John Waters says "You Better Watch Out" is "the best seasonal film of all time." He adds: "I wish I had kids. I'd make them watch it every year and, if they didn't like it, they'd be punished."
And a merry Christmas to you, John.
Jenna Freedman, the zine librarian at Barnard, thinks that part of the allure is a reaction to our digital age. "People are overwhelmed by the online world, and retreating to something more manageable and tangible like print feels soothing."
Ayun Halliday started her zine, "The East Village Inky," in 1998 and resisted the pressure to switch to a blog. "I'm a paper fetishist," says the 44-year-old mom of two who lives in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn. "I like to think of someone discovering an issue in an attic or a dusty bookstore 20, 50 or 100 years from now." Her latest project is a Zinester’s Guide to NYC.
New York's zine scene is a mix of Gen X veterans, like Halliday, who never stopped publishing, and younger enthusiasts. Freedman has had prospective students who have no memory of life before blogs request tours of the zine library during campus visits.
Of all the dubious fashion trends in recent memory — rompers for grown-ups, homeless chic, the cowboy boot in summer — none is more dubious and perplexing than this latest one: Looking like you forgot your pants.
It is, at the moment and among a certain subset of fashion girls, the most avant-garde mode of dress: Pairing a tailored Oxford shirt with a boyfriend blazer and $500 shoes, topped with some artfully tousled bed-head and smudged eyeliner. And off to work!
As with most ridiculous trends, it gestated on the streets of Williamsburg and the Lower East Side for a year before its embrace by the mainstream.
Cachet trumps cash.
Despite the downturn in the economy, New York University -- one of the priciest colleges in the county -- enrolled its largest student body in decades this year, school officials told The Post.
Just as the recession sent record numbers of students to New York's more affordable public colleges, the vaunted Greenwich Village school saw its highest enrollment since at least 1990 -- the most recent year for which data was readily available, according to school officials.
The upswing comes at a time when annual tuition, room and board at NYU hit nearly $52,000.
More than 21,600 undergraduates enrolled at NYU this school year -- up nearly 400 from last year -- while more than 18,200 graduate students enrolled -- a one-year spike of nearly 800 enrollees.
Overall since 1990, the school's enrollment has surged by an impressive 33 percent -- or roughly 10,000 students.
A Manhattan condo is flush with amenities -- as in royal flush.
The city's newest legal underground card den is in a renovated condominium at 254 Park Ave. South, where a 1,400- square-foot poker room and lounge is being constructed in the basement of the 13-floor tower.
The developers of the condo, where the 123 units list for up to $3.28 million, are betting the poker room will attract a full house in a slow real-estate market.
"This isn't a gimmick amenity. The poker room is an extension of people's living space," said Daniel Rosen, a principal at Rosen Partners, one of the developers.
"We thought it was a good idea and then realized that no one else had done it before in Manhattan."
The poker den, pimped out with an eight-seat, green-felt poker table, a pool table and a posh bar, is already attracting residents lured by the idea of hosting their own weekly card games in style.
"The poker room and the high ceilings -- that did it for me. I knew it was the right fit," said David Stern, 30, who's moving into his two-bedroom unit in the next few weeks.
Around junior year, many NYU students make a mass exodus to the East Village, where they pay $2500/month to live in filthy, creaky 6-floor walkups, but can at least smoke weed without towling the door. Recently a rather elegant acrobat has been burgling the East Village, somersaulting through windows or lowering himself through skylights and striking fear in the hearts of those of us with windows facing the street. The police recently posted signs on all of the buildings on E. 13th street warning us of this talented thief, and I have spent the past few nights waking up every 10 minutes to make sure he’s not perched on my fire escape. Luckily ... Mr. Spiderman has been caught! Rest easy, East Villagers. Your laptops and iPods and drug money are safe… for now, at least.
Seven of the incidents were in the Ninth Precinct, which has seen nearly a 90 percent surge in burglaries in the month ending Sept. 13, compared to the same period last year.
