The Adore

VANISHED

The cafe The Adore at 17 East 13th Street closed in early December. The gate is down, a FOR LEASE sign is up, and there's a note covered with tearful customer goodbyes.



I never went there, but was fascinated by the old signage out front that says ERSKINE PRESS. Walter Grutchfield reports that Erskine opened here in 1911.



Sometime after Erskine, The Villager (?) moved in. When it moved out, Anais Nin and Gonzalo More brought in Gemor Press in 1944.

Nin writes about it in her diary:



Nin worked at the press eight hours a day and complained about it throughout her Diary. During this time she saw a lot of Russian movies, underwent psychoanalysis, and hoped for news of Hitler's death. She printed Under a Glass Bell and published a book of poems by the Syrian poet Berthie Zilka with a red suede cover. She struggled to "keep the press afloat."

In the fall of 1944 the press was harassed by a man "carrying some kind of a badge" and claiming to be a "night watchman." He told Nin that every shop in the neighborhood paid him for his protection and if Nin didn't pay they'd be burglarized. Nin refused and the next day the shop's plate-glass window was shattered. They fixed the window and it was shattered again. Getting drunk with the night watchman, however, got him to back off and he provided his protection for free.

But life at the press was taxing for Nin. In October she wrote, "I am smothering under the weight of the press." Gonzalo wasn't doing his job, claiming, "I'm an old anarchist. I cannot be disciplined," so Nin had to take time away from her writing to manage the business, which she resented.



I'm not sure when the press closed. Perhaps in the late 1940s. And what moved in to 17 E. 13th after that, who knows?

As for what's to come, I'll let a Yelper say it: "There's a liquor permit plastered to gate. This cozy place was my ace to escape the chaos of Union Square. Sad how something so adorable will be replaced with something expensive and lame."

The Commuters of 1982

Three ghosts of old New Yorkers haunt the Port Authority bus terminal. You can find these walking anachronisms lurking in the back by the Red & Tan ticket windows and the desultory Book Corner where Kindle-less travelers pick up the latest Danielle Steels and John Grishams.


The Commuters, by George Segal

These ghosts, with their shabby slacks and jackets, with their heavy bags and heavy bodies, look nothing like today's New Yorkers. They hail from an earlier time, a time without cell phones or iPods. A time when people walked and watched where they were going simultaneously.



Their shoes are miserable. Their shoulder bags are miserable. All in all, they look rather depressed.



Unable to write texts or talk on the phone to their friends, they bear the heavy burden of actual thought. It is 1982 in this frozen scene. There is much to think about.

Ronald Reagan's recession is in full bloom. A frightening disease called AIDS has just been named. And the New York Times reports that "by the end of this century electronic information technology will have transformed American home, business, manufacturing, school, family and political life... a vision, at once appealing and threatening, of a style of life defined and controlled by videotex terminals throughout the house."



Pondering a life completely controlled by videotex terminals, the ghosts wonder "What will become of us?" as they step heavily through the bus station portal into a future nothingness.

Atlas Meats Demo

A couple of weeks ago I announced that the demolition of Atlas Meats had begun. It's moving along at a lightning-fast clip. Most of the historic building is already in rubble.


June 2011


today

Above the wasted landscape of fallen bricks and dust, the painted red and pink lipsticked mouths of Diane Von Furstenberg's flagship hover, like alien spacecraft after an attack, surveying the destruction.



On the ground, the demolition claw grabs a hunk of twisted metal, shakes it in its massive fist, and lets it drop, a dog worrying its prey to break the neck.



A whole world is vanishing before our eyes.

*Everyday Chatter

A melancholy round-up of the beautiful neon signs New York lost in 2011. [NYN]

Urban Baby today will make you nuts with its discussion of rich New Yorkers who feel poor: "Under 1Bil in savings in NYC, and you cannot buy anything." [Gothamist]

Books--are they "increasingly illegal intoxicants"? An interview with St. Mark's bookseller Karen Lillis. [SS]

Massachusetts fish coming to 1st Ave and St. Mark's--to the former home of Prana Foods where Allen Ginsberg used to buy his organic, bruised vegetables. [EVG]

An Art Deco masterpiece in the Bronx. [SNY]

3,000 polar bears take the Coney plunge. [ATZ]

e.e. cummings in the Village. [OTG]

At the High Line, a Scores billboard girl gets a cosmetic cover-up for her stubble:

Overheard at Arturo's

People apparently now expect every bar to have a charger for their phone. I didn't know this until I read it in the New York Times. Phone "charging stations," says the Times, are "popular among bartenders who are increasingly inundated with requests from customers to charge their phones behind the bar."

But I did hear one of these requests recently at Arturo's, the wonderful 55-year-old Italian place that isn't being wiped off the face of Manhattan because the family owns the building.



Guy at the bar: Do you have a charger here for a Blackberry?

Bartender: A what?

Guy: I need my Blackberry charged.

Bartender: Uh, sure.

The bartender goes to get permission to let the guy plug in his Blackberry. There's a bit of confusion, but permission is given.



Bartender: Okay, I can plug in your charger.

Guy: I don't have the charger. I need a charger. You don't have one?

Bartender: No.

Guy: [to girl next to him who is texting on her iPhone] Can you believe it?

Girl: Every bar should have a charger for a Blackberry and an iPhone.

Guy: Right. Bars have whole set-ups now to charge Blackberries and iPhones. Most bars have that. But not this bar.



Not this bar. And thank God for small favors.

Doughnut Balustrade

It's a sad thing to walk by the Chelsea Hotel these days. The big neon sign is dark, the lobby is desolate, and there's a miserable paper sign taped to the door to let everyone know the place is "closed to the public."



The Doughnut Plant downstairs isn't closed, though. It's hopping with members of the public. They make artisanal treats and do not spell their name D-O-N-U-T like the old-schoolers do. They moved into the large space formerly occupied by Chelsea Guitars.



I took a peek inside and was surprised to find the counter wrapped in the flowered, wrought-iron balustrade that frames the balconies of the hotel--the one that poet James Schuyler rhapsodized about. I kept trying to figure out if this is a copy or a piece of the original. I asked the barista and received a blank look.



Gothamist reported awhile back that the Doughnut Plant owner "temporarily removed a section of railing" from the hotel "in order to have it cast and replicated." He also plucked the flowers to make light fixtures.

Meanwhile, upstairs, the historic rooms are gutted as Chelsea tenants are evicted, and most of us have no hope of ever leaning on one of those balustrades--unless we're buying artisanal doughnuts.

Auggie's Coffee

VANISHED

As an Anonymous commenter let us know yesterday, the Thompson Street location of the Porto Rico Roasting Company, more intimately known as Auggie's, has shuttered. Says Anonymous, "I had my last cup of auggie's yesterday afternoon, and this morning the windows are papered over. sad."


Porto Rico Times

Peter Longo at the Porto Rico Times confirms that Auggie's has closed after more than 45 years. Why? "The rent is too damn high." (That seems to be the case up and down Thompson these days.)

I just walked by there recently and took this shot of the great old signage, complete with a New York City phone exchange: WO-6.

These, too, are vanishing fast.


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