business. There are 3 hotels going up on this block.”



There are only a few green sections left. I walk through as often as I can, taking my time to smell the flowers. Literally. Right now, the place smells of gardenia.



And there are the Flower District cats, at least six that I've counted, lounging among the succulents and orchids.



This is life. This is real. This is New York. And it's being destroyed, like everywhere else, replaced by the dull and the dead. But it doesn't have to be this way. There are alternatives.

Goodbye Notes to Cup & Saucer

The Cup & Saucer luncheonette on Canal and Eldridge closed this past week due to the landlord nearly doubling the rent. After the shutters came down one last time, neighbors and friends hung posterboard and pens to gather goodbye and thank you notes.


click to enlarge and read



Among the heartfelt goodbyes and good-lucks, they ask to "Save Chinatown" and "Support the SBJSA," the Small Business Jobs Survival Act, the bill that could have stopped the closure of the Cup & Saucer, as well as many, many others.

It wasn't lack of love that killed the Cup & Saucer.



As I went to leave, a man in construction vest and hardhat walked up and stared at the notes. It's a familiar scene, the devoted regular who hasn't heard that his or her favorite place has shuttered, the New Yorker who shows up to find it gone. They always have the same look of confusion and loss.

"Did you eat breakfast here?" I asked the man.

"I used to eat breakfast here," he replied. "Guess I don't anymore."

We shook our heads. He turned to go and then turned back. He had something else to say.

"This is probably going to be some CVS or Duane Reade or some other useless fucking thing," he said, frustration in his voice. "I live in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, and all the little shops are gone. There's nothing left. The rents are totally out of control."

I told him what the rent went up to on the Cup & Saucer: "Almost sixteen grand."

He shook his head and waved his hand, brushing it all away. And then he went, looking for another place like this, a place he won't be able to find.