Co-owner Adam Ruhf said that he "knows first hand the healing properties of purified water, claiming that drinking it regularly helped eased the pain caused brought on by two serious car accidents that left him without a spleen and a leg held together with metal pins."
Aside from selling single servings of the water in the shop (16 ounces for $2), the store will also have a delivery service for East Village residents seeking 3 or 5 gallons of purified water for the home.
Read the whole article here.
Meanwhile, this morning. The Wall Street Journal features the store as well, pointing out that water quality has long been a source of pride for New York City. However, Ruhf, described as "a former world champion boomerang player, musician and self-described social-justice activist" who moved here from California a year ago, countered that the water in NYC is "terrible."
"I don't want chemicals in my water. I don't even want chlorine in my water. Chlorine is like bleach. Do you want to drink bleach?"
Anyway, per the article:
To counteract critics, Molecule is planning a weekly naming ceremony to imbue its water with personality and Sunday blessings involving religious figures from all faiths, including Tibetan monks and pagan worshipers.
Finally, the Molecule media tour continues this morning with a scathing review by Steve Cuozzo in a Post piece titled "Molecule bottled water is ‘pure’ nonsense."
My editors asked me to turn my famously infallible palate loose on a blind-tasting of Molecule, three popular bottled waters and ordinary, unimproved tap water.
Guess what? Molecule was the only one I didn’t like.
The Post also had a video feature...
[Image of Adam Ruhf by Serena Solomn]
NYC spends about $24 million annually adding tasteless, odorless, health-harming fluoride chemicals into New Yorkers bodies via the water supply in a failed effort, not to purify the water but to reduce tooth decay in people who drink tap water and sodas made with that tap water.
ReplyDeleteNYC Council Member Peter Vallone, Jr. introduced legislation (Int 0463-2011) “prohibiting the addition of fluoride to the water supply.” People need to call Speaker Quinn and Health Committee Chair Arroyo to allow a public hearing on this bill.
Vallone writes on his website, “There is a growing body of evidence that fluoride does more harm than good.”.
Fluoridation Opposition is Scientific, Respectable & Growing.
More than 4,038 professionals (including 331 dentists and 518 MD’s) urge that fluoridation be stopped citing scientific evidence that ingesting fluoride is ineffective at reducing tooth decay and has serious health risks. See statement: http://www.fluoridealert.org/professionals-statement.aspx.
Reasons to stop fluoridation in NYC are here:
http://www.freewebs.com/fluoridation/newyorkcity.htm
Yup. "Weekly naming ceremonies" to "imbue its water with personality" ought to shut the naysayers up.
ReplyDelete@Nys Cof
ReplyDeleteYou're wrong. The city adds fluoride to the water so they can read your thoughts and control your actions.
"world champion boomerang player, musician and self-described social-justice activist" - oh yeah, he doesn't sound like a hipster at all...
I kept following the signs to see the "Egress" and ended up out on the street. What gives?
ReplyDeleteU want super pure water go to the Key Food and get yourself a gallon jug of "Distilled Water". Guarantee it'll be pure, and free of pesky minerals. Also guarantee you're not gonna like it. We don't need ultra pure water we need clean refreshing drinkable water, which is what we have. Sounds like a get rich quick scheme to me. Okay, so you got a $20k filter machine. Big deal-- your "stock" is basically free and you're selling it for a dollar a cup.
ReplyDeleteit would be great if the city would just stop adding crap to our water, and maybe just filter it.
ReplyDeletewe used to have the best water here.
it is possible to get pure distilled water in drugstores and supermarkets, by the gallon, if you care enough.
artisinal tap water? really.
sounds like snake oil to me.
thanks, i can add my own enhancements to water be they herbs or syrups.
the whole water "revolution" is utterly tasteless (sorry).
we are heading down the road to hell.
“There's a sucker born every minute.”
ReplyDelete― P.T. Barnum
I had a house guest for a while who was hysterical about what might be in NYC tap water, so in an effort to shut her up I bought one of those filters that attaches to your faucet. Just that one little thing was enough to make the water, usually so delicious, taste like crap. When she left I gave her the filter as a gift and once again got to drink the pure stuff coming straight out of the tap.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, in Africa or South America, or third world country, people are happy to have just dug a well. The dystopian future of massive dehumanization, totalitarian government, cyber-genetic technologies, societal chaos and widespread urban violence is now.
ReplyDeleteRandall's got it right!
ReplyDeleterandal cracked me up.
ReplyDeletei am not feeling the sufficient mocking, people.
i lived in SF for a few years in the 90s when water bars were popping up everywhere like mushrooms after a rain. thank god that fad ran its course. what, nyc wants to be years behind SAN FRANCISCO? everything closes at 10pm there.
we have kickass fucking water. check the DEP pages. look at the composition of (and ugh, taste) other cities' tap water. there is SO MUCH TO BITCH ABOUT in our fair city, but water is not a thing.
if you give me $5 i will come to your house and perform a naming ceremony on your faucet.
Who remembers the Oxygen Bar that opened in NY a while ago?
ReplyDelete@ anon 2:02
ReplyDeleteI do!
