Egg Cream Day at Gem Spa

Sunday is National Egg Cream Day. Up for venturing out? Visit Gem Spa--get an egg cream and (while supplies last) an egg cream mask, which won't protect you from the coronavirus, but will enable you to drink a delicious egg cream.



Want to support this legendary East Village institution remotely? Donate to their Go Fund Me, just launched today, and help them stay in business.

Gem Spa writes: "We will be giving Gem Spa merchandise to donors in return for their generosity. We understand that with the coronavirus scare many people are choosing to stay at home but would still like to support. As such, feel free to go on our website if you choose to buy merchandise... Thank you so much for all your love and support."

The fight to save this Gem continues!

Fine & Schapiro

VANISHING

After news about the Upper West Side's Fine & Schapiro closing for renovations, word has come out that it will not be reopening.


photo: Manhattan Sideways

On Facebook, Manhattans Sideways reports, "Fine & Schapiro, an institution on West 72nd Street since 1927 has closed. They have very sadly lost their lease as confirmed by the staff members who have worked here for decades." Another tipster writes, "The landlord jacked the rent."

*Update: West Side Rag reports, “They had two years left on their lease. Business was slow. Because of their age and bad health, they decided to close. That’s the story,” said Joe Kizner, manager of the building. The paper was unable to get in touch with the owners of the business.

Bowery Kitchen Supplies

VANISHING

Bowery Kitchen Supplies has been doing business in Chelsea Market since 1996. Now they're closing.



"We have no choice but to close our doors," they write in their posted notice, listing the reasons: "The soaring rents and extra charges by corporate landlords, the rapid and dramatic changes in the retail landscape especially for 'brick and mortar' businesses and finally an aggressive NY state and city tax bureau."

Last week, they wrote on their Facebook page, "As a small business in NYC we struggle thru many crises, we ourselves thru 9/11, hurricanes, outages and on. Never any help from the government, just higher taxes. And now high rents and next day delivery are taking their toll on the few that survived."



Bowery Kitchen Supplies originally opened on the Bowery in 1975, founded by the Nourieli family.

Google purchased their home, Chelsea Market, for $2.4 billion in 2018, in what's been called "the second-largest full single-asset sale ever" in the city.

Papaya to High-Rent Blight

The beloved and successful Gray's Papaya was kicked off 8th St. and 6th Ave. in 2014 by a massive rent hike. As Mr. Gray told the Village Voice, "They wanted to raise my rent to $50,000 from $30,000."


2008

It became a Liquiteria juice and smoothie shop. For about 5 seconds.

Now it's nothing but more high-rent blight.


today

It's located across the street from what might just be the longest-running high-rent blight in town, the former Barnes & Noble that's been sitting empty since 2013.

At that site, written on the window over the ever-present "flagship opportunity" advertisement, someone has scrawled, "There's Never a Bad Time to Abolish Capitalism."

Indeed. (While we're at it, let's bring back the always popular dogs and papaya.)

Yonah Shimmel's 110th

On Sunday March 15, the great Yonah Shimmel knishery will celebrate 110 years in business on the Lower East Side. The first 110 knishes will sell for $1.10 each.

Go get 'em! And grab a delicious egg cream while you're at it.

Chase Sign

Back when Union Square's Coffee Shop shuttered for Chase Bank, thanks to a massive rent hike, we heard that the bank might be keeping the antique neon sign and re-doing the letters so it spelled out CHASE instead of COFFEE SHOP.

Last month, the antique sign was removed. We wondered if it would come back--refurbished or repurposed. It has not.

Yesterday, New York filmmaker Amy Nicholson tweeted a photo of the replacement:



Thankfully, it's not a Frankensteined mashup of COFFEE SHOP and CHASE. That would be unbearable. It's also not neon and it's not faux antique.

It is instead a sanitized, zombified, half-hearted riff on the old Coffee Shop sign.



It's vertical and two-sided, like the old sign, and the word JOE (the name of the coffee chain inside the bank) is at the bottom, enclosed in a rectangular ring of yellow lights, also (sort of) like the old sign.

I'm sure the PR people at Chase will call this an "homage." They might even call it a "loving homage," as if banks are capable of such emotions. But we know better, don't we?





And what is the fate of the original sign? It went back a long way -- and it should have been left right where it was, untouched and intact.


detail of photo by Karen Gehres, via Flaming Pablum

Neir's Tavern: Saved!

Good news! After an outcry from the public and small business activists, Neir's Tavern has received a new lease. One source in city government informed me that the owner of Neir's will receive 5 more years on the lease and right of first refusal to purchase the building should it go up for sale.

The #SaveNYC rally to save Neir's will now be a celebration--and a rally to fight for commercial rent regulations in New York City. Because there are many more small businesses being crushed by landlord greed.

Come out to Neir's tomorrow, Saturday, at 2:00pm--bring signs, make noise, fight to save NYC!

View the Facebook invitation here