Burglaries are up about 32 percent in the precinct for the year.
Kane lays out the math behind the models.
“If they’re 5-foot-10 or 5-foot-11, that’s one story. If they’re borderline OK, it’s harder.”
He calculates that a promoter who brings 10 or so girls measuring “5-foot-5 or 5-foot-6” to a Manhattan club or restaurant might command $500 for a night. A promoter who brings in the tall girls can get up to $2,500. In both cases, the models drink for free — the idea being that dudes wishing to party near them will book a table, which typically requires a $1,500 drink minimum per foursome.
Disgusted neighbors say they've seen men masturbating, professional porn films being shot and couples engaging in sex in full view of the stunning High Line park path running alongside.
The Standard's Facebook page bluntly encourages the explicit behavior.
"We encourage you to exercise your inner exhibitionist. Please share your intimate, and explicit photos with us -- those floor to ceiling windows aren't just for the views . . ."
The hotel Web site beckons:
"Whatever you do, just make sure the shots are HOT and that you get them to us in whichever way you can. It's all about sex all the time, and you're our star."
After the Post contacted The Standard for comment, the posting was abruptly changed.
[C]ould someone please kindly tell me what the frig is happening in Times Square? Why in the middle of what is Earth's most famous urban tourist attraction -- aside from possibly seeing Brad Pitt's boxers -- are people now lying around on cheapo, crappo, junko lawn chairs?
I'm told our Department of Transportation commissioner is a very nice lady. Good to her family, donates to charity, works for the care and feeding of aging, homeless manicurists. Has a lovely-sounding hyphenated name, Janette Sadik-Khan, but . . . I mean, turning Broadway into Rockaway?
The hallway to the Street of Dreams is now Beach 34th Street? What's next? Sand? A boardwalk?
Wide-eyed tourists with cameras come from all over the planet to see the sights, look at the lights, feel the excitement, sense the thrill. To know the noise, the signs, the din, the hubbub, the action, the life. To tell their friends back home in Whitefish, Mont., or downtown Albania that they've actually, personally seen the buzz, the busyness, the traffic, the organized hysteria that is no place else in the universe but Times Square.
Now they see what? Sprawling, bused-in out-of-towners with Coke cans and brown paper bags flat out on camp chairs noshing and burping and snoozing and playing checkers in the center of the capital of the world.
Take residential buildings where tenants have no in-house washer and dryer. Residents must schlep laundry to the basement washroom or nearest Laundromat. I understand they don't wish to be dirty neighbors but can't they cover their menfolks' unwashed BVDs? Tuck their own bra straps inside the basket? Under the box of Ivory? Those who are big-busted or cosmetically enhanced could invest in Ivory's economy-size box.
Food delivery is another thing. The pizza guy coming up. The Chinese-food delivery boy. Always nice to have the aroma of subgum wafting to the roof. And can we talk about the sweaty bicycle rider who gets in with his helmet, leg clamps, wheel chain -- and does NOT look like Lance Armstrong?
In buildings minus a service elevator, one must occasionally cool one's designer heels as deliverymen load cartons of toilet paper, Pampers and oranges that always roll out of their brown-paper bags into the lift. Everyone stares into the bags thinking, "Hmmm, chuck steak instead of T-bone. Apartment 46K's having money trouble."
Throughout the day, a Ramones- and Bowie-filled soundtrack supports Barton's notion that his swanky $5 million gym will reflect the East Village's trademark punk and glam-rock spirit.
Indeed, the whole city's suddenly a nightclub. Not to be outdone, a huge trilevel Crunch half a block south of Barton's new gym offers an ear-splitting Tuesday-night deejay party and has a counter serving protein shakes and $4-plus iced coffees. There's also a Midtown Equinox, housing a deli-style takeout kitchen, and Rockefeller Center's Sports Club/LA, which has a sit-down restaurant, a bar and a sidewalk café.
"The mainstream offering doesn't cut it for some people anymore," says Barton.
And it isn't just gyms. Local entrepreneurs are giving Manhattan what it wants -- and Manhattan apparently wants everything in one place.