I was also thinking about the place in the Empire State Building where you could take a nap in those Pod things. A napping center. $14 for 20 minutes!
@Gojira - I think we had the same house guest. Mine went as far as to storm out of a restaurant and walk down the street to a bodega so she could buy bottled water for the table. Perhaps she is now a backer for this store.
ReplyDeleteNew York tap water is great. Drink it and shut up. All other ideas, like this stupid Molecule place or paying money for tasteless distilled water, are for neurotic people and conspiracy theorists with too much time on their hands.
ReplyDeleteIt's guys like Adam Ruhf who are going to facilitate development of the reservoirs upstate by dissing the quality of our natural waters!
ReplyDeleteI never fail to marvel that this beautiful substance is coming out of my tap for free, all the way from a gorgeous reservoir miles away. Talk about a fucking win-win situation.
Stop trying to steal Brooklyn's identity as a place of artisanal goods and pretentious ideas!
ReplyDeleteLeave Brooklyn alone!
California.
ReplyDeleteCalifornia.
You're such a wonder that I think I'll stay in bed.
I have heard disturbing rumors that preliminary testing of this store's product found high levels of dihydrogen monoxide (a.k.a. "DHMO") which has been associated with increased morbidity and mortality.
ReplyDeleteMore info on the properties of DHMO can be found here.
According to all reports I've seen, neither filtration nor distillation will remove this compound from water.
The source of the contamination is reportedly under frenzied investigation by Molecule's scientific advisors and spiritual counselors and the store hopes to have a DMHO-free water available soon, possibly at a somewhat higher price than the DMHO-contaminated waters that they are currently selling.
@ I drink only distilled water, or rainwater, and only pure-grain alcohol---But do you deny them your essence?
ReplyDeleteOops, my mistake!
ReplyDeleteI apparently typed "DMHO" in place of "DHMO" in the last sentence of my earlier update on this matter. Please rest assured that the Denver Mile High Orchestra in no way is responsible for the occurrance of DHMO in Molecule's water.
And a word to the wise: anybody who asks at Molecule about the reports of DHMO in their water will likely be told that there is "no danger" and "nothing to worry about". Caveat Emptor is all I can say to that.
we do pay for water - building owners do and stores pay part of the water bill.
ReplyDeletedepending on the age of the building plumbing; the algae level in the reservoirs; too little or too much rain; the water will have an off taste.
but it sure beats plastic bottled water or the pseudo crap they're selling on east 10th street.
NYC tap water is not great, it has many added toxins....flouride , chlorine, and traces of pharma drugs.
ReplyDeleteWhy do people keep mimicking this falshood of how wonderful NYC tap water is? Take a sample and find out for yourself.
personally i have my own UV filter and i think it was money well spent.
Notorious L.I.B. - Di-Hydrogen Mon-Oxide!!! Thatnks for making us aware of this most recent threat to hipsterism!!!
ReplyDelete@Dave: I'm not sure if you're joking or not but DHMO is a serious issue and it's only going to get worse when the rains come.
ReplyDeleteWhat really worries me is that Molecule is probably just letting that stuff run down their drains where it's just going to end up being released into a river, ultimately into the ocean and you just know some poor swimmer is going to get injured.
If it were just the hipster crowd that would be exposed to this stuff I'd say let them have it if they want -- so long as they are aware of the dangers beforehand of course.
@Crazy Eddie: Deny them my essence? Are you crazy, Man?
we have great water and then they have to ruin it with flouride - but hey, we all must subsidize the nuclear industry right? it is after all a waste product of the nuclear industry and says right on the container how deadly it is - like your tube of toothpaste, the part about not swallowing the toothpaste? Thats due to the flouride. But keep you heads in the sand! Along with your investments with MAdoff GRoup! TRUST AUTHORITY WITHOUT QUESTION
ReplyDeleteI live a stones throw away from the Ashokan reservoir in the Catskill mountains which is one of the main sources of NYCs drinking water. Belive me when I say it is pure. The problems really lie within the pipes in NYC buildings. Not so much the new buildings, but the old tenements with hundred year old pipes.
ReplyDeleteThe NYC DEC is like an occupying army up here and goes to extreme lengths to keep NYC water clean. Often to the detriment of us locals. The NYC watershed area is vast and growing. Whenever someone sells their property the city swoops in to buy it up and make sure nothing is ever built again. Often leading to housing shortages up here. This is all done to avoid having to spend many millions of dollars on a filtration plant.
As someone who lived in the city all his life I had no idea where the water came from, how pure it was and to what lengths the city will go to keep that water clean. Just buy a brita and you will be fine. And I say this as someone who was born and raised in NYC and drank tap for 35 years.
"Chlorine is like bleach"
ReplyDeleteYeah, and 'hydrogen is like water' by the same logic, dumbass.
Not to mention that not all bleaches contain chlorine.
Anyway. *Too much* chlorine is surely toxic to you. Too much WATER is toxic to you too. Too little of either is harmful as well. Chlorine is a component of sodium chloride aka salt. Try going completely without THAT and see what happens.
Rule of thumb,whenever someone who isn't a scientifically literate starts babbling about 'toxins', find another bar. Above all DO NOT give them any money.