[Drilling at the former Mary Help of Christians site via Bobby Williams]
A look at the new boxset Miles Davis Live at Fillmore East (The Arts Desk)
More abut Max Fish's possible return to the LES (BoweryBoogie)
Cooking at the Bowery Mission (DNAinfo)
A visit to Malaysia Beef Jerky in Chinatown (Jeremiah's Vanishing New York)
Revisiting Record City on Broadway (Flaming Pablum)
Bill Cunningham's period fashion photos now at the New York Historical Society (Architectural Digest)
Is Little Italy on the brink of extinction? (New York Post)
Yes, Italian-Americans, if you all get caught up in white flight and abandon the city for the suburbs when times are tough, then your precious cultural touchstones will be swept away by superhyperluxury-branded assholes when times are gooder, and that old neighborhood y'all only visit once a year to barf all over it at some awful street festival that's just like every other awful street festival except with a saintly statue and some mobby non-profit running the show? You can kiss it goodbye, for it sleeps with the fishes.
ReplyDeleteSad but true, the same folks who were oh so offended when the new boutiques made it known they didn't like the San Genarro Festival and wanted to keep revelers’ “greasy hands” from besmirching their $300 frocks are the same people who fled to New Jersey, Staten Island and Long Island.
ReplyDeleteChinatown has basically swallowed up what was left, and it keeps growing in all directions. Maybe that's poetic justice since they invented the noodle in the first place (as well as fireworks).
The restaurants didn't help themselves either since they mostly served mediocre overpriced and overcooked plates of spaghetti with gravy to tourists. All the best Italian restaurants in the city seem to be located much further uptown.
Sad to say Little Italy is dead. At least we still have the real one, even though it's over 4,000 miles away.
Ethnic enclaves in the city only came about because of redlining and bigotry against each new wave of immigrant arrivals, but Manhattan is too small and crowded and expensive as real estate for any ethnic enclaves to last very long. This isn't specific to Little Italy; it's just in the nature of New York that our neighborhoods change, for better and for worse.
ReplyDeleteRichard,
ReplyDeleteYour comment presupposes "ethnic" equals poor? Think about it.
I wanna live in Record City!!!
ReplyDeleteSome of the restaurants are/were definitely on the mediocre/overpriced side, but Florio's and the cigar bar upstairs were definitely no slick tourist trap. The food was solid, as were the people. It was one of my favorite places to unwind at night, and it will be missed.
ReplyDeleteLittle Italy has been extinct for decades. Maybe if it had been named Little Italy Village, they'd have been more provincial.
ReplyDelete