So what's the deal with this town? Is it an addiction to luxury -- or just ADD? According to Barton, it's all about choices.
"There are a lot of different people around and different gyms to service them," he says. Locals who complained about the closing of the enormous Barnes & Noble formerly occupying this space might note: While a bookstore is very East Village in theory, a 700-plus-store national chain that displaces ma and pa bookstores is not.
"You don't even shop in stores anymore," says Barton, suggesting online retailers that are hurting bookstores have made gyms "the new town square."
The downside for old-school New Yorkers is that such things tend to come off a little more new Times Square. Perhaps those of us wishing to exercise to the beat of our own drum, or bowl with the lights on, should consider moving to Arkansas? Fat chance. The sushi there sucks -- and just try getting it delivered after midnight.
With its clean taps, friendly service and young, attractive patrons, Superdive is in many ways the anti-dive. Where's the bearded tranny? The surly, toothless barmaid? The non-functioning alcoholic cashing his SSI check for another round? Sure, it's teeming with college students looking to get wasted, but where's the dank?
Unlike New York's classic old-man bars, Superdive is neither moody in decor (it has large front windows and light pinewood accents) nor spirit (its patrons are prone to high-fives and huzzahs). "People are coming to celebrate," says manager Keith Okada. "Not to get dark and down in a hole."
[M]aybe Superdive's no-frills, keg-centric vibe is just what the Type A alcoholics of tomorrow are looking for. "In a world where everything is so designed and chichi, we just wanted a nice place where people can sit, relax and not feel pressured to spend mega amounts of money," says Okada.
And you have to agree, it sure beats $20 mixed drinks.
And if the list of more than 700 beers -- from a $180 sixtel (one-sixth of a keg) of UFO Hefeweizen to a $360 half-keg of Coors Light -- proves too overwhelming, "keg master" Matt Breinich will help you navigate the list.
Breinich's duties don't end there: "I haven't seen any beer pong disputes, but if there was one I would certainly be there to help resolve it."
In addition to Ping-Pong balls, the bar also keeps cards, dice and poker chips on hand for impromptu drinking games. (Keg stands, however, are officially frowned upon.) Meanwhile, the piano underneath the perpetually lit "Applause" sign in back of the bar may be the site of future "Hair Metal Karaoke" nights. And instigating the party some weekends is mini-metal head Nick Reddy, who's been known to jump on the bar and dole out Jager shots to ecstatic college kids.
With its emphasis on drunken comradery, the frat bar has a direct lineage to the dive bar -- even if it does stem from a love for competitive drinking and Dave Matthews. If dive-bar habitues are self-loathing outsiders, then their frat-bar brethren are the cool kids at the party, explaining why Superdive initially comes off as exuding typical jock one-upmanship.
"You hear the concept and it sounds like it could be too much of a frat party or too whatever, but it hasn't been. The people who come in are excited about the concept, they want to come back," says Breinich.
It may not smell like stale beer -- yet -- but Superdive does smell like a winner: It's currently booked almost a month out on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights -- so if your name isn't on the guest list, good luck getting past the front door. "We're working on those hiccups," says Okada. But try telling that to the dejected- looking guys outside.
Someone orchestrated a break-in at famed composer Philip Glass' home in the East Village, but got away only with a cellphone.
Magdalena Adorno, 41, faces charges of burglary and possession of stolen property in the July 17 incident at the property on East Third Street, cops said yesterday.
She was arrested within hours of the burglary, which has neighbors talking about how the area near the Bowery has lately become more crime-ridden.
Police didn't say what was taken, but a story in The Villager said the thief got away only with a cellphone.
Area residents and business people say the neighborhood has become a drunken party zone for noisy teens and 20-some- things who litter the streets with trash.
"All the junkies and prostitutes are gone, and replaced by drunken hooligans," said Claude Campbell, who for 20 years has owned the East Village Music Store.
"At least you could tell the junkies to go away," Campbell said.
